Solo advice seem to suck at first?

[littlegobl]

I just started a new SK, I have no expansions until RoK comes out so i have no AA. I am lv 9 and so far I am horrible at solo using a 2 hander. Is sword and board by far better for solo since so far all my procs aren't weapon based =( If so what level do 2 handers vastly outdamage 1 hand and shield(taking procs into consideration)? How should I level this SK quickly? Thanks

[Kaldrin]

I died quite a bit at first until I figured out how to self heal and use my buffs properly... since then I can pretty much take on an even heroic and win, but I've also twinked my SK a bit in the early teens. And I always use the sword and board. The extra protection just makes it worth while... since most damage comes from spells anyway.

[Athri]

Come your early teens it gets a lot easier as you get access to a lot more lifetaps, most especially your reactive blessing. At that point you can outlast some impressive foes. Also, I've never really used a 2-hander as only a small portion of my damage comes from autoattack. I'd rather have the extra protection that a shield provides unless I'm farming trivial monsters.

[Beldin_]

<p>Life gets really much better with 12 when you get blessing .. and with 14 when you can choose it at master 2. </p><p>In the lower levels most fighter classes really suck because the still have a lot of low-level spells that are totally underpowered with 10+.</p>

[sirmorte]

<p>Ok, listen up. Shadow Knights are one of the better soloers in the game. Maybe we are not the top soloer, caugh necro, conjurer cough),but we are darn good. However, you won't see our abilities shine until you are about level 25+ and probably around level 30 .  In addition, you need to know a few more things:</p><p>1. AAs are your friends: Always do quests, look for new locations etc. AAs for shadow knights create lots of extra procs,which give more damage and healing, and can significantly heal yourself. For example, In the Reaver line, you can add healing to fetid strike, you can significantly increase your healing from your blessing line,which is our top healing spell. You can increase healing with life tap, not to mention Reaver itself. You can even add a healing component to harm touch,which comes in very handy when you need it. I can't overstate the importance of geting AAs. </p><p>Put your first 16 AA points into Intelligence. This will substantially increase your procs. SK loves procs.  Secondly, put the next 25 points or so into the Reaver line. After that, you might want to put points into the strength line found in the crusader choices.</p><p> 2. Every 5 or 10 levels get the best armor and weapons you can get. This is critical. In addition, legs, shield, chest armor and weapons can have procs. Only get these 4 items if there is a good proc on it, if you can find it. Also get adornment for your weapons. They had additional  benefits such as healing or damage. </p><p> 3. Always use a shield: Forget what is said about using two handed weapons. Use a shield. It gives a lot of good defense, much better armor, allows you to bash for additional damage, and the better shields have procs on them Get a shield with a proc. </p><p>4. Be an alchemist: Alchemists make our combat spells. Always use at least apprentice IV for your spells. For combat spells that heal or increase hate, try to have your alchemist make Adept III. You will be amazed at your increased DPS. I constantly have people amazed at how strong I am as a fighter. Sadly, I didn't know this and became a woodworker because I had a Ranger alt who was an alchemist. This does work but takes a lot of time for both characters to level their trade skills.</p><p> 5. Use totems. One problem with most fighters is that we don't get those nice special utility spells that mages and necros get such as: underwater breathing, invisibility, faster mana regen, faster hp regen ( although we do get fast hp regen in a combat art) and SOW. The good news is that Totems can give you all of these things. They are really useful and should be used a lot. They are also fairly inexpensive. Since I am a woodworker, I usually give my clerics and mages power regen totems. People love me for it. </p><p>6. Buy long lasting, good food and drink. Food regens hp and drink regens power. Good food and drink allows you to regen after a fight much quicker, which shortens your wait time for the next kill. </p><p> 7. As you can see, SK need a LOT of money for weapons, armor, combat arts, totems and shields. I highly advise you to become familiar with the auction house. Sell your wares as an alchemist to the AH for money. Sell your better items that you will find such as rare ingredients in the AH and keep tabs on your prices. If something isn't selling, lower the price.Always check to see what your competition is selling an item for. Only sell rare items or Adept III or better items to the Auction House UNLESS there is no apprentice 4 of that items for sale. </p><p>8. Even though we are very decent at soloing, I strongly advise you to group as much as possible. This not only increases your experience faster, but will enable you to go to dungeons and take on Herioic mobs. This will give you more AA exp for killing named mobs, and loc exp and better quest exp.</p><p>9. Learn to be a good tank:  As odd as this may sound, this takes practice. This means keeping one mob on target for everyone to attack. Learning to taunt, being willing to have mediocre DPS in groups at the cost of taunting, and not having an ego when there is another main tank. Be willing to assist whenever needed. This also means taking care of your cleric. If your cleric dies in a group, you will probably die! Taking care of your cleric is mandatory.</p><p>I should also note that this means ALWAYS buff your clerics. We do get some damage mitigation buffs that can be used on a group member. Always buff your cleric. Don't wait for them to ask you, or even worse, not know enough to ask.</p><p> Hope this helps you.</p><p> Sirmorte, Level 53, Shadow Knight, Level 53 Woodworker</p><p>Vextrushot, level 53 alchemist</p><p>Permafrost server</p><p>House of Rising Phoenix Guild.</p>

