Is shaman mage weak?
Arcanjo
Member Posts: 155
From what I understand he has some buffs, and after using he stands still dancing (And we hoped for a good summon to come). I read that he is totally replaceable and nothing special, something that makes him unique and strong as a main character.
- Is shaman mage weak?27 votes
- Yes22.22%
- No51.85%
- I'm in doubt.25.93%
2
Comments
I see two main weak points with the shamanic dance:
1) Being rooted to the spot doesn't allow you to take an active part in a battle. You need someone else to lure the enemy to you. There are also too many ways to inadvertently break the dance, such as moving (not even a little), cutscenes (a big annoyance, and commonly used to start boss battles), or save and reload operations.
2) Summoned spirits can't be controlled. They are acting on their own, and more often than not are blocking each other or party members because of the not-so-perfect pathfinding of the game. This is especially an issue in narrow passages of dungeons.
Removing one of the two points would made the dance much more useful. My Improved Shamanic Dance mod addresses these points and several more.
The shaman-specific spells are alright. I can't really complain in that regard though, since they are added as a bonus to the regular spell selection. The Detect Illusion skill is nice, but rather situational. At the time when you need it the most, your mages and clerics are already much more effective with True Sight.
I've been using a Shaman PC (with iwdnpc) for an iwdee run, with Improved Shamanic dance installed. Basically he takes true point as leader with virtually all my battle tactics based around him. There is a massive need for crowd control in iwd and the summons take care of business, while the other party members use missile and spells to weaken the enemy. My fighters then step in and attack the rear without being attacked themselves. Being able to walk is truly great and why I installed it. I'm just seeing the upgraded summons now and the fire spirits are fantastic against those ice trolls. As a last resort... my shaman uses the ring of sanctuary, before doing his dance... then strides out invincible, as his summons attack all those around him
And on top of all this, you get free disposable summons. This is incredibly useful both to soak HP damage and to soak those awful effect-on-hit attacks while your other characters attack from range. In SoD, these things can save you a ton of grief in the coldstone lich’s dungeon for this exact reason. So no, Shamans are pretty unique and useful, a mix between Totemic Druid and an Avenger and a shortbow.
Pack it with IWDification and Argent's mod and what remains as problems can be ignored.
You need to be careful how you use the dance, but it's already quite powerful enough - allowing things like movement or the ability to control them seems like overkill to me (shamans have other summons they can use if they want to). My main concerns about the dance are:
- when summons move out of sight range of the shaman they stop fighting. While I understand the rationale behind this it can lead to stupid results. It would be fine if summons that went out of sight range were coded to retreat back towards the shaman, rather than just stand there while enemies attack them.
- other summons apply to the summoning limit for the shamanic dance (so if you have a skeleton summons then a low level shaman could only produce one dancing summons rather than 2).
The dance is so hard to use that it becomes situational, and the spirits do not scale well in the game. Plus, it's like the bard's song: you can't do anything else in the meantime. Is the dance worth losing the utility of a whole character? Absolutely no, especially since you cannot control spirits.
Detection is like for the monks: with no mean of disarming the traps, it becomes frankly useless, you are gonna need a thief with 100 in trap detection anyway, the shaman will not change that.
The last thing is the spells. Shaman-specific spells are just not that great. Having a sorcerer version of the druid sounds nice, but the druid spells simply cannot compete with the mage's ones. Cleric spells are better than druidic spells, and they are below mage spells. The only reasonably ok spells from the druid book take forever to cast.
Overall, the shaman is weak. To make it better, spirit call should be fixed to make it easy to use and spirits should scale better; instead of trap detection, an auto-illusions detection while calling spirits would be nice; druid spells need to be reworked; shaman-specific spells need to be significantly boosted. That would be a start, although in terms of "power" it would only make the class average. It would still be better than what it is right now.
In relation to detection though I should point out that the shaman's ability is detect illusion and that's far more useful than the monk's detect (but not remove) traps. There are plenty of situations in the game where the shaman could be sent in invisibly in advance to remove illusions from enemies (like thieves and mages) and make them much more vulnerable to follow-up attacks. It's particularly nice to get this ability for free on character creation, since it's usually well into the game before a thief would consider boosting detect illusions rather than all the other skills they can learn.
