Shaman Raiding and Defending Options.

Acknu

So I've recently been trying to get more involved in group combat but I've been pretty timid about it. Its not that I'm afraid of dying or the such but rather I'm not sure where I fit in because I'm not sure what I have to offer. I don't have much combat experience but mostly I have found it hard to see if what I'm doing is effective because there are a lot of different variables occurring all at once. I would like to discuss options and see what other people are doing. I know that this is going to differ between cities and that certain options might be better/worse do to city strategies but general concepts may be the same. I'm also interested in see what classes have to say in terms of "you should do X to benefit me and the party."

When everyone is the same room: I usually try to hinder while building to towards damage or someone's instakill.  Typically if I'm trying to aid someone like a blademaster, I might do something like spam paralyse while trying to use haemophilia, sensitivity, and recklessness. When trying to aid affliction classes, I try to spam paralyse while working towards mind afflictions that typically hinder aswell while working towards tzantza and other instakills like enlightment (Since I'm from Ashtan). Would it worth trying to spam Arius Roar or Tarnel Snare over swiftcursing paralyse? Another question is whether or not I should be focusing on trying to make a doll and fashion or just focus on swiftcurse. With just fashioning, I feel like I give up a lot of pressure. The middle ground would be to blight while using maligus to (hopefully) gain fashions while cursing but in this case you can no longer swiftcurse spam paralyse.

LoS: I'm not sure where I fit in here. I'm not arty and don't have bow, etc. I've tried binding Anthius, but it is only adjacent rooms. I really couldn't get anything done here and make myself pretty vulnerable getting in adjacent room if everyone is just LoSing. The use of vodun is option especially with throttle but while it takes one fashion to use and keep using it, it still takes one fashion which might be hard to get in certain situations. Otherwise, I just kinda of stand around, throw up arrowcatch, and look pretty.

I would be interested in hearing what other people have experienced and I'm open to all suggestions. Thanks.

Tael

One thing that you definitely do not want to overlook as a shaman in raids is the huge utility of having vodun dolls of allies. There are a ton of things you can use ally dolls for and you can even use them to resurrect now with Spiritlore (don't forget to declare mutual allies to prevent the dolls decaying). You can also put up a ton of icewalls at once, scout with astral projection (though it's a pretty questionable ability), and smudge/uproot totems.

You have a ton of utility in a raid, even when you're not in melee.

What you don't have is LoS. Barring artefacts, you're just not going to have anything offensive to do during LoS engagements. But you have plenty of utility things to do to help out.

And you're great in melee too. When you're going for a lock in melee. What you want to be afflicting with is going to depend on the situation, but a lot of the time when you're helping someone go for a lock you're going to want to be using impatience since a number of affliction classes don't have on-demand impatience. Blight can be really useful in group melees too since either the affliction ends up uncured or they waste precious equilibrium diagnosing. But ultimately it's pretty hard to get a lock without coordinating who will try to stick what beforehand or without significant automation, so if you want to help someone lock, just ask them what you should be afflicting.

As for using vodun offensively in melees, that depends. Most of the time you probably want to use curses. But if someone is very slippery or hard to kill, then vodun isn't a terrible idea since it lets you retain some progress, though only if you re-engage soon enough for the doll not to go away.

Acknu

Thanks for the reply. What do you think would be a good default spirit binding setup would be? End result might be some weird bindings

Bind:
Garon - Totems
Arayan - Resurrection
Teraile - Mostly for attunement for curse bleed
Aspar - To give slickness for lock without using vodun imbibe
XXXX - ????

Attunement:
Teraile - Curses cause bleed
XXXX - ?????

Tether:
XXXX - ????

Achimrst

If you want binds you are going to likely have to weigh them yourself, I don't recommend using Garon simply because tethering him gives you the same effect and you don't need him for defense at all. The same goes for Arayan, you can tether and rez just as easily!

If you do plan on using Aspar it is a great idea to use Teraile, just remember to discern, and you probably want to utilize the new way bloodlet works too.

Ok, on binding. You want to bind things that are absolutely necessary all the time/things that you want to change attunements to. You can change attunements during los or something like that if you want to. Or to change them for if you change what your strategy is during the fight. Such as: I don't want to bleed anymore they are immune to my bleeding pressure because I'm not doing enough bleeding to get Aspar to work anyway. Then you can change attunements. That is my only suggestion on that. You never want to change binds unless your team got wiped and you want to something very different. Great things to have bound: Maligus, Teraile, Daina, Syvis, and Anthius. If you are going to use roar then you definitely want Arius too. Something to help you escape los, Silvanix, not to mention escape in combat with faster tumbling. But it all depends on your strategy, read over the spirits and decide for yourself.

Tethering: You want to tether spirits that are say... a one time use thing such as Tarnel, Arayan, Garon, Arcanor, blah blah so you can use them in combat and then re-attune when you want to.

Either way! It's all up to you on what is best for you, only your individual team and knowing their strategies can help you in anyway. Spamming is also not a good idea, you can only cure an affliction once no matter how many times you give it to them in a second.

Dochitha

Shaman is pretty useful in Groups with lots of options.

If the team is affliction heavy like you are pairing with serpents (they may be sniping), alchemists, even S&Bs or DWC, you can literally instant-lock enemy in 1-3s with pre-determined combos. You are most likely going to be handling paralysis and impatience, while others can do the lock venoms.

If the team decides to damage the hell out of enemy, fashion once and throttle. Fashioning more than that is likely not a good option for you are giving up too much potential for the mere fashions which the target may have died before you can pull anything other than illusions/bind.

If the team has alchemists / BMs you can kill with inflame. It takes a bit of co-ordination for the alchemist / BM to announce bleeding levels to you, while you stick haemophilia.

But these are all too technical in teams. Things happen so fast you kinda need to pay attention and use your skillsets to the fullest.

Acknu

Thanks for the responses, I'll fool around with stuff and let ya'll know what I find.