How do raid guilds use SK?

[Lig]

<p>The title pretty much says it all. I'd like to know... if you had your choice of all classes and were building a raid, where and why would you choose a SK and how would you use that SK in the raid? Why would you choose a SK over a pally for example? If you're going to have 2 MT you can't just keep putting plate tanks in the raid, you need DPS. Pally can help heal and tank.</p><p>No flames please. I'm not trying to start anything I just want to know what raiding guilds do. Serious raiding guilds please. Clearing labs = nothing. Clearing DT or freethinkers = raiding guild.</p><p> Thanks in advance for your advice.</p>

[HentaiB]

Different guilds do it differently.  But personally I would consider myself 3rd tank.  I am there for mobs which require a 3rd tank, and to dps.  I do well at dps and normally serve up my Death March in the scout group.  I have done everything from be the main tank for raids down to sitting for another DPS class to raid.  I enjoy this class, and dont think it needs changing. 

[Lig]

That doesn't really answer my question very well. What if you have 2 main tanks already and have a spot for 1 crusader. why would you choose a SK over a pally? Ok so deathmarch is a good point. That works best in the scout group. What other advantages do you have?

[ArmadaXeenelk]

If your main tank is a Paladin you can use the SK as an amends target and drop your deathmarch for anti stun/root etc properties(and excellent hate gain). its also nice with all the ae dmg we get for helping the MT maintain aggro :shrug: just a thought. All tanks can Intercede, but I like SK's ability to heal themselves WHILE maintaining their DPS role (lifetaps). and as amends target there is no reason not to taunt(great for reaver) and also grant of armament(although not so much post soft cap LU) I wish they had a preview button so I can see this post before I post... i'll edit if I think of something else

[HentaiB]

Am I taking it that your question would be more along the lines of.  What kind of tank should I roll if I want to raid?  Paladin and SKs do different jobs.  If they are a little short of healing on a raid they will take the Paladin.  Good on healing they would normally take the SK.  SKs can be MT's there are several really good guilds that use a SK as there MT.  Personally we just can't mitgate like a Guardian.  They are the king of the MT group, and it should stay that way.  2 - 3 SKs and Paladins in a raid is fine, but 2 Guardians in a raid is just plain silly and a waste.  One per guild he gets the best tank stuff is the norm, but everyone does it different.  I doubt I have managed to answer any questions here just ramble on.  Sorry about that. And also Death March works great in a caster group as well.  It has become a class defining skill since the buff it got some time ago.  Make a macro to let everyone know to cut loose.  Learn or talk to your MT in vent to let him know its coming.  Cut a deal with a druid to keep you alive if you pull agro casting it.  If you are the MT then SPAM that thing like there is no tomorrow.

[Arthik]

My guild usually uses me as aggro control. If there's one thing SKs have, it's good snap aggro. With Death March, we basically have an AE Rescue on a 3 minute (or 2 minute 35 seconds) timer, as well as a 15 minute high damage Rescue (Harm Touch) and, of course, Rescue. If a mob gets away from the MT, I use Death March, bring the mob back and tank it until the MT can re-establish aggro. Or, if some casters get too overzealous, I just FD them.

[Norrsken]

<cite>Ligur wrote:</cite><blockquote>That doesn't really answer my question very well. What if you have 2 main tanks already and have a spot for 1 crusader. why would you choose a SK over a pally? Ok so deathmarch is a good point. That works best in the scout group. What other advantages do you have?</blockquote><p> Death march works well in any dps group. Casting timer reductions as well as a dps buff. The only problem with it in a caster dps group is that your mt will all of a sudden have to work a bit harder to keep aggro off them. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p> Death march is also very useful for sks being second tank. They rip off adds like its nobodys buisness. </p>

[CHIMPNOODLE.]

