The problem is mana isn't a limiting factor with the new horror line and thought leach as well as our 2 aa bites, unless you go for a long while all out (>10 min) or have died and don't have thought leach available. our life taps have such a long recast that they dont consume so much mana that we run out unless you are casting dots with them, if you just do taps + agro + spear you will last a very long time.
As I edited, instant wont let us chain them any faster due to the cooldown though, but it will let us get them off at least without being interrupted all the time.
Don't bring up the group game. It's already been accepted (stated by yourself) that SKs are fine in the group game so there isn't a point of talking in circles. There's no point of bringing up the group game mechanics if the primary discussion was focused on raid situations. All I'm saying is that your best mitigation tool does stack with Vie-like abilities, which you previously failed to mention. You're speaking of your secondary abilities so I brought up the warrior secondary abilities. Outside of our proficiency, you're mitigation abilities are actually quite a bit more powerful than ours. The only problem is that warriors now have defensive proficiency, but we all know the problems that arose from them. They were more headaches than what they are worth, imo. The idea behind them was good, the implementation not so much. If not for prof, your secondary mitigation would be (and were) much superior to anything in the warrior arsenal which was a bit silly since we are the parent tank class. It's only natural that we should be superior in that department. However, the problem now is we are probably too superior in most cases. As Koryu said, the transfer of your abilities to a different SpA would pretty much solve any/all issues that you are having with your abilities. Tack on a flash-type ability and maybe some more utility and your class is now fine from a raid standpoint
I don't care to have another X prof/disc vs Y prof/disc, I am done with that and its not the point of the thread, everyone can do the math for themselves and if they cant, can ask someone in PM's or start another thread asking. I grow tired of this back and forth nit picking, every post can have a caveat as we are not here writing a book and there are certainly things going to be left out, not thought about when posting. Many of us post from work where we don't have all the materials in front of us and don't care to being up a chart of everything and how it compares to everything else and every formula in the game at ready access. we also come to post with a state of mind and may not be thinking of every aspect of every situation. The fact remains SK need some boosts, its up to the dev's where that boost comes from, not us. When/if they want to reach out we will give them ideas we can address it at that time. This thread was started wanting to know how the dev saw us so that we could ask for upgrades, it has deviated very far from that intent. I want to look towards the future. I am glad warriors got something to bring you guys up and make the class desirable to play, and hope warriors keep getting cool stuff so that they will retain that desirability. I think paladin mana consumption and ae agro need a boost, but that is up to them to fight for, my wife quit playing hers therefore I don't really care anymore. The point is we all need to quit coming on here trying to hold others down, we should only be asking for upgrades for ourselves and others. It is ok to work with people to flesh ideas out, and many times those ideas or misconceptions should be fleshed out in PM's not in the open forum. Not everyone is aware of every aspect of every class, some people have tried things and are capable of things that others do not even think about doing, that is cool and should be brought up but not in a defensive or holding down way, because sometimes its only an option at certain gear levels and places where if someone doesn't know that, and comes out with class XYZ can do ABC all the time, it may not be true at all, but that doesn't matter to the ignorant masses, they will pick it up and run with it in a way to hold someone down, instead of talking about that one off and seeing what really happened.
