SKs, what is your sustained dps?

Discussion in 'Tanks' started by Parmalice, Jun 16, 2021.

  1. Parmalice Journeyman

    I'm curious. I haven't gotten much cross-pollination through forum interactions with other SKs, and can only really compare what I do with other SKs in my own guild. Lots of the "guide" type articles I have seen before are very out-dated, so are interesting but not necessarily reflective of the current state of things.

    I'm curious how well my playstyle matches that of other SKs. For grabbing aggro I keep one Terror spell up and Protest for Power, plus the aggro AAs. I find those to be sufficient. With the raid gear I have (a mixture of ToV crafted and CoV dropped and crafted) I don't necessarily need to keep Stalwart Stance up while doing group content. This leaves room for 5 DOTs, 4 lifetaps including Composite Fang (I only need 3 non-Fang lifetaps for a nearly continuous chain-cast lifetap series if I need it), plus Cadcane's Skin and Vulak's Bite.

    I'll put all five DOTs up while meleeing if the fights are long enough (I won't add a DOT if the fights are so short that the mob is only like 20% by the time I can get them off). This is extremely mana intensive, so I'm constantly scrambling for mana. I cast Vulak's Bite and Bite of Chaos every time they come up while fighting, and then use Spire/Thought Leech every time that comes up. I find it strange that the other SKs I've talked to in my guild don't use Vulak's Bite this way. I get anywhere from 1-8% of my manabar back with each cast of Vulak's Bite depending on how if/how hard it crits, and it's not just me getting it back - my whole group gets that mana and endurance back too, so it's helping everyone. Since it has a refresh time of one minute, in the time it takes Thought Leech to come back (10 minutes) I'll typically get 40-50% of my mana back in between Thought Leeches. Casting my five DOTs on every mob most of the time sucks vast quantities of mana, so without using Vulak's Bite this way I couldn't sustain this, but with Vulak's Bite I can sustain this for hours in combination with Clarity and Skin.

    I'll melee almost everything with my 2HS, including multiples at a time, and use my epic or the Anguish breastplate (15% dmg back as heals, a mini-epic) in combination with T'Vyll's Resolve or Visage of Death (melee dps boosters) to turn my 2HS melee dmg into a nearly insurmountable rate of self healing. Combined with Bond of Vulak and a chain-castable lifetap rotation, I can use 2HS against nearly everything outside of when I'm the actual target of some raid adds or some really long tanking achievements like Maximum Echo or Skin Care.

    Anyhow, the result of all this is I average around 340-360k dps sustained over hours, with individual mobs vastly exceeding this (either from melee if I had Visage of Death up) or from a Harm Touch, and tank pretty much anything and everything successfully in my groups or while soloing (with a melee dps merc).

    Is this playstyle in line with the current meta? I've been kind of shocked comparing notes with some other SKs in my guild and I find they don't use Vulak's Bite, and therefore cannot possibly sustain five DOTs/mob plus liberal usage of lifetaps as additional dps.
  2. Lanedora New Member

    I wouldn't expect a lot of SK's to post on this, as they don't want the nerf bat :)
    minimind and Velisaris_MS like this.
  3. Cragzop Cranky Wizard


    If the devs aren't aware at this point how ridiculously overpowered tanks, and especially sks, have been for dps (obviously undead only for pallies) over the past few expansions ... some parse postings aren't going to change that.
  4. Szilent Augur

    You were fairly detailed but didn't call out running Impertinent on cooldown. If you're not already on that, there's a substantial gain available from doing so.
  5. Parmalice Journeyman

    Are you referring to the Impertinent Influence discipline? If so then yes, I use that when necessary, along with the other defensive disciplines.
  6. Szilent Augur

    not "when necessary". on cool down, for >1/4 uptime
  7. aozs Augur

    I don't really know if you can get a useful comparison without noting conditions such as available adps, how fast stuff is dying, and how many mobs are engaged at a time because those can affect the end number drastically. I wouldn't be surprised if a raid geared SK with brd/shm/bst adps fighting 5-6+ mobs at a time would be double your given numbers, if not higher.
  8. Parmalice Journeyman

