New to Shadowknight: Gearing in Luclin and beyond?

SK simply won't be able to tank in Time for a while. Right out of the gate though they can handle POF C1 if they are VT geared.

But the knights tanking in Time is simply because there is so much time to gather up the POT loot. Your first Time raids are going to be like drive-by shootings where the p4 bosses just disintegrate most players.

I'm taking Cazic, Innoruuk, and Vallon Zek in potime regularly for my guild. I could easily tank any boss except RZ and possibly Tallon. There are particular reasons why we have me tank those 3 bosses. Once LDoN rolls out, you're prolly gonna be mostly time geared and able to tank most anything. I've got full time gear- 965 ac and 12.8k hp atm, with 23 hsta. Good enough for almost anything in pop and ldon.

I think in terms of what makes an SK good is knowing when/how to cast spells between autos to maximize DPS. Any SK can just spam life tap or cast dots, but knowing proper timings of those spells and abilities is what will actually put you on a DPS parse. Also, SK can play many roles: puller, ramp tank, main tank, off tank, dps. Knowing how to play all those roles well separates SKs. I know many SKs who can't handle pulling for example, or don't know many tanking fundamentals (i.e. when/how to taunt, flipping mobs, etc)

I can confirm that this is bs and that the first time MoTM Time was ever cleared knights tanked CT and i think Inny.

That's ok. When they revert the servers back to where they were 5-6 years ago your experience and knowledge will be very valuable again.

But until then, I don't recommend Coirnav guilds use knights to tank their POP Launch Time raids.

MotM has only existed for ~3 years, and in that time, there have been no significant nerfs to knight tanking. They will do just fine on the mobs that they have always tanked, namely the ones that fear.

I wasn't aware there were any guilds that didn't use a knight to tank CT in PoTime.

Sks can 1tank any potime boss including RZ/Quarm with ease. Usually youre better off having sks tank then warriors on gods in general because their aggro is more solid and doesnt have ramp up time if youre in a guild with a lot of dps.

Phinny was the first server to do MoTM Time i'm referring to AoS's server first clear. Coirnav is just a Phinny clone the info is very relevant lol. Good guilds will use knights to Tank CT first clear and good knights well be able to tank him, maybe your "Wizards SKs" couldn't but real SKs can. Good guilds also use Knights to ramp tank mobs that hit for big boy numbers in SoL like TVK i believe triples for 2.6k or something close to that. Have fun tanking that with your "Wizard SK"

So what is different about sks being able to do so much dps in this era. I don't remember them being able to do that good of dps during classic-luclin. And they definitely aren't doing it on p99.

I honestly don’t think we used knights right away on bosses in Time either. Maybe a month in we started using a SK on CT and I think we abandonded the idea on Inny and just rotated tanks using their fear immunity AA and/or swapped when feared. The only non-warriors that tanked RZ were WS Rangers because even in full Time gear he could drive by multiple tanks in a hurry. I do think we let the SK’s tank Quarm at the very end for kicks /shrug. SK’s on RZ were typically assigned to tanking the trash that popped.

We probably could have let them tank a few of the P4 bosses, but with a glut of warrior mains and alt warriors, we left the knights to handling the adds to burn or help CC. Paladins were our exclusive ramp tanks.

The critical role for SK was always peeling the 3-6 pulls on P3 which gave chanters and shaman the confidence to debuff quickly to minimize deaths.

I also recall nights all being put into the undead P1 because we split the raid into thirds to clear it quickly.

As you can see these were all roles that required the ability to tank. DPS was always a secondary or tertiary role depending on the encounter and gives those SK in Velious pretending to be wizards some insight as to how they should plan gear in Luclin for their future role(s) in PoP where no one cares if they can DPS.

Melee in general is significantly buffed compared to the old days and probably isn’t reflected on p99. Monks are an OP shining example of that but most any class that melees has seen significantly improved damage - which is in part why MotM was put in place (pet tables were the other reason). For a while I believe discs (like double life tap and trueshot) were benefiting from extended enhancement AA’s which effectively doubled the duration of the discs. Burning your mana pools by chaining double life taps was/is(?) showing up well on parses just like having Trueshot run for over 2 minutes where rangers were dominating parses on Emp, Seru, and Blob 1 (which has like zero AC). I think my ranger was pushing 800+ DPS on Blob1 at the end of Luclin using a Seru bow, fero, avatar with bard songs.

I may also be wrong or remember incorrectly but damage bonus was/is(?) not mitigated by MotM so where a rogue was hitting for 1-9 damage on poor RNG by using 18-20 delay weapons, SK with a 2her could benefit from the larger damage bonuses not getting mitigated to parse higher, especially one that was good at timing spells between the swings.

I recall an SK who had 5 Necros pump him exclusively so he could chain lifetaps on a MotM AoW in velious. Pretty sure he topped the parses for a bit doing that. Think he got an idea for it from a rogue who brought his pocket shaman to exclusively keep Avatar on him to avoid hitting for 1’s and 2’s so often. Both ideas were hilariously brilliant.

What AC/HP values should I be shooting for when PoP drops to be able to tank these PoTime mobs?

