All too common -- SKs being the brunt of the joke.

[Phank]

<p>I think the main problem Developers have in sympathizing with our frustration is the fact that they don't play our class on a regular basis.  Not once have we seen a dev come into our forum and talk to us as a peer.  This has created a rift between us and them.  We all know the favored melee classes (guardian, ranger, assassin, et al.)  When Paladins got Amends we added them to the list of "played by dev" for obvious reasons.</p><p>So here we are today, months into the latest expansion and probably more frustrated than ever.  Our numbers are way down due to lack of positive changes to come our way in recent years combined with the uberization of other fighter classes.  At the end of the day there are way more SK alts today than there are SK mains.</p><p>Now to the point...</p><p>I play my Shadowknight every day.  I have never created an alt, nor do I plan to in the future.  I chose my path when EQ2 launched and I am sticking to it.  What do I get for my experience?  Daily, I am the brunt of jokes.  I am sure we have all heard these in one form or another -- but to be honest I am getting pretty sick of it.  Luckily they come from guildmates who on the inside sympathize with our plight but on the outside love to be a thorn in our side.</p><p>Seeing each and every archetype above me in the parse at one point or another is sick and wrong.  Our Berserker hitting 7k in Kor-sha while I am in the same group, with the same buffs and comparable gear hit about 3k.  The Guardian is at 4k+ every pull.  And the Monk, of course, is above 5k on average.  Our Paladin is part time but when he does login he's above me by about 500 or so.</p><p>The jokes keep on coming...</p><p>"Play a real tank", "Everyone hates SKs", "Be useful and re-roll", "SK Mythical is awesome... NOT!"</p><p>Then try asking some Furys for Lucidity, they will flat out laugh at you.  (They don't realize our returns are much greater than a capped Mage but whatever.)</p><p>I think if a Dev actually played a SK on raid they would quickly realize how useless we can feel.  Not many raid leaders are going to give the SK an OT role over a Warrior.  The SKs that do OT in VP regularly are probably the raid leader or an officer in the guild.  Otherwise our argument falls on deaf ears.</p><p>Heard any good SK jokes lately?  I hear them daily.</p>

[Tiberuis]

<p>Have you heard the one about the SK that replied to raid forming spam in the 70-79 channel, offering to join the raid as MT or OT?  </p><p>The Raid Leader sends back a tell that says "HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"</p><p>Wait a minute...that's not funny.  That's a true story.  On every server in the game.</p>

[Phank]

<p>Here's one from tonight:</p><p>Guardian says, "I must suck if I can't keep aggro from a [Removed for Content]' SK."</p>

[Phank]

<p>More hits:</p><p>"How much did that SK Master cost ya, 5cp?"</p><p>and replies, "If ya can't pick on an SK who can you pick on?"</p>

[Beldin_]

<cite>Phank wrote:</cite><blockquote>We all know the favored melee classes (guardian, <b><span style="font-size: small;">ranger</span></b>, assassin, et al.)  When Paladins got Amends we added them to the list of "played by dev" for obvious reasons.</blockquote>Haha .. that is the best joke ever <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

[Phank]

<cite>Kendara@Valor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Phank wrote:</cite><blockquote>We all know the favored melee classes (guardian, <b><span style="font-size: small;">ranger</span></b>, assassin, et al.)  When Paladins got Amends we added them to the list of "played by dev" for obvious reasons.</blockquote>Haha .. that is the best joke ever <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></blockquote>Sorry but when Ranger gets melee buff last patch and with mythical in hand parses for 9k, that my friend is a favored class.

[seamus]

<cite>Phank wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>More hits:</p><p>"How much did that SK Master cost ya, 5cp?"</p><p>and replies, "If ya can't pick on an SK who can you pick on?"</p></blockquote>What server are you on, on mine minium price for level 70+ masters is 20 plat, most are 30 plat and above.

[Sylvana]

I love SK's, one of my best freinds in the game is an SK and they are so much fun to play with, they've got a big bag of tricks, as a fury i am a good partner, going full out DPS, with every gun going, he can still hold hate, and put down massive DPS at the same time. He has FD which makes for laughs at time and saves [Removed for Content] at other times, they have lifetap, which helps me heal them whilst keeping the DPS up. In a group, i would prefer to have an SK tanking as i have seem them top parses frequently, and the one i know well is only in legendary loot, he holds hate against almost anything short of a DPS button mashing because they want to tank. And FD makes them able to screw up a pull, and repeat. I rarely joke against an SK, i prefer to joke against coercers more than anything, i only joke against my SK because hes a kerra.In a raid, i guess i would prefer a guardian because they are built for the job of tanking against massive damage. But an SK as DPS is fun, and a well specced SK is definitely good on the parses. In a group, hands down, i want an SK over a guardian.

