Some SK questions... state of the shadowknight

[ibndeath]

<DIV>I was wondering what people think about a few things with the SK these days.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>1. I pretty much stopped using defensive stance except against hard named mobs. with wis no longer impacting mana and the overall increased difficulty i am experiencing with mobs, take the hit to skills, dps, and mana seemed like a pretty useless gesture. as with all things grouping and raiding can change what i am using, but really i have spent almost no time anymore in defensive stance. I heard rumor that they are adding a reduction to resists on taunts to our def stance? can anyone point me to a post from a dev that says this?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>2. the shadowknight AA tree seems a bit lackluster at least on the end talents. at 75aaxp now I grabbed the siphon hate ability but there is not much more i see overly appealing in the other trees. leech touch is fluff due to its re-use timer and of limited effectiveness. the finals for the other two trees see to be useless from what i have read from the SK community. I have been increasing taunt and trying to reduce resistances with my talents and i am about out of things to choose. honestly, increasing taunts is nice but after looking at some of my friends trees, our abilities really are crappy for the most part.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>3. i took a fairly big hit to mitigation with the eof expansion. curi of protection alone lost what... 75 mit or more. in off stance i am around 53%, def stance puts me around 60%... solo buffed. in a group, not much higher. was thinking of turning in some of my defensive gear (mostly claymore questline stuff) for stat increasing gear, at least temporarily. any opinions on this being a more viable solution until i get more raid level gear?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>fyi... i am typical sk for non-raid... fabled vulicide shield, fabled pain hammer, claymore rewards up to AoA2x, etc.  just kinda wondering what others are thinking and experiencing since the revamp and expansion. more and more thinking of retiring my SK and moving on with my Necro or Warlock.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>/salute to all you regulars here that make this community worth reading.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>vilaraa</DIV>

[Dogm]

<DIV>1. Yeah I rarely use defensive, unless against a hard mob, or when tanking a raid.  And a dev did say something about an "Agression" skill that would be attached to defensive stance, that would help with taunt resists</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>2.  Yes our endlines aren't that great, but we have some really nice skills earlier in the tree.  Enhance Putrid Coil is a great upgrade, as is Twisted Aura.  As for Leech touch being "fluff" I have to disagree at max rank it is a 1348 heal, and can be a life saver in certain situations.    Siphon Armament is great (as long as it continues to work on non fighters), and Enhance Siphon Might is a nice addition too.   Overall we have a lot of really nice AAs, but nothing too special in the end line, which is fine with me.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>3.  Mitigation was lowered across the board, so not a SK issue, and doesn't really effect much as "most" mob damage was lowered also.    Remember that our Despoil debuff, also got a miti buff added to it,  can be real usefull in certain situations (not considering the crappy diminishing returns curve that exists right now)  </DIV>

[Arthik]

1.) I still use defensive stance... If I'm not mistaken, a taunt is a spell, and increased WIS helps against resists. I could be wrong, though, but there are just times when I take too much damage not to. SKs are a heck of a squishy tank.2.) I'm not even going to bother with end talents. I'm just going to max out all the spells I find useful. Just because there are end talents doesn't mean we HAVE to choose one.3.) Stats, from what I see, are more important than MIT at the moment. Increased HP seems to be all the rage.<div></div>

[AndrewSquared]

I just came back to the game with a new account, and am playing an SK again (I just love the class) and was curious about a statement you made in question #1. <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> ibndeath wrote:<BR> <DIV>...with wis no longer impacting mana... </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>vilaraa</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>When was this changed? Is int now our secondary stat (like it should have been from the start <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> )? Or has that part of our being a hybrid class just been done away with?</P> <P>Thanks.</P> <P>Rrinn</P>

[Eluzay]

<div><blockquote><hr>ibndeath wrote:<div>I was wondering what people think about a few things with the SK these days.</div> <div> </div> <div>1. I pretty much stopped using defensive stance except against hard named mobs. with wis no longer impacting mana and the overall increased difficulty i am experiencing with mobs, take the hit to skills, dps, and mana seemed like a pretty useless gesture. as with all things grouping and raiding can change what i am using, but really i have spent almost no time anymore in defensive stance. I heard rumor that they are adding a reduction to resists on taunts to our def stance? can anyone point me to a post from a dev that says this? <font color="#ff0000">My guess is that you are not on a pvp server.  In defensive stance I can take out anyone my level or lower with no problems, in off stance dps classes tear through me like cardboard.  The increase in dps isnt THAT much in off stance.  But if it was not for other players I would probably not use def stance either unless raid tanking.</font></div> <div> </div> <div>2. the shadowknight AA tree seems a bit lackluster at least on the end talents. at 75aaxp now I grabbed the siphon hate ability but there is not much more i see overly appealing in the other trees. leech touch is fluff due to its re-use timer and of limited effectiveness. the finals for the other two trees see to be useless from what i have read from the SK community. I have been increasing taunt and trying to reduce resistances with my talents and i am about out of things to choose. honestly, increasing taunts is nice but after looking at some of my friends trees, our abilities really are crappy for the most part. <font color="#ff0000">again from a pvp point of view, I have filled out the entire reaving line and though not sexy at all it definitely makes survivablity much greater,</font></div> <div> </div> <div>3. i took a fairly big hit to mitigation with the eof expansion. curi of protection alone lost what... 75 mit or more. in off stance i am around 53%, def stance puts me around 60%... solo buffed. in a group, not much higher. was thinking of turning in some of my defensive gear (mostly claymore questline stuff) for stat increasing gear, at least temporarily. any opinions on this being a more viable solution until i get more raid level gear?<font color="#ff0000"> I think that having different gear for different situations is the way to go, stat gear, resist gear whaterver you can find</font></div> <div> </div> <div>fyi... i am typical sk for non-raid... fabled vulicide shield, fabled pain hammer, claymore rewards up to AoA2x, etc.  just kinda wondering what others are thinking and experiencing since the revamp and expansion. more and more thinking of retiring my SK and moving on with my Necro or Warlock.</div> <div> </div> <div>/salute to all you regulars here that make this community worth reading.</div> <div> </div> <div>vilaraa</div><hr></blockquote>good post</div>

