SK nerfed again?

[Darlina]

<p>Is it just me or did SOE once again f*ck up the SK?</p><p>I can't get my DPS higher since RoK, even with new A3s and all that stuff, new Equipment...</p><p>and still my DPS is the same and most of the time even lower as it was during EoF... Anyone else encountered that Problem? It also feels as if my spells don't have the same damage potential and impact as before RoK.... It makes me sick that even Guardians get higher DPS now than me... i have absolutely no benefits of the new 40AA Points and all the other Tanks do... that's just stupid <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" /></p><p>Can someone please advice? I want back to the Top of the Parsers again....</p>

[CHIMPNOODLE.]

<p>Its not class specific, no.</p><p>My DPS went up astronomically with RoK. Between the extra AAs, proc gear, stat increases, +dammage gear....and all the other classes upgrading thier debuffs and buffs etc....the increase has been large actually.</p>

[Darlina]

<p>Any Ideas what i'm doing wrong then?</p><p>Before RoK i went with 2.5k DPS on Raids most of the Time and now i've fallen to 1.3-1.8... I'm just clueless at the moment and really depressed... playing as SK since RoK became a real pain for me... (I got no T8 Raidgear though, just a lot Legendary Stuff from the Instances)</p><p>+Damage Gear... Good Point, i collected so many of it, i had +650 Spell Damage and still no Increase in DPS, it felt like it didn't even affect my Attacks though... </p>

[CHIMPNOODLE.]

<p>Did your raid composition change maybe (lose a debuffer or regular buffer for you...or diff group setup), or possibly not all your compatriots have upgraded all their debuffs etc as well? </p><p>One thing also could be hitting targets that you're doing on the low end of gear still....ex if you were doing 30K+ DPS on EH mobs, you might still take a bit of a drop vs the new ones until everyone is fully upgraded again and all the strat kinks are worked out.</p><p>Also, less multi-mob targets...and more where DPS is getting interrupted (fears, stuns, stifles, jousted etc. etc.). At the end of last expansion, maybe you weren't even jousting anyomore since it was easier to eat the AOEs...things like that. Hard to say.</p><p>Doesn't sound like something you're doing (or not doing) really.</p>

[Beldin_]

<cite>CHIMPNOODLE. wrote:</cite><blockquote>Also, less multi-mob targets...</blockquote>Thats really the biggest problem <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

[Darlina]

<cite>Shalla@Valor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>CHIMPNOODLE. wrote:</cite><blockquote>Also, less multi-mob targets...</blockquote>Thats really the biggest problem <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></blockquote><p>Yeah, that's really dumb, but I'm also lower on DPS in EoF Zones now too not just in RoK Zones, i don't know what to do.... </p><p>Any Advice about Crusader AA? I went with Str 7-7-8-0-1, Sta 4-4-8, Int 4-4-8 (57 spent) and 70 in the SK Tree for all 3 Endskills. The only Thing that changed to the better is my Tanking Capability, I can stand now almost any Encounter, but my Damage Potential suffered greatly</p>

[Beldin_]

<p>If your spells do less damage then you may simply have downgraded your INT ? Personally i have mostly upgrade STR since Rok and INT also went a little down. In EoF in single-target instances like Valdoon my DPS was maybe around 7-800 while it was 12-1300 in AoE Zones Kaladim.</p><p>Last time in CoA i had at least 1300 with assassin and dirge in group, and this time near 30% was autattack, while pre-Rok my autattack was mostly 10-15%.</p><p>Some days ago i was farming faction coins in Maj Dul for my twinks, and there i had 1640 .. i remember pre-Rok that was also something like 12-1300 and misery/circle are still T7 M1/M2.</p><p>I must however say i "feel" much weaker then before <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/136dd33cba83140c7ce38db096d05aed.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /> </p>

[DMIstar]

I have Gained a ton of DPS from this Expansion, So no I have yet to see a nerf on us.What you are probably notice is Other classes did as well make out with DPS gains in the expansion, and with the time given since launch People would have gained quite a bit in your raid. So realy Compareing Pre Rok to now, is nearly impossible without a ton of extra math work. People in your raid prolly progressed farther then others in DPS gains.. And Doesnt necessarily have to be a DPS class, I cleric or healer doing a handful in thier eyes of more dmg will tip the parse a bit on numbers in the comparison... This expansion has the gains of a ton a DPS for SKS, you just have to be dedicated to it, to see it overall. For those doing the "balance" SK, will prolly see a few people start to rise past sks, in dps respect.

