What do Shadow Knights bring to a raid ? [Archive]

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Sirlutt

08-16-2005, 07:23 PM

<DIV> <DIV> <DIV>What buffs/skills does your class bring to a raid ? How do you get used in a raid ?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I'm compiling a list on eq2raiders.com for each class on what skills/buffs they bring to a raid to make it easier for raid leaders to pick their groups based on the mobs they are facing. I'd really like your input. Give me some details on how raid leaders should best utilise your class in a raid. What skills do you have and what do they do to your group/raid/MT ?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Thanks.</DIV></DIV></DIV>

Vak Mallek

08-16-2005, 07:53 PM

Only been heavy raiding a couple of months. The biggest thing I think we bring is despoiling mist. The pet is cool for off tanking and pulling stray adds and Insatiable Hunger brings the occassional hitpoint in return. My thoughts. Am curious to hear more. <div></div>

megatra

08-16-2005, 09:05 PM

<DIV>We bring the best armor debuff in the game in Despoiling Mist. Every melee class hits close to twice as hard with every landed attack making the mob's HP drop very fast. After revamp the amount of mitigation debuff will be cut nearly in half but the debuff will be equally as effective.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>We also have great dps buffs like Unholy Strength and Insatiable Hunger. Throw us in a group with some brawlers and scouts for best results. This will hold true after the revamp as well. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>Message Edited by megatraum on 08-16-2005 10:08 AM

Gaxt

08-17-2005, 01:37 AM

<DIV>As the others have said, despoiling mist reduces mit vs physical dmg by just over 1200 at ad3. A shadowknights dps is often underestimated, especially when they set themselves up properly for dps mode and have solid equipment. Also, if a SK is 2nd tank, the group taunt reduces enemies' mitigation further and the solo target taunt reduces targets dps by 30 someodd % and sk's are good at getting/maintaining aggro. Anyway, usually guardians will be mt and not in the same group as the sk, but if they are we can apply additional mitigation, agi, str, and sta or these can be applied to dps. A last helpful skill is being able to fd another player, so if someone pulls aggro and is about to get clobbered you can knock'em down to sometimes avoid the wipe. The pet adds the equivalent of another player melee'ing on auto attack. All this being said, yes, the mit debuff is probably the most important thing a sk brings to a raid.</DIV>

IBSomnifer

08-17-2005, 05:30 PM

I don't know about my damage during a raid....so i dont think i bring much. There are a few things that make us needed at most raids PRE-Patch (13) Despoiling mist - physical mitigation debuff. Siphon Strength - Taps mobs Str Unholy Strength - At master 1 this adds 31 str and sta, and i think 20 agi to the target. If you arn't MT...this helps the MT. Gift of Armament - increases the MTs mitigation over 300 at the cost of yours. Calculated Evasion - increases the evasion and agi of target a goodly amount (MT) Blasphemy - debuffs the encounters disease resistance 300+...good for warlocks and you. We bring plenty to the raid table. 1 thing that stands out in a raid situation before and after the patch coming will be "Malevolent Circle " It will be our defencive stance...but mainly it will increase our disease resist 1000+ Resists are king in my book against tough raid mobs. This buff reduces the damage take by disease attacks big time. There were a few disease only mobs in Bloodlines that i had to tank. Currently it adds something like 500+ disease and poison resists...which helped big time. But we are mainly used for buffing the main tank during raids though. Message Edited by IBSomnifer on 08-17-2005 09:32 AM

Zylokr

08-17-2005, 07:59 PM

<div></div>all of the above is correct, parsed with CBS, im always in the top 5 if im going all out dps, with prismatic wep and adept3 pet, and decent equip. but after the revamp not sure if we will bring alot to raids, guess we will have to wait and see. <div></div>Message Edited by Zylokron on 08-17-2005 09:01 AM