<p>Our guild, as well as a raid alliance we are part of usually use SKs as MT or second tank.</p><p>Some of the main SK raid uses are...</p><p>-huge aggro boosts early in fights if MT (Deathmarch) so everyone can unload early</p><p>-Early immunity to *all* effects Deathmarch, ton of uses depending on raid makeups</p><p>-mitigation sypher, for very high MT dps with no minimal Miti loss...and high aggro Ctrl</p><p>-group hate sypher....very interesting pull uses, if short particular classes or tricky spots.</p><p>-2 excellent debuffs (encounter wide Mit and Disease, long duration on Miti) that depending on your raid makeup are very nice, 2 minor debuffs (STR/WIS), 1 encounter debuff (beneficaial efects) bit of additional healing (proc buff, ward), self healing (taps) makes it easier on the healers, group knockdown stuns etc.. (excellent on heroic 'seconds' attached to Epic encounters).</p><p>-top snap aggro that does not require targetting (and with a 50 meter range) for second tank /MT quick pickups.</p><p>-incredible survivability on multi-groups (Tap Veins, Despoil adding 333mit/per mob in encounter, DA)...great for Gnillaw, Gnorbl, trio named, named with adds/guards etc..</p><p>-battle leadership if support role, and fairly high DPS</p><p>-High disease resists, nice against a few encounters..Othysis, Treyloth</p><p>-Hate over time, and dammage over time, deathmarch, Harmtouch, rescue, hate syphon, FD, lots of AoE (also with Dots),......make SKs excellent for memwiping/mem-blur mobs as well...like Vyemm, Tarinax..Gorenaire. Also useful on power drainers (+mana drain and possible 2 cast use of Deathmarch on extended fights), +100% hate/dammage proc on taking hits etc.</p><p>-excellent for dammage shield/riposte mobs like Corso, Vilucidae etc. since primarily spell based dammage and taunts, and proc hate dammage on hit.</p><p>Etc...</p><p>Lot of benefits to having an SKs around. Most of the top guilds seem to have at least 1 regular SK on their rosters now.</p>

[Lig]

<p>Thank you all for your suggestions and advice.</p><p>Chimp, your post was great. I understand the inner workings of a SK a lot better now.</p><p>I'm not rolling a class to raid, I have a raiding healer. Just trying to learn a bit more about each class in the game and how they are best utilized.</p><p> In essence I see that SK vs Pally is a tank, healer vs tank, agro control in the 2nd tank group kind of thing. I wish you would elaborate on those etc Chimp and they would sticky your post <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />. </p><p>Make a post saying "How to play a raiding SK". Include critical AA's for both lines, strats and what the role is in different sittuations. A sort of SK raiders guild. That would be awesome. Sticky that sucker. Heck I wish someone would do that for every single class.</p><p> Once again thank you all for you responses.</p>

[Tyrani]

There was a post started about how to maximize your effectiveness as an SK...but it fell off the radar rather quickly. I'll have to see if I can dig up a link so we can get more contributions to it.

[CHIMPNOODLE.]

Ligur wrote: <blockquote><p>In essence I see that SK vs Pally is a tank, healer vs tank, agro control in the 2nd tank group kind of thing. I wish you would elaborate on those etc Chimp and they would sticky your post <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />. </p><p>Make a post saying "How to play a raiding SK". Include critical AA's for both lines, strats and what the role is in different sittuations. A sort of SK raiders guild. That would be awesome. Sticky that sucker. Heck I wish someone would do that for every single class.</p></blockquote><p>Well, I know what works for me anyway. I never really had interest in testing the DPS or middle ground either...I built mine to tank from day 1. Others like Pentarum would get more into the DPS side in raids I'm sure. </p><p>I wouldn't really want to get into comparisons with SK vs Pally, I'm sure there are some fine points I don't know about them. I get the impression they sell themselves short a lot though (much like some Sks<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> ).</p><p>I could go over how we use SKs in certain situations if asked I guess though, and how my AAs are setup (but probably better to wait until after LU32 though..bound to be some serious respc'ing going on). Lots of debate on "critical" AA lines though. I know my setup is atypical, but given some free'd up points soon we'll see.</p>

[Druisagoldengod]

Thats it.... No really. Stop posting how good SK's are.  We will be getting hit by that dern bat again otherwise =) . SK's suck. Amondus Do`Barratus 70 Shadow Knight Ghosts of War Permafrost

[Listat666]

Generally Sk's can be used on raids for a few things. The one main purpose for me anyways is is being a buff bot. Death March and Despoil are very awesome spells and do alot in a raid platform. and 2nd is tanking, assuming u have the miti/avoidance to do a good job. Now us SK's have always gotten the shaft in this area to some degree, but do not fear all you young sk's. This obstacle can be overcome with lotsa raiding and slowly gearing up.