I have always loved the process of finding underrated gems in RPGs, in terms of class or playstyle. So when I saw that powergamers and all the class rankings on the internet would put druids and their kits at the very bottom of usefulness, I thought I would give it a try. Oh god the disappointment... after playing a mage, it just feels so weak and harmless... In SoA there was a point when I stopped altogether to use my druid's spells at all. Buffs, damage, utility, no matter what you want to use there is always a much better version in the mage's spells...
The spirits of the shaman cannot either possibly be considered as useful: if you want meat shields, you have much better conjuration spells with the mage, except in addition to soaking up damage, they are also capable to deal much, you can control them, and cherry on the cake you can still use your mage in battle in the meantime! I fail to see a single advantage of the shaman's spirits over conjutation spells from mages. Why would you inflict a shaman to yourself?
Even detect illusion, if at least it was a passive, I would be ok with it. But as it stands, a thief would have 100 illusion with a range good enough to dispel everything, already. Why do you want a shaman?
Shamans are either redundant, or inferior versions of much, much better other classes. Sure, it is versatile, I will give you that. As versatile as a character that can do a bit of everything but nothing well. It needs a major revamp, like the other druids.
Chaotic Commands
Death ward
Insect Plague
Blinding Beauty
Conjure Fire Elemental
Detect Illusions, breaking through Pro. Divination for SCS users
Raise dead
Harm
Heal (quest related at least twice)
Wear helmets
Wear the Reflex
Call Woodland Beings
Remove Confusion or Charm
Dispel Magic with a 100% success rate (dispelling arrow)
Yes, Druids are difficult to solo with: we’ve yet to solo no-reload with both druids and shamans. They run out of damage at Melissan apparently. But it’d be an utter lie to say that a Shaman CHARNAME is bad. In party use, especially with the abundance of arcane NPCs, a shaman can be a significantly better fit than a mage would be.
Now regarding your list. Because you don't demonstrate these things are great, I suppose that I will have to demonstrate the few things that are actually relevant in your list are not.
As an intro, I would highlight that while clerics are not the best class out there, they are still quite good and frankly useful. Sure, you would tend to use their spells less often as you progress in the game, but a few of their spells (including most of those druids do not have...) are still incredibly useful, and they are quite decent fighters on their own right. Therefore I will not comment in your list what clerics can do, assuming you would have it in your team if you like it anyway, through your cleric.
Chaotic Commands - Cleric
Death ward - Cleric
Insect Plague - arguably the only spell here that can have a use. However there are many better ways to disable a mage with another mage (love my spell trigger breach/greater malison/lower resistance, followed by glitterdust
Blinding Beauty - I'm assuming you refer to Nature's beauty? The main effect would never trigger because of the impossible saving throw bonus, and banshee's veil is better anyway. The rest is an inferior version of glitterdust, and lasts merely seconds...
Conjure Fire Elemental - that is the first time I see someone mentioning that spell as any good... squishy, weak damage, no real utility and there is always a random factor on what you get. Just get an Hakeashar like anyone else
Detect Illusions, breaking through Pro. Divination for SCS users - thieves can do that (before lvl20 unlike shamans). True sight also does that
Raise dead - Cleric
Harm - Cleric
Heal (quest related at least twice) - Cleric
Wear helmets - Cleric
Wear the Reflex - what? What are you refering to?
Call Woodland Beings - how is that any good??? Almost any summon from lvl6+ of mage spellbook is better
Remove Confusion or Charm - Cleric
Dispel Magic with a 100% success rate (dispelling arrow) - most classes do that
So in the end, can you remind me why the shaman already? It's just an inferior cleric...
Some other comments on your post:
- I would say that insect plague is the best spell disrupter in the game. It has a decent area of effect and duration, no saving throw, reasonable damage and you can even change the location it hits after you cast it (by moving summons). Glitterdust makes a very poor substitute for that lot of attributes.
- I don't suppose anyone is likely to rely on Nature's Beauty for outright kills. However, permanent blindness without a save is pretty powerful.
- I've seen lots of people saying fire elementals are good and I agree with that. They're available early in SoD / BG2 at a time when lots of enemies can't even hit them and they have a long duration.
- as I said earlier, shamans can make use of detect illusions even at low levels. Unless you have more than one thief in your party no-one is likely to put points in the detect illusion thieving skill at low levels. Many of your comments relate to how good mages are at high levels, but they're far more vulnerable than shamans early on in the game.
