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stahlej

06-10-2008, 03:36 PM

I was one of the first people on my old server before the transfer and my first character was the Shadow Knight I still play today and it is my only character over level 25 or so. My account is 1672 days old and the sad part is that it has only been enjoyable to play a Shadow Knight during 2 periods in EQ2. The fond memories of my Shadow Knight in EQL is the main reason I have so stubbornly kept playing it with the hopes that it would “soon” be addressed, which has never really come to pass. Because the Shadow Knight class was really great in EQL during the period I played that MMO. They were really the masters of what I associated them with… the ability to manage hate. They were so hate focused they even had the ability to increase other classes ability to draw hate, mainly to help Warrior to keep hate… something they weren’t so great on. The Shadow Knight had some tough times in EQL too but the class always had a profound role in my opinion. I am the kind of person who mainly wants to do groups and some occasional soloing. Raiding is fun but I only see the Shadow Knight as an off-tank and damage dealer in those occasions. Mind you that in my examples I have had my skills at Adept III or Master I level and legendary with some fable gear. I have almost always completely run out of power after a few minutes of fighting because I have basically spammed all my attacks and taunts to keep hate The first enjoyable period was during the first year. Going from level 1 to 49 was quite enjoyable. But even during that time one saw that Bezerkers, monks and so had a really large advantage over you in hate control. They had the ability to simply snap the agro from you if they initiated a buff. Grouping was enjoyable if no other fighter were in the group while you were the main tank. Another fun thing was that one could occasionally be granted a group spot as a damage dealer. But when I and everyone else started to hit 50 the group fun blew out the window. Things were actually so bad during the post 50 period and DoF that I threw in the towel. It is no fun to be the tank in a group and see the monster start to turn away from you 3 seconds or into the fight and later Ping-Pong between you and the highest damage dealer and in some cases completely lose control. Even so, I came back for my second period before KoS launched to see how things were turning out. The Shadow Knight got a very much needed boost in their shield bash hate which made grouping more manageable. The KoS period was the most enjoyable period for me. I was able to manage hate on monsters well and it was even possible to have a bunch of single encounters hitting on me without any stress. It was actually so enjoyable that I didn’t care when they stripped our AA damage output from the Intelligence tree to make us deal less damage than the other melee classes. The fun thing was that the 100% critical spell boost made us a competent damage dealing class. But that was taken care off quickly. I didn’t play Echoes of Faydwer much but I remember that hate was working then too much thanks to the fixed and greatly improved Death March. But Shadow Knights ability has really hit a new low during the Rise of Kunark. The tools to maintain hate are near useless. The only saving I see for Shadow Knights is the improved Death March and Tap Arteries. Without them I feel the Shadows Knight would have been pretty useless as a tank. Now after some of my history with the Shadow Knight class I would like share my overall view of the class. As a group tank the Shadow Knight has never been fantastic at managing hate. Most of the time it have been a frustrating role to take. Soloing has never been anything mind-blowing. Being able to solo green and some blue ^^^ monsters before the change. On raids I did some great damage dealing before the Intelligence AA critical was “tweaked” and tanking was never a big hit. Overall, the years playing as a Shadow Knight have been a big letdown. The role I have always imagine for the Shadow Knight and what I wish to see is for the class is to truly be the master of hate management. I find it stupid of how much AA points the class now spends in the Rise of Kunark expansion to boost hate and yet it seemingly has the worst ability to tank and hold hate on encounters. I can’t remember that a focused role for the Shadow Knight ever been stated. But I really did enjoy when it was changed to have lich type abilities instead of being a weak Paladin.The reason I decided to post this is... It really sucks to play this class nowadays <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

