Well done Nick, exactly the caliber of guide I'd expect from you.
You covered all the bases and love the vids.
Thanks for the credit on the epic shaman showdown. Your the only one I know who also plays this build, and of the few Ive seen in games.
Not that it's relevant to the guide here per say, Id say it's more a preference, but its one that has served me well.
Keep your 20/20 shield and 30/30 sword on swap.
There will be many times when your able to setup your opponent to just flat out take your damage. For example you get a quick namelock on someone across your screen or a barb is caught in a long whirl. Punish them with a quick "w" for max damage. The trade off is if you get caught with that out, you have crappy res and no block, however the grizz stack plus spirit for the most part will keep you safe.
Shamans are entirely about the skill of outplaying your opponent. You whittle everyone down. It will take you many more hits to kill them vs what it takes for them to kill you. For example, against a good blizz sorc, you'll probably need to hit them with 4 cano's to win and if they hit you with one blizz your done. (in standard gear).
My favorite matchup is gm hammers. I win these more often then I lose to them (who woulda thunk). Grizz will always tank 1-2 hammers if they telestomp you, while the bear gets a free hit in and you can step and cast boulder/cano/fissue to make them think twice about this. Bone necs are another great matchup you wouldnt expect to do well on, but can usually pwn them. Exspecially the max block ones. Cano is superior in the distance fights you'll both be enganged in, and fhr and fbl lock means you can usually win just by getting in one -two canos and then casting a bear on their head.
Basically wanted to say, good work, mention having super damage on switch with the facets setup and reinforce that this build will frustrate you at first until you get the timing down along with tactics for the common matchups. Once you do get it down this char is super fun and very well rounded. You can sorb this build fully unlike the fire counterpart, and block builds on casters are fodder for Cano lockup. Windies and good ghosts are the bane of this char. I wish I could say I win 10% of the time vs windies, but it would be untrue.
With respect to the spirits. I'm a firm user/believer of HOW. When fights first start, depending on what I'm dueling I'll use the oak just to buff off that first hit, then after I take damage I'll switch to how. The damage from the grizzly is massively boosted with how.
I built essentially as vita on mine, but If I use my eld'd stormshield with a ravenfrost I put enough in dex for 65% block. So its block lite I guess. very little dex needed for this.
Ps Florian in that first screenie is ME
This post was edited by Master_Zappy on Jun 7 2010 01:15pm