Goblin Shaman

[Isak]

“Sticks ‘n’ stones’ll break my bones, but Gork and Mork’ll smash yer ‘ead to bits if’n you don’t sod off you big bugger!”
- Gahzbag, Goblin Shaman telling off a Giant

He’s got Waaagh!, and he’s not afraid to use it! What more can you say about a lad who gets the big Waaagh! going when the boyz roll out? The Shaman channels the primal bloodlust of the Greenskins into effects both beneficial and baleful. He keeps the lads up and running far beyond their normal capabilities and calls down the wrath of the twin deities, Gork and Mork, onto his enemies. The one feeds the other and around he goes, delivering a deadly combination of healing magic and stomping, pummeling power without pause.

Shaman Specialty
Greenskins live for battle, and fighting provides the strange and twisted power that fuels their magic. By participating in battle – calling down the wrath of Gork and Mork, or just being up in the fight with the lads – the Shaman taps into the collective frenzy to gain Waaagh! power. This gathered Waaagh! energy drives the strength of his supporting magic to new heights. With Waaagh! power blazing in his eyes, his spells can heal more wounds or empower his allies to achieve feats of unbelievable destruction.

Playing as a Shaman
As a Shaman, you’ll have to walk a careful line in balancing your offensive and support abilities. You can achieve the greatest rate of healing by focusing on that skill exclusively. You can maximize your rate of damage by focusing purely on those abilities. However, focusing on a single talent will lessen your overall impact on the battle. The strength your support skills gain from an ongoing Waaagh! is significant. Using your offensive magic to contribute directly to the fight will increase the power of your support magic, allowing you to better help your group.

Fighting the Shaman
With the Shaman’s power to support and enhance his allies, he is at his strongest when he fights with a team. With this in mind, you’d be advised to take the earliest opportunity to eliminate him – an opportunity his group mates will do their best to deny you. In each fight you must carefully weigh the opposition, and determine the best time to strike at the Shaman. Attack too early and you risk facing deadly reprisals from the Shaman’s uninjured allies. Attack too late and you may lack the power to overcome the groups Waaagh! enhanced defenses.




The Shaman Look
# Lightly armored in tattered goblin robes (with critters and bits stuck on)
# Carries an elaborate shaman’s staff (with more critters and nastier bits)
# Kitted out with shamanistic trappings (Still more critters and bits)

[Athelstaine]

Sounds like what the daoc shaman should have been.This one and the squig herder are the two i have my eye on at the moment of playing or at leat trying out.

[Gisli]

It looks to me like they are doing a good job of "selling" their classes with these descriptions. I don't know how it will really play out. I guess its possible that everyone will be able to "do everything" (which would mean that you can't tell classes apart), but clearly not everyone can be the whoop-ass class! Cause that wouldn't leave anyone to take the beating...

[Isak]

QUOTE
It looks to me like they are doing a good job of "selling" their classes with these descriptions. I don't know how it will really play out. I guess its possible that everyone will be able to "do everything" (which would mean that you can't tell classes apart), but clearly not everyone can be the whoop-ass class! Cause that wouldn't leave anyone to take the beating...[/b]

So far it seems that within the racial pairings there is a class that is able to exploit the weakness of another. Like the hammerer and the black ork, from the descriptions the black ork seems to have a lot of little stuns and other effects from attacks, while the hammerer needs to continue swinging for its most powerful attacks. So outside of nuking the hammerer down and black ork would do a good job of keeping the hammerer in check.

Also remember that so far collision detection is in for opposing sides. So some of the caster/support classes could be rather squishy, since you can't just run through the tanks now.

[Katoth]

I'm playing one in Beta right now and I'm loving the little bugger.
Still level 11 but already with some renown gear (staff and cloak) and doing good in scenarios and open RvR as well.

Since the last patch they actually introduced a new bug(go figure) and the secondary target(I place in me for heals) keeps giving Invalid target. So I'm trying other classes and waiting to go back to him soon.

[GibusGib]

I really cant wait for this class. Very excited about the offence target and defence targets. Good times.

[TanRu]

Very excited about the offence target and defence targets.

YES, that is a great feature! I usually play a shaman-type class in these games so this will be the first class I try.

[nativeson]

Yeah I have my eye on the Shaman as well, looking for a solid support class to play.

[Bodie]

Bodie's Shaman Tip of the Day (or year, because I probably won't post another):

Soloing in PvE, you can heal yourself repeatedly to bring your Waaaaagh up, then unleash an offensive spell to pull a mob. Not only will that attack be extra powerful, but if you used a Heal Over Time spell, it will keep ticking on you while you're fighting, effectively healing yourself for the first few seconds.