- The Reflex is the Reflection Shield. That's a useful bit of kit - particularly for a solo player up against missile attacks in ToB, e.g. Ravager, solar, Melissan.
- Call Woodland beings becomes less useful later in BG2, but is an incredibly good spell for it's level (which is 4, not 6). Most enemies will struggle to make all the saving throws required when targeted by a group of 5 of those.
- Basic clerics can't remove confusion (unless they get lucky with dispel magic, which could also cause other problems). Shamans and Priests of Tyr are the only ones with that ability.
- shamans can use darts, bows and axes giving them a lot of flexibility to use tactical ammunition. For basic missile attacks though I usually just use a sling. As a half-orc the shaman can start the game with 19 strength and thus do good damage immediately.
1) the topic focuses on the shaman: is it good or bad? I believe it is obvious this class is very weak, and I believe I have succesfully demonstrated that
2) if you're looking for a jack of all trades, just get a F/M/T, that's what people do: you can do a bit of everything, but you can do it pretty well, ulike the shaman
3) the best way to disable an ennemy mage is to kill it, not to disable spellcasting, I thought it was made clear in my description, but ok
Now that these are settled, if you want to tackle the "shaman vs mage" thing, fine, here is the list again, then:
Chaotic Commands < Spell Turning, Spell Deflection, Globe of Invulnerability, and others (although the usefulness of this spell is very seldom)
Death ward - I fail to see the usefulness of this in the first place
Insect Plague - my point above stands
Blinding Beauty - my point above stands. By the way, the blindness is certainly not permanent and is actually very short lasting, which makes it incredibly not useful
Conjure Fire Elemental - my point above stands (plus, mages have the exact same spell, although I admit with a 15% chance of failure)
Detect Illusions, breaking through Pro. Divination for SCS users - true sight
Raise dead - mages have the exact same spell
Harm - plenty of spells would do at least as well, but on top of it, Harm is so random that it would be foolish to rely on it. Technically has a very low chance of landing
Heal (quest related at least twice) - you need it only for side quest related completion, twice... and it's minor side quests, like in WK where you get 5k xp? Sorry but no
Wear helmets - best helmets for casters are gems, and mages can wear gems, so how is that an advantage for shamans?
Wear the Reflex - to reflect beholder's rays? very situational. While not reflecting, many spells can protect a mage from the rays, so frankly I do not see the point here... Especially since your caster is not supposed to tank beholders in the first place... Unless you're solo, but mages and sorcerers can solo, shamans can't
Call Woodland Beings - again, so many mage summons are so much better.... If you want to summon spells that are higher than your caster level, do like everyone else: buy scrolls or wands, which is something mages can do, not druids so much... plenty of scrolls of nishruu in the game for instance. Even with no scroll, the nymph is weaker than some lvl4 summins in the mage spellbook (summon spiders on even monster summoning 2!! not even mentioning monster summoning 3 at lvl 5!)
Remove Confusion or Charm - again, just get spell/magic resistance, it will protect for a lot more than just that. Oh sorry, you can't, you are not a mage
Dispel Magic with a 100% success rate (dispelling arrow) - Dispel Magic does not dispel everything, far from it! The most annoying spells will not be dispelled, you need a mage for that! The best dispellers are by far the mages (although inquisitors are really good too), do not attack mages on one of their strengths!
Now mages have much, much better summons (actually the best in the game) and more variety, they have better dispels and are arguably the only ones who can really beat ennemy high level mages, they have much, much, much stronger damage dealing spells, much much better debuff spells, much much better buff spells.... You want me to continue?
So, 2 conclusions here:
- I think at this stage it is obvious and proven objectively with appropriate arguments that shamans are just plain weak. There is no other reason to pick them than: RP, personal preference (at the expense of efficiency) and chalenging one-self with an obvious inferior class
- Mages rock. Even more if you pick a sorcerer
Ideally, I like running two divine casters anyways for perma Chaotic Command and Death ward coverage, so a shaman would rarely compete with a cleric for a spot. If I want a shaman PC, I’ll run Viconia, Aerie, or Anomen. If I want a cleric PC, I... still might run Aerie, but I’d more likely take Cernd or Jaheira. If I’m running a non-divine caster, all bets are off.
