Quote (deathwinger @ Thu, Aug 20 2009, 02:11pm)
One thing I didn't mention:
There is a quite viable alternative Shaman build which uses a higher damage volcano at the cost of a lower damage fissure, which is better at killing some troublesome casters. I've personally found 2600 damage volcano to be sufficient, but if you really need that extra 800 fire damage because you're mostly dueling sorcs and such, and you don't mind losing 1/4 of your fissure damage, its a possible build. The lower fissure leaves you weaker against pallys/sins/barbs, which are more troublesome characters anyway. I personally advice the build I put in the guide, since it is far more balanced for general pvp, but this one can do some awesomeness it its own right:
@ level 99:
1 firestorm
20 boulder
20 fissure
20 volcano
19 armageddon
(1 prereqs wind tree)
20 grizzly
1 HoW
At level 99 (using grizzly/volcano +5 helm) thats 2700 fissure, 3400 volcano
Issue is, you need to reach level 99 for that. At only level 92, you get just above 3100 volcano, compared to the normal 4400 fissure 2600 volcano
Theres still something to be said for the advantage of the higher damage armageddon.
Its certainly a viable build and I've tested it out once or twice, but I honestly like having fissure for sweeping pubs, even if the extra volcano damage could help pin down some necros/sorcs/zons/druids.
But I don't think losing so much fissure damage is worth it. It would leave your spam attack weak, and even if you had a bigger volc/bear combo, you wouldn't be able to haze casters out of defensive play as easily with your fissures since they would not hurt nearly as much (and thus not fry ES either), which just beats the purpose. This is a build that was debated a bit when shamans were developed I think, but in the end the other, fissure heavy, build worked out a little better overall. Its certainly something that could be attempted, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who hasn't tried a regular shaman first.
And before considering it, consider this instead:
Even against well played bone necros/sorcs/etc, its not uncommon for the duel to degenerate into defensive spam fests, where they are teleporting away from you to avoid your name/chainlocks, and thus you have to just spam fissures all day long. Theres a lot of usage of fissure in Shaman vs Caster, much more than you might think at first. Its hardly a duel where you only use volcano/grizzly combos. And the difference between 4400 and 2700 fissure is bigger, imo, than the difference between 3400 volcano and 2600 volcano. Its 1.6x the fissure vs 1.3x the volcano. And frankly, while pumping volcano is the most important single skill (+3 volcano being the best pelt mod), balance is the most important thing overall.
do you play east[nl] at all? add *sorowfulhatred maybe we can pub sometime.