Shaman (primal strike), spirit or cunning ?

[Erei]

So, I wanted to try Shaman, thinking it would some kind of melee berserker. But then I found primal strike, and if I equip a 2h hammer, I can play Thor. Which is cool.
However I have to admit it's rather confusing. It's a melee attack (cunning) which does lots of electrical damage (spirit ?).

Should I go cunning or spirit ? Will cunning increase the electrical damage (since it's still a melee attack) or not ? Or is it some kind of gimped hybrid between spell and attack ?
Should I go spirit and perhaps arcanist to maximise the eletrical damage, but then I may have issues with the offensive ability ?


On a side note, better tooltips would be appreciated, "scale with player damage bonus" is obvious and not really helpful.

[Percello]

Any melee attack the shaman has, relies on cunning and spirit. It all depends on what you want to do more of: Physical damage or elemental damage. Also, Thor uses a 1h hammer :P

[Erei]

Thx for the info, that was what I expected, I just wanted to be sure.

Originally posted by Joshavm87:

Also, Thor uses a 1h hammer :P

Well, he tends to use his 2 hands, and doesn't have a shield/secondary, so it's a 1h used as 2h, I'd say !

[Ricky Sauce]

I'm running spirit on my 2h shaman build but I mostly rely on lightning damage. :p

[Istvan]

I think you may be misunderstanding how Cunning and Spirit affect damage. It has nothing to do with range or whether a weapon is used and everything to do with damage types. Cunning improves physical, bleed, pierce, and internal trauma damage, regardless of source. Spirit improves everything else, also regardless of source. Also, Offensive Ability is required to make all of your attacks hit and crit, even obvious spells like Panetti's Replicating Missile, so that's valuable for every character. If you aren't getting much from Cunning, look for OA on gear and skills.

Regarding your side note, "scales with player damage bonuses" is typically found on skills that otherwise appear to be pets, but aren't actually treated as pets by the game. Hellhounds, for example, scale with pet bonuses and completely disregard the player's bonuses. Your own % fire damage won't make it do more damage, but anything on gear or skills that specifies that it improves a pet's % damage will. Wind Devils, conversely, do not scale with pet bonuses, but do scale with player bonuses. % pet damage won't improve your Wind Devils, but your own % lightning damage will. That's why the WInd Devil skill says that it scales with player damage bonuses.

To directly address your question, if you're looking to improve the lightning damage of Primal Strike, you should increase your Spirit. If you're looking to improve the physical damage or the bleed damage it gets from a modifier, you should improve your Cunning.

[Tatanka]

Theres no reason to not upgrade cunning. No matter what you play as, lots of cunning, lots of crits, you will always deal more damage, even if you are a caster.
Other then RP purposes sure take spirit, but you will never get as high dps with all points spent in cunning.

[Erei]

Originally posted by Van Gent:

Theres no reason to not upgrade cunning. No matter what you play as, lots of cunning, lots of crits, you will always deal more damage, even if you are a caster.
Other then RP purposes sure take spirit, but you will never get as high dps with all points spent in cunning.

That's my issue. With a ranged "mage", it's easier to "skip" physique and go cunning/spirit. But with a melee character, you are going to take more hit, so you'll need physique. Both for HP and better armor. Which means less cunning and less spirit.
Not to mention that I guess most magic oriented armor are lighter than melee ones. So far, it's been true, and if they stayed true to most games and TQ, then it will hold true to the end.

So, won't I ends up as either a gimped mage, or a squishy melee ? I don't know if anyone went with the primal strike path with a character, but I'm curious about that.

[Tatanka]

Make it a warder, all attribute skills in cunning, use soldier skills if only for military conditioning 50 mastery points. Youll have tons of hp, can wear the heaviest of armors and do a ton of crit damage.
Dont need spirit at all.

[Radiium]

I actualy up a shaman with 2h hammer and full lightning skills and clearly your are squishy but deadly xD !!! The DPS with Primal Strike + Tornado + Totem + add of skill = over9000 ^^

[YontEvnKnow]

No reason to not just get your Offenseive Ability/physical/elemental score up from gear, enough into cunning/spirit for your requirements, and then the rest into phys so you can equip armor. Both ways would work though, and going heavy into spirit/cunning would deal more damage obviously.

[Kotli]

For damage physical/peirce/bleed/internal trauma = cunning everything else = spirit.
Note theres gear and secondary effects for all attributes.