Tiberuis

06-10-2008, 04:07 PM

<cite>stahlej wrote:</cite><blockquote>I was one of the first people on my old server before the transfer and my first character was the Shadow Knight I still play today and it is my only character over level 25 or so.My account is 1672 days old and the sad part is that it has only been enjoyable to play a Shadow Knight during 2 periods in EQ2.The fond memories of my Shadow Knight in EQL is the main reason I have so stubbornly kept playing it with the hopes that it would “soon” be addressed, which has never really come to pass.Because the Shadow Knight class was really great in EQL during the period I played that MMO.They were really the masters of what I associated them with… the ability to manage hate. They were so hate focused they even had the ability to increase other classes ability to draw hate, mainly to help Warrior to keep hate… something they weren’t so great on.The Shadow Knight had some tough times in EQL too but the class always had a profound role in my opinion.I am the kind of person who mainly wants to do groups and some occasional soloing. Raiding is fun but I only see the Shadow Knight as an off-tank and damage dealer in those occasions.Mind you that in my examples I have had my skills at Adept III or Master I level and legendary with some fable gear.I have almost always completely run out of power after a few minutes of fighting because I have basically spammed all my attacks and taunts to keep hateThe first enjoyable period was during the first year. Going from level 1 to 49 was quite enjoyable. But even during that time one saw that Bezerkers, monks and so had a really large advantage over you in hate control. They had the ability to simply snap the agro from you if they initiated a buff. Grouping was enjoyable if no other fighter were in the group while you were the main tank.Another fun thing was that one could occasionally be granted a group spot as a damage dealer.But when I and everyone else started to hit 50 the group fun blew out the window.Things were actually so bad during the post 50 period and DoF that I threw in the towel. It is no fun to be the tank in a group and see the monster start to turn away from you 3 seconds or into the fight and later Ping-Pong between you and the highest damage dealer and in some cases completely lose control.Even so, I came back for my second period before KoS launched to see how things were turning out.The Shadow Knight got a very much needed boost in their shield bash hate which made grouping more manageable.The KoS period was the most enjoyable period for me. I was able to manage hate on monsters well and it was even possible to have a bunch of single encounters hitting on me without any stress.It was actually so enjoyable that I didn’t care when they stripped our AA damage output from the Intelligence tree to make us deal less damage than the other melee classes.The fun thing was that the 100% critical spell boost made us a competent damage dealing class. But that was taken care off quickly.I didn’t play Echoes of Faydwer much but I remember that hate was working then too much thanks to the fixed and greatly improved Death March.But Shadow Knights ability has really hit a new low during the Rise of Kunark. The tools to maintain hate are near useless. The only saving I see for Shadow Knights is the improved Death March and Tap Arteries. Without them I feel the Shadows Knight would have been pretty useless as a tank.Now after some of my history with the Shadow Knight class I would like share my overall view of the class.As a group tank the Shadow Knight has never been fantastic at managing hate. Most of the time it have been a frustrating role to take.Soloing has never been anything mind-blowing. Being able to solo green and some blue ^^^ monsters before the change.On raids I did some great damage dealing before the Intelligence AA critical was “tweaked” and tanking was never a big hit.Overall, the years playing as a Shadow Knight have been a big letdown.The role I have always imagine for the Shadow Knight and what I wish to see is for the class is to truly be the master of hate management.I find it stupid of how much AA points the class now spends in the Rise of Kunark expansion to boost hate and yet it seemingly has the worst ability to tank and hold hate on encounters.I can’t remember that a focused role for the Shadow Knight ever been stated. But I really did enjoy when it was changed to have lich type abilities instead of being a weak Paladin.The reason I decided to post this is... It really sucks to play this class nowadays <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></blockquote>Hello...? SOE? Anybody home? Anyone listening?Apparently not.

Shirodan

06-10-2008, 05:02 PM

Unfortunately, these cries fall on deaf ears.

