Dread Shaman

From EotAWiki
Jump to navigationJump to search
The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.

Summary

ShadowHunter.JPG
Strength 15 +1.65
Agility 18 +1.45
Intelligence 19 +1.75
Primary: Agility
Se'ra

Dread Shaman is a support with high attack damage scaling potential.

The Dread Shaman is very versatile with high utility and two snares, though he lacks reliable spell damage. Dread Shaman has average stat gains with no clear emphasis. His ability to hit multiple targets compensates for his low weapon enhancement scaling.


Base Damage: 29-35 (Low)

Damage Per Weapon Improvement: +6-9 (Below Average)

Attack Speed: Above Average

Attack Range: 600

Armor: 8


Skills

Ancestrial Fury [Active/Passive Self Buff]

UpgradeMoonGlaive.JPG

Hotkey: Q
?

Innate Mana cost 120 Cooldown time 0s Range 0

Passive: All attacks bounce and hit 2 additional targets without penalty.

Active: 20% movespeed/attackspeed buff, and adds additional effects to all skills.

This skill makes the dread shaman strong at DPS. His base damage is poor, but any bonus damage and attack speed is effectively multiplied by 3 (though on average the gain is closer to 2x).

Spell buffs:

Mass Regeneration: Adds armor for 15 seconds.

Expunge: Also scatters life.

Voodoo Doll:

Cleansing Totem: Provides mana in an AoE.

Fire Totem: Stuns on explode.

Earthbind: Adds damage to nearby melee-based allies.

Skyfury: Attacks nearby foes.

Spiritwatcher: Turns hero invisible.


Mass Regeneration [AoE Heal]

Regenerate.JPG

Hotkey: W
Conjuration

Applies a buff to all allies in a target area which heals them over time.

Mass Regeneration is a powerful ability and is one of the few area of effect heals in EotA. It is valuable for pushing in addition to healing yourself and allied heroes. Note that the healing time and efficiency increase as it is leveled up, while the healing per second stays roughly the same. Mass Regeneration is useful as a pre-emptive buff due to its long duration and low cooldown. However, it is not suited to quickly healing an ally that is about to be killed.


Voodoo Doll [Damaging Debuff]

SpiritLink.JPG

Hotkey: E
Necromancy

Summons a ward linked to targeted enemy hero; damage dealt to the ward is translated to the target hero.

The Doll's health scales with the Shaman's Intelligence, its summon duration with his Strength, and his Agility increases the damage transfer by 1% for every point.

Debuffs fade when a doll is killed.


Expunge [Dispel/Disable]

Purge.JPG

Hotkey: R
Abjuration

Interrupts a target enemy's movement; their movement speed returns to them gradually. Additionally, scatters the enemy's mana, which can be picked up by any hero.

Expunge is a strong snare spell which can be carefully combined with an Earthbind totem for a deadly crowd-control chaining effect.


Totemic Mastery [Misc]

HealingWard.JPG

Hotkey: C
Conjuration

Opens a menu of 5 sub-abilities, each of which drops a totem at the position of the Shaman. Totems have various effects, and only one can be dropped at any given time. Totems otherwise last indefinitely.

Totemic Mastery is a highly flexible ability. Be warned that totems are very fragile and can be easily destroyed by enemy heroes in most scenarios.


Fire Nova Totem [AoE Damage]

SearingArrows.JPG

Hotkey: R
Conjuration

Explodes after 5 seconds, dealing damage to enemies in a small radius.

The Fire Nova Totem does a lot of damage in a medium area of effect and scales very well. Mid to lategame, you can run behind to the archer/mage troops and detonate this to make lots of money and nerf the push. To do this, you must stay in range of the spawns for 5 seconds or they will target the totem and ruin it.

However, this totem is practically useless if an enemy hero is present since it is very easy to target and kill the totem before it detonates. The long cooldown prevents it from being an effective main pushing/farming skill against troops. It is useful, but not as much as you might expect.


SpiritWatcher Totem [Invisibility Counter/Sight]

WandOfShadowSight.JPG

Hotkey: A
Conjuration

Provides long sight range and sees invisible stuff.

This totem is great against Infiltrator, Tactician, Nephilum,and other heroes that have intrinsic invisibility powers. Otherwise, the sight range itself is not particularly useful, although it does extend to about 2000 range. It would be more useful if it did not effectively lock down your other totem skills. (placing it in a strategic location would take time and destroys it if another totem is used). This could be a valid option if you plan on taking only 1 rank in totem skill, while maxing other skills.


Cleansing Totem [Dispel]

PriestAdept.JPG

Hotkey: W
Conjuration

Dispels effects every second from friend and foe. Also damages enemy summons.

The Cleansing totem is really good against blazing priest summons, and also strong against foes that have debuffs. For a single relatively low cost, the shaman can negate a number of nasty buffs such as Frailty, Brainfreeze, etc. It can also dispel buffs from enemy troops like Mass Haste and the like.


Earthbind Totem [Mass Slow]

Wand.JPG

Hotkey: E
Conjuration

Slows enemy movement in a large area of effect.

Earthbind totem is your second snare which is typically used to prevent enemy heroes from escaping. The effect lingers for a few seconds after leaving the AoE so keep this in mind. The shaman can use Expunge to catch up to an enemy hero, then drop earthbind for a double-snare. Or vice versa. The totem is strong from escaping also, although skyfury is usually better since it fully disables the enemy briefly. Using skyfury to cyclone then drop Earthbind is the best bet if you have a long ways to run.


