How should I treat Briarthorn? Should I try to max it or Ground Slam first? Which is more powerful?
Max Briarthorn, especially if you plan to go a summoner build. He’s a bone smashing killing machine.
The base ability that summons the monsters should always be maxed out first if you plan to have them do damage imo.
I should’ve mentioned the max points into Swarm / Vines. Maybe I’ll go 50 / 50 with Briar and Slam and then fill it up later.
Thank you for your advice.
Np, I recall the taunt from ground slam being a little bit unreliable but that was awhile ago. I would like to hear if it functions better now if you remember this thread in the future 
Does anyone put points into Ground Slam? Looked at a couple of oldish Conjurer builds in the compendium and neither uses it.
I intend to play my Shaman(Druid?) when the expansion comes anyhow. The opportunity to walk around in glorious Hide armor is simply too big to pass .
i dont put any points to it. Its a dps loss it seems… it needs a lot of points to make a difference in battles and not to mention pet builds are usually point starved so no room for investment. Its probably a redundant low damage aoe too especially if you have already attached a celestial power to the pet
I do.
Taunt is a thing, which is never enough.
How effective is taunt now? , I always seem to discount its potential :undecided:
It would be effective, if not for some heroes, who in the characteristics have a very funny line “500% protection from the taunt.”
In general, this is a good ability to switch the attention of enemies from you to pets.
How would one maximize the Swarm / the Vines? Stars and gear and such.
Also, am I the only one who feels like Swarm is missing a passive? It feels…unfinished tbh. If Vines can have it…
And, just to reiterate, Slam isn’t a big deal, yeah? So, the leveling should go thus:
Swarm -> Vines -> Briarthorn -> Wendigo Totem -> Vines passive -> Primal -> Beastmaster’s Bond
Sounds good?
It should work. Personally I’d go Briarthorn and either Swarm or Vines rather than both. You usually need to max one skill early on, but maxing all 3 means you’re not climbing the mastery tree so are losing out on the benefits that gives you. Your toon will be squishy and also you won’t have enough str/dex/intel to wear the better gear when you find it.
Not sure what you mean about swarm being unfinished? Lowers resistances, converts damage to health, does vitality damage and has a duration on the ability that is useful for proc’ing devotion abilities. Also those lowered resistances apply to two of the other strong abilities within the shaman class. What else would you want that wouldn’t make the ability overpowered?
Well, yeah. It’s just that Swarm + Vines is very effective while leveling. But I need some kind of distraction(hence, Briarthorn). I’ll see what’s the most effective way for this.
As for what I meant by “unfinished Swarm” is that it is so bloated. Usually, skills in GD have such a bloat dispersed via the system of passives(say, Armor reduction on FW on the passive “Rending Force”). The equivalent of Swarm would be if Forcewave came with Bleed, Int.Trauma AND Armor reduction built in. It’s simply one of the most cost effective skills lol(and hence, the most bloated too). It just doesn’t seem elegant to lump all of that in like that(elegant being a word I’d use for a lot, not all, of GD’s systems).