First of all i would like to apologize to all of you for the quality of following comparison – it certainly could be better – but i am writing this becasue of my frustration and beside that: it is kind of late so i may make several mistakes.
I would like you to take a little peek at following adresses:
http://builder.arsenalofwar.com/CareerBuilder.aspx?Class=SHA
http://builder.arsenalofwar.com/CareerBuilder.aspx?Class=AM
Which happen to be character builders for shaman and Archmage. Lately there have been quite a lot demands on letting archmages gain certain abilities available to shaman: „Gork sez stop” and „ RUN AWAY” tactic to be the most popular and commonly mentioned. I would like to present here a point of view of a shaman who grew tired of his class, who grew frustrated with it. I know that i may have misused my class – and that certain issues of mine are very basic „learn 2 play” issues. But these issues won't be matter of a discussion here. We shall focus on how both classes work:
HEALING
As you can clearly see: Archmage and Shaman are in fact a „second category” healers to DoKs, Warrior Priests, Zealots and Runepriests. We shall never be as good at pure healing as they are, but we certainly have our traits – instant ressing to be one of the most important.
However: Shaman and Archamge differ when it comes to in hwat manner they heal: describing it shortly: Archmage prefers stationary healing while Shaman is more of runnning around casting hots type of class. Analisying the data given in forementioned pages:
| Archmage | Shaman |
| Path of Isha | Path of Mork |
| First unlock tactic: Balanced Mending – what does it do? It makes all of your heals 35% more powerful when used on allies, they are 15% less efficent when casted on yourself. | First unlock tactic: Gork Fix'd it – what does it do? Same as Balanced Mending but it works only with „Gork Will fix it” skill (55ap/ 1s cast/150 feet range) Skill itself is semi valuable (especially boosted with new version of bigger better and cleaner). But the tactic is waste of space |
| MOTM:Instant snare on 100fet range reducing Initiative.(the decrease of this stat disapears after leaving the pool of go) | Sticky feets: Instant snare on 100 feet reducing elemental resistance. (the decrease of this stat disapears after leaving the pool of go) |
| Bolstering Boon: Boon fo hysh also adds 250 morale – waste of space, but it works with skill that actually is pretty nice | Lookit what i did – Gork will fix it will also grant 40 ap to the target – waste of space, works with crappy skill. |
| Magical infusion: Vide Shrug it off – it is pefect mirror. | Shrug it off: 55ap/100feet/1min After getting less then 20% of hp spell activates itself instantly healing target for ~1000hp |
| Wild healing: Whenever you criticly heal someone (around 30% chance on pure heal build) your healing abilities will cost 50% less action points during the next 10 seconds. Awesome! | Pass it On: Whenever you criticly heal your ally there is 25% chance to heal next ally for 171 health. Seriously mythic? Is anyone even using that? |
| Funnel Essence: Channel heal:10 sec cl/ 150 feet/ 3s cast/ 13 sec cool down – great when standing in one place, when fleeing the first tic can heal you as an instant direct heal for more then 400 | Do Sumthin useful: 150 feet/ 40ap/ instant/nc Hot for 1000 with 150 toughness boost. |
| Wind's Protection: all groupmates in 100 feet range will regain 800 hp over 15 secs and get barrier for next 2500 dmg. So – so? | Feelz no pain: heals for 1000 over 10 secs and give 25% dmg reduction for 10 seconds: AWESOME! |
All the abilites buyable from the npc that are from these trees are pretty much the same for both classes
Summing it up: Both shaman and archmage seem to be fairly balanced here: the complete useless tactics of shaman are balanced with quite powerfull skills unlocked on the three while archmage get outstanding tactics that heal him with healing his allies (despite this poor bolsering boon) with both quite nice skills. Overall I would say that Archamges are a little bit more powerfull here – because both of Wild Healing (which can be combined with Restorative Essence, and 10 sec cooldown ap steal) and Balanced Mending – which works with all of their healing skills instead of just one – as for shaman which is rarely (if at all) used.
Both of Desperation and Ain't done yet are working. Rest of the skills are more or less same for both of them.
