Bear Shaman: Leveling Build and Feat Review (version 3)

The Bear Shaman is a great healer/melee hybrid class. It is easily the most well rounded class in Age of Conan, with strong offensive and defensive abilities as well as a utility bag of tricks. It is a strong PvP class, especially at endgame. It also has much to offer in groups, providing healing and support.

Since this is a leveling guide, the primary focus is on building sustained offensive power. The faster you kill monsters, the faster you gain experience. A secondary focus is placed on survival and PvP ability. With the release of the PvP experience system, PvP is a bigger priority, so this leveling guide also includes feats that are really helpful in PvP combat.

Changes from the previous leveling guide

1. Removed Untamed Regeneration.  Just a few weeks after the UR nerf and switching to aspect: Blood Fever, I found I never, ever used UR again.  When solo, the damage buff from BF is always the better choice.  When grouped, I turn off BF and use potions if I ever need mana or stamina.
2. Feat Grace of Nature and Rune of Grounding sooner.  Rune of Grounding is occasionally helpful in PvE, but the primary purpose is for PvP now that PvP experience is enabled.
3. Feat Crushed Bones and Organs to improve the Internal Bleed combo.  For PvE and PvP, Internal Bleed is a powerful damage dealer due to the strong DoT component that ignores defenses and equally damages multiple targets.

Table of Contents

1. Feat calculator overview for every 10 levels
2. Level by level progression
3. Analysis and playstyle
4. General Playing Advice
5. Alternative feat choices
6. Feat Information and Review

Feat Calculator Overview for every 10 levels

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• Level 20
• Level 30
• Level 40
• Level 50
• Level 60
• Level 70
• Level 80

Level by Level Feat Progression

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10-14 Blood Warrior
15-19 Empower Renewal
20-23 Improved Spirit of the Bear
24-28 Blood Fever
29 Grace of Nature
30 Manifestation: Rabies
30 Rune of Grounding
31-35 Nature’s Wrath
36-40 Animalistic Fury
40-44 Crushed Bones
45-47 Crushed Organs
48-50 Improved Grizzled Hide
50 Rupture
51-53 Poisoned Hide
54 Ursine Rush
55 Battle Roar
56-58 Ursine Roar
59-60 Weight of the World
60-62 Stone Hide
63-65 Rampage
66-70 Blood Champion
70-71 Deft Renewal (2 points)
72-76 Claws of Life
77-80 Balance of Nature
80 Deft Renewal

Analysis and Playstyle

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Level 20 – Leveling a BS through Tortage is difficult, so don’t worry if you are having a lot of problems.  Until the mid 20’s, the BS is basically a weak melee class because the heals are so underpowered.

Learn to use Empowered Renewal properly.  Once you hit the hotkey for ER, the very next swing gets the damage bonus.  So trigger ER immediately before the last swing of your combo (usually Shrewd Blow or Crush Armor will gain the most benefit).  Properly done, an ER powered combo can sometimes one-shot monsters (and is extremely powerful in PvP).

Don’t forget to use the Internal Bleed combo.  The initial damage is decent, but the primary damage comes from the bleed DoT.  When there are multiple targets, the damage from the combo is spread out, but every target gets the full DoT.  It is also great in PvP when facing tougher opponents.

Level 30 – By level 30, the BS gains a number of core feats and several PvP focused feats.  Blood Fever grants a constant +20% damage buff.  Grace of Nature, Rabies (for damage and stealth popping) and Rune of Grounding can be extremely helpful in PvP encounters.

Level 50 – Boosting the damage of the Internal Bleed combo and DoT helps PvE encounters against groups of mobs go much faster.  This is especially helpful because you will be doing a LOT of grinding when you start running out of quests.  Cannibal Caves is a great grinding spot in the mid 50’s.

General Playing Advice

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• The BS is not a tank, no matter how tough you look. In groups, wait for your tank to establish aggro before jumping in with HoT’s and combos. BS’s have limited crowd control abilities.
• If you get in trouble in groups, remember you can always double-tap back for evade buffs. That’s better than running around, which makes it impossible for your tank to help you.
• Take full advantage of food buffs and potions. I always carry a big stack of food and a ton of stamina and health potions. Potions stack to 50. They are cheap and help immensely to your survival and killing speed.
• For melee combos, only the position of your target when you trigger the last button of the combo matters. After that, it doesn’t matter if the target runs around. In PvP, you can wind up your combo while running around.
• Casting spells does not break combos.  In between combo swings, you have a handful of seconds to do whatever you want before you have to trigger the next hotkey.  You can cast Blood Flow in between swings. This is useful for some of the procs that depend on Blood Flow.  This also means you can cast other abilities like manifestations and roars, as long as you time it properly.
• If you can find a leveling buddy that specializes in AoE attacks, it can significantly help both of you. The ToS and PoM are leveling machines by themselves, but with another healer, it’s even better. The mages are also much better when supported by heals.