Exmortis_MT

08-18-2005, 12:31 AM

when i have time i will post a full list of what we can bring based on my skills, just been so busy i havent even logged into tplay much last week or so

far

08-18-2005, 07:38 AM

<div></div>I will qualify this by saying that yes there are impending changes that im not aware of, but from those I have read and those I have heard of are not instilling any hope of moving the sk out of moth balls.Next Ill say that YES a good sk will be doing those things listed below in a raid encounter (as well as a few not listed) but you arent just comparing that contribution against the other tank classes (because only a few tanks are required) so against the other 2 classes mages and rogues which also bring their dps (which currently is not as good as ours but will be eventually) but also considerable buffage.Despoiling MistPhysical mitigation, this is a very hard # to quantify, and according to some raid leaders Ive discussed the issue with a non issue, very few mobs have AC high enough to warrent to require the effect, lets say that since every melee classes + pierce slash crush buffs stack a mitigation debuff is minimal at best and will only really dramatically determine the outcome of a timed event where finishing 1 or 2 mins early means getting to the next part of the ring and or spawning a mob without a proc. Again feel free to dispute this issue, but please bring some numbers where despoiling mist was used and not on the same mob a few times.Siphon Strength - Taps mobs StrThis has got to be a joke right? Siphon Str does not affect the dps of a single person encounter let alone heroics or epics, perhaps other classes with their more potent debuffs do, but 20 str for a few seconds isnt a make or breakUnholy Strength - At master 1 this adds 31 str and sta, and i think 20 agi to the target. If you arn't MT...this helps the MT.This buff versus a bard buff? Or even druid/shammy buffs is weak (and certaining a druid or shammy will be in the mt group). Gift of Armament - increases the MTs mitigation over 300 at the cost of yours.Mitigation is cheap and easily buffed much better by a dozen or so classes, sks rank behind all priests, (and on my poor lil 50 sk adept 1 is 265 buff so unless this scales epically i dont see much over 300. Let alone this requires you to be in the main tank group, and good luck with that if there is a berserker in the house. When i asked my guild leader if i should consider using the ruby on it he said it would be the biggest waste of a ruby since he gave one to the necromancer. Mitigation is low enough on my sks book to wear gebs over jboots even tho its 150 ac diff or so.Calculated Evasion - increases the evasion and agi of target a goodly amount (MT)Doesnt stack with unholy strength, and the evasive portion of the spell is badly borked in the adept 1 description, 39% seems unrealistic and doesnt come out in my parses.... the parry buff seems to work, not sure about the minor mitigation either, they really need to do a better job of describing the spells with target and caster in these spells (the agil buff is applied to the caster which isnt too helpful to the main tank).Blasphemy - debuffs the encounters disease resistance 300+...good for warlocks and you.Considering the size of other class debuffs this is fairly trivial(look at the debuff of widdershins for example would you make the arguement that whoever wields that brings a substantial contribution to the raid table?), and has a taunt applied to it as well, not that pulling aggro is ever easy (although can be done) We bring plenty to the raid table. 1 thing that stands out in a raid situation before and after the patch coming will be "Malevolent Circle " It will be our defencive stance...but mainly it will increase our disease resist 1000+ Resists are king in my book against tough raid mobs. This buff reduces the damage take by disease attacks big time. There were a few disease only mobs in Bloodlines that i had to tank. Currently it adds something like 500+ disease and poison resists...which helped big time.Circle is competeively a disadvantage when compared to the guard pallie and zerk stances, adding a few disease resist will make us options for the disease and poison drakotas and dragons, but unlikely at best seeing as your guards and zerks/pals will often have priority with the fabled items, due to overall tanking advantages those classes possess.The number of group buffs brought the shadowknight class is minimal, and our target concentration buffs are nice but fail to provide a GREATER impact to a group then the group buffs of Paladins, Zerkers, Guardians, and bruisers (brawler seems also particularly devoid of group buffs). The disparity between Pals Zerks Guards and the rest is unsettling.Since retiring my sk I have made a level 38 berserker 33 Guardian and 31 Monk to gain a better understanding how the classes differ, and Ill admit Im not a 50 in the others but the current differances in what a class brings to the group, and raid party is truely large, not particularly in the dps department, although that is sure to change. Guardians and beserkers (and from what I understand paladins) have a wider class of skills from which to modify their tanking style to the mob encountered and its health, where as the sk has little option other then try to burn it down quickly and if they want to have their defensive buff or not.Additionally the class defining level 20 skill and subsequent upgrades (HT, LoH, Rage, Mend, etc) causes the crusader to be at a great disadvantage from the timer to the effect, and really HT is far worse than any of the others, its a 30 min (or 15) min taunt and not even much of a blip of the dps chart.Taps are not the half heals half dps components that are required to affect dps or healing, specifically in a raid or blue ++ encounter and up. Yes they have an effect on an encounter, but not nearly as large as other effects.The nature of procs either from weapon or spell seems to have HUGE stacking issues as to make it a moot issue and a wasted spell line from level 30 on when you really start to group with bards priests and have weapons and armor that proc. If the issue is ever addressed it might again become useful but look at your parses for how often it procs.<div></div>

