Shattered Kingdoms

You just proved my point. Shaman can't deal dmg period. They take it better than the adventuring classes, but still weaker than even a cloth priest. I just said that there is nothing that makes Shamans leet except for voodoo. They don't tank, (without trib or cabal support) still would rather have any melee class up front or pets. Which means they shouldn't be in the front row. Second row is for the scouts, rogues, bards, and extra tanks. So no room there. Which means they will not be doing front row combat. So third row. That should include at least 1 priest if not 2, bard with xbow, warlock, necro, scout with bow. All of them are better suited for the back row of a formation. You only take a shaman if you need space to fill. If I had a choice, I would never take a shaman into combat. There is always someone who can fill the slot better.

Muktar, you haven't spent much time around a good shaman, have you?

Shamans could completely lose voodoo, and they'd still be perfectly fine.
Voodoo certainly doesn't make or break the class, except for the gimps who sit around and just double voodoo because they don't have the brainpower to figure out how to do anything else.

All I'll say is that I'm glad you're not leading my battles, Muktar. Your understanding of how battle works, both theoretically and practically, is fairly weak, and definitely primitive.

I've played a number of priests and fought a number of shamans. The shaman will be the better tanker. They both have armor, and sanc. Priests get protection(only works on the right alignment), but shamans get spirit aura, which stacked with sanc is decent. Shamans do more melee damage that priests as well(not saying much) since they both get two attacks but priests are using maces, while a shaman can use an axe.

I would actually sometimes take a priest as my second healing pick and a shaman as my first. A voodoo built gnome shaman will have more mana than most priests. More mana means more heals, more heals means more fighting before you die. It's pretty simple.

They arent meant to be the greatest at everything, but be decent at a lot, and can really mess over groups with some pre-casting, which if you are a good player, you will usually pick when and where to fight so it wont be a problem.

This whole thread is full of fail.

The hps aren't right or are misleading.

Saying that mercs arent as good as barbs in melee is just plain dumb.

Shaman are still some of the best tanks in the game, period. The last person I know of who took down an outer guardian solo (other than a necromancer) was a sprite shaman and he had no cabal or tribunal skills which would have aided him doing this.

The only valid point I've really seen is that fury might need it's improve rate increased other than Cyra saying that Edamage is ftw...cause it is.

Wildfighting with claws pwns swashis hands down. This I can attest to from both sides of the fight.

Pretty much everything else other than the initial listing of the classes (which might make a good sticky for newbies if the hps are fixed to reflect accuracy) is just wrong.

My understanding of base HPs is that it goes by the class category:

fighter > clergy > adventuring > mage

barb = merc = swash > priest = pallie = hellion = shaman > scout = rogue = bard > sorc = necro = warlock

Maximum available HP trains are another matter, though, and independant of base HPs.

Eh, scratch that...

Hellions and Paladins I see having more hp, but I don't think priests and shamans should have more base hp than an adventurer. Their ability to stay alive comes from their spells. IMO.

Class and race both affect it. D-elf warlock and Centaur warlock are going to have different hps, favoring the centaur even with the same con at creation.

I know that barbs have the most hp. For they are the only class with max hp trains that can actually survive final strike (I don't know what races assuming must be dwarf).

I do not think that a barb with max HP could strive a final strike.