thief or shaman subs

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Leirosa
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thief or shaman subs

Post by Leirosa »

Retrieved and Compiled by: Angitia
Angitia wrote:This is the copy-paste of a discussion thread from the Aeria DoMO forum thread "theif or shaman?" which was here. I'm reposting/moving everyone's quotes here because I thought this discussion was interesting. OP: ninjanight
ninjanight wrote:i both have a shaman and a thief but i cant decide which one to pick

i like the shaman because of the AOEs but shamans die a lot quicker because their melee is bad.

i like the thief because of there evasion and they have good melee. but they have few aoes and i like aoe.

can you persuade me which one to choose.
Sakeyaki wrote:Personally, I sometimes sub my thief for premonition/fighting foresight for evasion on my shaman/wiz/AoE class, but I use it usually when I pull aggro off of the person who's tanking. But anyway, they're both pretty different, and I think thief might help you in the long-run.

I'm also referring to AoE parties (Tank, doc, muse, two AoEs and a puller of the sort), but if you're soloing...I say stick with thief first, too.

Also, if you get the blademaster qualification and level it up to level 30, I recommend getting the Light Armor Equip (15 skill points) and sub it on your shaman if you want some decent defense and penalty with magic. Otherwise, if you just want lots of defense, get the mercenary qualification, level it up to level 30, and get the Hard Armor Equip (Also 15 SP), but hard armor also reduces your magic.
Death_Scavenger wrote:I'm willing to argue that dancer AoEs (rumba and foxtrot) are much weaker than thief AoEs.
Throw some burning rage (buff) on thief and the damage isnt so bad. plus the quick cooldown (kinda) makes up for the low damage.

Thief is the better pick in my opinion. Just for the evasion buffs and mp restoration skills. You can sub thief on ANY job. The same cannot be said of shaman.
Also: spring cleaning is a joke compared to Cat. convertor (wizard) and inner magic (doctor) mp regen skills.

side note:
Regen: an effect over time.
Restoration: an instant effect.
Control breathing and rhythm of life are not "mp regen" skills :roll:
LadyS27 wrote:
ninjanight wrote:i both have a shaman and a thief but i cant decide which one to pick

i like the shaman because of the AOEs but shamans die a lot quicker because their melee is bad.
That's only if you let the monsters touch you. I admit at first there's no way to completely avoid getting hit because you only have a few attacks. But once you have most of the single-target attacks and heavy frost and summer sun at the least, do this: spam summer sun and heavy frost first, then spam all the single target attacks one after the other without stopping attacks or moving, and the monster will die fast and never touch you. There is no reason for their melee to be good. Their magic attacks can easy kill things 5 times their lvl and you will not get hurt at all because the monster is killed before shamans are even touched.

i like the thief because of there evasion and they have good melee. but they have few aoes and i like aoe.
Their AoE sucks. That's it. It's hard to even sub AoEs on them because of their lack of mp anyway. At the least, don't become a thief if you like AoE or want to AoE. You could sub the thief skill control breathing with your shaman cause shamans do have a slight problem with mp.

can you persuade me which one to choose.
Thief is very newbie friendly and has great skills that are especially useful as subs. I honestly think Shaman is great, but you could try lvling thief to up the control breathing and other buffs and then sub them to shaman. Shaman AoEs are more powerful than the thief AoE even if they come later on. The problem is of course, you can't melee with shamans at all. So, if you want melee and AoE, you could do dancer, but the evasion and melee is situational on your build. But imo, shaman would be good and even better WITH the thief skills or at least control breathing.
AKFrost wrote:SC compared to IM

At level 60, you get Level 12 SC and Level 7 IM, both of which are 22 MP/Tick

SC has 180 duration, which is 180/5*22 = 792 MP over a CD or 240 seconds, or 3.3 MP per second.

IM has 360 duration penalized 10% = 324 seconds, rounded down to 320 for 5 minute ticks. It costs 220 MP

It regens 320 / 5 * 22 - 220 = 1188 MP over 320 seconds (since the CD is 66), which yields to 3.7125 MP per second.

This is assuming no AGI. I don't use AGI in my caster builds.


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As for nature magic being good for solo, yes, but...

Summer Sun and Hoar Frost doesn't stack with its page two counteparts, so you essentially have -25% DEF and MDEF debuff, which also doesn't work on bosses. It costs 216 MP and deals a minimal amount of damage to the enemy. It lasts for 70 seconds over a 30 sec CD.

On the other hand: Different Dance Debuffs are -34% to atk, def, matk, mdef, acc, and eva (at level 63), and an additional -39 atk, - 22 matk, -14 def and mdef, - 12 acc and eva if the target's not a boss. The four debuffs costs 161 MP * 1.1 = 177 MP, and lasts 150 - 10% = 135 seconds over a 30 + 10% = 33 sec CD.

SC is better than mating dance, but the two is similar. If you're playing caster, you're free to use SC, CC, or IM.

Subbed over to melee jobs, SC becomes 144 secs over 288 seconds CD, mating dance is 240 secs over a shorter CD. Also, it gets better if your team has mantra.

Heatstroke is 1680 DPT at level 63 for 4 ticks, resulting in a grand total of 6720 damage over 30 seconds. Swarm deals about 7k damage at 6x, and then another 600 damage for 12 ticks over a minute. or 7200 damage. HS costs 70 MP, Swarm costs 108 MP.

Over a minute, you can cast HS twice and swarm once, for a total of 26k damage.

never mind I can smack something for almost 26k damage with a shaman nuke and a searing flame, we have joan's jive and stream spirit shuffle from different dance, which are both under 30 sec CD.

Joan's Jive dealt about 10k damage at 47 to a Tawny Tim (shaman mob). Assuming the same power at 6x, you can deal 10k damage * 4 = 40k damage over a minute with joan's jive and stream spirit shuffle.

You might think "but what about pvp?" The fact that you can debuff the heck out of your opponent with different dances aside, caster PvP is a joke. HS and Swarm have horrible accuracy, and they don't kill. The time you wait for them to work their magic, your opponent can already mop the floor with you. Also, one of the most useful spells in PvP is purify, and if your opponent's got that, they've also got detox, which nullifies the two.

Heavy Frost, Climber, and Malicious Mirror has no corresponding spell in different dance, but mating dance has beastial boogie, which recovers HP, and two AoE's. For most melee fighters, there's no need for Heavy Frost. For hunter, they have ankle strike and if needed crippling clout from fencer. For shaman, I've never used Heavy Frost past level 25. Mobs start to have skills by then and Heavy Frost doesn't do squat against it.

Nature Magic is completely replaceable by different dances. If you're going to play shaman. You don't use nature magic except for SC.


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Shaman AoE's does not suck. People just don't invest points into them, and if they do, they get told to lower their spell levels anyway because the mercs can't hold aggro.

While you can AoE with just AoE nukes, note that shaman can and will sub wizard AoE, which makes the entire Shaman vs Wizard AoE comparison moot. The best caster AoE has both Shaman and Wizard AoE spells (except the ones that suck like warble and demons).
exomega255 wrote:death_Scavenger: dancer aoe are stronger than thief's AoE. Not only as a whole but individually. Dancer's aoe have something called Synergy, which thief aoe's don't have.


1. SSS and WD STOPS at lvl 10. Dancer aoe goes up to lvl 20. The potential is clear.

2. Dancer always haev at least lvl 1 Fandango, which inc the fire and water AoE damage.
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