[MaCloud1032]

I know that almost all of my stats have takein a big hit sence rok.  Ive lost about 100 int and about 100 in all of my other stats(thats combined) just so i can keep my mit % up.  Sonys item guy needs to relook at the gear and find us some.

[DMIstar]

Yeah in aggreance with you there. RoK is not mit friendly Expansion at all.. Overall Mit was nerfed in comparison to other expansions... Keeping up with the mit Is going to be like pulling teeth =/

[Beldin_]

<p>Yeah, without old T7 items my miti is now at 49,5%. With level 48 i was at a point where my warden in just quested leather had more selfbuffed miti than the SK in off-stance <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/136dd33cba83140c7ce38db096d05aed.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></p><p>On the other hand, my 70 Zerker also has just 49-50% so i think without fableds and miti-jewlery it was not really much more in T7</p>

[Bruener]

<p>RoK imo takes even more balance in where your DPS comes from to acheive good DPS.  Upgrade spells ASAP to help with resists.  The biggest area I found myself shifting is the area of focusing more on melee.  Right now I am parsing around 3k ZW on raids, and have hit as high as 4.5k on single mobs.  My dps is coming about 40% from slashing melee auto attack alone.  The rest are a mix of my spells, CA's, and procs.  Also, the mage group seems to be the optimum group for a SK.  Pick-up all the spell buffs and procs and the melee buffs from the Illu in the group and your DPS increases drastically.</p><p>But overall it is all about balance again.  Balance your stats, keep str and int at about the same level.  Balance your melee buffs, self-buffed I am sitting at around 38% melee crits and 12% DA, and looking to focus even more on that.  I have not worried about mit as much as I have in the past because the mit gear really doesn't seem to be out there.  I have a set for when I am defensive and a set from when I am offensive; however, my offensive set has just about as much mit as my defensive set due to part of it being from T7.</p>

[Grimfort]

<p>@<b>Bruener:  I am assuming your in a PvE server, but I've never been able to get my DPS above 1.5k. Do you have any logs I could peruse to work out how your doing so much dmg? Just trying to get a feel for where I am lacking. What role do you play, what classes/buffs are you given to add up to this high?</b></p>

[rabid.pooh]

<cite>Bruener wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>RoK imo takes even more balance in where your DPS comes from to acheive good DPS.  Upgrade spells ASAP to help with resists.  The biggest area I found myself shifting is the area of focusing more on melee.  Right now I am parsing around 3k ZW on raids, and have hit as high as 4.5k on single mobs.  My dps is coming about 40% from slashing melee auto attack alone.  The rest are a mix of my spells, CA's, and procs.  Also, the mage group seems to be the optimum group for a SK.  Pick-up all the spell buffs and procs and the melee buffs from the Illu in the group and your DPS increases drastically.</p><p>But overall it is all about balance again.  Balance your stats, keep str and int at about the same level.  Balance your melee buffs, self-buffed I am sitting at around 38% melee crits and 12% DA, and looking to focus even more on that.  I have not worried about mit as much as I have in the past because the mit gear really doesn't seem to be out there.  I have a set for when I am defensive and a set from when I am offensive; however, my offensive set has just about as much mit as my defensive set due to part of it being from T7.</p></blockquote><p>Sitting in the mage group SKs will do mad DPS, in that group I parse at min 5 place on the parse.  The problem is once your out of the group your DPS drops insanely.  In that group the SK is getting Illusionary arm (25% DA), and most likely agitate, pretty much any class is going to do well with buffs like that, put the brigand in that group with those buffs and he/she will out parse you and draw less agro doing it.</p><p>The problem is gear, RoK gear for the SK/Pallys suck, the significant gains are all in mele.  Sure there are some pieces that are good but really overall we lack in choices.  650 spell damage on a SK is far less of an advantage as 650 combat art damage on a pure mele class.  That 650 doesn't apply to all your abilities (combat arts and hafl of the spell damage is added to a life tap spells).  God help you if your geared as an off tank as it's that much harder to keep up on the hate list as the gear you have to put on cripples your spell side.</p><p>IMHO this is the expansion where SOE has decided the warriors are the tanks and have designed the gear around that.  Sks are just left to trying to find the table scraps meant for other classes that we can try to piece together a decent spec.  Even our class set if you look at it is a freakin joke, they have no idea what an SK needs (I'll give you a hint SOE it aint a 4 minute reduction on a 15 minute spell).</p>

[Nor]

40 percent from autoattack and CA?  Wow...everytime I've parsed it, I've never gone over 20%...