Even if the devs broke their stance on SK 'selfishness' and gave SKs desired buffs, heals (SK group heal/mana abilities other than epic are a joke),etc to cast, SKs would still need attention in the DPS department as SKs are woefully behind, even more so compared to other classes after the last patch. More spell dps is not the answer as SKs already generate up to half of their normal dps via spells. SKs are a melee tank class who cast damage spells; not a caster who wears plate. As for other ideas such as self survivability, lowering lifetap cast times would help, but their heal amount needs a boost as well (which the team can do without altering the damage amount now, as there are recent spells that have separate damage & heal amounts in the past couple of expansions). For example, SK's two best lifetaps chain cast heal about ~740.84 hp / sec and 751.04 hp / sec, respectively (heroics unaccounted for) - you can go for 3 or even 4, but the drop off starts to go down quickly. For comparison's sake (since we're discussing the potential of a 'class niche'), a Paladin's new 'lifetap' (DD with heal recourse) chains for ~3269.64 hp / sec, not to mention Ardent, which chains for ~13480.67 hp / sec (again, heroics unaccounted for) and is targetable. Everyone says "but the SK epic!" An SK epic without VoD (15 min reuse) heals ~8611.472 hp / sec while up or 2583.3 hp / sec over the course of its reuse. The point is, if SK self sustainability via heals is to be a 'thing' over other classes, SK self healing has to improve significantly. Lowering casted lifetap cast times and doubling their healing would only bring SKs on par to the Paladin 'lifetap'; to be a 'class niche', there would need to be a lot more. From there, a combination of upping casted lifetap healing only and upping SK melee dps plus lowering the reuse timer on the Leechcurse disc dramatically (currently over 49? minutes after hastening AAs currently) could do that... if that is something the devs wanted to do. Problem is, we have no idea what the devs want to do. SKs need some serious attention and I've heard they are looking into SK dps but that is as far as it has gone, and with an undertone that seems to suggest any changes wouldn't be all that much. I'm not holding my breath either way.
Too many unique class things have been farmed out/are continuing to be farmed out. SK's recently getting divine aura hammer is a prime example of this. More dps/increasing tap heal power isn't going to help SK desirability in raid game. Boosting the relevance of something like Tyvl's ''easily'' would bring about that desired result. To whichever SK was claiming paladins/wars have been getting ''luvins'' the past couple years, uh no. Wars have got a ton of ''luvins''. Shadows have got some ''luvins''. Not going to go into what paladins have got. It's either 1.) Wars= overpowered(need reductions) 2.) Knights are underpowered(need boosts). Aranger who doesn't raid clearly even sees that.
So much of SK tanking is based on being able to lifetap, but if they keep getting interrupted, then they do us no good.
Divine Aura Divine Aura10CLR/1 PAL/48 Harmshield Harmshield85SHD/50 NEC/20 So unique omg. Forrrrr about a week's worth of exping in Lower Guk sixteen years ago.
Brohg, there has never been a raid event with a decent ramp that I've been online for that a paladin didn't handle(due to da hammer procs.....). Now, I make sure an SK always grabs it since they have the proc now also. Which I don't mind AT ALL for my paladin's sake, trust me. Paladins can bring more to the raid table, so better to let the paladin do those things while SK procs. Still, the da ramp tank thing, was definitely a ''tank'' role paladins mostly handled for a crazy amount of years now though. Why keep hoarding out abilities, items(decade+ old stuff) and not just give unique viable tools to make a class have something relevant to bring to table? Kiting and ramp tanking with da procs isn't fun unique class stuff(for most lol)
One thing I've learned over the years reading these forums is that if you create a thread with SK in the title that you can expect some full-on defensiveness from Warriors. Conversely, if a Warrior starts a thread you're pretty much guaranteed that their woes, sooner rather than later, will mention SKs. Dear Warriors, stop being so paranoid. Everyone appreciates and acknowledges the roles bestowed upon each of the classes; no one is trying to surreptitiously steal another's thunder. If a class, any class, has a shortcoming it's disingenuous to play it off like it's no big deal and unwarranted.
People often promote their own interests at the expense of others. It's not restricted to any class and no class is exempt from this behavior. That said, it's definitely more common among those whose interests are focused around a single class, and single-class players often hold confirmation bias against classes they are most engaged with.
I just don't see any SK's not being able to down content because of something y'all call shortcomings. I see SK's tearin it up out there then coming to the forums saying they need to do more things. Not trying to keep them down, I just don't ever see them down.
