My Bear Shaman is reborn! Leveling builds to 50 and lots of feat advice.

UPDATE 6/14/08 Finished the revised leveling build guide.

UPDATE 6/12/08 – Today’s patch apparently reduced the regeneration rate from Untamed Regeneration by ~40% and increased the vulnerability from 10% to 15%. It’s still a good skill, but the increased vulnerabilities means that Bears should always be ready to cancel this aspect. For leveling, the 20% damage increase from Aspect: Blood Fever is now a more attractive option, especially at lower levels when the regeneration from UR is less impressive. I’m currently working on revising this guide, especially with some updated feat information from the official forums and my own experiences.

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Now that I hit level 50 on my Priest of Mitra, I started researching ahead and found that quest content is lacking from around level 55 or so. People are grinding more than half of their levels from that point. I HATE grinding, so I’m going to roll other characters and do more PvP until Funcom adds more higher level content.

My Bear Shaman is reborn on a PvP server! Much, much better experience so far. She’s level 21 now and I’m proud to say that she has died only ONCE! That was to a ganker who killed me while I was locked in conversation with a quest NPC (Pokey, I’m coming after you!). After dying a dozen times (or more) on my first time through Tortage, this time I knew exactly what the BS was capable of and it was a trouble free experience.

Once again, I’m utterly surprised at the lack of PvP on the Hyperborea RP-PvP server. My guild is actually forcing our members to abstain from initiating combat unless we get attacked first (threat of being kicked from the guild). Many of the larger guilds are trying to enforce some order and it seems to be working. There are always a few ruthless guilds and players who will gank and grief, but I haven’t run into many yet.

Leveling Build

I am only level 21, but I did a lot of research and talked to many people, so I have a good idea how many of the BS feats and abilities work. Everyone agrees that getting Empowered Renewal and Untamed Regeneration as soon as possible is important. After that, it largely depends on your own preferences. There is no general consensus on whether the Wrath or Spirits tree is better for leveling. Most everyone agrees that the general Priest tree is not necessary.

1. 5/5 Blood Warrior – Adds a damage buff to your primary heal over time (HoT) skill.
2. 5/5 Empowered Renewal – 50% damage increase for the hit that triggers renewal. Use it immediately before the final blow of your first combo.
3. 5/5 Nature’s Wrath – Very high chance of proc. Adds a secondary heal to your primary HoT.
4. 5/5 Ursine Onslaught – 40% damage increase for the Ursine Brawl combo.
5. 3/3 Aspect – Untamed Regeneration – Considered a core skill. Significantly increases all-the-time regeneration for health, mana and stamina. It scales with level and you eventually reach a point where you will never run out of stamina in combat. Traveling also becomes much easier because you can sprint much longer.
6. 5/5 Improved Spirit of the Bear – Significantly increases your health buff.

Feat build at level 35

At this point, go either Spirits or Wrath.

Spirits build post level 35

1. 1/1 Grace of Nature – Removes roots for your entire party. Provides 6 seconds of immunity, with a 40 second cooldown. Great for PvP servers, otherwise get Deft Renewal first.
2. 3/3 Deft Renewal – Adds a 5% evade bonus to your standard group HoT.
3. 1/1 Ether Theft – Low damage combo that steals mana from all targets hit and gives it to your group. It scales with level (~45 mana for mid-30’s. ~130 mana for level 60). Not essential, but good for PvP and a nice group perk. The other option is to get 1/5 Blood Champion instead.
4. 1/1 Manifestation of Rabies – 30s short range area damage (40s cooldown). Good for extra damage against groups and great for PvP because it pops people out of stealth.
5. 1/1 Rune of Grounding – 90% spell immunity for 15s, but snares you. Great against casters.
6. 3/5 Blood Champion – Damage bonus. Reported works similar to Empowered Renewal.
7. 3/3 Improved Manifestation Rabies – 50% damage increase for your Rabies skill.
8. 5/5 Blood Champion
9. 5/5 Balance of Nature – Very nice group skill. Good chance of proc’ing a short term stamina regen (96 stamina/tick at level 60).
10. At this point, you can either keep climbing the Spirits tree or pick up skills from Wrath. 1 point in Ursine Rush for the charge is a good idea. Weight of the World can be invaluable for PvP.

Feat build at level 53

Wrath build post level 35

Update: Stone Hide seems to be working incorrectly and provides a -25 reduction, instead of a -25% resist. This makes this skill and Poisoned Hide as well far less desirable. In addition, someone has been testing Animalistic Fury. It seems to increase your base attacks more than expected. It may be a good option, instead of the two Hide feats and the 2 points in Crushed Bones.

1. 2/5 Crushed Bones – More damage from the initial hit of your Internal Bleed combos. Filler.
2. 3/3 Improved Grizzled Hide – Adds 30% to your defense and 3% to invulnerabilities.
3. 2/3 Poisoned Hide – ~25% chance of applying a poison DoT. Prerequisite for Stone Hide.
4. 1/1 Rupture – Increase damage of one of your primary combos (Crush Armor) by 10% and decreases the cooldown by 1.5s.
5. 1/1 Battle Roar – 3% damage buff, moderate health buff for entire group. 30s duration, 60s cooldown.
6. 3/3 Ursine Roar – 10s debuff that reduces damage by 15%. 60s cooldown. Instant cast.
7. 1/3 Ursine Rush – A charge. Additional points increase DoT damage (not recommended).
8. 3/3 Poisoned Hide
9. 3/3 Stone Hide – 25% damage resist for 15s. Moderate cooldown (Maybe 90s)
10. 2/2 Weight of the World – Next 3 attacks do +40% damage and -25% movement snare. 2min cooldown.
11. At this point, you can keep climbing the Wrath tree or switch to Spirits.

Feat build at level 52

There is more high level feat information every day, so I will add to the leveling builds as I get more solid recommendations.

Topless! Puppies!

A bit of funny. For some reason, my level 20 medium chest armor is bugged and is invisible to me and everyone else. Funny to see people stopping to take a good long look before continuing on their way.

I guess the clickthrough to the full 1920×1080 screenshot is NSFW (if your workplace is full of really prudish, sensitive people who find small digital breasts offensive).

UPDATE I’ve been playing my Bear Shaman topless for 7 levels now. Every piece of medium chest armor I get is bugged. I don’t see many other topless women around, so I wonder what’s going on. Unfortunately, I’ve been noticing that her puppies look fake. From the front, it looks okay, but from the side…and it has no bounce! (heh)