Archmage 1.5 : 1 Shaman
PURE DPS TREE
| Path of Gork | |
| Forked Lancing – shit tactic, do not pay attention | Ere we goes again – ere we go deals less dmg but deals it two times – so anyway it is wasted space – pay no mind. |
| Cleansing fire – vide Geddof | Geddof – 100 feet range/20 s cooldown/2s casttime knockback on shit distance. Pretty useless since you cannot knockback same target in the next 30 seconds. |
| Tactic that gives 25% chance to remove a blessing from target and deal 150 | Same as at archmage |
| Scatter the Winds – instant dot, cooldown 10 secs – some damage over time it gives 10 second incoming healing debuff with 10 second cooldown (constant healing debuff on one target) AWESOME! | Gorks Barbs – direct damage – incoming healing debuff for 10 seconds with 30 seconds cooldown – while under its effect healers healing the target will get damaged for 300 dmg. 30 seconds cooldown? Seriously? |
| Increased conductivity: Your path of asurian skills (including Scatter the wind) are 15% harder to block: AWESOEM! | Brain bursta (so-so skill – now reduces toughness by 250 and takes away 150 morale: MEH... (looking at increased conductivity) |
| Dissipating energies – 50ap / 2 sec cast/ 100 feet / 1 min cooldown. like the doks skill but it is not channel – for 10 secs your ally deal dmg to enemies around 30 feets around them. But it is not a channel – works fine with numbers, | Da WAAAGH is coming – 55 ap / 2 sec csat / 80 feet / 5 sec cooldown. Deals 337 dmg to your target and up to 8 more targets if they are in range of 20 feet from one to another (one target cannot be struck more then once) – Outstanding skill when it comes to scoring higher in numbers in scenario charts. Useless in any other way. |
| Flames of the Phoenix – 1m cooldon / rank 4 morale/ 4 sec cast / 100 feet range. Does it have any use beside of filling in the gap for rank 4 morale? | Fist of Gork – rank 4 morale / insta cast / 200 feet range. Deals 1200 dmg to all targets 20feet from your target and knocks them back. Seriously useless. Massive ress is better then this. |
Geddof and Cleansing fire may be nice skills when it comes to break charging bombsquad (but these do not appear for now because of changes made in the game) but with triggering immunity for knocbacks it can be also a waste since sometimes other characters have better knocbacks then we do. The tactic that gives 25% chance to remove blessing and deal damage? I don't think that anyone uses it. Scatter the winds is one outstanding skill – almost constant healdebuff on target is great – especially for a dotter (which archmage is) while Gorks Barbs have 30 second cooldown and deal demage to a healer healing target – it might be good when you like high numbers in scenarios but is fairly useless in any other situation (comparing to Scatter the Winds). Increased conductivity -15% chance to block skills from that tree compared to fairly good toughness debuff? I would still say that it is better. WAAAAY BETTER to be honest.
Speaking of which – Archmages get from npc a skill (radiant gaze) which is not only another dot but it also reduces crit chance of target for free – they don't need to buyout a tactic for it, or waste a space for a tactic. They get it just like this! All other core abilities in this tree are pretty much the same. With one important difference.
IMPORTANT STUFF!!!:
Archmages Cleansing Light removes one ailment or hex while shamans Greener'n'Cleaner removes one curse or ailment. Whats wrong with that? All shamans debuffs and dots and what not are Ailments – that means Archamges can remove them while all Archmages dots and debuffs are Hexes meaning fuck you shaman – you ain't getting it off!
For scatter the winds, increased conductivity and radiant gaze (not mentioning that all of these are hexes which shamans can't touch) I hereby grant Archmage 2 points when shaman gets 1 making this comparison go like this:
Archmage 4 : 2 Shaman
SO TO SPEAK LIFETAP TREES
Path of Vaul / Path of da green
| Archmage | Shaman |
| Expanded control – reduces the casttime of balance essence by 0.5 sec and increases the cost by 10 ap | Vide Expanded Control |
| Storm of chronos – 45 ap / instant / 30 sec cooldown. Reduces spirit resisatance (archamges dps skills deal spirit demage) and deals demage to targets in range of 65 feet in fron of you. | Scuse me! - 45ap / instant/ 30 sec cooldown – vide storm of chronos but with elemental resistance (shamans use it) and the fact that targets must be in range of 45 feet. Worse copy of archmages skill then... |
| Arching power – whenever one of you demaging skills hit enemy hits target your defensive target will get heald for 25% of damage dealt. (description is broken it works only with direct damage skills) | You really got nuthin – Reduces cooldown on You got nuthin by 10 secs |
| Law of Gold – 25 AP / 1 sec casttime / 100 feet / 30 sec cooldown. 5 second silence + some damage . Good one. | You got nuthin – 25 ap /1sec cast/100 feet/30 sec cooldown. Vide Law of gold |
| Golden Aura – Shield of saphery now grants immunity to knockdown and stun effects. | Nuthin but da Waaagh – When protected by your barrier you deal 15% more damage |
| Energy of Vaul – 35 ap / 2 sec cast / 80 feet / 5 sec cooldown. Deals dmg to target and up to 4 targets jumping from one to another if they are in range of 20 feet from each other. 150% of dps heals your defensive target. | Fury of da Green – Vide Energy of Vaul |
| Funnel Energy – All groupmates have their ap cost decreased by 50% and all enemies in range of 30 feet have their ap costs increased by 50%. | Steal yer thunder – steals 25 points of all stats from enemies in range of 30 feet from initial target in exception of wounds and give them to your groupmates for 15 seconds (black orc has better war bellow I believe) |
Core abilites are pretty much the same.