I am going to walk the line of keeping good DPS in Luclin while making sure I have the beef to MT in PoP.

Go to raidloot
Select Luclin and earlier from expansions drop down
Select SK from class drop down
Sort by AC from drop down
Fill an excel spreadsheet with the top item from each slot (include a shield)

Congratulations you’ve now made your wish list for Luclin to prepare for PoP SK duties.

It’ll take you an hour or two to copy / paste what you need.

Alternatively you can create an account on the site to build your profile in lieu of excel.

Thanks, but I'm well aware of raidloot, and I didn't ask "how do I get best in slot AC gear?".

I asked what AC/HP numbers to shoot for coming out of Luclin. The fact your guild never let knights tank tells me you have no idea how to utilize them. If you can't answer/understand the specific question I posed, kindly don't waste my time by responding.

Never is a false statement. They were not always needed to tank bosses or their class was better deployed with snap aggro abilities on trash mobs running wild which they do in all of P4/P5. We used them plenty on CT in the 6 months we were in PoP. The other argument would be to use them on Inny which we found it easier to heal defensive warriors and swapping as needed or AA discing through fears than dumping mana heavily on a SK like you do for CT. You’ll see when you get there that the bosses hit knights like trucks until they stack enough hSTA and gear up with in-era equipment.

As for the raidloot - that’s going to tell you your exact target coming out of Luclin; they changed the AC display for us during that time period so I can’t tell you what it is unless I did it for you. Which considering the questions you’re asking makes your “You don’t know wtf you are talking about” comment look pretty ignorant given you are asking for direction and don’t like the answers.

Honestly, I think you’re just being lazy here and looking for a hand out. Do the research given the suggestions to focus on sword / board and a tanking role focused on AC followed by HP that adds hSTA as a focus in PoP.

Put another way, there isn’t enough AC/HP in Luclin gear for Knights to tank Time well.

Sounds like you’re dead set on trying to play wizard SK still. I hope that mindset changes for both your and your guild’s benefit.

This is the type of info I'm looking for. If I can't tank PoTime with Luclin gear, and I won't be tanking anything other than trash in Luclin, then it makes no sense to focus on AC gear in Luclin if it needs to be upgraded in early PoP anyways...now does it?

So...the logical course of action is to focus on DPS gear for Luclin, then switch to AC gear in early PoP to prepare myself to tank in PoTime.

Simple resource/time management...my guild currently benefits more from my DPS than it would from any amount of AC I could ever get at this point of content. I'm sorry if your SKs can't pump out good DPS in Velious/Luclin. Have them send me a tell in game if they want pointers. If they aren't tanking, and they are terrible DPS, why even have them along?

I can't remember what I was at by the end of Luclin, but I was mostly bis, probably had 9.5k hp and 850-ish ac I'd guess? My guild was 3rd to kill quarm on Agnarr, and I remember our first few clears we had our best paladin tanking CT because he stacked AC/tank gear so he was a bit stronger than me. Also paladin self healing made it a bit easier for us at the outset. By the 3-4th clear I was tanking it. We didn't switch to having knight tank Inny for about 3-4 clears, but that was more so because we weren't SURE that we could tank him. But that switch likely could have happened sooner.

More recently started having me tank VZ because SKs can hold aggro through the FD he casts, which is way easier to heal so that clerics don't have to keep switching heal targets.

Anyways - I'd say that if you're an SK in Luclin and WANT to tank Time immediately, you'll just have to itemize AC/HP. Example I got Arms of the Twisted for FT, but if you wanted to tank you'd want Umbral Vambraces. It's definitely doable to tank in Time immediately.

Unholy aura and life taps were significantly buffed.

P99
Unholy Aura Discipline
25% increase to damage done by Harmtouch in addition to making it nearly un-resistable
SK spell
Level 51 Siphon life
Decrease Hitpoints by 65 (L20) to 75 (L25)

EQ TLPs
Unholy Aura Discipline
1: Increase Spell Damage (Before DoT Crit) by 100%
5: Limit: Target (Lifetap allowed)
Duration:
5.0 mins
SK Spell
Live 51 Siphon Life
1: Decrease Hitpoints by 102 (L20) to 250 (L26)

There isn't any sort of magical number and you will be wearing Luclin gear while tank Time regardless of if it's week one or 4 weeks in. You aren't gonna magically replace all your gear in the first clear or 2. Even if you don't end up tanking the gods you will be tanking mini bosses in P1-3 as well as adds that actually hit hard. You should always be shooting for the item with the best AC in slot unless you get Hsta/agi or one of the 3 important focus Magic ID, Mana Pres and Spell haste.

You won't be "good DPS" either way you gear and 3 foci listed are the only thing that significantly improves your DPS outside of your weapon and a few items that are BiS for tank and DPS anyways like the AHR neck and chest piece.

I have been reading this thread and I think the reason why so many people have a different opinion of what the SK can do is down to the fact that they are EXTREMELY gear dependent. With all the best gear a SK is one of the more powerful classes in the game. If you don't have access to that gear, then your mileage may vary.