Im back!!! old veteran wants to know whats going on?(discussion)

[Rylight]

<p>(this is simply a discussion, not a flame) I'm an old EQ1 and EQ2, veteran. I have played this game since day 1 as strictly an sk, and quit some time after EOF, but before ROK.  I play my main on the Nagafen pvp server, but had my old main on Antoina Bayle server (both iksar sk's) The 3 reasons why I quit playing EQ2 was 1) I had to focus more on college 2) pvp was just getting stupid, it was nothing but raids ganking ppl. and btw I pvp mostly alone, in fact I was the top sk in kills and ranking for about 2 or 3 months straight (had the general title), but it was really hard to find a good 1 on 1 heart pumping battle, it was nothing but exiles in 24 ppl raids kicking ppl off the floating islands the second your cloud landed in KOS. and 3) back in that time resist were just insane, mitigation was seemingly worthless, and melee power was pretty much nerfed, I couldnt land a hit on a wizard at all (not to mention that one nuke from a wizard plus a god ability would wipe me out in less then 5 seconds). </p><p> HOWEVER,  playing an sk has always been a blast, I love the idea of the sk and the abilities it can execute, however, for some time since desert of flame, It became more clear to me that sk's have to do a hell of a lot of work just to even be seen as desirable.  And even though people continously flamed the sk,  I was the one who usually tried to give out advice on how to play the sk correctly in the forums. </p><p>let me say (at least before ROK) sk's are definitly great soloers, and they can Main tank well, though it takes alot of effort and stratedgy. as for raiding, well I've been MT on a few raids, but not really any high end ones, so I cant really put my 2 cents into that. Anyways, back in the EOF days I had lots of groups who would ask me to MT for them, however I began to notice that it got harder for me, whereas it stayed about the same for Guardians and Zerkers. It was also getting embarrassing to have the brigand in the group not only steal aggro, but MT better then me, even when fully buffed (and we all know brigands can pretty much steal aggro when they please)</p><p>BUT TO THE POINT. I have my free month and I got all the latest patches for the game downloading right now, but I have to ask, what am I in for????  I have been reading the forums since I quit the game, and all I hear is horrible things that have been done to the sk.  Have they really nerfed our despoiling mist line?? are our spells and abilities really not scaling properly the more we lvl??? I must admit I noticed that after DOF our abilities were seemingly weaker, and I questioned if they were not getting scaled properly, but now I hear that there are hardly any group encounters in RoK, which is sad because we are aoe tanks. back in the day I could dps as much as or even more then a necro, and even sometimes a brigand when I was in a large group encounter, now I hear are dps is far worse then it ever was.</p><p>SO ALL IN ALL, whats going on here? and should I expect any progress on my first visit back to norrath? I am deeply concerned.</p>

[Soefje]

In my opinion, <ol><li>You can still solo.  Getting to 80 in ROK with the quest lines is not hard.  Just do all the quest in the zones an leveling will come.  </li><li>Grouping is fine for the most parts, but gets harder as you get higher.  I find that pickup groups are very tough, b/c there is usually another toon with better gear (for his class) and holding aggro becomes more work.  Not that I can't, just harder.  </li><li>You will also find that things hit a lot harder in ROK than any other zone.  I seem to die more frequently as I got higher and went into tougher instances.  Was very embarrassing to die in Maiden's b/c the 2 healers weren't keeping me up, only to have the bruiser finish the tanking for the mob, and he never got close to dying.  I still have not been able to tank all the way to the bottom of Sebilis with a pick up group, without dying 10 times.</li><li>Once I hit 80, it became harder to find groups.  Seems to me like the volume of people on my server is decrease significantly.  I have gone many night with LFG tag and spamming the 70-80 chat and not getting an invite or seeing a looking for tank call.  I had one group tell me they wanted a guardian for a tank, b/c the SK would slow them down.  They did not want to wait for aggro management and for health after each fight.</li><li>I  don't PVP, but I suspect that you won't do as well as before.  Other classes seemed to have had their spells scaled up more than the SK.  My nephew plays a bruiser and a wizzy and both have 1 or 2 shotted mid 70s green - blue mobs.  I can't remember the last time I 1-shoted a mob.  My nephew's Ice Comet has hit for 15-16K on several occasions, and he is not the top mage by any means.  My guess is that if the brawler, scout or mages stuns and roots hold, you will be in trouble.</li><li>I don't raid, but the general concensus is that raiding in T8 is not good for SK.  Given that several severs don't have the SK Mythical discovered should tell you something.  I do find it telling that I have never ever seen a guild hosting a raid put out a call for a fighter, it is always healers or scouts (most often bards).</li></ol>So, bottom line, depends on what you want. Solo and grouping will probalby be fine.  PvP and raiding are something I can't truly speak to. Many SK have left the game (myself included) because of class issues and boredom with the end game materials.  Welcome back,  I hope you find what you are looking for.

