warriors and shammies

[Abynormal777]

This isn't (intended) to be yet another warrior rant...I just thought it was kinda funny that a few weeks ago I saw a post on this board asking what class is the best to group with for a warrior - the hands down winner was Shammy (and I agree completely.)

Today I saw a post on a shammy board asking who they'd most like to group with to level...here is the link:
http://forums.interealms.com/shaman/showthread.php?threadid=14442

(warriors are 14th)

Something to think about...

Abinormal
55 Troll Warrior

[Kamidari]

I'm not so sure that one person putting warriors at 12th on their list is a statistically valid sample of the views of all shamans, but I could be wrong. Personally, as a shaman, I love grouping with my warrior. ;)

[Sturgis]

I have to echo Kami's thoughts. I would add that you cant put much weight into much of anything you read on the Crucible these days. The shaman class has been so flooded with reject dr00ds and others who made shamans because they r0xurs that the Crucible has become little more than a flamefest cock-waving contest. Very few posters there are old-time shamans with half a clue about being a good shaman. Personally, I would take a warrior as a duo-partner over any other tank class (and I have duo'ed with warriors in PoP several times). er..my shaman, I mean..not Sturgis.

[Abynormal777]

Sturgis, why would you take a warrior over a SK or Pally? The snap agro the knights get with spells seems pretty beneficial to me.

By the way, I recently started a shammy (mainly so I can make potions for my warrior) and often group with a friend of mine's sk - only upper 30's now. I haven't grouped with a warrior, but the sk seems like a great partner.

Again, not interested in rants or flames...I was just curious.

Abinormal
55 Troll Warrior

[Sturgis]

I take a warrior for the hps and disciplines. Aggro isnt much of a problem when it's just me and him. I know how to control my aggro, and I also know enough to stand close enough that the mob doesnt go running off after me if my slow draws aggro. Just stand next to the warrior and he can usually taunt it right back with a few blows. If that doesnt work (it does work 99% of the time), I can always root the mob and back off. Proximity aggro doesnt matter much if there is only one tank.

For multiple pulls, the warrior is gonna be more durable than a knight and since I'll be using extra mana to slow and park the adds, I need the tank to have extra hps giving me the extra time to generate mana for heals. Even with torpor/cann IV mana regen isnt instantaneous.

Maybe I'm just stuck in old school thinking in my views, or maybe I'm biased because I have always had a warrior character floating around as an alt...but I prefer a warrior over a knight. Nothing against knights, I think every class has their good qualities and a well-played knight can be an excellent tank too. I know a few of them also.

[Binnamar]

Truth be told, if I were a shaman looking for a partner, I would take a paladin over anything. They have buffs that stack with mine, they can spot heal themselves if it doesn't look like my heal will land, they also have root and stuns... Their utility outweighs their minimal hp/tanking disadvantage by far.


But I'm not a paladin, or a shaman, I'm a warrior... and I prefer to duo with shamans by far.

[GSW]

As a warrior, i love grouping with another warrior. Shamans would be 14th on my list. With a shaman there's nothing but the boring old attack and watch the mob die. But i had the most fun grouping with a warrior. We had long aggro fights, sometimes aggro kited the mob when one of us was almost dead, and had long warrior conversations during the long long long long long long long downtime.

Well...not really

[Natasia]

I'm with you Sturgis. Any shaman worth their salt knows how to control agro, so that shouldn't even be part of the decision when chosing a partner. My main is a 61 shaman and having duo'd with every melee class out there, I'll take a warrior any day. Healing is a lot easier, disciplines are damn handy, and the occasional auto-pull is a lot less nerve wracking. :)

[Dobbo Baggins]

i'd take us over a rogue.

[Sturgis]

Perhaps, Bin, but those hps and disciplines do matter. I recall one day in Innovation (and this was a group situation, not duo): we were just crawling around in the yard - dont remember exact group makeup but we had shaman (me), cleric, warrior, and a couple other tanks - no enchanter for mez.

I dont remember how we got all the mobs..I think warrior pulled 3, and we had a couple backspawns while we were fighting those. One was immune to slow and that one quickly ate the cleric, leaving me as the only healer and crowd control. Couldnt slow or root the one immune mob so he had to die first while I worked on slowing and parking the adds. Slow x 4 is 1000 mana, add in roots (usually multiple times per mob because root sucks) and malosini/cripple all around, a resist here or there, and now you're looking at a few tanks against 4 slowed mobs/1 immune mob with no healing. Warrior went defensive after cleric died, and I set to work torpor/cann to get mana to keep him alive. He came real close to dying a few times because I needed to cann 1 more time to get off that next tnarg's mending. But, we survived, and I would think it was his hps/disciplines/berserking with crippling blows that kept us all from wiping. Had it been a paladin or shadowknight, they probably wouldnt have lasted through the slow immune mob.

P.S. That warrior wasnt level 65 with uber gear and lots of AA's either. He was level 60 or 61 at the time and had no AA title.

[Valeris]

just out of interest,

what class were the other two tanks and what were they doing during the fight?

