Danceofmasks
First Post
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Shaman AC too low?
- Thread starter vhailor
- Start date
Duelpersonality
First Post
Bravo. Bravo.
You're looking at it all wrong, There is no reason to use a high score on strength. None of the shaman abilities are based on it. Strength should probably be your lowest score. My build has strength of 8. Use leather armor for +2(3 if you can afford magic armor). Then put a higher number in intellegence(increases ac and Reflex, not just ac like armor). second highest score, behind wisdom, gives a 16ish number. Thats +3. so starting ac 16 at level one. Not huge, but that 3 adds to reflex as well and doesn't use up a feat.
NorthSaber
First Post
This doesn't help bear/protector shamans much, who need Wis and Con as their primaries...
It also does nothing to prevent Shaman AC from falling behind as level rises, making later attacks against his AC auto-hits.
I've read many replies mentioning that a Shaman shouldn't care about his AC anyway -- why then does the other build get an AC secondary stat? What makes that build deserve high AC and the Con one get abyssal AC?
And don't mention the Sorcerer... it's burdened by low starting AC, but at least it scales.
No existing class has the same problem as the Con Shaman. Let's take a look.
The Fighter, Warlord, Paladin, Cleric, Invoker and Bard get havey armor proficiency, which gives a fixed start value and scales with levels. Great. Some of those classes even have a build that can forgo heavy armor because of an AC secondary stat.
The Rogue, ranged Ranger, Swordmage, Wizard get an AC primary stat.
The Fey Warlock, Infernal Walrock, Sorcerer, Druid, Avenger and Warden get an AC secondary stat.
Other classes are special cases. The melee Ranger has a good incentive to boost his Dex (at least gaining good ranged attacks with Twin Strike), but otherwise, he has the stats for heavy armor. The Barbarian gets a scaling class feature that can make his defenses very high overall and even be abused by pumping Dex.
Yeah... the Star Warlock is just as screwed as the Con Shaman. But at least, the first PH's inexperience could be faulted; the second PH has no excuse.
I've read many replies mentioning that a Shaman shouldn't care about his AC anyway -- why then does the other build get an AC secondary stat? What makes that build deserve high AC and the Con one get abyssal AC?
And don't mention the Sorcerer... it's burdened by low starting AC, but at least it scales.
No existing class has the same problem as the Con Shaman. Let's take a look.
The Fighter, Warlord, Paladin, Cleric, Invoker and Bard get havey armor proficiency, which gives a fixed start value and scales with levels. Great. Some of those classes even have a build that can forgo heavy armor because of an AC secondary stat.
The Rogue, ranged Ranger, Swordmage, Wizard get an AC primary stat.
The Fey Warlock, Infernal Walrock, Sorcerer, Druid, Avenger and Warden get an AC secondary stat.
Other classes are special cases. The melee Ranger has a good incentive to boost his Dex (at least gaining good ranged attacks with Twin Strike), but otherwise, he has the stats for heavy armor. The Barbarian gets a scaling class feature that can make his defenses very high overall and even be abused by pumping Dex.
Yeah... the Star Warlock is just as screwed as the Con Shaman. But at least, the first PH's inexperience could be faulted; the second PH has no excuse.
DracoSuave
First Post
So, the Ranger, with his Strength has the stats for heavy armor (Str 13, Con 13), but the Shaman, with his Constitution doesn't have the stats for heavy armor?
They're in the same boats. If Ranger's got no problem, Shaman's got no problem.
I tend to agree with this. When building my Protector Spirit Shaman, I just had to glance at the starting sheet and thought to myself, "Gee, guess I should take chainmail as my first feat." Does it suck a little? Sure, yeah. But every build has its ups and downs, and every build has was for you to compensate for them.
Saeviomagy
Adventurer
Yeah, totems are rods. Oh, except instead of arcane symbols on them, they have have nature symbols on them. And annoyingly loot now has to contain rods AND totems. And caster daggers. And melee daggers. And bard weapons.
I mean, I know that loot is supposed to be tailored to the party, but the divisions PHB2 has between magical implements are bloody ridiculous. There needed to be a ton less "only this build of this class can use this item" going on.
Yes, I suppose you have a point. Perhaps my experience playing 4th edition is a bit low-- on the other hand, IS there a reason why the Shaman should simply not Be In Combat? I mean, whatever happened to D&D, where every class had its drawbacks, people occasionally rolled a '3' for a stat (my healer with 4 charisma-- I was never forced to heal! Good times), and no one class was the ultimate death dealing machine to all creatures?
(rant)I suppose fourth edition made things more overpowered for everything in general-- but perhaps its adding "easy mode" for people who just want to min/max their characters. (/rant)
Sure, the Int based Shaman might have a higher AC overall than the Con Shaman, but the former is less geared toward healing and recovery of hitpoints (the latter having a more valuable bonus to both himself and his party members) and has less hitpoints overall than his counterpart (a slight disadvantage, but worth noting).
By virtue of healing ability, I would assume that the Con based Shaman is "more" valuable to the party overall, and should be protected as such. Plus, when you look at his abilities and those of his turducken, you see that party members have to be adjacent (most of the time) to said turducken in order to receive the benefits (Protecting Strike At Will Power comes to mind...).
One odd question: When an ability or feat says "ally" does it include the Shaman himself? I'm thinking along the lines of the feat "Protector Spirit Adept", which says your allies gain a +1 to Fort, will, ref while adjacent to your spirit companion...
Final Observation:
I think the Protector Spirit shaman engenders the idea of the Adventuring Party as a Tank. It moves with the solidarity of a single unit, with the Spirit Protector at the Center, lending various bonuses to those allies around it. In theory, it works like the phalanx of old. If used any differently, it seems to be a ludicrous tactic-- which is why so many people are questioning the Protector Shaman. Just my two cents.
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Doctor Proctor
First Post
That's actually a good observation. The Protector Shaman will generally want to keep his Spirit close to the rest of the party in order to provide bonuses to them. The Stalker Shaman, on the other hand, will generally want his Spirit to get mixed into the enemy lines in order to do more damage. As such, it actually makes sense for the Stalker Spirit to have more AC compared to the Protector Spirit (AC of the Spirit is based on the AC of the Shaman) because it will probably be subjected to more attacks.
