Reverse: 1999 Guide | Shamane

Shamane is a beast unit that can support both mental and reality DPS. By fanning his marinated smell from the coat—he probably never washes—he can cause enemies great distress and lower their mental and reality defense. At high Portray, he can also serve as a main DPS, with his ultimate hitting like a truck. 

Shamane Kit Overview

One key part of Shamane’s kit is a stacking buff called Nature’s Blessing. Whenever he casts an ultimate, he will consume up to five Nature's Blessings and convert them to Moxies. If you have five Nature’s Blessings ready, he will have his ultimate back immediately for the next turn.

There are a few ways to get the stacks. Shamane’s insight 1 gives two stacks of Nature's Blessing at the beginning of the fight, and his insight 3 gives him one stack of Nature's Blessing every other turn. You can also gain additional Nature's Blessings through his skill 1 if it's rank 2 or higher. 

Nature's Blessing is the reason Shaman is considered one of the best bursting DPS in shorter fights, as he can quickly burst down the target with up to triple ultimate back-to-back. In his portraits, his first skill is a single target attack that does very good damage at rank 1. 

But what's more important about the skill is what I have mentioned; rank two and above will give him an additional Nature’s Blessing stack. You will always be looking to fuse the skill to rank 2 when possible, as long as you're not going to cause overflow in Moxies. 

His other skill, Spirit Medium, is an AOE debuff. It applies a 15% reduction to both mental and reality defense along with a 10% increase in damage taken, which goes up to 30% at rank 3. This skill is especially good for mental DPS as we do not have good mental support like Bkornblume, which has easily accessible defense reduction built-in. 

This also synergizes very well with himself. With two defense reductions and damage taken up, he can fully activate the other effect of his insight 1, which provides an 8% damage bonus for each status down enemy has up to 24%. His ultimate is an AOE skill. The base damage is rather mediocre, as it only deals 250% damage compared to Jessica, which does 350% damage.

The ultimate, Edict of Atman, has two parts. It deals 500% damage instead of 250% to the main target. The Damage dealt to the main target will also benefit from an additional 20% crit chance, with any crit chance exceeding 100% converted to crit damage. At P0, it’s impossible to actually reach that 100% without the help of the Tooth Fairy. But the good thing is Shaman is able to use his ultimate back-to-back thanks to Nature's Blessing. 

Portrays

At P0, he is a perfectly fun debuff machine with a strong low-turn burst, thanks to the double ultimate.  You will be, for the most part, looking to use his debuff skill every other turn to keep the debuff active on the enemy team. You can get his double ultimate around turn four. 

His P1 let him have five Nature’s Blessings instead of two at the beginning of the combat. At this point, you can now go for triple Shamane ultimate in around three turns, depending on how many rank 2 skill 1 you were able to use. And, of course, you will need to use additional Shaman skills for Moxies after the second ultimate. 

His P2 gives him 40% more crit rate on the main target of his ultimate. Shaman has low base crit, and with Tooth Fairy, this 40% effectively turns into critical damage for him, which is around a 15% to 30% increase, depending on your build. 

P3 is useless, but P4 and P5 greatly increase his damage. They both focus on his ultimate damage, and when he reaches full P5, his damage is competitive against other DPS despite having only one damage skill.

Build

When it comes to Psychube, The Carat of a Heart is actually weaker than Brave New World or Luxurious Leisure at the lower portrait. Even at the higher portrait, it will still need to be Amplified to be competitive. And in my opinion, it's not really worth the investment unless you have him at minimum P2. 

For the resonate, you can either use crit or attack. They have very little difference in terms of damage output, but you will have more consistent results with crit if you're running Tooth Fairy and you’re at P2 and above.

How does Shamane do in the meta? 

Shamane will take care of Mental teams and Beast teams but will lose out to non-Beast reality teams, at least at lower portrayal. For 4-man teams, he's actually just hands down one of the best supports to have, paired with 6; Shamane can play the debuffs while 6 provides Buffs. At higher portrait, it's always good to use both tooth fairy for additional critical damage to his ultimate.

Also, check our Reverse: 1999 review and other guides below:

• Reverse: 1999 Guide | Mercuria
• Reverse: 1999 Guide | Kakania
• Reverse: 1999 Guide | Lucy
• Reverse: 1999 Guide | Windsong
• Reverse: 1999 Guide | Isolde
• Reverse: 1999 Guide | Charlie
• Reverse: 1999 Guide | Jessica
• Reverse: 1999 Guide | Kaalaa Baunaa