[Thumatos]

<p>All good advice.   I'll add 1 more item.  Blue.  When you get your reactives, Blues are your friend, Especially linked blues.  Blues are a smaller amount of xp per kill  but you can kill them far faster.  Leave the " i killed the Heroic Super mob solo" to the wizzy's and necros ) </p><p>the xp gain for them isnt very great,  and the time it takes to kill them  you could have killed far more linked blue mobs and got better xp.  If you MUST kill heroics solo,  Go green.    I was just soloing in SH at 22,  killing 18-19 heroics and living.   </p><p>BTW   at 18 or  19 there is a cleaver,  1 hand slash with an 18 damage rating,  ( a pristine imbued only has 19.6 at 22 ) that is cheap and goes well with a shield.  </p>

[Kaishod]

<p>Alot of good advice here... just to add:</p><p>You start getting AA at lvl 10.  You can even try to run through high level areas for disco aa, especially since alot of the discovery points are right off of landing zones and mob free(for the most part)</p><p>Collections are another way to get your xp up.  As well, are quests and writs.  Find all of your writs to be in the sanme area/same mob.  Think Eq2i has some good info on it.  Some good quests at your level are in Commonlands(CL).  Go to the tower in the far south east corner, talk to the npc, and get to killing orc.</p><p>Until you become comfortable with your SK, use a sword and board. In time you will find your limits and know when you can drop the mitigation and move to a 2h during a fight.  The use of macro'ing equipment is good here.  Make a macro using hitting the "o" button.  Click macros, click command, scroll down to equip item, add, add 1hander item, click equip item, add, add shield, all in one macro, drag macro icon to a hotkey and you're good to go.  you can drop a 2h into a hotkey for quick equip usage instead of making a macro.</p><p>I totally agree with Thumatos: Blue is good.  Green is good.  You will find that you will be able to kill several greens/blues/whites, just as fast as it takes you to kill ONE yellow.  More mob=more xp=more loot=more better <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  Of course, once you get a group, killing is just easier over all... find out how many mob you can hold(relative to your group and your armor) SKs thrive off of multiple mobs and do our best damage with multiple encounters.</p><p>If the lower levels just seem to slow for you, get someone to mentor you and do some mass killings.  Just make sure you dont get leveled so fast you don't learn the class...   </p>

[dimebagda]

<p>I am hearing a lot about sword and shield is the way to go and I thrust that is true as you all have more xp then I do but with a 2hander in my teens I maul everything so fast  Icant see how the extra defense is needed.</p><p>Or is it just a case of the 2hander's DPS is a small increase and thus not worth the loss of what a sheild has to offer?</p><p> Thanks from a new SK.</p>

[sirmorte]

<p> What I have found is that although a 2 hander gives better stats and does a bit more damage than a one handed weapon, it isn't that much more when you consider that you can get bash with your shield and do damage. If the shield has a good proc and adornment,which are the shields that you should own, you can do about as much damage as a 2 handed weapon while having SIGNIFICANTLY more defense.</p><p> Remember, shadow knights are NOT about the DPS.We are about defense and tanking and taunting. I amsuree that other shadow knights will differ from the advice that I have given you;however, it is my recommendation that you stick with one handed weapons and shield ( with a proc) and use shield bash a lot.</p>

[dimebagda]

<p>ok, thanks. I understand SK's are not about DPS as we are tanks and as a MMO vet I am well aware of the problems it causes when a tankign class or healer or whatever thinks they are DPS when they are not. I am just looking at it from a grinding stand point right now and that means more damage is better.</p><p>Thanks again.</p>

[Dead Knight]

<cite>dimebagda wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>ok, thanks. I understand SK's are not about DPS as we are tanks and as a MMO vet I am well aware of the problems it causes when a tankign class or healer or whatever thinks they are DPS when they are not. I am just looking at it from a grinding stand point right now and that means more damage is better.</p><p>Thanks again.</p></blockquote>In this MMO, you ARE DPS. Don't think any less. When you aren't tanking, you put out as much DPS as possible to be useful. When you are tanking, you put out as much DPS as possible to hold aggro.