    I just read up further on the proc that is added by Impertinent Influence and realized that I really should be calling this all the time, and not just when I need it to chop that 20% off the top of incoming dmg on multi-pulls and whatnot. Thanks for that head's up. I don't know why I hadn't read that before.
  9. Chaosflux Augur

    Only thing I'd ask is have you compared a damage breakdown of trying afew different methods? Several of your dots have a 3s quiet time (off memory: bond, blood, blight has 2s quiet) there is probably a point where casting them is a net loss as opposed to prioritizing a lifetap over the dots based on your TTK, unless you are using the dots on extra mobs in the trash packs you are pulling (assuming, i would hope you are pulling several at a time). You sort of addressed this in your post, but do you have a solid # to back up or are you going by feel? Feel method works, but it might be leaving dps on the table

    But let's just say for argument and illustration of what i mean you are pulling singles, just so I can demonstrate what I mean

    You pull a fierce_mob00
    Terror
    GCD (1.87s, as measured at 90ms ping)
    Corruption dot
    GCD (1.87s)
    Dire dot
    GCD (1.87s)
    Blood
    Quiet (3.37s, 3s quiet + .37 latency as measured at 90ms ping)
    Blight
    Quiet (2.37s, 2s quiet + .37 latency)
    Bond
    Quiet (3.37)

    We are at 12.35s here, if you have a TTK of 30s that means you will have at best 3 ticks of dot damage on bond, 3 - 4 ticks on blood, 4 ticks on dire, 4 to 5 ticks on corruption

    You need to compare average tick damage vs lifetaps/spear average damage to see if its worth skipping blood/bond

    You can also cycle target and Dot, the best candidate for this is IMO the corruption dot because it has a good duration/no quiet and decent base damage (?)

    Basically sounds like you are doing it right but you do need to evaluate your DD vs DOT choices depending on TTK and potentially shift priority if you are killing mobs at a rate at which you don't get enough time on the dots to justify casting them vs spear/tap.

    Which will require some parsing to see if/when there's any area for you further maximize your dps.

    You also need to keep in mind the multiplicative damage potential of things like your insidious deflection line, if you are pulling consistently large trash packs a single cast of that might outweigh a dot during that cast opportubity in total damage throughput? Bargain AE too? Something to consider, test, and evaluate. You didn't mention it as one of your spells you are using, I don't have numbers on paper but id guess if you have 5+ in camp casting that on recast would > the lo ng er quiet time dots. Just at a glance at the spell parser.
  10. Chaosflux Augur

    Oh and to touch on the same thing Szilent already mentioned things like Influence, VOD, Spire, etc if you are trying to maximize dps need to be used on cooldown and stacked where possible for maximum effect (if stacking gets higher effect). This also requires some experimenting and parsing, and spell priority may adjust during certain cooldowns, so Gina timers or ATs to give you an additional visual que may be required. YMMV.

    Basically you want to use those early and on cooldown without fail and adjust tactically to maximize their effect whenever they are going, while also adjusting dynamically to the size of pulls and the kills peed you are maintaining as a group/raid whatever.

    Which is why I am suggesting a good bit of parsing to see ability baselines, because if you know XYZ Dot needs A amount of time it helps greatly prioritizing on the fly.
  11. Warpeace Augur


    Can they be hit hard enough with a nerf bat to make a dent?
  12. Warpeace Augur


    You mean Paladin dps in the one instance where it does to shine?
  13. Chaosflux Augur

    Right, in any expansion without undead, which is the majority, its pretty ehhh ok.

    Though I definitely wish Slay would have went away in 2008/2009 when trading it for higher overall higher sustained (but less peak burst v. Undead) if it would have gained more community traction. Probably be in an overall better place not being tied to an ability that is largely limited to a minority of content.
  14. Warpeace Augur


    Maybe if they converted Slay Undead into a stance they could make better changes to it. Then you would intentionally be set to a specific fighting stance toward one set of mobs with a bonus.
  15. Chaosflux Augur

    Idk if micromanagement of an additional stance is really a solid idea, however if it came with caveat that we would be able to use our Doctrines on living mobs (at reduced damage) it might be worth it.
  16. Chaosflux Augur

    Oh additionally since you didn't mention keeping up Spear

    You have almost 30% uptime on Quickspear, which during that time frame you can totally disregard terror and use Spear for all your snap aggro which obviously will bump up your DPS especially if Spectre illusion AA (Visage of Decay) and/or Spire are used concurrently with that as it comes off CD

