It's not just that. They are using a spell called mending splash I think. It has a 3 second cast time. They use other similar spells. PC clerics are using mostly their fast heals of various levels. Mercs are commonly using heals with very slow cast times, and combine that with they do not begin casting until the tank has already lost HP, I can easily go 3-4 seconds without a heal. This can be inadequate at times. Other times, and I may be wrong here, but I can crit a life tap or something and they stop their cast, only for me to get hit more. The mercs can heal well, and I'm just fine on singles. However, even though my DRU heals for less than my CLR merc does, my DRU beginning their cast before my SHD takes damage can make a big difference. The thing that bothers me about my DRU is that Clovida lands for 200k at times, and at a 3sec cast time, that's very bad. I played a CLR for a long time and was shocked at how much I overestimated DRU healing and Merc reaction times. I'm not expert, and I am a terrible SHD, so I could be wrong on all of the above.
I run 4 box set up of my paladin, my bard, my wifes shammy and her mage and then 2 cleric mercs. I assume I am a bit more heavily geared than this guys tanks, but I get agro on the chunk of mobs that I pull, turn attack and melody on with the bard on the bottom target, then AE malo and slow followed by combo dotting on the shammy then send pet and start nuking on the mage. 2 cleric mercs keep my tank up with ease and I have never blocked any of the merc spells. If things get a little spicy I throw recourse, heal over time, lion and splash on with the shammy and its all so absurdly easy. I need to pay little to no attention to the paladin. It would be even easier to do this as an SK with that passive healing and with a bard, shammy and monk with 2 healer mercs.
You might find this thread about blocking healer merc spells helpful https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/mercenary-spells-to-block.285237/
....you require that much healing with all that Hsta? I six box. Paladin, bard, shaman, cleric, rogue, mage. The shaman almost never heals, does mostly dotting/slowing or will throw alliance if I feel like ignoring mechanics. The paladin self healing with the direct healing from my cleric is plenty. hdex ftw.
2 cleric mercs and a shammy box mostly dotting is not actually that much healing. DPS mercs are garbage and I'd rather run 2 cleric mercs than what, gain a few hundred K dps from the mercs? Cleric mercs dont get kill shots and I can 2hand more comfortably and get as many BOTF procs as possible. I'm fairly certain my 300% buff is more dps added than the dps mercs. I would counter that your boxed cleric is putting out more healing than my 2 cleric mercs your hdex does f all more than my hsta does against all the riposte strike through in the group game. It seems like 90% of the damage I actually take is just riposte strike through. I think if I put on a non damage weapon I could probably use no healer mercs at all and just focus on the mage and shammy dps. Hdex is not doing much at all to keep you alive in the group game in NOS.
Don't downgrade.. SK is much much better.. SK in a tier 3 TS gear is like a Paladin in Ultra-end Tier 3 raid gear. Game is designed that way, one class to rule em all.
Not going to lie; i thought perhaps it was a next level/out of the box idea. But, when you have 3 sks in group and perma leech effects; idk why not 2h tanking. Sure, rng could one round you with some high dmg rolls and flurries that all hit. But from my experience playing a paladin they hit harder with their 2h for average, crits, lucky crits than my sk with 2h out. With that said, maybe snow cone next level when you dont have perma sk epic. Was super confused though to see snow cone out on t2 with only one mob.
Are you guys talking about me? I have been experimenting with the snow cone quite a bit. Can't really comment on what SK's are doing because they are so OP with epic and that changes everything, but paladins don't have the same tool set. Paladins with hdex and 2hander out tanking adds is fine and dandy if thats how you want to play it. I'm sure the 300k dps is going to totally make a difference in the grand scheme of a nights raids. For paladins that are serious about trying to survive and do their main job on raids, you should check out for yourselves what the current percentage of regular hits you're taking versus strikethrough riposte. I bet you'll be surprised.