IBSomnifer

08-18-2005, 05:09 PM

Good one less SK in the game. go play a guardian. :smileyvery-happy: Me. I will always enjoy the SK style of play. Its just not for some <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

megatra

08-18-2005, 07:14 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> farbe wrote: I will qualify this by saying that yes there are impending changes that im not aware of, but from those I have read and those I have heard of are not instilling any hope of moving the sk out of moth balls. Next Ill say that YES a good sk will be doing those things listed below in a raid encounter (as well as a few not listed) but you arent just comparing that contribution against the other tank classes (because only a few tanks are required) so against the other 2 classes mages and rogues which also bring their dps (which currently is not as good as ours but will be eventually) but also considerable buffage. Despoiling Mist Physical mitigation, this is a very hard # to quantify, and according to some raid leaders Ive discussed the issue with a non issue, very few mobs have AC high enough to warrent to require the effect, lets say that since every melee classes + pierce slash crush buffs stack a mitigation debuff is minimal at best and will only really dramatically determine the outcome of a timed event where finishing 1 or 2 mins early means getting to the next part of the ring and or spawning a mob without a proc. Again feel free to dispute this issue, but please bring some numbers where despoiling mist was used and not on the same mob a few times. Actually DM makes a huge difference. I've done many raids and I always use DM. I use it so much that the rest of my guild can tell when it's not on the mob. For example on the eye in MOTM- Without DM using my prismatic greatsword I hit anywhere from 100-200 (this includes having everyone fully buffed). When DM is added into the mix my auto attack dmg jumps up to anywhere from 200-275 damage per hit. The damage increase happens for all melee classes.</BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE>Also DM is crucial on some mobs that are highly resistant to physical attacks like Commander Spliteye in Acts of War. This mob is nearly resistant to every type of damage. With no DM melee rarely lands attacks, and when they do it's somewhere between 5-20 damage per hit. When DM is on him they land alot of attacks around 50-150 damage. Siphon Strength - Taps mobs Str This has got to be a joke right? Siphon Str does not affect the dps of a single person encounter let alone heroics or epics, perhaps other classes with their more potent debuffs do, but 20 str for a few seconds isnt a make or break Yes pretty much a joke right now. I don't use it unless I'm parsing and going toe to toe with another class battling for #1. After revamp however it will be a bit more useful. </BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE> Unholy Strength - At master 1 this adds 31 str and sta, and i think 20 agi to the target. If you arn't MT...this helps the MT. This buff versus a bard buff? Or even druid/shammy buffs is weak (and certaining a druid or shammy will be in the mt group). Shadowknights are not ideally grouped with the MT anyway. We are grouped with melee dps to best benefit a raid force. Gift of Armament - increases the MTs mitigation over 300 at the cost of yours. Mitigation is cheap and easily buffed much better by a dozen or so classes, sks rank behind all priests, (and on my poor lil 50 sk adept 1 is 265 buff so unless this scales epically i dont see much over 300. Let alone this requires you to be in the main tank group, and good luck with that if there is a berserker in the house. When i asked my guild leader if i should consider using the ruby on it he said it would be the biggest waste of a ruby since he gave one to the necromancer. Mitigation is low enough on my sks book to wear gebs over jboots even tho its 150 ac diff or so.</BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE> This one is getting a little bit of an increase in the revamp. On a raid typically we don't use it. However on rare occassions we put a crusader in the MT group if we are short on mitigation buffs. Also sometimes I am grouped with an offtanking guardian and throw this buff on him. Calculated Evasion - increases the evasion and agi of target a goodly amount (MT) Doesnt stack with unholy strength, and the evasive portion of the spell is badly borked in the adept 1 description, 39% seems unrealistic and doesnt come out in my parses.... the parry buff seems to work, not sure about the minor mitigation either, they really need to do a better job of describing the spells with target and caster in these spells (the agil buff is applied to the caster which isnt too helpful to the main tank).</BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE> I also have not figured out the avoidance part of this spell. When casted on someone I can examine their stats and not see a change in their avoidance. People have told me it's there but you just can't see it. ?? Other than that I always cast it on someone in my group to give me the added AGI if nothing else. Blasphemy - debuffs the encounters disease resistance 300+...good for warlocks and you. Considering the size of other class debuffs this is fairly trivial(look at the debuff of widdershins for example would you make the arguement that whoever wields that brings a substantial contribution to the raid table?), and has a taunt applied to it as well, not that pulling aggro is ever easy (although can be done) </BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE> This spell is pretty darn useful. When fighting mobs that are nearly immune to disease such as Venekor or Commander Spliteye in AoW, keeping this debuff on them can make a whole lot of difference. If I didn't have this debuff, I would be limited to 1 combat art that I could use on Venekor, Dreadful Wrath. With this debuff I can land the majority of my disease attacks. Of course they don't hit as hard as normal but it makes a big difference in the long run. We bring plenty to the raid table. 1 thing that stands out in a raid situation before and after the patch coming will be "Malevolent Circle " It will be our defencive stance...but mainly it will increase our disease resist 1000+ Resists are king in my book against tough raid mobs. This buff reduces the damage take by disease attacks big time. There were a few disease only mobs in Bloodlines that i had to tank. Currently it adds something like 500+ disease and poison resists...which helped big time. Circle is competeively a disadvantage when compared to the guard pallie and zerk stances, adding a few disease resist will make us options for the disease and poison drakotas and dragons, but unlikely at best seeing as your guards and zerks/pals will often have priority with the fabled items, due to overall tanking advantages those classes possess. The number of group buffs brought the shadowknight class is minimal, and our target concentration buffs are nice but fail to provide a GREATER impact to a group then the group buffs of Paladins, Zerkers, Guardians, and bruisers (brawler seems also particularly devoid of group buffs). The disparity between Pals Zerks Guards and the rest is unsettling. Since retiring my sk I have made a level 38 berserker 33 Guardian and 31 Monk to gain a better understanding how the classes differ, and Ill admit Im not a 50 in the others but the current differances in what a class brings to the group, and raid party is truely large, not particularly in the dps department, although that is sure to change. Guardians and beserkers (and from what I understand paladins) have a wider class of skills from which to modify their tanking style to the mob encountered and its health, where as the sk has little option other then try to burn it down quickly and if they want to have their defensive buff or not. Additionally the class defining level 20 skill and subsequent upgrades (HT, LoH, Rage, Mend, etc) causes the crusader to be at a great disadvantage from the timer to the effect, and really HT is far worse than any of the others, its a 30 min (or 15) min taunt and not even much of a blip of the dps chart. Taps are not the half heals half dps components that are required to affect dps or healing, specifically in a raid or blue ++ encounter and up. Yes they have an effect on an encounter, but not nearly as large as other effects. The nature of procs either from weapon or spell seems to have HUGE stacking issues as to make it a moot issue and a wasted spell line from level 30 on when you really start to group with bards priests and have weapons and armor that proc. If the issue is ever addressed it might again become useful but look at your parses for how often it procs. <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>