    Its been awhile since I messed with SK, but given the overwhelming plethora of activateable aggro on quick CDs, and the recast on Spear, unless I was grouping with ultra aggressive melee/hybrids I don't even know if in the modern game I'd bother with Memming a Terror. I often times wouldn't (last i played an SK was in EOK tho so YMMV) spear/tap with alternating explosions, stream, hates attraction, Veil of darkness, etc combined with the revamped DOT damage probably make terror irrelevant outside of an incredibly aggressive group with particularly high aggro classes.
  17. Parmalice Journeyman

    Chaosflux,
    I can't quote/reply to everything, but first, thanks for those great comments. I hadn't actually realized the specific different cooldown timers on those specific spells. I'll have to reevaluate my spellcasting order to see if optimizing them based on their cooldown timers will improve my output.

    The five DOTs I've been using till now are: Bond, Plague of Zlandicar, Nefarious Blight, Blood of Ikatiar, and Pestilent Darkness. They're all rank 3 and I have the type 3 augs for each of them on my gear.

    I also will go back and re-evaluate my choice of DOTs that I use vs. the ones I haven't been using and see if the choices still make sense. It's possible it may not.

    I don't always cast all five DOTs on all mobs. I definitely make a judgment on whether the mob still has long enough to live to justify the last couple of DOTs, and if I think it won't be worth it to do the DOT I'll just throw in a couple lifetaps instead. While soloing or killing names it's always worth it, with a good group on easy enough mobs it usually isn't.

    I've used Insidious Rejection a fair bit, but mostly on lower-level content where I'm always pulling a few mobs at a time. Since the last two expacks have lots of undead, I usually will have Protest for Power up in that slot instead for the excellent slow vs. undead.

    T'Vyll's Resolve and Visage of Death get used often, but I'll admit it hasn't always been promptly on cooldown. I'll improve on that. I like to pair each of those separately with either the epic or my Anguish breastplate, where these two DPS multipliers can also act as self-healing multipliers in conjuction with my 2HS (Velium Endowed Claymore) to create a rate of self-healing that is very hard for most mobs to overcome.

    After today I'm going to consciously use Impertinent Influence on cooldown, as suggested, and will use it when both the epic and the Anguish breastplate are down in order to create 100% coverage over time between their respective benefits. Till now I'd been using it mostly as a reserve for when the SHTF and it's recently enough that Restless Mantle and Unholy Guardian aren't up yet. This conversation, and the fact that I've more carefully read now the benefits that Impertinent actually brings, will change this going forward.

    I appreciate the comments. I've tried hard to master this class, but I will admit straight up I haven't played it that long, and I started it as a lvl 85 heroic back in January, a few weeks after returning to the game. That said, I've put a lot of effort into learning how to play it effectively, and I play it more aggressively than most of the SKs I know personally. I've been effective soloing (with a melee dps merc, never a healer), grouping, and raiding as an off-tank in the knight lineup during raids. One thing that I've been missing is an idea of how the playstyle I've developed mostly through reading, experimenting, and trial and error compares to the most successful SKs who've been playing the class forever. So thanks!
  18. Chaosflux Augur

    Id definitely ask on the EQ discord too, Denyu is pretty active there and he's Very good, I am just a Paladin that likes number crunching dps and min/maxing. I don't think he posts on the boards much/ever.

    Drogbaa is also pretty solid, he's got some videos circulating on YouTube, less a how too more a showcasing of the skillset, as far as aggressive playstyle goes id definitely give those a gander. He used to post on the boards, but I haven't seen him lately.
  19. Parmalice Journeyman

    You must be over the moon about the patch note yesterday that you (Pallies) no longer have to target yourself (or someone else if they're tanking the same mob you're fighting) when casting your heals during a fight. That was a huge change for pallies, and 20 years too late.
  20. Chaosflux Augur

    Yeh been messing with it this morning, regrettably it doesn't change my spell priority too much since Its more efficient to cast a flurry of targets target heals, the good candidate for that is remonstrate (censure for me since on a TLP)

    I know the TOV one was already like that, I made afew posts about it in COV because they had promised to do all the old spells as well, glad they did.