Shaman
Balrog99
Member Posts: 7,371
I'm just wondering if I'm the only one who is underwhelmed by the shaman class? I was really excited until I saw that it had the sorcerer level progression. I really think it's gimped due to that. Druid spells just don't have that same umph and you don't even get the wisdom bonus spells. Lame...
1
Comments
Damn, I'll need to start over now.
1: You get short bows. This single class feature makes them competitive with Druids, especially since they have Priest THAC0.
2: You can be a half orc, which is a far, far better race than Half-Elf or Human.
3: No bonus spells means no mental stat dependency. Max strength, max Dexterity, everything else into Charisma to dance all sexy like, you'll cast just as well.
4: Detect Illusions is amazing. Free, infinite, fodder is adequate. Just use a party member to lure enemies towards your shaman's posse.
5: Slightly less mediocre spell list, with all three actually worthwhile spells easily acquired, and non-summon spells at level 4 and 6 actually worth using.
6: Sorcerer progression isn't too bad. While they don't get proper bees until SoD, they don't have a 1.5 million experience deadzone in SoA either, and get six level 7 slots before the SoA cap.
Overall I'd say they're slightly better than the Druid, but that's not really saying much.
The sorcerer-like spell selection would be great if there were more useful spells to choose from. The situation is slightly better in IWDEE though.
The Shamanic Dance tends to lag behind the average power of mobs to fight, so they are usually only good to momentarily distract the enemy. Or they would be good if the summoned spirits could be controlled in some way. You'll still need someone else to lure the enemy to the spirits, since shamans aren't allowed to move while performing their dance.
The dance is also susceptible to outside influences that makes it hard to prepare beforehand. For example, many greater battles are introduced by cutscenes. However, the dance doesn't work during that time, so spirits will be unsummoned as soon as the cutscene ends. The same effect can be seen with Timestop.
Shamans are also unable to dual or multi-class, thus rendering another advantage of the druid class void.
Imo, the class is focused too much on being "balanced", so that none of their features can really shine.
Btw, some of these flaws inspired me to create the Improved Shamanic Dance mod.