Elymri

08-18-2005, 07:57 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> megatraum wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE> Blasphemy - debuffs the encounters disease resistance 300+...good for warlocks and you. Considering the size of other class debuffs this is fairly trivial(look at the debuff of widdershins for example would you make the arguement that whoever wields that brings a substantial contribution to the raid table?), and has a taunt applied to it as well, not that pulling aggro is ever easy (although can be done) </BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE> This spell is pretty darn useful. When fighting mobs that are nearly immune to disease such as Venekor or Commander Spliteye in AoW, keeping this debuff on them can make a whole lot of difference. If I didn't have this debuff, I would be limited to 1 combat art that I could use on Venekor, Dreadful Wrath. With this debuff I can land the majority of my disease attacks. Of course they don't hit as hard as normal but it makes a big difference in the long run. <HR> agonizing cry and P mark both do melee damage of the weapon type you have equipted whisper disease dot always hits mobs even mobs that are 100% disease immune your lvl 17 nuke (anger line) does divine damage spiked boot does piercing damage thats more than 1 ability <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> just wanted to let you know incase you didnt already</BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE>

TerrorRising

08-22-2005, 11:33 PM

Despoiling Mist is a significant increase in damage when it successfully lands. In fact, you can strike for better than maximum damage range for your weapons, backstabs will land for nearly full to over max damage, and my miss % has gone down as much as 24%. The mobs where I have tested this are Zalak, Dreyek, Lord Oxulius, Arch Lich, Atrius and all other epic golems in Spirits, Drakota rings, and Darathar. I have noticed that Despoiling Mist appears to be disease based, because it will not stick on some mobs, like Asphyxia. My dps is high enough that I haven't tried using Blasphemy and then casting the debuff, but I have noticed that it appears to stick on mobs with disease protection, but then immediately drops off. There are a lot more changes going in, and most of them are not yet finalized. Malevolent Circle is an example of this. Look at the Paladin's version. They previously received the physical mitigations plus divine only. Now they have changed to Heat and Divine. I suspect we shall also see overlap in our class, though I haven't spoken to my friend on Beta since last week. If you want to complain about SK's and stop playing one, fine by me. The less who play them, the better off I am. Pre-changes, sk's can (and have) tanked everything in the game, including Venekor and Darathar. Equipment being equal, they can be good tanks and very good dps if you play them right. But I'm not going to convince you to change your mind. Go ahead, quit. You only make my job easier and more rewarding. Fortune favors the bold.

IBSomnifer

08-26-2005, 05:45 PM

<DIV>I wanted to bring this up again with the look of the new changes coming in 13...i'm really excited about this one in particular.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>**Debuffs and damage-over-time spells cast by two members of the same class can both stack on the same target. For instance, if two necromancers are in a group and cast the exact same DoT on the same target, both will land and take effect. If one necromancer has a lower-level DoT in the same line, that spell will stack with the other necromancer's higher-level version. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This means SKs will be very usefull in raids. We will be able to stack despoiling mist it looks like. As well as our disease mitigation debuff in blasphemy. Also our siphon str at adept 1 looks to pull 50ish str from the mob....that will be stackable with other SKs. This was a smart move by devs in my book. Although i'm worried now about the impact of lowering epic mobs AC by 3k <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> with a few SKs lol.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

Xiziz

08-29-2005, 01:31 AM

We bring Low self esteem and alot of nothing, thats what we bring. We are officaly the Dorky kid with a cool car . You bring him on raid for the his evac and his Lame Debuff that sticks 20 percent of the time.