[Soefje]

<cite>Toesmash@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>IMHO this is the expansion where SOE has decided the warriors are the tanks and have designed the gear around that.  Sks are just left to trying to find the table scraps meant for other classes that we can try to piece together a decent spec.  Even our class set if you look at it is a freakin joke, they have no idea what an SK needs (I'll give you a hint SOE it aint a 4 minute reduction on a 15 minute spell).</p></blockquote><p>I have to agree.  Twice in the past week, I have ended up in a pick up group with a zerker.  In both cases, I was supposed to be main tank.  In both case, I gave up the role to the zerker, because I could not hold the aggro when they were going all out for DPS.  Even when they changed to main tank and I changed to DPS mode, they still out DPS me.  </p><p>Now, I have just hit 80, don't have any Masters yet.  Everything is still Adept 1, while I get may alchy up to make the Adept III.  My gear is the legendary that drops in ROK.  I will never be completely fabled, because I am with a guild that does not raid, and I NEVER, EVER see a call for fighter types in raids.  Since I started the game I have never seen a "Raid forming, LF SK".  </p><p>I have resigned myself that I will be a tank for the pickup group or for guild groups, but will never be top dog on parses and will give way to warriors as main tank.  SOE has made the SK a weak hybrid, not really a mage, not really a fighter.</p><p> Lucky for me there are never enough tanks on for the instance zones.</p>

[Seolta]

<p>Your raid is probably (at least in EoF) killing alot faster than before, maybe switch some spell dmg/spell crit gear for ca dmg/melee crit gear?</p>

[Dracosy]

<cite>Kraace@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Toesmash@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>IMHO this is the expansion where SOE has decided the warriors are the tanks and have designed the gear around that.  Sks are just left to trying to find the table scraps meant for other classes that we can try to piece together a decent spec.  Even our class set if you look at it is a freakin joke, they have no idea what an SK needs (I'll give you a hint SOE it aint a 4 minute reduction on a 15 minute spell).</p></blockquote><p>I have to agree.  Twice in the past week, I have ended up in a pick up group with a zerker.  In both cases, I was supposed to be main tank.  In both case, I gave up the role to the zerker, because I could not hold the aggro when they were going all out for DPS.  Even when they changed to main tank and I changed to DPS mode, they still out DPS me.  </p><p>Now, I have just hit 80, don't have any Masters yet.  Everything is still Adept 1, while I get may alchy up to make the Adept III.  My gear is the legendary that drops in ROK.  I will never be completely fabled, because I am with a guild that does not raid, and I NEVER, EVER see a call for fighter types in raids.  Since I started the game I have never seen a "Raid forming, LF SK".  </p><p>I have resigned myself that I will be a tank for the pickup group or for guild groups, but will never be top dog on parses and will give way to warriors as main tank.  SOE has made the SK a weak hybrid, not really a mage, not really a fighter.</p><p> Lucky for me there are never enough tanks on for the instance zones.</p></blockquote>Ya, since this exspansion came out i can barely tank any of the instance (i've tanked SoF and Unrest with less hassle than the t8 instances)  All my spells are Adept 3 and have Decent RoK gear but unless I have 2 healers in my group I go down to easily and i'm constantly having to win back Agro from practically every class thats in my group.  with the t7 zones never had any probs except for the occasional nuke happy warlock/wiz. Now i gotta worry about Bruisers, Monks, all the rogue class's, caster class and even a few healer class's(frelling Furys)!  Supposedly i hear SOE is working on fixing the SK class, they better hurry tho everyones making Pal's now and lvling them fast, soon SK's will be gone <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[ReficulFonwaps]

<p>I find that a good mix of int/str, +spell damage, + combat art, mellee crit, and double attack gear is getting me the best dps right now. If you make the mistake of just going all out int your dps will suffer as you go into diminishing returns. I actually wear a few mastercrafted pieces for DPS gear on raids now because of the +combat art and spell damage. </p><p>I definitely agree that if trying to suit up in tank gear our DPS really really suffers because of the lack of any sort of SK stats on most RoK gear. The level 78 fable set is a joke for SK's.</p>

[Margen]

