I recently hit 60 on my SK on FV. He gets vast majority of play time in a 3 box of SK/Enc/Mag (running tank, healer, caster dps mercs). While I have been using a tank merc due to how strong they are early, I've done plenty of tanking with the SK quite successfully until now. Moving into Barren Coast (hot zone daily) and PoFire (for exp), I find the SK is getting absolutely hammered now. In mostly level-appropriate (intricate) defiant gear, I have 7.7k hp / 640 ac with cleric merc buffs - this is drastically lower than the tank merc's 14.4k hp / 1420 ac. SK is on a subbed account with auto-granted AAs, so I am current there. My questions - what am I missing for the SK / this new level bracket? Are there pieces of gear or sets I should be pursuing before I continue to push levels? Is this a point in the game where I need to stick with lower zones (blue mobs) rather than looking for equal-ish level zones? I have been picking up augs and using them in my gear as I've leveled, and I thought the defiant gear was the best option through 60+ (not sure when exactly this changes). As I'm playing solo with the box just enjoying the game, I am no huge hurry to stack the levels, and wouldn't mind farming gear for myself if there are important things to pick up before I can continue advancing. Appreciate any guidance or recommendations. Thanks!
Your stats sound fine for level 60. Between about 54 and 66 (RoK to GoD) an SK is relatively weak in their spells and abilities. This era was a time of bard-like (group friendly) power taps, spear nukes, fears, and of course life taps and drains. This story may interest you. As a change of pace, I played those levels with a heavy debuff lineup focusing on mitigating mob melee. With a bit of study, you will notice that an SK can debuff STR and ATK decently by stacking several spells. This enabled my SK to tank fairly well. It wasn't fast killing but it was effective and conserved mana. The relevant part of the spell set was: 1. Despair 9: Decrease ATK by 52. Asytole 2: Decrease STR by 403: Decrease AC by 183. Torrent of Fatigue 5: Decrease STA by 156: Decrease STR by 154. Torrent of Hate 7: Decrease ATK by 355. Abduction of Strength 3: Decrease STR by 256. Wave of Enfeeblement (if you don't have Dark Reaver) 1: Decrease STR by 15 Shadowknight's play style moves away from debuffs like that after 60. The Torrents stop at 58 and don't return until 100 (AC only). Asytole upgrades are at level 66 and then not again until level 85. They get no spells for ATK debuff after 54. It's a bygone era. Avoid disease resistant mobs with that spell set. At level 68, SK comes into their modern form of power with Touch of the Cursed (and Theft of Life) AA. In your 70s, your SK will start to feel invincible.
You can always go to an earlier expansion such as Veksar or the Hole and should be able to just crush mobs. The mobs you are doing now, The Barren Coast and Plane of Fire were designed for level 65 characters.
My SK also was a paper dragon till about level 75 really. And his pet? Don't even want to go there - thing died more than my ranger. Barren Coast was always hard for him. Doesn't sound like your high enough to get a J5 merc yet. And I don't think you can do the long version in The Warrens till about level 70 ish. But try running 2 merc healers and no merc tank. Go down a couple levels in daily kills from Teek and work on AA and pick up some nice hot zone augs
I remember when I got sent an ingame email upon leveling to go to The Bloodfields and went there and couldn't stand toe to toe with anything there with my sk. My first toon on FV. Some zones are just tougher than others. Unfortunately The Barren Coast was the hotzone. Try something different like Crypt of Nadox or Plane of Valor, or something similar, exp won't be as good, but, finding a zone you can tank in isn't just looking in the zone guide at min level/max level and saying "That's in my range, so I can tank it no problem!", I found. I never went to The Barren Coast with my sk, when I was leveling him, and didn't recall having too much problem tanking in the 60s, so I think The Barren Coast is just a harder zone or the mob type you had was a harder mob type. I moloed my sk from level 1 to 85 with an A1 healer merc, only grouping a couple of times in the 60s to do the daily in Torden, BoT, so there are easy tanking zones, but take it from, I should have had a J1 healer merc (I was cheap on plat that's my excuse).
