Ok, so I will preface by saying I am sure that their is a large chance that this is partially the player behind the toon, but I am a 74 SK, and I dont feel very tanky. I was wondering if I should be able to tank at this level, seems my HP go down fast, these are blues and whites mind you, so Shaman heals me, rest of fight is me mashing taunt spells/abilities to get them off the healer. I am wearing the level appropriate Defiant Armor, epic 1.5 and jewelry bought in POK. I have the AC augs appropriate up to lvl 75. I have auto assigned AA's from 51 on. So my question is, is it a bad level for tanking, or is it that I need to improve my playstyle? any tips would be helpful.
We would have to know what you are casting etc, are you boxing the shammy? You should be able to hold agro with that gear at that level no problem over a shammy just healing. If you are boxing you may want to invest in some spell casting subtlety AA on the shammy.
Not boxing, pulling with Terror and then basically using taps/challenge/snare AA. I use 2 AOE aggro spells in an emergency, but seems biggest problem is I take alot of damage even with self buffs, and find myself using discs alot. even during normal fights.
where are you figting and are you using sword/shield or 2h. Also do you have 20+ ac augs in all gear?
I have been doing zombies at the entrance to oceangreen hills as it's a hot zone, been using 2h, didn't think shield would make much difference of 1.5 AC, and I wasn't aware that there were 20+ AC Augs at my level. been just using the dropped ones in the hotzones as I go.
Shield makes a huge difference, the ac on a shield is no capped by the softcap and when you get the block aa they help as well. Go to riftseekers and get teh 25 ac augs from there, there is one you can get 4 of. Go to MPG and get the 20 ac aug that can go into shield from there. Then go to dreadspire keep and get teh 5 25ac augs from there from shadowy student or something like that. go to allakhazam and look at the named mobs and you will find the ones that have the ac augs on them. That will do a long way
The 25 ac aug from RSS is the Flameshield stone from http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=16763 Note it isn't lore so you can get 4 of them. while I was there I farmed up 4 Ore of Stone Strength 20 ac augs from http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=16687. the one from Dreadspire is Shard of the Guardian 25 Ac, 25 hp off the Shadowy Student http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=19564 These will give you a full base set of 20+ Ac augs, if you have Hotzone augs with better AC go ahead and bump the Stone Strength ones off.
http://www.evilgamer.net/forums/showthread.php?t=4870 If you don't' have access to heroic augs, this thread should give some ideas of where to go and get your augs.
Thanks!! And I am guessing you need a heroic toon for heroic aug quests if I read that correctly somewhere.
You didn't mention if you were keeping Voice of XXX on yourself or not ..sk hate mod spell. That will help your agro. Terror is not just a pulling tool .. Taunt works , when its used at the right time.
Oceangreen hill mobs are also probably hitting on the heavy side as it was a new expansion zone. At 74, most people would have been in TSS zones (Direwind / Icefall) or in TBS zones.
Remember when hunting levels along the way .... Content in each tier was generally designed for nearly a full group. For example, if you're in TSS level ranges, TSS was designed with a full group (or nearly) of level appropriate, content appropriate players in mind. Just keep that tucked away. Furthermore, you will generally level and aa faster in older content with more trivial mobs that you can mow through more quickly. Duoing high dark blues and whites/yellow/red in content that is current for you will be more slow and more challenging than stepping back a few expansions and grinding there. As far as aggro goes ... you just need to alter your game play. If aggro is a problem for you as a SK, you're just not using all the tools available to you. Load your 2 most recent terrors and chain them if aggro is a problem. If aggro isn't a problem, I tend to fall back on a more life-tap oriented setup. In this instance, your ability to heal yourself will allow that shaman to do something other than heal you - namely get things deader quicker. At your level, I'll echo the sentiments above. You still are in the level range to get experience hunting in Riftseekers Sanctum (4x 25ac and 4x 20ac?) and dreadspire keep (5x 25ac/25hp). There is also a 30ac 60hp augment in Ashengate and a 30/30 in frostcrypt. There's a 30ac aug in Valdenholm. There are several good ac augments to be found in Secrets of Faydwer. I'll be honest with you, I shamefully used many of those augments all the way up into VoA on my SK and they served me well. These days, you can also get good augments cheaply starting at level 85 in heroic adventures - probably the single best way to get augments once you're in that level range. Aggro should come naturally and easily for a shadowknight. If it isn't ... go back to the drawing board. I promise you have more than ample tools in your arsenal - just gotta learn to use them.
Folks covered the SK side really well so I'll toss something out there for the shammy. You mentioned you aren't boxing the shaman (though you did accept the auto grant). If the shaman also accepted the auto grant, you should tell the shaman to double check their spell casting subtlety level. This AA was purposely omitted from auto grant (as not every class wants to be more subtle with their casting) so if the shaman auto granted, there's a good chance they don't realize they don't have this AA and it would help them tremendously. At level 75, the shaman can get the first 6 ranks, with a 23% reduction at rank 6. Ranks 6-9 are still noticeable reductions in aggro (though the AA cost starts increasing). Ranks 10+ still have high reduction values but the AA costs really start to skyrocket here. Short summary, getting rank 6 (and rank 9 when level allows) will also help the situation.
You all have been a huge help, but this statement above holds quite true. Just an update. I managed to upgrade a bunch more (Non Armor) pieces of equipment with highest AC I could afford. Managed to glint another almost 300 out of them. My partner and I then went to some older zones, and we were literally ripping through several blues, a couple of whites, and yellows at a time, Went shield and that helped a lot (Thanks Sajero) and I was able to hold aggro pretty well, the damn caster mercs on burn make me work though thats for sure, and when I did lose aggro I was able to gain it back fairly quickly. Thanks all of you for the help.