Also re: Call Woodland Beings: for one level 4 spell, you get three level 2 spells, three level 3 spells, two level 4 spells, two level 5 spells including a mass cure, and one level 7 spell, AND these spells can be cast while you’re doing something else. It’s one of the best druid spells out there, and the only reason my druids don’t stock up on nothing but these is because I like having death wards more.
Ps. Shamans dont dance. They just pull up their pants and do the rockaway.
Chaotic Commands: one of the best buffs in the game, and one of like two ways to become immune to stun. Also makes you immune to charm, fear, and confusion. Mages have to rely on Spell Immunity:Enchantment, and it’s self only. SI:Enchant does NOT protect against Illithid blasts.
Death Ward: protects vs Wail of the Banshee, Disintegrate, Finger of Death, PW:Kill. Maybe not necessary in regular games, but no-reload I can’t imagine not using this if it’s available. Mages can protect themselves, but again, self-only.
Insect Plague: uhh. I mean, you can keep saying this is a bad spell despite almost the entire community saying the opposite. Shutting down mages is actually that good, though.
Nature’s Beauty: uhh, source on it not being permanent? Cuz every source I can find, including the spell description, gives me a duration of permanent.
Conjure Fire Elemental: ah yes, stunning yourself for 3 rounds is definitely an equivalent spell. Fire elementals summoned by druids have no risk to the caster, immune to anything lower than +2 weapons. And immune to fire spells. And has a duration of turns per level. And does fire damage on hit, so can still interrupt spells if their attack is blocked by stoneskin.
Detect Illusion: uhhh. SI:Div is a straight up counter to true seeing. You need a thief, a dark moon monk, or a shaman to break it, or you’re engaging in a lengthy mage chess fight that probably includes stripping SI:Abjuration, Spell Shield, and a host of other things first. I’ve read logs of what it takes to win here as a mage. Shamans get to walk up, press a button, and dispel the Improved Invisibility and Mirror Images.
Raise Dead: you’re thinking of Animate Dead, the skeleton summon. I’m talking about dead teammates. Especially crucial when you can’t get temple support for the raises.
Harm: one of the best ways to assassinate something. Cast harm, have someone else cast improved invisibility, and lower the poor sap to 1 hp. Any follow up damage is an insta-kill.
Heal: ... yeah, not gonna lie, not the biggest deal ever. But hitpoint recovery’s pretty good, and mages can’t really help with that either.
Helmets: there’s nothing stopping you from wearing a stone anyways, so comes down to having additional resistances and immunities or saving throws.
Reflex: protects against arrows and ranged attacks. I was wrong about this, apparently, and it’s a small shield and not a buckler as I thought it was. Druids and shamans still can use physical mirror though, while a mage struck by an arrow of biting or dart of stunning is not gonna have a good day.
Call woodland beings: explained above.
Remove charm/confusion- um. Spell resistance is like the least reliable way to prevent these, unless you can hit 100% which is... doable, kinda, but not as a mage. Viconia can do it, I think monks might be able to do it, but not until the hell trials. Shamans get this in bg1.
Dispel Magic via arrows: are you even reading? Arrows of dispelling doesn’t rely on the caster level check, and will work 100% of the time if the target is hit. Mages are in fact one of the worst dispellers by spells since they need a caster level check, and they have a bad experience table. The ranking is probably Inquisitor, Bard, Cleric, Shaman=Mage, Druid, Paladin=ranger.
I’m not saying that a shaman is better than a mage. Mages are considered top tier for very good reasons. But it’s completely false to say that a shaman has no advantages over the mage. It’s like saying that since thieves can’t cast spells they’re useless. They have a different niche, but playing without a thief is just painful. Same with the divine classes.
1. Dependent on Time! (There is no way to play solo or with two more characters only), basically PT full. Right?
2. Magicians in BG 1 to 2 and IWD are superior to the Shaman. right?
Note: Does this apply to all druids and / or clerics?
3. As the shaman, basically needs a group, this ends up reducing their problems, apparently the Shaman is among the worst Druids? By the limited amount of actual magic to use, the unique spells are not as strong / good at fighting. Right?
4. He is by no means the best conjuror, these being the magicians?
Note: Are the Totemic druids better than the Shaman? I do not remember which classes in forgothen Realms are invokers.