[Sportak]

<p>I'm having a raiding issue that I could use help with.</p><p>Previously I was tanking for our raid alliance, and was doing fine, but the raid leader (a zerker) was getting bored being MA/dps and wanted to tank so we started sharing with me MA, but now we have a guardian who is tanking, with the zerker MA, so I'm in a pretty much dedicated DPS role now.</p><p>That's fine, I have pretty much 2 sets of gear, tanking (where I can break 5000 mit self buffed again finally without potions or temporary buffs) and dps, where my INT is 664 (crappy STR tho) and I have nice weapons for each. The actual role of DPS I'm having trouble getting used to. I've only done it on a few labs runs, and I'm in the top 7 usually, but stories I hear of SKs breaking 2 or even 3k seem like daydreams. Sure on certain individual fights I can do 1.5k or over if it's short, or multiple targets, but raid-wide I'm always hovering round 700-800.</p><p> My AAs are right down the STR line, with 8 in the haste skill, and down INT for spell crits, with the rest in STA just for the stamina.</p><p> I out-dps most of the other fighters except the zerker (crazy zerker dps ftl) and usually close with our monk. Any advice?</p>

[Norrsken]

<cite>Sportakus wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I'm having a raiding issue that I could use help with.</p><p>Previously I was tanking for our raid alliance, and was doing fine, but the raid leader (a zerker) was getting bored being MA/dps and wanted to tank so we started sharing with me MA, but now we have a guardian who is tanking, with the zerker MA, so I'm in a pretty much dedicated DPS role now.</p><p>That's fine, I have pretty much 2 sets of gear, tanking (where I can break 5000 mit self buffed again finally without potions or temporary buffs) and dps, where my INT is 664 (crappy STR tho) and I have nice weapons for each. The actual role of DPS I'm having trouble getting used to. I've only done it on a few labs runs, and I'm in the top 7 usually, but stories I hear of SKs breaking 2 or even 3k seem like daydreams. Sure on certain individual fights I can do 1.5k or over if it's short, or multiple targets, but raid-wide I'm always hovering round 700-800.</p><p> My AAs are right down the STR line, with 8 in the haste skill, and down INT for spell crits, with the rest in STA just for the stamina.</p><p> I out-dps most of the other fighters except the zerker (crazy zerker dps ftl) and usually close with our monk. Any advice?</p></blockquote>Do you have any gear that procs damage on spells? That kind of gear helps the sk dps a bit.

[Sportak]

<p>Only the slight damage increases you get from relic chest and legs. My armour is pretty much all fabled except for gloves, and I have a few jewelry items I'd consider "keepers" and until now any adornments I've got have been +14 whatever stat, +power, or +crush/slash/pierce on my shield. I only need a handful of masters (got a stupidly cheap M1 Pox Sword) but in doing so I pretty much cleaned myself out cash wise, so any funky adornments might be a little far off until I can get the transmuted ingredients.</p><p> I realise I'm no scout/mage, and I assume I'm doing something right by beating the other fighters. I cast the damage shield on the tank pretty much every time it's up which in theory takes up time I could be doing damage, but even so I'm starting to think talk of 2-3k dps is on a really short fight with 3 or 4 mobs, can anyone fill me in on a realistic zonewide parse (labs would be a nice example since that's where we go most to gear up since we can clear it). I should point out our raid alliance isn't hardcore, and we all came into it new so not everyone has top end gear, and we're still learing the KoS zones mainly through trial and error.</p>

[Arthik]

I've never hit 2k; I've hit 1.8k but that's very rare. I'm usually in the 1k-1.4k area. Most of it is group buffs, but having items like the Mystical Orb of the Invoker and the Bone Clasped Girdle help quite a bit, as well as having a 2 hander that hits slower, but harder (real nice with DPS modding buffs).