Hey all!

I was really excited for Uthgard, but missed the initial push unfortunately. With that said, I'm excited to get started and was looking toward mid.

I'm specifically interested in an Aug shaman. From my understanding, its generally recommended to go cave until 40 and then respec, but I had a couple of questions.

1.) What can I expect as far as the amount of people leveling up?
2.) Once I hit 50 - are people expected temped out RRed out players for RvR (small man and 8v8)
3.) Are Aug shamans desired? I figured with buffbots not allowed they may be, and I'm not very interested in pac healer.

Thanks and looking forward to playing with you all. Booting uthgard up tonight!

First and foremost, buffbots are NOT allowed. Or any dual logging for that matter, speed bot, heal bot, anything.

Still tons of people leveling. IMO, cave shammy will make you much less desireable for groups, so you might end up solo a lot. Groups are very common atm.

Russiancrushian wrote:First and foremost, buffbots are NOT allowed. Or any dual logging for that matter, speed bot, heal bot, anything.

Still tons of people leveling. IMO, cave shammy will make you much less desireable for groups, so you might end up solo a lot. Groups are very common atm.

Woops - totally meant NOT allowed

So that's good to know about cave being undesirable for groups. Do you think it would net level faster as Aug? My concern is going Aug and then not finding groups, which means less XP time.

porkandpickles wrote:

Russiancrushian wrote:First and foremost, buffbots are NOT allowed. Or any dual logging for that matter, speed bot, heal bot, anything.

Still tons of people leveling. IMO, cave shammy will make you much less desireable for groups, so you might end up solo a lot. Groups are very common atm.

Woops - totally meant NOT allowed

So that's good to know about cave being undesirable for groups. Do you think it would net level faster as Aug? My concern is going Aug and then not finding groups, which means less XP time.

If you want to be able to both solo and group, then you should do mainly aug and rest cave. Shamans single target dot is baseline so you just need some cave to minimize the variance of it. You also get a bolt, which is pretty nice, and a single target DD which has a long cooldown. The DD is pretty bad though. The buffs you get from aug will also help your soloing greatly. You can basically ignore the mend line while leveling, it's a really bad skill line and you are not expected to be the main healer in groups anyway. You should get 8 mend for cure disease in your final spec though.

You can figure out for yourself how much aug and cave you want each level. You should focus mainly on aug in the beginning because you really want to get a good end regen early. This will also help your soloing since you should kite the mobs as much as possible. Play with the character builder at this address: http://play.nixian.eu/index.php?page=charbuilder

I will gladly answer any more questions that you might have.

1.) What can I expect as far as the amount of people leveling up?
Haven't leveled a new toon for a while so can't really help you here. Seems to be pretty easy to find groups at 40+ though.

2.) Once I hit 50 - are people expected temped out RRed out players for RvR (small man and 8v8)
Most definitely need to be temped before you do RvR. It will of course be easier to find RvR groups when you have gotten a few RR and people have started to know you. Aug shamans are always welcomed though so you should find groups pretty easily. I recommend 46 aug, 27 cave, 8 mend for RvR. Your main job is interrupting and rooting mainly support and casters. Also spreading that awesome disease everywhere
Get Ichor of the Deep RA after you have gotten Purge. That RA is pure awesomeness!

3.) Are Aug shamans desired? I figured with buffbots not allowed they may be, and I'm not very interested in pac healer.
I guess I answered this one in the previous question. YES!!

All good points, except that you really should use this char builder instead:
http://genuapp.appspot.com/char/