[ibndeath]

<DIV>thanks for the replies guys.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Rrinn- they  changed our mana pool with EoF or around there. now Int and Str govern our mana pool. see the lu29 notes under game updates... here is a snip...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>-----------------------------------</DIV> <DIV> <P><B><SPAN>Class Modifications</SPAN></B></P> <P><SPAN>- Assassins, Rangers, Brigands, and Swashbucklers now gain some of their power pool from strength as well as agility.</SPAN></P> <P><SPAN>- Troubadors and Dirges now have more benefit to their power pools from agility.</SPAN></P> <P><SPAN>- All Fighter classes now share the same modifier <SPAN>to</SPAN> their auto attack damage.</SPAN></P> <P><SPAN>- Shadowknights now gain their power pool benefit from Intelligence and Strength instead of Wisdom.</SPAN></P> <P><SPAN>-------------------------------------------</SPAN></P> <P><SPAN></SPAN> </P> <P><SPAN>Dogmae... I i really like the change to despoiling mists.. .only problem is it seems to be extremely high resist rate (always has) even at m1. I typically saved using the spell for hard mobs due to its relatively longer cast time and resist rate. it is a very nice change in heroic encounters. I do agree with the leach touch ability... i mis-spoke with the fluff  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />. its really very situational that i use harm touch... to gain aggro usually so i tend to "save" it and not use it. i guess i need to just adjust a little as to when i use it... can you confirm if the heal part can crit? does it crit based on the damage portion hitting?</SPAN></P> <P><SPAN></SPAN> </P> <P><SPAN>Ssslick- i think the main reason i do not use def stance lately, aside from the int/mana, is i seem to miss and get resisted alot more with the - to relevent combat stats. I need to dust off my parser really to come up with numbers. I go to def stance for named and raid mobs only and sometimes when doing aoe duo with my wifes fury for sp. I am almost all on the hate tree and into reaving a bit. adding the lifetap effects and whatnot for now. every little bit helps. also i have a second mixed set of armor, mostly from pre-eof changes... thule shoulders and a few other high resist and wis pieces (pally armor) along with some substandard claymore stuff... definitely looking at my options on fleshing out my second set to be more min/max for different situations.</SPAN></P> <P><SPAN></SPAN> </P> <P><SPAN>thanks all for your responses and insight. SK community is pretty damned kool imho.</SPAN></P> <P><SPAN></SPAN> </P> <P><SPAN>Vilaraa Senjak of Lucan D'Lere</SPAN></P> <P><SPAN>The Liberator of guild Bleak Seasons</SPAN></P></DIV>

[AndrewSquared]

Thank you. Rrinn <div></div>

[CHIMPNOODLE.]

<P>I'm loving my SK even more now than prior. I pretty much always use Def stance. I'm either raid tanking or mass pulling though....if I don't have at least 3 non-linked heroic encounters on me I doze off. I need as much Mit as I can get....and ya, the mit hit post EoF was high (think was 175 lost from switching back to the relic chest backup), plus 30 lost on my Orb, and more lost on a couple other +mit pieces I was using. I lost ~450 mitigation post EoF overall.</P> <P>Despoil does get resisted at times...but in multi mobs, usually only 1 or so resist and the boost is still great. I did not seem to get as many resists lately on Epic pulls though...and against some like Gnorbl...SKs are supreme. Mixing Despoil, grab Urchin and adding a couple of my God abilities in a tough multi-mob encounter like that can push my mitigation to around 12k for 15 seconds...9300 k for the next 21 seconds...then 8100 for another 36 seconds after that (and I haven't even got my mitigation Syphon yet). With Aura up as well, all the little hits from the Epic "adds" get eaten up completely as well. SKs are super tough now. As far as I know at this point, SK mitigation is unbeatable for those types of encounters.</P> <P>I'm loving our AA trees as well, after only a few points into hate I noticed a nice reduction in mobs resisting taunts. Lowering the timers on a few key abitlites, hate and armor syphons...I'm in heaven. My parses have all gone up, and mobs are sticking like glue.</P> <P>I've always loved the class and found it strong, but we are even bigger terrors on the battlefield now.</P>

[Norrsken]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Syfer22 wrote:<BR>1.) I still use defensive stance... If I'm not mistaken, a taunt is a spell, and increased WIS helps against resists. I could be wrong, though, but there are just times when I take too much damage not to. SKs are a heck of a squishy tank.<BR><BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Wis affects your own spell resists, it does not, however, affect the resist rates on your own spells when trying to land them on mobs.