I suspect they will fix this at some point. Doesn't seem like you should get Waaaaagh for healing yourself, or anybody for that matter, that already has full health. It should correspond to the number of points healed or something maybe.

[Dragos]

Shaman is da bestest! Was doing teir 1 greenskin vs. Dwarf last night and held a point from being captured for 5 minutes with 3 v my 1. I had an Ironbreaker, Runepriest, and Bright Wiz on me... killed the bright Wiz twice.

Scenario Tips: Greenskin vs. Dwarf if your not worried a ton about rvr xp stand on the platform above the stairs to the cache/supply (whichever you currently hold) and pop heals on your range DPS at the ledge. This ensures a good lookout for people trying to ninja your point while keeping your ledge healers/dps alive. if your heal your ledge healers then they can focus on the melee down below without having to refocus on themselves.

All point based scenarios you can be a real thorn in your opponents side. If you are not heavily outnumbered you can halt an opponent from capping a point very easily by standing at the flag and spam healing yourself with HoTs and Gork. Make sure to toss an AP drain to make sure you don't run out and you can stall till reinforcements can back you up.

[Wolvan]

I also played the shaman in T4 RvR (level 31 RR25 templates) and found the class to be quite awesome. I played both as full DPS spec and full healing spec. Any questions I can answer, I will be more then happy to field. The shaman will probably be my first alt.

[Luroc]

Anyone have live experiences to share now that game is up and going for a little bit?

My observations so far in tier 2 rvr/scenarios at r20, spec'd as Mork:

I feel a little squishy still, equal rank Ironbreakers chop me down to 50-60% health in the first instant they attack me (2h wielding ones). Witch Hunters do the same if they get the stealth drop, otherwise I can deal with them. Swordmasters, Shadow Warriors and White Lions are tough but I can deal with them. Casters not quite as threatening except Bright Wizards with the heal debuff and damage on heal spell on me :( Multiple IB's or multiple melee on me is usually certain death without some backup healing or CC.

I'm still rr16, almost rr17, hoping that higher level RR gear might help a bit. But I dunno, maybe this is the life of the shaman. Most of the time it's not bad, but when I see we're up against an organized group I am usually dead if they want me to be, and there is not much I can do about it :/

Some good things I like about the abilities/spells/class:

Group heal at r20 is fantastic! The debuffs (int and str) and AP steal spells are really good utility too. Managing waaagh to increase healing power, reduce cast time on rez/group heal/etc is really cool. If I can stay out of sight or keep baddies off me I can do pretty good in keeping my group alive, again group heal here rocks.

Looking forward to my knockback and some other morale abilities and spells that will make me more resilient in t3.

[malcolm_mccallum]

A black Orc bullies into the circle of gits.

I try to protect shaman as much as possible but it feels pretty futile. In your experience, does a black orc standing in front of you holding the line while he has 'save da gits' on you make a significant difference?

[Luroc]

A black Orc bullies into the circle of gits.

I try to protect shaman as much as possible but it feels pretty futile. In your experience, does a black orc standing in front of you holding the line while he has 'save da gits' on you make a significant difference?

Yes it does help, I play w/ a BO everynight (my buddy khephren) and that is part of his "job" :) It does help, he helps peel melee off me and knock them back, etc, but sometimes it's just too much to overcome and I die anyways :( BO's are probably a healers best friend, I think.

[Drakhon]

Guard (Save da' Runts for BOs) lets a healer have close to double the effectiveness for a number of their heals on an HPS basis. Group Heals are an obvious example, but HoTs are also included because you can HoT both people. It also slows down the death of said healer, giving them more time to get those heals off.

[Jesin]

A BO is a wonderful thing as is a Chosen with you. I do find, however, it much more effective to poke me nose in n out of nooks n crannies and kite kite kite, kinda the stick n move tactics. My survivability rate is wonderful unless I get assist trained by ranged dps or several melee on me. If I get something on me heavy, I can usually withstand an IB or other Order class beating on me and take them down if thye don't have heals or help. Heal self heal self heal self (building up dmg) Bleed fer me, DoT, Buncha Waaaagh, Heal self heal self heal self, rinse n repeat. I am spec'd for damage also. The tactic that gives 20-25% more dmg and takes away from healing is great if you don't have to be healing self as well.

Loving the class and looking forward to the moving DoT and the knockbacks heh :)