jeta

08-29-2005, 04:04 AM

We bring 4 things to a raid. -Despoiling Mist (HUGE mit vs phys debuff for the encounter) -Gift of Armament (Pretty big mit grant to the MT or MA, usually both Guardians) -Calculated Evasion (Big avoidance buff to target, as well as a little mit) -DPS (SKs DPS is actually pretty high, its underestimated) At the moment on the Live servers, SKs will not tank raids. That is the job of the Guardians. <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>-Severus (50 SK of Blackburrow)</DIV>Message Edited by jetau8 on 08-28-2005 05:05 PM

Gaxt

09-02-2005, 12:24 AM

<DIV>Saying a SK doesn't or can't MT is a buncha bull. I am in a raiding guild and I tank most of the raids. Sure, we have guardians, zerkers, pali's etc available to tank, but to set aside being modest for a second, I am just better than them at it. My gear is quite good, but not perfect (not all fabled out or anything) but it doesn't all depend on gear or hp's like many ppl seem to think. You can use buffs and/or potions to make up for deficiencies you may have, but more important is your ability to pull cleanly, maintain aggro, use you power properly, and use the proper strategies. </DIV> <DIV> There are basically 3 of us, shadowknight, guardian, and zerker, that switch around being mt and ma depending on who's there or who feels like tanking etc and basically any of us can fill either role on any raid. The most important thing in a raid is having the proper classes and setting up the groups properly. When you do that, pretty much any fighter class can tank fine and it just comes down to their experience and skill. </DIV>

Gaxt

09-02-2005, 12:24 AM

<DIV>oops, hit tab and space twice and accidentally submitted it twice. my bad. this is an edit of the 2nd one. couldn't find a delete option. Anyway, wasn't quite finished up above, but it's good enough for now.</DIV>Message Edited by Gaxtin on 09-01-2005 01:26 PM

Sasaki Koji

09-02-2005, 03:39 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gaxtin wrote: <DIV>Saying a SK doesn't or can't MT is a buncha bull. I am in a raiding guild and I tank most of the raids. Sure, we have guardians, zerkers, pali's etc available to tank, but to set aside being modest for a second, I am just better than them at it. My gear is quite good, but not perfect (not all fabled out or anything) but it doesn't all depend on gear or hp's like many ppl seem to think. You can use buffs and/or potions to make up for deficiencies you may have, but more important is your ability to pull cleanly, maintain aggro, use you power properly, and use the proper strategies. </DIV> <DIV> There are basically 3 of us, shadowknight, guardian, and zerker, that switch around being mt and ma depending on who's there or who feels like tanking etc and basically any of us can fill either role on any raid. The most important thing in a raid is having the proper classes and setting up the groups properly. When you do that, pretty much any fighter class can tank fine and it just comes down to their experience and skill. </DIV> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> Thats wonderful. I wish the folks in my raiding guild would realize this...

megatra

09-02-2005, 06:36 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Elymrish wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> megatraum wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE> Blasphemy - debuffs the encounters disease resistance 300+...good for warlocks and you. Considering the size of other class debuffs this is fairly trivial(look at the debuff of widdershins for example would you make the arguement that whoever wields that brings a substantial contribution to the raid table?), and has a taunt applied to it as well, not that pulling aggro is ever easy (although can be done) </BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE> This spell is pretty darn useful. When fighting mobs that are nearly immune to disease such as Venekor or Commander Spliteye in AoW, keeping this debuff on them can make a whole lot of difference. If I didn't have this debuff, I would be limited to 1 combat art that I could use on Venekor, Dreadful Wrath. With this debuff I can land the majority of my disease attacks. Of course they don't hit as hard as normal but it makes a big difference in the long run. <HR> agonizing cry and P mark both do melee damage of the weapon type you have equipted whisper disease dot always hits mobs even mobs that are 100% disease immune your lvl 17 nuke (anger line) does divine damage spiked boot does piercing damage thats more than 1 ability <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> just wanted to let you know incase you didnt already</BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> Yep I know... But when you are dealing with Venekor who has a massive range poison AOE dot and Wrath of Fury, you don't exactly get close enough to use either of those. You can but chances are you'll die quickly hehe..