Now lets sum it up for this trees: Storm of Chronos has 20 feet greater range – just because, no reason at all. You really got nuthin is just plain fucking shit – since the beginning of silence immunity. Arching power – could be useful. While Nuthin but da Waaagh grants you nice 15% more damage it is still worse then golden aura – which is very nice survivability tactic – and may be very useful against plenty of enemies. I will explain why it is worse in next paragraph. Funnel energy is outstanding comparing to Steal yer thunder.
Archmage 5 : 3 Shaman
DPS BUILD
As I provised I will now explain why dps archmage is better then dps shaman (remember that pure heal archamage is also better then healing shaman).
Archmages have 4 dots to be used against their enemies while shaman have only 3 (including one morale that can be dismissed as easily as clapping your hands). Both of the classes can use same kiting tools with exception of Runaway tactic and Whazat behind You tactic granted to shaman (respectivly giving you on-hit chance to move faster and having on-hit chance for 25% damage reduction). What is more important Archmages debuffs and dps skills cannot be disspelled by shamans why Shamans debuffs and dps skills can be dusspelled by archmages. Archamges have two barrier skills (on core one morale 1 which protects from up to 3600 dmg – woah)
This is pretty much nice base for Archmages dps build:
http://builder.arsenalofwar.com/CareerBuilder.aspx?Class=AM#5;11;9;5:;9:;9:5:;;0:0:0:0:
While there is no basic Shaman dps build – there are many – comparing to Archmages one – worse – since they require shaman to stand still when dpsing (or run away and dps less) while Archmages can prance around not caring about shit. Therefore I would sum it up as:
Archmage 7 : 4 Shaman
SURVIVABILITY
Basicly all the ranting of Archmages I know focus on the two tactics given to shamans – which are Runaway and Whazat Behind You. First of all – these are tactics – therefore to grant yourself these two abilities you need to sacrifice two tactic slots you could use other way. Right now you can replace the Runaway tactic simply by using passive ability for renown points which for 5% chance will grant you bonus to speed (which is bugged casting a skill do not break the effect as in the runaway tactic) and secondary Whazat Behind you working for 5 seconds can be well replaced by the morale 1 barrier which protects from 3600 damage, well used mistress of the marsh. Well guess what – also Archmages detaunt grant him immunity to interruptions of his skills for 5 seconds while shamans one grants you a 5% disrupt – think for yourself if full funnelling essence channel is better then 5% disrupt against classes which are actually in melee range... But hey – for the first time in this comparison shaman is actually better then archmage making the whole poin score look like this:
Archmage 8 : 5.5 Shaman
SUMMARY:
Archmage is THE best single target not burst dps class in the game (sure it deals less then Sorc or BW – but it can outlive them quite fucking easily as for a healer) while Shamans (very talented ones) can still be some threat on the battlefield – same players steering archmages would be gods of war in rvr lakes.
Both of classes are to be considered aub-par healers to other healing classes – yet Archmage still have better healing abilities thanks to funnel essence, Wild healing and Balanced Mending. Both classes can instantly rez friendly dead.
When it comes to survivability and spec I would say that healing wise both classes are well mechanised – archmages is generally tougher then shaman, and his skills require him to stand still while casting healing spells (but not lie to ourselves: who makes archmage to heal other people?) while shaman run around avoiding enemies and casting hots. Situation changes when suddenly we try to dps using that class. While For archmages the job is fairly simple – dot the fuck out of the target and prance around with barriers and motms shamans used to similair job when it comes to healing do not have proper tools do the same thing.
SUGGESTION TO FIX THE IMBALANCE:
Making exact mirrors would be pointless (no matter how tasty for me since I have played archmage for a month and seen the difference) but here are things that can be made to help:
- Grant archmages tactic identical to whazat behind you! - Their survival base on heavy barriers, motm and good heals so 25% dmg reduction would do fine I believe
- Grant shamans tactic resembling Discerning offense – possibly exchanging it for “get movin!”
- Change Gorks Barbs cooldown to 10 seconds and make it deal damage to the target of the spell instead of healer to resemble Archmages Scatter the winds
- Give shamans back Getn Smarter (none of the patchnotes mentions its disapearance but it is not there anymore)
- Increase range of Scuse me by 20 feet to match Storm of Chronos.
- Change Archmages dps and debuffs from hexes to ailments
Thats all – not many changes – more cosmetical than any other yet still would be good I believe
