What niche does the shaman fill?

[Shadowscale]

Based off the title, I was curious outside the handbook if anyone would be able to describe what the shaman class does best and what it brings to the table compared to other classes. Wanted to play one, but I can't even describe to myself what they're all about.

[Malroth]

They combine a Witches crowd control and debuffs with a Druids wilderness utility and healing. Basicly their job in combat is to make the enemy incapable of harming the party and can also heal any incendental damage they failed to prevent or solve any animal or plant based puzzles they find along the way.

[avr]

A shaman's job is to greatly confuse any observers as to what sort of caster they are. They get a little bit of a lot of different lists (counting spirit magic & maybe arcane enlightenment & a favored class bonus for some races) & can just about choose what spells are on their combined list. If you want to play something hovering between arcane and divine this is the class for you.

[Secret Wizard]

Nobody here has mentioned how goddamned brutal a Shaman is when evoking, so I'll say it:

A Shaman is goddamned brutal at evoking.

Basically, a Shaman is a Cleric with less conjuration/enchantment, and more transmutation/evocation.

[Shadowscale]

Nobody here has mentioned how goddamned brutal a Shaman is when evoking, so I'll say it:

A Shaman is goddamned brutal at evoking.

Basically, a Shaman is a Cleric with less conjuration/enchantment, and more transmutation/evocation.

Can they rock the spellbladish primary melee combatant who enhances themselves with magic archetype?

[Secret Wizard]

As much as a Cleric can. They both have Divine Power, Bless, Aid, attribute boosters...

Of course, there's stuff the Cleric has that the Shaman doesn't and viceversa.

Clerics have shield proficiency and stuff like Divine Favor, Enlarge Person, Righteous Might or Angelic Aspect.

Shaman have False Life (and Greater False Life), Barkskin, Stoneskin...

Of course, if you go Human, you can use your FCB to poach spells from the Cleric spell list.

I'd personally use the Speaker for the Past archetype for melee Shaman with the Battle Spirit.

I like Speaker for the Past because it has many good revelations for melee combat like Blood of Heroes, Sacred Council, Time Flicker, Time Hop, Temporal Celerity, Speed or Slow Time...

[NamelessNPC]

A human or half orc shaman with the skilled racial trait can choose the possessed shaman archetype and rock an awesome 8 skills plus int modifier, 3 of those replacing the original ability with wisdom. If you choose the lore or ancestor spirit, all intelligence skills use wisdom instead.

So, the divine full caster skillmonkey niche.