[Giral]

<p>welcome back Rylight , we have chewed alot of the same dirt in the sk forums over the years. </p><p>Sk forums are just the same as when you left, we are ignored,we waste time posting the issue's with the class but the only dev/mod responses we get are to tell us how to post constructively.</p><p>Despoiling mist was Ninja nerfed, but it was passed off as a mistake and they reverted it , not that its great in rok for anything but a few raid fights and avatars . but in PVP it should be more usefull then in PVE </p><p>you wont be SOLOing Any herioc zones/names  in ROK even when your level 80 in Raid gear,adorns, fully masterd </p><p>Sk's are around the 12th place in SOLO ability in rok</p><p>Sk's are last of plate tanks for Groups in ROk, other tanks are just easier to keep alive,do More DPS(except pallies, but well played pallies can do almost as much dps as SK's)  and they all can keep /get agro back easier (think about the state Sk's were in from release till DOF , and thats exactly where sk's are right now, mediocre at everything even when well played/skilled/geared) </p><p>anyway </p><p>only way to realy feel the issue's is to Play, get to 80, and come back and post your feelings about the Sk in ROK . </p>

[rabid.pooh]

<cite>Giralus wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Despoiling mist was Ninja nerfed, but it was passed off as a mistake and they reverted it , not that its great in rok for anything but a few raid fights and avatars . but in PVP it should be more usefull then in PVE </p></blockquote><p>Lol it was a bug not a ninja nerf, and it was fixed, the poster who found the issue just called it a nerf, and of course no dev ever posted to counter that assumption.</p><p>Same O' Same O' Rylight, I've pretty much given up on EQ2 buuuuut, I was on 3 month payments and have a month and a half left on the account  <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.</p><p>The biggest thing is itemization, for SKs it just isn't working from dropped gear all the way up to our epics, (in T8, anything under T8 SKs are just fine).</p><p>The 40 extra AAs for each tree really unbalanced the tanks as the warriors could really take full advantage of their AA tree, and now a guard will pretty much kill you on the parse (if he knows what he's doing, and you know what your doing).</p>

[Tiberuis]

<p>Welcome back!</p><p>What's going on in ROK with the SK?</p><p>Amoungst the four ROK plate tank classes, the SK class is :</p><p>Last in Mitigation, Last in Hit Points, Last in Avoidance, Last in Aggro control, and Second Last (yes, Guardians do way more DPS than an SK in ROK) in DPS.</p><p>Enjoy! </p>

[rabid.pooh]

<cite>Tiberuis wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Welcome back!</p><p>What's going on in ROK with the SK?</p><p>Amoungst the four ROK plate tank classes, the SK class is :</p><p>Last in Mitigation, Last in Hit Points, Last in Avoidance, Last in Aggro control, and Second Last (yes, Guardians do way more DPS than an SK in ROK) in DPS.</p><p>Enjoy! </p></blockquote><p>We are first in complaining right now tho <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" width="15" height="15" /></p><p>*edit spelling*  Last in spelling too :p</p>