Giral

06-10-2008, 07:05 PM

hehe levels 1-50 befor dof, very very rare to see an sk, and rarer to see one tanking, but a rare few made it work even with truely broken skill lines, DOF and agro was horrible, it took alot of time/effort/gear/spell increases to be able to work extremely hard, and non-stop thru every encounter to be able to decently hold agro and get it back KOS sk's started having agro issue's again ., some sk's were timing DM at the end of fights (befor it was tweaked) and Pestilent touch(befor it was nerfed) to hold decent agro on multiple encounters , but still it was all a ton of hard work to keep agro Deathmarch tweaked, and Sk's saw a tiny light at the end of the tunnel thru the rest of KOS and into EOF Midway-end of Eof deathmarch was starting to wear thin, and not as effective as it was, could still control agro but it was starting to get back to working very hard again ROK agro is as bad as it was in DOF , but no work around now, playing to 100% perfection you will still have agro issue's , using every trick in the book you will still lose agro,have it ping pong and most cases you wont get it back, Rescue/DT/DM will help hear and there but what do you do for the other 50 Pulls in the zone ? survivability in rok is /sadDps in rok is /sad itemization in rok for Sk's is /Sad 2hand damge in rok is /sad but meh what has been stated " Aerilick" nothing drastic planed BUT for the Long term there could be some nice changes /WINK' <----- in my own opinion this means we will see changes to things like mechanics or caps on warrior dps ,etc,,,, and maybe a Minor increase to one or 2 of the sk's spells ,,,,, we realy need a bunch of minor tweaks to our tuants,dots,skills,aa's+itemization to put Sk's on equal footing with the other Plate tanks in agro control,dps,survivability!

Rylight

06-11-2008, 02:22 AM

I've been exclusivily playing an sk since day 1 of this game, and I totally feel the OP's pain. I do remember leveling from lvl 1-50, and now that I think of it, it was a blast. let me be the first to say that I'm totally a main tank and soloer, (raid once in a blue moon), and back then MT'ing didnt seem so impossible. I'll never forget tanking thru The temple of Cazic Thule, or relearning my class after GU#13, those were good times. But now that I think of it, even then I usually didnt like other fighters in the group, cause that would usually make me off-tank by default. I dont remember DoF being so bad, but after that it did just get stupid when it came to aggro (espically EoF). in fact, once resist became insanely high, and brigands not only had as much hp as me, but could tank better then me, the game just got ridiculous.I must admit I never bought RoK, and honestly it sounds like I made a good decision. I honestly dont see the SHADOW, in shadow knight anymore, I mean we really dont have any purpose anymore! what happened to the fear, the hatred, the darkness!!! Sure our pet looks alot better then the blob or white canary they first gave us at the beggining of the game (actually I kinda miss my little blob of poo) and our horse finally got changed to a prideful stallion from a brown packmule (cant believe they didnt think that one over the first time around), but we just are not fearsome anymore.anybody remember when you first clicked on your deathmarch and you did this unholy floating gesture?? I admit the movement alone was time consuming, but it did make us look unholy. but anyways, yeah our aggro abilities are sad, and to even be a MT you have to use 80% of your power per every fight, which is just ridiculous.

Beldin_

06-11-2008, 09:51 AM

<cite>stahlej wrote:</cite><blockquote>But Shadow Knights ability has really hit a new low during the Rise of Kunark. The tools to maintain hate are near useless. The only saving I see for Shadow Knights is the improved Death March and Tap Arteries. Without them I feel the Shadows Knight would have been pretty useless as a tank.</blockquote>Yeah, but Tap is also nearly useless when it only hits one mob, in KoS Tap was mostly around 12% of my zonewide damage, and i healed for the same amount than druids. In CoA Tap is 1-2% and every druid heals for 4-6 times more.

