Many people feel that the Shaman role is weak in comparison to Warriors or Leaders. They see that a Warrior with his
maxed leader bonus
(Warmonger) is able to do over 1000 damage and they have 950 for defense and a 50 to hit you and they're only level 50! What most
people don't understand is that the mechanics of Grendels Revenge lends itself toward allowing Warriors to get stronger quicker
in relation to the other roles. However, as in the fable of the Turtle and the Rabbit, slow and steady wins the race.
Why is it easier for Warriors to get stronger before Shaman or Mages? The majority of thier skills are based off
of strength and agility (the two main melee combat attributes) whereas Shaman and Mages are based off of energy and authority.
A Warrior can favor only Strength and Agility and his attack to become efficient at doing his main objective: Killing
Uglies. Putting ranks in Strength adds to your total hit points, Agility adds to your defense and Tooth and Nail adds
to the amount of damage you can do. They can effectively ignore Energy and Authority for a time if they choose and be
perfectly capable at doing what thier role is intended to do. For example a common Warrior who can spend 2200 favors (assuming
they do not purchase extra skills) might have the following skills and attributes:
Strength: 800
Agility: 650
Authority: 150
Energy: 26
Tooth and Nail: 500
Iron Claw: 100
This allows them to do an intense amount of damage and have great defense at a relatively early stage of the game. (Note
that the Strength and (I think) Agility values are almost always beefed up by 50% due to Warmonger bonuses)
Shaman do not have this luxury.
Shaman (and Mages) MUST maintain a balance between thier skills and thier attributes. They can not ignore Energy
or Authority since all of thier skills rely on these attributes. Therefore they will usually have less hit points and
defense early on in the game in favor of more authority and more energy to help thier Shaman skills. For example a typical
Shaman who may spend 2200 favors may look more like this:
Strength: 500
Agility: 175
Authority: 350
Energy: 550
Claws: 275
Heal: 350
Clearly at this point, the Shaman is far less offensive than the Warrior so it follows that the Shaman will almost always
get defeated by the Warrior early on. They have less hit points, less defense, less attack power. However, the
Shaman is set up to gain much more favor in the long run than the Warrior because of the investment into Authority and Heal
(which we will discuss later). You must remember that the purpose of a Shaman is to help your clanmates by casting protecive
and healing spells. You will not be a killing machine...at least at first.
Do not get discouraged! There is hope for you at the end of the tunnel, but it involves keeping your character balanced,
being patient, and being willing to invest a lot of time into your Shaman.
A balanced Shaman will probably not reach the potential to effectively enter Player versus Player (PvP) combat until
around level 400. However, the time and investment is highly worth it.
Next take a look at
Shaman and Race and thier benefits and disadvantages for Shaman.