Alternative Feat Choices

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• 5/5 Rune of Slaughter – Not useful in solo PvE, but can help in groups when facing epic mobs and in long PvP encounters.

Feat Information and Review

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Spirits

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• Blood Warrior - Adds a damage buff to your primary heal over time (HoT) skill. Casting spells does not break combos, so you can cast Blood Flow in between combo swings.
• Empowered Renewal - 50% damage increase for the hit that triggers renewal. This is arguably the most useful feat and one you should learn to use properly as soon as possible. Use it immediately before the final blow of your combo.
• Improved Spirit of the Bear - Significantly increases your health buff. One of the BS’s weaknesses is a small health pool and this skill is essential.
• Aspect: Blood Fever - 20% damage increase with a 22% reduction in healing power. During solo leveling, the 20% damage increase is a good tradeoff to speed up killing. Turn off the aspect if you need more healing, especially in groups.
• Deft Renewal - Add a 5% evade bonus with 10s (?) duration to your standard group HoT. Grants a small bonus to survivability to your BS and group.  Nice because it’s a passive effect on an ability you are constantly using.  BS already has too many hotkeys to manage.
• Grace of Nature - Removes roots for your entire party. Provides 6 seconds of immunity, with a 40 second cooldown. Good for PvP.  1 second cast.
• Blood Champion – 10s buff that provides 20% damage with a 2 minute cooldown. Blood Champion is an instant cast ‘pre-buff’ (lasts 2 minutes) that gives you the damage buff the next time you cast Blood Flow.  Primarily for PvP burst damage, still a good way to increase your DPS. Consider getting this skill sooner if you play on a PvP server.
• Manifestation of Rabies - 30s short range area damage (40s cooldown). Decent damage when you first get the skill, but it does not scale well with level. It is useful for PvP because it pops people out of stealth.  1 second cast.
• Rune of Grounding - 90% spell immunity for 15s, but snares you. Great against casters. Use Ursine Rush to close the gap.  2 minute cooldown.  1 second cast.
• Manifestation: Regrowth - A small 30s area HoT with a 60s cooldown.  Minor, but stacks with all the other HoTs.  2 second cast.
• Balance of Nature - Moderate (30% to 40%) chance to add a short stamina regen buff to Blood Flow.  Because potions are so useful and cheap, BoN isn’t as useful as it might seem.  But it’s still nice to have in longer encounters and groups.
• Claws of Life - ~90 natural regen (at level 80, scales to level) with a very small proc heal.

Wrath

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• Nature’s Wrath - Very high chance of proc. Adds a secondary heal to your primary HoT.
• Animalistic Fury - Increases your overall DPS.
• Ursine Onslaught - 40% damage increase for  Ursine Brawl combo.  The long cooldown on this combo makes this feat far less useful.
• Crushed Bones + Crushed Organs - Improves the damage for the Internal Bleed combo and DoT.  Makes a great combo even better.
• Improved Grizzled Hide – Adds 3% invulnerabilities and increases the grizzled hide defense bonus by 30%. Very helpful for the relatively squishy BS.
• Poisoned Hide - ~25% of triggering a small poison DoT when hit by melee. Small, but noticeable DPS increase.
• Rupture - Increase damage of one of your primary combos (Crush Armor) by 10% and decreases the cooldown by 1.5s.
• Battle Roar - 3% damage buff, moderate health buff for entire group. 30s duration, 60s cooldown.  1 second cast.
• Ursine Roar - 10s debuff that reduces damage by 15%. 40s cooldown. 1s cast.
• Ursine Rush - A charge. Additional points increase damage (not recommended).
• Weight of the World - Next 3 attacks do +40% damage and -25% movement snare. 12s duration. 2min cooldown. Great in PvE and essential in PvP to increase your burst damage.
• Stone Hide - Provides a 25% reduction in damage. Instant cast, 15s duration, 90s cooldown.
• Rampage - Provides a good damage boost and health regen. Very nice because it is a passive skill that triggers off any attack. BS’s have tons of other hotkeys/skills to worry about and it’s nice to have a good passive skill.