jagermonsta

06-11-2008, 10:38 AM

I've had my SK for a couple years now. Did most all content I could get my hands on (10-70 my XP was off leveling solely off quests and disco). I never saw a problem 10-70 with my DPS, Aggro Control or Survive ability. It's as soon as I started tanking RoK instances I started noticing issues, mostly with aggro control. Lately I'm forced to build my own groups so I can get a hate transfer class in the party that way I can tank properly. Without hate transfer, any dps class with their epic can pull aggro clean from me. Now it's not impossible for me to hold aggro with out hate transfer help but it's a pain in the rear. There's never a moment I can relax and when I lose aggro due to a single resist people have the nerve to tell me to taunt. That's very nerve racking to me.Keep in mind my hate spells and hate AA choices...Hateful Slam (Master 1) w/ 5/5 Enhance: Hateful Slam AA (+hate)Innoruuk's Caress (Master 1) w/ 5/5 Enhance: Dark Caress AA (+hate)Chastisement (Master 1) w/ 5/5 Enhance: Chastisment AA (+disease debuff)Insinuate (Master 2) w/ 5/5 Enhance: Insinuate (-resitibility)Stance: Fiendish Circle (Master 1)Goading Gesture (Scaled to lvl 80) (Increases your hate level with the target, with a chance at double the amount of hate increase)Siphon Hate AAI also start off pulls with my Life Pact (Master 1) w/ 5/5 Enchance Life Pact (+health) for some heal aggro...You would think with all these tools and enhancements for the tools my class should be pretty "hated"...Can I tank T8 instances fine? Yes... I don't have a problem doing them. The problem I have is the strain and stress I put on myself to do so when I don't have a hate transfer class in my group. It makes the game not fun to play and becomes more of a job. I don't want to be stressed out playing a video game.None the less I rolled a Guardian last weekend and I'm enjoying it thus far.

Aull

06-11-2008, 10:49 AM

Just my opinion here but I feel that sk's should be the kings of hate. No questions asked. Aggro should be the least of an sk's problems.

Tiberuis

06-11-2008, 01:23 PM

<cite>Ranadin@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>None the less I rolled a Guardian last weekend and I'm enjoying it thus far.</blockquote>Why would you roll a Guardian, and relegate your SK to ALT status? There is more to being a Plate Tank in this game than higher mitigation, higher avoidance, higher hit points, higher aggro, better MT/OT raid utility and much higher DPS, you know.The SK is a much better choice in ROK for...ummm...hmmm...well....let's see...ummm...OK, fine. Enjoy your new Guardian!

stahlej

06-11-2008, 01:38 PM

The Shadow Knight class has never had a real focused role in EQ2. From day one it was a bleak Paladin imitation. It got a major play style revamp, but the role for the class was never defined. Even if the Shadow Knight is thought of to be a class which is focused around gaining hate, the execution of how it is done simply don't work in the actual game environment. A whole AA branch is dedicated to hate and yet it feels as if the points spent there have no effect in an actual group. Siphon Hate should be the ultimate ability to gain hate in an encounter but the actual effect of that ability is near null. A simple quick fix would be able to cure most of the headaches and stress. By adding something like a hate gain bonus on the defensive stance it would probably make things more endurable until a real review of the class is done and executed upon. Just the issue with having another fighting class in your group and see them peel away hate on the encounter is a profound issue which has been around since day one and is now worse than ever. This should be more than enough of an issue to see that something is wrong not only on with hate management but also as a damage dealing issue. But the Shadow Knight issues have been around for many years now and have never been truly addressed and it is not as if they will do anything soon to fix it. It took a real long time for Death March and Shield Bash to get adjusted and even more things going for the Shadow Knight have been toned down greatly during that time. I'm currently trying my Shadow Knight with the ongoing free campaign and it feels just as frustrating to play my character now as it did when RoK came out several months ago. Nothing has been adjusted during that time and it's not like to change. There is simply no way I will spend any more money on EQ2 until I see a update which fixes the flaws which have been around for a too long time now.

ATLDawgy

06-11-2008, 02:11 PM

<cite>Tiberuis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Ranadin@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>None the less I rolled a Guardian last weekend and I'm enjoying it thus far.</blockquote>Why would you roll a Guardian, and relegate your SK to ALT status? There is more to being a Plate Tank in this game than higher mitigation, higher avoidance, higher hit points, higher aggro, better MT/OT raid utility and much higher DPS, you know.The SK is a much better choice in ROK for...ummm...hmmm...well....let's see...ummm...OK, fine. Enjoy your new Guardian!</blockquote>LOL, awesome. I must confess that I have put my 80 SK on the bench as well and rolled a Guardian. So far so good.