[Molane]

Where do you see them as 14th? I see him saying he'd rate it 12th but also stated:

Note* The warrior falls low on the list simply because duo'ing a warrior-shaman gets really, really boring after a while. It's very efficient if you're 2-boxing a bot character, but really redundant if you're just in a duo.

Seems he made a valid point. I double box Shaman/Warrior combo and it works well and I have fun. However, I'd have to say if you were going to rate a duo partner for a Shaman, their best choice would be an SK. They can pull great, snare, tank, pull instant agro if they need to, and with their dots, buffs, and pet they can do some pretty sic damage.

[Binnamar]

I thought we were talking about duoing not grouping. And that warrior needs to learn to pull :D . Singling yard trash is so unbelivably easy in PoI its not even funny hehe.

Not dissing the warrior just saying.

I'm not a supporter of paladin actions, I'm just saying that I would take a pally over a warrior in a duo situation. You can argue it all you want, but in a DUO a paladins extra healing spells DO make a difference.

[Abynormal777]

Originally posted by Molane
Where do you see them as 14th? I see him saying he'd rate it 12th

I was hoping nobody would notice that mistake...:cool:

By the way, I have recently grouped with a pally and sk in my lvl range in PoD, and I don't know if it's the gear, hp, style, or what, but I agree they have an advantage with snap agro, but sheesh...they seem to get the crap beat outta themselves when they get agro! (I didn't list disciplines because with the timers at lvl 55 I don't use em much - until we get adds, then I'll go defensive)

Abinormal
55 Troll Warrior

[Vamcoy]

Shamans are the funest to work besides beacuse I love there buffs. What can i say buff addict here lol.

[Sturgis]

Well, let's see - assuming both the paladin and warrior are equal level and similiarly equipped:

Heals vs More hps, more AC, better disciplines, berserking

Hmm..well, since as a shaman, I'm a healer...I think I'll go with door number 2, Bob.

The original point of the thread wasnt to debate who's better; warriors or paladins. We all have our own views on that.

The topic was that shamans didnt want to duo with warriors, and every shaman who has posted here has agreed with me that we do indeed prefer warriors. Are you trying to convince us not to group/duo with you anymore?

Bottom line is this: if my shaman is going to duo with a melee, I dont need somebody who can heal themself. I can heal them...I usually have plenty of mana unless we're constantly overpulling. I dont need somebody who can grab aggro instantly, because I learned how to control my aggro years ago. It's something every caster *should* have learned when they first began grouping.

I want somebody who can tank the mobs. And no class tanks mobs, blow for blow, from level 1 to 65, better than a warrior. You can talk about all that other crap all you want, but in the end PvE all boils down to one thing - hit points. Making yours last longer than theirs. So give me the guy who's got the most, and I already have an advantage.

[Binnamar]

...

If your responding to me, I never tried to convince you to not group with us as warriors, I'm just saying if I was a shaman I would take a paladin over a warrior.

Ok so you have more HP. Lets say I was a paladin. I can buff my own hp and with that added to the shamans buff will bring me to a warriors hp level, or just below it.
So now the HP gap is closed.

Want to argue discs? Ok hows this... I (as a paladin) can DA thus saving my ass allowing for a heal to come through. Or I can use one of my fast casting heals incase it doesn't look like the shamans heal will come through.

Defensive? Well there really isn't anything I can think of to counteract that with. But on multipul pulls, I can root a mob on INC boom, hes set for a bit.

The advantages of a paladin far outweigh the disadvantages in my eyes (meager hp bonus and /disc defensive).

I personally love duoing with shaman, but this wasn't about what I like, its about what shamans prefer and it's obviously not us for duoing partners.

[Tugurok]

A warrior grouped with a shaman has *less* hps than an equally geared/leveled paladin grouped with a shaman. Paladin and shaman buffs complement each other wonderfully.

Disciplines are mostly useless in exp groups, though once in a while defensive is useful on a bad pull, sort of like LoH. But berserking? Lol, can't think of anything more useless or irrelevant.

I'm glad Sturgis feels good about warriors, but most of what he's saying is wrong or beside the point.

[Sturgis]

I personally love duoing with shaman, but this wasn't about what I like, its about what shamans prefer and it's obviously not us for duoing partners.

And you're basing that on the 2 or 3 responses in that linked thread that actually addressed the topic? There were just as many responses in this thread saying we shamans *do* prefer warriors (see my original post, Kamidara's, and Natasia's).

A warrior grouped with a shaman has *less* hps than an equally geared/leveled paladin grouped with a shaman.

I doubt that, Tugurok. Not unless you're comparing a very poorly equipped warrior to a well-equipped paladin. My shaman has nearly as many hps as most paladins he's ever grouped with, and even less of a disadvantage in AC. In fact, I was grouped with a level 60 paladin the other night, and with both shaman and cleric buffs on each of us, he had about an 800 hp advantage over my shaman. My warrior is only level 52 and with my buffs alone has about 1000 more hps than my shaman likewise buffed.