Yes, we all know SKs are very solid. Yes, even an average SK "can" be pretty powerful, and yes, Pallys need some help (DPS primarily). All that being said, SKs (as with most classes) do not get new or exciting abilities. Cut and paste after 5 years, gets boring. Aside from tanking we don't bring a tremendous amount to groups, epic is amazing but limited, our tanking is of course very solid, but so rarely does a group need two tanks (Mean Streets, Aaroynar, maybe GD/Kael missions for achievements). I suggest an SK aura, based of the epic: Shadow of the Dread Lord 5% melee lifetap 2% mana tap 2% endurance tap Does not stack with Spirit/Blood Drinkers coating or SK epic. SKs can't stack multiple aura on each other.
Probably a bit strong relative to most other auras. Maybe something more along the lines of increasing tank class hate % and decreasing all other class hate % (both by a fairly small amount, and stacking with other bonuses). Not entirely sure if that's doable with current EQ spell data, though.
I have no issue with updating all existing auras. Lets be frank, mob HPs are reaching dumb levels, lvl 75 (?) Auras could use an update, a bit of creativity with auras, especially considering level 125, PoP 2.0 (I'm speculating here) would be welcome almost across the board.
I main changed from Warrior to SK last year. A few recommendations on SK group buffs based on what I've learned from that journey that would balance them and align them to the selfish group lore: Remove lich sting's group component Remove all mana / endurance regen group buffs Add a new aura that displaces a small amount of post-mitigated damage the SK takes to the group and leeches mana from the group. So if after mitigation the SK receives 50,000 damage, 2% of that is displaced per person in the group. In a full group, 1000 damage is displaced to each member of the group, achieving a 5000 reduction in damage given to the SK. If the SK casts a spell that costs 10,000 mana, 2% of that is leeched per person from the group. In a full group, 200 per person or 1000 damage is leeched from the group.
I doubt there would be much objection to removing the group component of bites, it does so little I'm not sure people notice it now. A Vampire aura does make sense from a lore standpoint, and would have been ideal to introduce during ToL! They way its described, I think keeping current epic effect as is, would help mitigate the pushback from the community about SKs leeching hps while tanking. A valid concern especially for group players, a named or big pull could result in some classes being killed by the SKs aura. I think you intended that, and it does make sense from a dev standpoint, its a pretty powerful aura. But I know people would freak out. The other thing is as written your proposal should really only be group, as stated, if it became an AE, then I can easily see SKs being the defacto tank on any event you cant atack on the boss, or adds or whatever. All the NoS events would be get 3 SKs, and go to town (minus Pit Fight, and Mean Streets). Overall I like the idea!
Reminds me of one of the EQ2 SK abilities. Sort of a DI-type buff but when it triggers, it takes a % of health from every other person in the group to keep the SK alive. Sometimes killing a group member if their health was low enough at the time
I mean if it can automatically drain the nearest Pally, I feel the SK community as a whole will be more than happy to support this.
I think people would be much more OK if it only leeched group members who had more than 10% (or 50%, or whatever) health. Unless that player is a paladin, in which case it would kill them. And if the paladin let themselves die and their corpse is in range it leeched the paladin's corpse XP instead and converts it into healing at the cost of reduced XP when the paladin resurrected.
Say it can only leech players above 60%, should be enough to not automatically blow up people due to AE or blood aggro, but still enough to keep healers on their toes.
I'd be fine with this and the previous Pally-killing comments, as long as Act of Valor - killed an SK instead. We'd have to set up a special channel to rotate the AA, and GINA triggers for when the ability refreshes!
We all joke, but if they changed it so knights would kill each other first, it could add alot of flavor to group, raids, and events. Do Pallys risk AoV on Close the Gate to save the MT? Is it worth it for SKs to run aura on Bridge knowing what might happen? I know there would be alot of intentional killing, I would probably be benched on my raids for it. But if it only went after knights in group or raid, I think it could have real potential.
Always amuses me when people come to the forum and say silly stuff like "I doubt there would be much objection to that nerf"
I think all classes should have an aura. Its weird that they randomly left out a few classes. The paladin one is 5% to incoming heals so an SK one should be in that ball park of overall power.
I agree that it's odd. However, one thing to consider is that auras do not have a timer displayed, which can make them a pain to maintain for prolonged periods of time. Some people have triggers to tell them when they expire, which alleviates the problem.
Unless I'm AFK, I simply don't live long enough to have my aura expire. As a Paladin main, I would completely 100% support giving SKs a fun, unique aura. I always thought they should have had a DPS related aura anyways. The original one proposed is probably too strong compared to current auras though. Maybe something like a disease based proc based off of the damage your weapon does.
no procs, game has 50 too many procs per character already no aura, no one should want to be around SKs. their Whole Thing is being self absorbed betrayers. They're not just "the knight that wears cool black armor instead of lame blue armor", they're Bad Dudes To Be Around. Not the Fonz. They're the methhead brother whose girl left him cause he's smelly, so he kicked your dog. You lock it in the upstairs bedroom this Sunday in case he's carrying his knife this week, and you don't want him going in there anyway cause he takes stuff. He's arright to have around in case you have to throw down with the neighbors, is all. That SKs have any group stuff at all comes down to a dev playing SK during OoW who thought his character should be cool and people should want to be his friend. So the Anguish sword for SK has group proc, the Pal one doesn't. The SK epic 2.0 effect has insanely powerful group buff, the Pal one is self-only. SK Ancient spell was a group mana tap on a separate timer, Pal Ancient was just another timer5 stun. SK lifetaps since that time spam AA group heals on 5s timer *and* group mana back, Pal stuns to proc group heal have 24s timer AND mostly are unloaded to do Crushes. That dev was a fragile moron who went from the high school trench coat crowd to game dev and wanted to be cool now. No goddamn SK aura. Y'all are stupid, too.
An Aura that drains their groups mana/hp/end pool by like 750 a tick! That'll teach them to group with an SK.