Thanks everybody. After trying a bit harder, I feel that the paladin is not for me. It would probably be a great char for playing a single char but, for 2 or 3 boxing with alt-tab, it really does not work for me, when the SK just lets me focus more on the other chars. I will keep the paladin and keep on playing him, but I will not use him as the tank in my main group, but only for grouping with guildies, preferrably with undeads around. Below I will reply to everybody who quoted me. @tucoh I have played a bit with tank + bard + mage or necro. Necro: Rez + fd means that you can normally recover from anything. Extra tank. Excellent DPS that you can macro reasonably easily (you won't be getting max DPS like that but it is very workable). You get another tank that can help you with the hardest stuff (let it taunt!) or to offtank. Mage: Great pet. COTH (if you have not tried it, it really changes the way you box!). Good DPS but I feel that it requires a lot more work than the necro to get similar results. Pet toys I prefer necro but mage works great and gives you more burst DPS, the necro takes a bit to ramp up. @chungus I am back at the SK. I like the pallie but I simply cannot get him to survive the same way as the SK does. Probably my fault but hey! @maedhros Yeah, the SK passive healing is incredible. It gives me enough time to go to the other chars and do what I need to do wthout dying. Gonna try shaman or cleric with the sk/bard. @Fenanebae Yes, you can pull with the paladin but most of the times hates attraction + fd is faster and less dangerous, particularly when mobs are too close together. @szilet 100% I am not casting enough on the SK but that means that I can switch to another char to do whatever I need to do and still be alive when I come back. I alt tab and am not good at EQ. Divine call does not let me do the same as hates attraction, unluckily. @allayna I am sure I missing a lot, so the issue is with me. But yeah, SK is the easy mode group tank and I need that ! @maedhros (second post) I die too much with the paladin and the only reason I am duoing them is because I am levelling them together. I already miss the pallie (undead dps, rez, emergency heals) but hey, I have to make a choice and SK works better FOR ME. In the end, I am going with boxing a healer - trying to see if cleric or shaman. Probably shaman but hey, I may try cleric, just for the lols and because he will probably work better with overhealing for when I mess up (often!). @tucoh (second post) When I am boxing sk/pal I am tanking on the pal to learn how to play him. Or I was, I have gone back to playing the SK, I just lack the skill for paladins (I will keep on trying on easier content but will not be my main tank). @kleitus Thanks, I will give it another try, but for now, SK it is. @ozon As I replied before, yeah, I am not the greatest SK. Despite that, I survive better with SK than paladin. @wulfthere Exactly that, SK passive healing keeps me alive when I am tabbed out to another char.
I took the names of the other paladins out because I didn't ask permission to post their tank parses. But this is a comparison for all 6 current raid expansion targets. I couldn't tell you who stacks dex, agi or sta among the paladins, except that I stack hdex. I cannot fathom, pulling out a snow cone in any scenario outside of attempting to not damage a mob any further due to mechanics or achievements.....or attempting to move mobs around before putting them in summon. Paladins don't have the same tool set...but you know SK epic is for the group, right? I don't get the opportunity to pull out my 2H often on raids, due to tanking 4-7 mobs. Not sure what issue you seem to be having with having to snow cone to survive vs riposte strikethrough... ...and wouldn't know until I could analyze a parse of your own. See your spell casts, disc usage, otherwise I'm left to assume it is either your heroic stat stacking, your skill level, your casts or lack of them or perhaps casting an odd lineup... I'm not a blame the clerics type of tank. So....let's take that one off the table. Oh, just thought of something else, I did have to snow cone for the mean streets achievement to get some thugs in position...tanking 2 mobs was difficult, tanking a 3rd was a death...could be from lack of rune procs + sk epic healing...
Sorry for the dumb question, how can I interpret these results to show what the increased hit count / damage from riposte strikethroughs is?
There shouldn't be one, Riposting the mob then being Strikethrough'd (due to raid mobs/bosses generally having like 80% - 100% Strikethrough) is no different then any of the other Avoidances, it only looks higher because Riposte is checked first and a hDex geared tank vs a 0 Heroic Strikethrough mob has something like a 170% Riposte base chance atm (avoidances were capped to like 90% range or something with the nerf during TBL) These values have been increasing by something like 10% per year until you get to the 4k+ soft cap on Heroic benefits (we don't know how diminished any are) + another 0.5% per level cap increase expansion on top of that Even tanks who gear hSta or hAgi as a primary stat will have their Riposte rate around 100% atm as well (before mob Heroic Strikethrough counter) so it is a significant chunk vs any mob that doesn't completely counter the value
Well, NPC win the strike though exchanges since the nerf a couple years ago. The issue is that NPC strike through of your riposte swings happens a lot and that gives them an extra swing while negating your own. Not being able to riposte reduces incoming damage (spikes) and that might be a net win given the NPC damage per swing. In short, if an NPC can swing 3 times per round and bash/kick once, that is 4 attacks per round. If you swing an equal number of times and also riposte, then that NPC is now swinging at you an extra couple of times per round, total of 5 to 7 attacks. If each attack is say 100k damage, you are taking a potential damage spike of an extra 200-300k damage per round, simply because of ripostes. If riposte damage is a net negative for you, then it's better not to swing or even riposte. Hence the snow cone experiments that might reveal a broken melee combat system.