Lastly:
What are the most effective spells in the Shaman (BG1.2 and IWD), I do not know which ones to choose, I do not have (Experience with it).
How should I behave in the game, strategy to make it efficient until the end (BG1,2 and IWD) ?.
2) Mages are not superior: that would mean that they are better at literally everything than the shaman. They simply do different jobs. Mages ARE more versatile if you know what you’re doing, but very few people have that type of mastery.
3) I have no idea how anyone can claim the shaman’s the worst druid. I’d probably align it as Totemic Druid, Shaman, Avenger (with those three as basically equal), Shapeshifter, Druid, Fighter/Druid.
4) Uhh. Conjuror is a specific class. If you mean a good summoner, I’d rank shamans among the best with the Totemic Druid.
Lastly: there’s some threads about specific spells, but I can’t seem to find them right now. Hope this helps!
It's reasonable to say that overall, arcane casters are stronger than divine ones in BG2. I would say the opposite is the case in BG1 - mages are far more vulnerable than divine casters there and their spells are no more useful.
Wrong
The totemic druid gets special additional summons which are extremely useful. that certainly makes them easier to play than a shaman, though not necessarily more powerful - that will depend on your gameplay style.
Shamans have far more direct damage ability than druids (in BG, though druids get a wider selection of spells at low level in IWD). Writhing fog at level 2 is incredibly vicious as you can cast it out of sight of enemies and just wait for them to die (similar in effect to the mage cloudkill spell). They also get a magic fireball spell at level 4 if you want to speed up the killing. Other special spells later on include raise dead and maze in addition to the choice of all possible druid spells.
Which spells work best for you is so dependent on the way you play the game that it's probably best just to experiment. I only play no-reload and nearly always solo, so my choices would reflect that and not the way you play.
Equipment and spells? Someone must have got it, and I'm lost. As I said I have never used Shaman and if I choose wrong the only skill edited by EEKeeper, which I do not want. Shaman summons, has creature they do not kill? Or does not always have one to take damage from an enemy? Does fighting in melee pays off?
It looks like it has mods, made for the shaman kit! But do you think it's for solar even without mods?
Links ( 2017 - )
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/66522/new-shaman-class-what-do-we-think
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/55589/the-shaman
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/64900/thoughts-on-shamans-in-soa-tob
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/61754/will-of-the-wisps-shamanic-enhancements/p1
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/874350/#Comment_874350
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/877397/#Comment_877397
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/50134/discuss-all-things-shaman
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/52592/shaman-viable
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/65349/new-opinion-on-shaman-spirit-dance
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/60161/so-shamans
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/57271/shaman-vs-druid-kit
And of course the ongoing https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/66363/shaman-spell-pick-order
http://www.shsforums.net/topic/59265-mod-improved-shamanic-dance/?hl=shaman+class
L1 - CLW, Doom, Bless, Armor of Faith, Entangle, Spirit Ward
L2 - Charm P / M, Slow Poison, Resist Fire / Cold, Barkskin, Find Traps, Writhing Fog
L3 - Call Lightning, Summon Insects, Protection from Fire, Spiritual Clarity
L4 - Call Woodland Beings, Farsight, Death Ward, Protection from Lightning, Spirit Fire
L5 - Insect Plague, Chaotic Commands, Iron Skins, Recall Spirit
L6 - Fire Elemental, Harm, Spiritual Lock
For equipment most things are pretty standard, but you might want to look out for the shaman-specific Heart of the Mountain and Circlet of Lost Souls (they appear in SoD and again in BG2).
The spirits from the dance can kill just about anything given time, but you need to be ready to run away immediately if all the spirits are killed. The most efficient way to use spirits against stronger enemies is to produce a normal summon before starting to dance and get the remainder of your limit. The normal summon can then lead the enemy into sight of the spirits.
A shaman will almost never be better at fighting in melee than at range (or using summons or spells). One very effective tactic against is to cast Writhing Fogs and run around in those while chasing enemies gradually freeze to death.
I haven't used any of the shaman mods, so can't comment on those. However, the kit is interesting and powerful enough to allow playing solo without the need for mods.
"Spiritual Lock": I have no idea how to use this ability in something useful or that combines with other magic. The same is basically true for the rest.