[Kaldrin]

<cite>Dead Knight wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>dimebagda wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>ok, thanks. I understand SK's are not about DPS as we are tanks and as a MMO vet I am well aware of the problems it causes when a tankign class or healer or whatever thinks they are DPS when they are not. I am just looking at it from a grinding stand point right now and that means more damage is better.</p><p>Thanks again.</p></blockquote>In this MMO, you ARE DPS. Don't think any less. When you aren't tanking, you put out as much DPS as possible to be useful. When you are tanking, you put out as much DPS as possible to hold aggro.</blockquote>I think you missed the part where he said he was soloing... tanking doesn't matter when soloing. I personally prefer lifetaps in the reaving line. The extra bit of damage you'll get from the crits in the low levels isn't going to make as much of a difference as the self-healing while damaging the foes. But that's just me.

[Mychel]

<cite>Kaldrin@Befallen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think you missed the part where he said he was soloing... tanking doesn't matter when soloing. I personally prefer lifetaps in the reaving line. The extra bit of damage you'll get from the crits in the low levels isn't going to make as much of a difference as the self-healing while damaging the foes. But that's just me. </blockquote>I have to agree, I went reaver completely at first and got all my heals and reactives up to speed then focused on my Crusader tree, below 25 I didn't miss the spell crit increase at all and I was able to MT for my Group in Heroic zones 4-5 levels above me using my Reaver line and having a good healer.

[graticus]

<p>I haven't heard anyone mention tainted sacrament yet. This is what I use 99% of the time pulling when I'm soloing. When mob approaches, sheld bash, dot, tap, and repeat. </p><p>The limited pet is a wonderful help to SK's. </p>

[BlackPhoenix9]

In early levels use sword and shield, in order to solo with 2h you need to know to play the sk class well and have some experience playing the class. So just keep the 1h and shield for some time and when you find yourself some good equip and think you can manage yourself try the 2h again.

[StaticLex]

I am still rockin' the 2-hander on my SK, recently finished the Shiny Brass Halbard HQ so it is a beating.  <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

[Grimfort]

I much prefered the 2 handed as well, I could never find a decent enough 1 handed with a slow swing rating. Most were 1.6 seconds delay, which aint that useful. 2 handed halbard was my first love, then moved onto the bloodbath from unrest later as my second love, followed lastly by the SoD two handed which I loooove. Avg 1.5k dmg per swing (haste increase boosts this), have over 4k out of it fairly often, even managed an 11k somehow.

[Tinvarwen]

<div>I'm only 18, but so far so good.</div><div>I was going to start out 4-4-8, but after putting 1 point into the focus ability and 1 into INT I decided to switch and focus on the Reaver line instead.  Right now I have 5 in Unholy Wep, 5 in Infernal Blessing (love this one) and 1 in Grim Coil even though I wont have the spell for another 5 levels it'll be nice to have it maxed out for when I do get it.  I also want to get 20 points invested ASAP to pick up Reaving.  After that i'll switch back over to INT since I wont be seeing any of the higher tier spells in that tree for some time.</div><div>Right now I feel pretty strong.  I went into Wailing Caves last night (solo) for the first time and at lv 16 I was able to clear all the way down to a pair of lv 15 ^^ Heroics which just fell short of killing.  Didn't bother trying the named guy as he was surrounded by groups of 4-5 lv 15 ^ guys and he was lv 16 ^^ Heroic himself.  I'm pretty sure I could wreck the place if I went back now.</div><div>Anywho, I want to love 2 handers, but I recently found a very nice shield and 1h cheap on the broker so its what i've been using and I suspect that'll be how things go for a long time; whatever the best weapon I have is the one i'll be using regardless if its 1h or 2h.  Though the shield does go a long way for AoE grinding blues.  I'm a alchemist so I have all my good spells and arts at Adept III which is also a big help.  This is my first char so i'm not a twink at all, but I already have 56g just from selling rare mats that I can't use on the AH along with the odd equipment or tome, I got a LoN booster pack last night that I see sells for 4-5 plat, not sure what i'll do with it though.</div>