So you’ve been toying with which class to experience in Warhammer Online. Each class of course has its own strengths and weaknesses not to mention its own game mechanics. Shamans are no exception and their constant balance between the Greenskin gods of Gork (Damage) and Mork (Healing) create a very entertaining, and challenging playstyle.
First thing you need to know about Shaman, is that they are easily the “weakest” healers on Destruction. They are not designed to take damage and under no circumstances should they be trying. Their primary role is healing, and as a Shaman you should never forget this.
Warhammer has done a great job of making healing fun and providing mechanics that benefit you for offensive action as well, but at the end of the day, you are a healer and if your tank dies because you are DPSing, you WILL hear about it. That being said, causing damage has its benefits for Shamans.
By unleashing attacks on the enemy, you increase the power of Mork’s WAAAGH! This will in turn decrease the casting times of heal spells, or make instant cast spells more powerful. As soon as you cast a heal spell, your Mork’s WAAAGH! will return to normal.
By healing, you will increase Gork’s WAAAGH! This has the opposite affect and increases your damaging spell. Again, casting a damage spell will reset your Gork.
This mechanic creates unique opportunities for Shaman and you will constantly be shifting back and forth between heals and damaging spells to be as effective as possible.
Tips:
- Heal. This may seem obvious, but you might become obsessed with your ability to cause damage. This is NOT your role and you will NEVER out DPS other DPS classes (unless they’re horrible former Order players).
- Unless you have Mork WAAAGH! built up, your HoTs should always be cast on your dying group mate first to get their health regeneration going. Save your big heals for well timed battles.
- Use your offensive spells in between heals, but NOT if your heals are needed immediately.
- Stay in the back. You are a squishy caster and should never be caught between two groups.
- Do NOT draw too much attention. Due to your nature, you will be a prime target in RVR. Casting “Bunch o’ Waaagh” will concentrate a green stream of WAAAGH! from you to your enemy, creating a ton of attention not just from the enemy but also from your group mates who will wonder why you’re not healing the tanks dying in front of you.
- Use “Don’ Feel Nuthin” to create a shield around your target to help with your healing. This is VERY effective if you are trying to keep multiple group mates alive and need to divert your attention away from your current group mate.
Strategies:
- As a Shaman you will want to stack your stats in the following order: Willpower then Wounds then either Toughness (survival) or Intelligence (increases magical damage).
- Keep to the back of your group and keep your front line fighters alive. You will want to make sure your tanks are safe first, but keep an eye on the health of your fellow casters as well. Sorcerers will be your largest DPS in your group, but their game mechanic has a tendency to hurt them very badly. Keep them and other DPS alive in between healing your tanks to keep your group as effective as possible.
- You are not a DPS class, but since DPSing does help your heal spells, whenever you aren’t healing or are required to heal, throwing in a few damage spells is a good idea. If your Mork WAAAGH! is maxed out, throw a DoT into the crowd.
- Warhammer allows you to target an enemy and an ally at the same time. This is especially useful with spells like “Bleed Fer’ Me”. This spell will cast a DoT on your enemy, and at the same time, a HoT on your ally. This spell is on a 10 second timer, but whenever possible, you should have this on someone.
- Shaman are equipped with a Resurrection spell on a 6 second cooldown. Keep an eye on your allies and if you weren’t able to keep one alive, resurrect him/her as soon as possible so they don’t respawn all the way back to the spawn point.
- At Rank 20 you will get your Group Heal. This is a very powerful spell that has the potential to change the tides of any battle. In a large group battle, everyone will be taking damage. In those situations, start spamming this spell to do your best to keep everyone alive. However, keep in mind this will NOT heal a single target as much as your other spells, so switch back to single heals and HoTs as required.
Also, check out the Squared addon (http://war.curse.com/downloads/war-addons/details/squared.aspx) to help make keeping track of everyone’s health easier.
Feel free to share any more tips & strategies you might have for this exciting and amusing class.
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As many pople know, I take time away from this site during my waves of World of Warcraft addiction. That being said, I finally broke free of my WoW addiction only to be introduced to Warhammer Online.
First thing you need to know, a lot of people in WAR spend about 80%+ of their time comparing WAR to WOW. Frankly, this is stupid. WAR has only been out for a handful of months, while WOW took years to master into the money making machine that it is today.
That being said, who is WAR for right now? Right now, if you're interested in balanced PVP that feels rewarding (i.e. you actually get things from it instead of grinding for a month to get a pair of gloves) then WAR is for you. If you like "raids", questing and the occasional PVP encounter with little satisfaction, then WOW is your game.
WOW is by far the dominate player in the PVE world and will continue to hold that crown for some time to come. However, one thing that WOW has always lacked, is properly balanced PVP. I mean lets face it, a freaking priest should not stand a chance in melee combat with a warrior, yet that does not seem to be the case in World of Warcraft.
WAR changes that. Made by Mythic Entertainment, the creators of Dark Age of Camelot, they have many years of experience with PVP. DAOC introduced us to Realm versus Realm combat, and WAR continues the RVR trend in shining fashion. While truefully a lot of kinks are still being worked out, RVR is exactly what it sounds like. Certain types of classes are not suppose to stand a chance against other types of classes. In this style, we create the need for team work.
For example, a caster is extremely powerful at long range, but the second they get into a melee encounter, their going to get eaten alive. Unlike WoW, where a mage can dominate any class, a sorcerer in WAR is in serious trouble if a Slayer starts beaten on him/her at close range. At the same time, while a "tank" in WAR is hard to kill, he's going to have a very hard time killing anything too.
All this being said, WAR's PVE content is lacking. However, they have introduced something new to the MMO world and that is Public Quests. While a lot of people get frustrated some times with the loot distribution rules, the idea of PQs is really cool. Basically. set areas on the map have kill quests which are ALWAYS active and repeatable at all times. Anyone can help complete them at all times as well, creating a "psuedo-group". There are normally multiple phases of this quests and when it is complete, loot is distribute via a "magical" chest. You get extra points depending on how much you contributed to the group effort and are awarded according to those extra points and a random roll. It is a very addictive idea, extremely innovative and it keeps the "grinding" feeling to a minimum.
The great thing is, you get experience from everything in WAR! Questing, public quests, scenarios, RVR, etc. You name it, you are constantly leveling your character further reducing the "grinding" feeling.
All this being said, there is so much to do in WAR between questing, public quests, RVR, scenarios and the usual slew of professions that grinding doesn't even cross your mind.
WOW is always going to have its place with its millions of followers, but those looking for a change and some honest to god team effort PVP should check out Warhammer Online: The Age of Reckoning.
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