[Beldin_]

<cite>Phank wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kendara@Valor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Phank wrote:</cite><blockquote>We all know the favored melee classes (guardian, <b><span style="font-size: small;">ranger</span></b>, assassin, et al.)  When Paladins got Amends we added them to the list of "played by dev" for obvious reasons.</blockquote>Haha .. that is the best joke ever <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></blockquote>Sorry but when Ranger gets melee buff last patch and with mythical in hand parses for 9k, that my friend is a favored class.</blockquote><p>And then the Swash and Brig parse for 10k while debuffing the crap out of the mob and the assassin parses for 15k.</p><p>No other class has been nerfed as often as rangers, and even the "arrow-fix"  from LU#44 ended in a nerf of all T7 bows.</p><p>Really i could also state then that SK is a favoured class because since EoF they got DM massively upgraded, they have got their manapool based on INT instead of wis, and they got that uber-raidwide +Spelldamage buff *rofl*. The only direct nerf i've seen in the last years to SK was the loss of the STR on our unholy STRENGTH buff *sigh*</p><p>@Sylvana </p><p>About what level are you talking ? In T7 SKs were maybe the best group tanks at least in AoE heavy zones, however in T8 they really begin to loose because of the itemisation (melee/autattack heavy) and the content (no AoE mobs) <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/136dd33cba83140c7ce38db096d05aed.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></p>

[Sylvana]

He is 80 now, hes still fun to play with, the FD is so useful it defies words, he likes to charge into stuff, so if he pulls off too many, and i die, he FD's, rezzes me with feather, we run off into the sunset to kill again.SK's = win in my books.

[Darkc]

<p>I'm not even a dev and posts like this make me roll my eyes and close.  I usually parse 2.5k+ with just a troub in exp zones, yet in a Mythical wielding guild with groupwide CoD / PotM / ... players that I hope know the importance of debuffs you're hitting 3k while everyone else is hitting 6k - 15k.    </p><p> How about we post on some real issues without gross exaggerations (Unless you're allowed to provide raid parses with break downs so we can see how you're netting 3k) ?  The Devs have real data and can call BS pretty quickly.   I understand we need work, but stuff like this only clutters up the forums and makes our true class issues less and less clear.  </p>

[Phank]

<cite>Darkc wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>How about we post on some real issues without gross exaggerations..</p></blockquote><p>As I said in my opening post, the major problem is devs don't play our class.  Period.  If they did, they would understand our issues.  Posting parses, or having other classes chime in that they are in fact worse off wasn't what I had planned for the thread.  In fact, it was for a bit of levitiy.  Seeing as devs are not playing our class, I don't see the real point in being totally serious each and every moment about our situation.</p><p>Trust me, my character is in the top 15 of SKs worldwide.  But posting a bunch of numbers isn't going to make a bit of difference until a designer actually logs some time on a Shadowknight, raiding, to understand the issues.</p><p>On EQ2 flames there was a post asking for which Mythical was most underpowered or broken.  There was only 1 SK reply out of 50.  Is that because our sword is so uber?  HELL NO!  Its' because nobody plays a raiding SK any more.  There are maybe 1 or 2 per server TOPS that have the Mythical.  That pretty much emphasized the state of the class.</p>

[Darkc]

<p>Actually there are devs that play (or played) High End SKs... such has the leader of the now dissolved guild NPU.  That's really a non issue though.  </p><p> You said yourself, your guild Berserker is parsing 6k+?  In a perfect world, SKs and Berserkers are the physical and spell based "Offensive" tanks.  They use CAs to get the job done, we use spells.  Thus the net result should be similar, but achieved in different ways.  </p><p>So how is the Berserker doing 6k?  3k Auto attack?  Is this ZW or just one 15 sec fight where he got lucky crits?  Which CAs or buffs are netting this insane damage.  Do you both have Mythicals?  Similar gear?  You're in the same group, but I'm guessing your Bard is a Dirge... thus you're missing out on Aria (10% base spell mod).  You getting the DPS buff (are you at 115 DPS, 125 Haste?) . Is there an Illusionist in the group too (temp buff to boost your Int by 200)?  </p><p> Stuff like that will get better results.</p>

[HentaiB]

<p>Same group same buffs.  A zerker in the best dps raid zone this tier (Protectors Realm) I blow a blessing for the first 4 named.  I use a oilstone and melee crit potion.  The zerker and I have the same level of gear both have mythical ect.  </p><p>He outprases me zonewide by 1500 with a blessing, oilstone, or melee crit potion.  He would add a k to that if he bothered with the other stuff.  I average 3.5k in that zone, he averages 5k in that zone.</p><p>All they need to do is boost our dps to the same level that zerkers, monks, and bruisers can achieve.  Plenty of ways to do it increase the base damage of all spells by 50%.  Make the epic/fabled switchable with a 2 hander like the godking weapon was.  In it's 2 handed version give it a minimum of 50% increase to damage modifier ect.  Anything to make us up to par with the other tanks for dps.  Don't eve get me started on the disparity between guardians and all other tank classes.</p>