Occultist vs Shaman

Marakech

Hail, Im thinking of multiclassing into something affliction based (I dont care about faction changes). Im sure some of you recieved some tells from me IC with the same question. I hear great things about both of these classes for their flavor and great combat. I would be interested in 1v1 combat but from what I understand this mostly comes from bounties and you would need some hinderance to pull it off, giving the advantage to Occultist. Its also important to me that the class can reach top tier pvp, which from forum posts I read that Occultist struggles with breaking past a certain plateau based on RNG aspects and lifestones to clear affs. 

Both of them are interesting to me RP wise. Ive tried both classes to about level 30 but I dont have the time to test both on their combat.

In terms of bashing, I hear Shaman is great while Occultist is slightly above average. Im currently level 64 and depthswalker is starting to slow down on my journey to dragon. 

I will be getting the 5k credit package for my character of choice so the decision is important to me. 

[Deleted User]

Marakech said:

which from forum posts I read that Occultist struggles with breaking past a certain plateau based on RNG aspects and lifestones to clear affs. 

No it doesn't. Both are more than capable of reaching top tier, given enough effort into them both. Occultist is probably 'harder' versus the more competent people, but it is still a very unforgiving class to fight against. I'd say Occultist needs more artifacts to reach it, versus said competent people... But 5k credits is more than enough. Occultist bashing isn't that bad, either.

Regardless, lifestones aren't something to base your combat around, it's not like everyone is swimming in them.

Calira

Occultist doesn't really play like other affliction classes because it has very limited control over what it actually gives. It cares about quantity over quality, and the tools it has reflect that. As a side effect, the class is lacking in options; it does one or two things passably well, but once you've mastered those things, there's not a lot of room for growth.

Shaman is entirely different. It has a wide array of tools that give you much more room for creativity and the ability to approach fights in many different ways. It's also a lot cheaper artifact-wise. For these reasons and more, I would almost always recommend someone pick Shaman over Occultist if they were interested more in 1v1 than teams. Teams are a different beast entirely.

Armali

Hint: Pick Occie for teams.

Marakech

Thanks for the help so far, kinda disappointed to hear that Occultist doesnt have many kill options. I might have to get both classes since they use similar artifacts

Armali

As far as I know they use almost none of the same artifacts besides a diadem, which everybody can make use of.

Marakech

Guess I was just thinking of diadem, Soa, and collar maybe, int sash

Armali

Shaman has like, all of one thing that scales off of collar and intelligence, so there's almost no overlap there. SoA and diadem yes, but almost everybody can use those.

Connell

The utility advantage goes to occultist. By far. Maybe not immediate 1v1 impact but QoL is important. 

Additionally, occultist is a better affliction tank. Sun has a rune equiv, but fool (once you learn when to burn its CD) is epic. Ent balance will allow some limited pressure while you turtle if you need it. And can reset slime/syco/rixil during turtle time.

Shaman has better 1v1 long game with vodun. Occultist has better group combat with a few aspects/abilities.

In the end, game changer for me (I’ve no wings) is universe/hermit and the other QoL abilities. Especially once integrated with mudlet mapper. It just feels like a much more broadly useful class - in and out of combat.

As for artifacts, unless you have significantly more than 5k credits, everything you have should go towards non class related defensive artifacts. Offensive artifacts should come last, save maybe a diadem.