Skyfury Totem [Mass Disable]

WandOfCyclone.JPG

Hotkey: T
Conjuration

Cyclones a hostile unit in a decent area of effect every few seconds, thus removing them from combat for a while.

A great escape and pushing totem. It has a long grab range and the cyclone will help your troops focus-fire the enemy and push through to the archers/mages. It can disable a lot of troops, thus saving your troops a lot of damage. It is sometimes usable to trap an enemy hero by surrounding them while cycloned if they are close to a corner or building.


Twist of Fate

[[Image: |64px ]]

Hotkey: T
[[]]

Spawns pink swirly lights in targeted area. Any unit/hero that enters the pink swirly lights is teleported to random location on map for a short time.

AoE and duration of pink swirly lights increases with higher levels. Duration of units teleported away also increases. Note that unless you very quickly move out of the AoE after returning, you WILL be teleported again.


Skill Build

1 Mass Regen

You want to pick up Expunge early for the snare. There is no dire need to have the regen/totem skills maxed as early as possible, unlike most heroes skills.

General Strategy

As you can see, Shaman is all about utility and versatility. His healing is very strong and his two snares can help kill enemy heroes. However, he is lacking in offensive capability.

You can either do a spawn suport or an attack damage based build.

An attack damage build takes advantage of your multi-hit, and reasonably fast base attack speed.

A spawn support build focuses on you mantaining mana to help other heros and your own spawns

Early Game - Your Regen will help you push and negate any nukes that may fly your way, and keep you from needing any healing potions except maybe 1 or 2 for emergency. Look for good opportunities to Expunge any enemy melee heroes that linger too long on the front lines. Your troops and long range attack will punish them for their insolence. Try to save 200 mana for your mana recovery combo at level 15.


Mid Game - Your attack will still be pretty weak, but if no heroes are around you can run behind the tanks and drop a fire nova totem to wipe out mage/archers. Use your ranged attack to bounce around mages/archers if possible without taking excessive damage from enemy ranged heroes. Remember that you can heal and your attacks will bounce unlike theirs. Healing is very important.

Another interesting strategy to do here around level 15 is to start buying critter-creation items from the Goblin shop, and use them to assist with pushing and farming gold. The first available is the Sea Elemental which has 800HP and a decent ranged attack and is very cheap for only 85 gold per critter. After a while, the mighty Sludges become available which has double the HPs and attack capability plus the ability to split into smaller versions when it dies. The concept is that the Shaman can use his AoE heal to keep his critters alive, and thus get a lot more use out of them as opposed to most other heroes that cannot heal non-heroes. (Oracle and Blazing Priest can sort-of use this strategy too)
This is a pretty effective strategy during the midgame as it is extremely difficult to kill a 1600HP player-controlled ranged creep that can heal at 40HP/s with Mass Regen on it. Enemy AoE spells are easily negated with Mass Regen. Each critter can bring quite a bit of firepower to bear for their minimal price tag, thus being much better than using mercenaries or other gold spending sources. As the game progresses, the Shaman can continue to build up an ever increasing horde which pushes and farms very effectively.
The only downside is that it requires a lot more micromanagement skill to implement. However, the shaman is not particularly difficult to use for the most part when pushing so this is not a huge issue. After all, the Shaman tends to spam Mass Regen and autoattack.


Late Game - With a few items, your autoattack is pretty strong. You can wipe out small clusters of troops with fire nova. Your heal is maxed out and lasts for a long time. Use it on your troops whenever possible.

Items and Enhancements

DO NOT get the Orb of Fury!!! It will mess up your attack, such that you are firing blanks from then on! Literally... you will toss absolutely nothing 100% of the time and do no damage.

Do NOT get the Gloves of Crit either. When a crit occurs, it disables your multiattack. This is ok sometimes, but overall it actually decreases your damage.

Once your orb is maxed, there are several other items you can pick up which are less efficient but useful. In no particular order, these are:

  • Sun Talisman - You don't need the HP-regen so much, but the other properties are great: More HPs, attack speed, movespeed, manapool.
  • Dragon Heart - I would not pump this item up until last, but even at base level, the attack damage is beneficial, and the mana regen boost is extremely strong since you cannot really spare an orb or helm slot for a dedicated mana-regen item. 60% mana boost is a LOT. Plus, the dragon summon really helps your weaker early offense.
  • Helm of the Executioner - Heavy attack damage makes this a winner, although it is about 40% less efficient than the orb of battle for this purpose.
  • Zephyr Thing - This is an excellent item, as the attack speed is great to have. Blink is incredibly useful for the Shaman for escape or hero pursuit. Blink + earthbind is massive ownage vs fleeing heroes. Remember, your offense is limited to your autoattack, and this is the best way to actually get kills. Don't upgrade until very late, as it is too expensive just for a quicker cooldown and faster attack.
  • AGI gloves - Not as useful as crit gloves should be, but its still a solid choice. Helps with hero pursuit, adds a bit of damage, and gives a big attack speed boost.
  • Leather Armor - An efficient item with lots of useful abilities. The attack speed is welcome, as is the armor and evasion.

Note: If against a hero lineup that can inflict massive damage in a short period, you may need the sun talisman or another HP buffing item for survival. You can heal most damage, but that doesnt matter if you get 1-shotted by the Infiltrator...