Agreed, people are too worried about what the other classes can do rather than what their class currently does and would like to see do better or more of. The more inter-class fighting that arises, the more cookie-cutter the classes in this game get. Every class is now getting abilities that we would never even think about 10 years ago. Yes, you can argue with the diminished population that some class roles needed to be expanded to make up for the missing people, but it's just getting overboard. SKs need improvements with survivability? Okay, increase lifetap potency. I'm sure the designers can create a lifetap that gives a base heal + heals for the damage done to PC. Just quickly looking through SK taps, I don't see anything that does a base heal + heal from damage. You could make it a 15k base heal + 85% of damage done. The base heal would increase with mods. I think that'd be a very strong spell to have, maybe even too strong. Make all lifetaps .5 sec cast time or instant. Maybe shorten the recast by a second or two. These two minor things instantly makes your healing better and increases survivability. SKs need improvements with mitigation/tanking? Give them a flash-type ability, but not as powerful as warriors or one with a longer recast. As for the vie-stacking debacle: Option 1)Somehow make their mantle/carapace stackable with vie OR increase total damage absorbed and percent of damage absorbed per hit. Option 2) Create a new disc/aa under a different SpA (197 - same as warrior's Bravery) that is fully sustainable and does 10% melee mitigation per hit with no cap. Make it self only also. Instead of needing a constant vie-like ability, you now have a constant Bravery-like ability. You can even give it a secondary effect of chance to lifetap upon being hit for X amount of damage/healing. Option 3) You gain Defensive Proficiency at a weaker level than warriors or you gain a BFI type buff at a weaker level than warriors. Option 4) You continue to just complain about what other classes have rather than discussing ways to improve your class. I'd prefer not to take option 4, but that's just me. I realize warrior mitigation is probably too powerful at this point. Shield Prof probably should have been no more than 20% rather than 30% but what can be done? Sure, they can nerf us but that instantly affects every guild on the cusp of raiding efficiently to potentially not being able to raid at all. Nerfs, at this point of the game, are not the way to go. I'd rather just see people getting boosted when a boost is necessary.
I like Defensive Proficiency. Probably the best defense stuff we have had for MT in raid after Defensive Disc and Fortitude. Having a 30 % mitigation ability, after our 45% one, is really nice It allowed us to close, and exceed, the gap we had when defensive disc was down versus knights. Cause yes when warrior defensive / knight defensive disc were down, the knight was having an advantage on the warrior, with all their self healing tool plus their 2 other defensive disc with dmg cap, that we don't have. As for exceeding it ? I don't see it as a problem, as, by the definition of the class, we should mitigate better than knights in all situations. Warriors are not "overpowered", and knights aren't "underpowered" in term of mitigation. Those of you that still ask for warrior nerf shall stop. Cause we aren't going to let you do this without reacting. As for warriors rushing on this thread ? When you see some knight (and don't say you never said it there are many proofs in this thread that you did it), that showed a clear behaviour of asking equal or near equal mitigation than wars (being able to MT Raid Boss as well as warriors) proposing some overpowered new mitigation disc %, or also trying to downplay their real ability when the reality on the field is not as bad as it can be described, well don't be surprised we come here to say we disagree fully with this.
I'm not sure if you noticed, but I'm a warrior and I fully admitted that Defensive Prof is way too powerful. There is no reason for it to be such a huge mitigation percentage. 20% would've been more than enough to stay ahead of knights. To say that warriors aren't overpowered from a mitigation standpoint is preposterous and delusional. I look at my tank parses each and every event and the drop off from LS to prof + secondary abilities is virtually non existent.
There is a difference between a 30 % mitigation + 1400 AC and a 45 % mitigation. Once LS is down, under Prof and Stout Defense, we have a few other self survival tools that allow us to stay alive well (Warlord Bravery AA that last 30 sec ish versus arx raid boss, Anguish BP Guardian Bravery that last 45 sec and Warlord Tenacity that last 2 min if I recall it), but then we have 4 minutes 15 to wait before LS is back where we are in the "weak" side (our own rune stuff is rubbish against raid Bosses add 15 sec of duration only, our 2 heal % increase AA that could make us last 3 min 30 not doing very much,etc.). And if you go through a whole round of LS again, exit Warlord's Tenacity AA and Warlord's Bravery AA as they won't be back up. So yes we aren't "overpowered" on raid bosses, and the idea that we don't die anymore because of Def Proficiency is wrong, we still die under LS or Def Proficiency.