<p>I have found agro is a major problem it seems .... All abilities are at adept III with two of my AOE's at master 1 and master 2 and my agro jumps around like a pogo stick.  Plus trying to find gear that balances Str/Sta/Int (don't even try worrying about Agi and Wis anymore), plus HPs and mitigation is a pain to say the least.  My gear is a compination of of KOS fabled, a smatering of EOF jewlery and some legendary items from ROK.  Main weapon is soulfire.</p><p>Before this expansion I did instances with NO problem, I know what our class does and our str and weaknesses.  This expansion has made tanking painful to say the least, Classes like wizards, brigands, monks and rangers seem to steal agro without even thinking about it and even DM has lost it effectivness.  I cast it and get agro back and within 10 seconds its gone again, one problem in trying to use a tier six spell in teir 8.</p><p>I do like bloodleater, it helps on our lack of HPs (although I really really really wish they would make it non debuffable), but our dps has started getting stagnate and our taunts get resisted to many times (yes I have maxed the hate line).  Heck the wraith spell line, we actually go nerfed with the tier 8 adept III doing less damage and costing more power then the tier 7 master (boggle).</p><p>I've know three SK's that have betrayed to pallys and its likely to continoue.  As one guy told me, as soon as he saw the pallys getting holy ground he betrayed.  Easier agro, more hps and better utilitiy (and no I am not betraying).  Giving Paladins more agro control is like giving Bill Gates more money!</p><p>Did madians last night for the first time to get a couple people their weapons.  Me, a defiler, warden, Illy, and two brigands (all 80 and good players).  My agro bounced betwen the two brigands all night no matter what I tried doing.  We made it to the triplets and got stuck, they couldn't keep me up and the agro kept bouncing.  I pulled T with single taunt, aoe tunted when all three where in range and then used my AOE stun, then wisdom debuff, DM and Tap Aretries.  Then I started doing Mist and Str debuff, that compention should lock down aggro and help keep me up, but it didn't.  Very frustrating!!</p><p>Dps classes gear has continoued giving them CA/spell pluses and melee/spell crits.  But finding Plate armor with these to keep up seems to be impossible and the hate proc gear seems to make NO diffrence at all.  Also I am convienced that the 3pct at end of hate line is broken ... seems to make no difference either.</p><p>Won't even go into the raiding issue, my SK rarely raids anymore due to my swashy doing more dps and having better utility (yeah a sk can do good dps, but a true dps can do alot better).</p><p>And yes I know someone will post I never have trouble I am the god of tanking etc..... etc.... but I see too many SK's talking about these issues and my reputation was as a good tank before this expansion to believe I all of sudden started sucking as a player!</p>

[TheSpin]

<p>I may be incorrect on this statement...but sometimes I wonder if too many folks are hanging onto their T7 stuff for too long.</p><p>I rolled a new character and leveled him really fast so he skipped all the T7 stuff and is currently specced in mostly T8 legendray with a few treasured and a few fabled.....I am parsing higher than most folks that spent a lot of time at level 70 and I wonder if it's because I'm not 'hanging onto that shiny piece of fabled I was so proud to get from T7'.</p>

[rabid.pooh]

<cite>TheSpin wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I may be incorrect on this statement...but sometimes I wonder if too many folks are hanging onto their T7 stuff for too long.</p><p>I rolled a new character and leveled him really fast so he skipped all the T7 stuff and is currently specced in mostly T8 legendray with a few treasured and a few fabled.....I am parsing higher than most folks that spent a lot of time at level 70 and I wonder if it's because I'm not 'hanging onto that shiny piece of fabled I was so proud to get from T7'.</p></blockquote><p>Most T8 legendary > T7 Fabled, this is the first expansion that has happened.  Which is kind of sad, as there's no reason to go back and raid T7 content, so the smaller family guilds don't really get to raid.</p><p>I raided Sunday night on My 74 zerker and recieved 8 pieces of T7 fabled from MMIS and EH, no one else wanted any of dropped gear.</p>

[Beldin_]

<cite>TheSpin wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I may be incorrect on this statement...but sometimes I wonder if too many folks are hanging onto their T7 stuff for too long.</p><p>I rolled a new character and leveled him really fast so he skipped all the T7 stuff and is currently specced in mostly T8 legendray with a few treasured and a few fabled.....I am parsing higher than most folks that spent a lot of time at level 70 and I wonder if it's because I'm not 'hanging onto that shiny piece of fabled I was so proud to get from T7'.</p></blockquote>Biggest problem i see is, that we have get used to that we are now single-target melee-dealers, and no longer AoE-casters.

[Nicholai24]

Eh? I can't quite tank 8 or 9 of the trash enemies in CoA, but I can certainly handle 4 or 5, and love AE combat.. Vaults is a cakewalk, I can tank 6 - 8 enemies in there easily. The only place I have issues with handling more than 3 enemies at once would have to be Chelsith. I don't mention Maiden's, because the enemies are so few and far between.And yeah, no problems with aggro., etc.