Shadow Knight Guide for Level 125 / Laurion's Song

In case it's useful for anyone, I updated Drogba's guide for Shadow Knights for Laurion's Song spells in beta and posted it here: https://forums.eqfreelance.net/index.php?topic=16303.msg51679#msg51679

The guide was originally written in The Burning Lands, so it's a bit out of date. The most notable change since TBL is Shadow Knight's DoTs being upgraded dramatically.

I updated this guide mostly to improve my Shadow Knight skills. If anyone has any updated guides or advice, I'd appreciate hearing it.



For posterity, other guides I've seen include:

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V2vS6XENcFZlYS-VO4puFCN-BeXyS26R/edit
• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vpqzqz1Mka84MeVv9IuB96Ss8FB5Zyp0DngKV2tIMyc
• http://eqshadowknight.net/showthread.php?t=9052 (Dead link, anyone have a copy of this?)

The Shadow Knight discord can be found at: https://discord.gg/cTn8Jdh2Ta

Hmmm sad day to see that the old SK pages no longer exist. Years and years of knowledge gone there.

Indeed. Brael where are you!?

I think this is the guide from http://eqshadowknight.net/showthread.php?t=9052 , I had saved it a year ago.

Edited for quite a change in SK tactics for TOV

A lot of peeps, mainly alts etc.. have been asking me why I do what I do when SK'ing. This will be some info on what I do... Key word is I do, doesn't mean its the best thing to do, there is always changing and evolving tactics, if you have an idea that may be better, let me know here please. Pretty much everything I do comes from the best players I have access to and who's info has proven correct in my experience. Mainly, Zlauk, Nabtinn, Wuddane and the ROI SK's.

First, spells. Here's my general all purpose raid or group spell set. I have 4 different tweaks I use off of it, but it is generally what I use:

1) Touch of Drendar - fast cast lifetap
2) Touch of T`Vem = fast cast lifetap
3) Dire Indictment - a big tap
4) Dissident Fang - Biggest lifetap + agro
These 4 spell slots are key bound to the letter Q on my keyboard, I mash this button continuously and when up, 1 of the 5 will cast, I don't really care which it is. There is essentially 0 delay casting because with RoS additions to hastened taps, this makes life taps very viable agro by themselves.

Key Binding: 1. alt + o to open your options window, 2. Keys from the menu tab, 3. From the menu select choose 'spells', 4. cursor over to the spell # you want key bound in the alternate list and click the location for that spell to be cast from, such as Q.

5) Terror of Mirenilla
6) Protest for Power (0 cast time now) If you're on adds that are dropping really fast, I will slide Terror of Kra'dru in here or Spear. Spear generates quite a bit of agro. However, it doesn't stack with Abhorrent Bargain. Situationally, if there's a single mob assignment or you're not in a mob rich environment or have a pile of tanks with you, or, bards and enchanters are mezzing mobs, you may choose to use the Spear. Generally I do use Abhorrent Bargain for the AE threat.

These 2 spells are key bound to the letter W on my computer and I mash these like crazy, when taps are down, these are firing. I pull with these, I bomb incoming mobs with them, I kite with them as they are 0 cast time. Terrors are vital to tanking for the SK. It is a great advantage for the SK to use them. Virtually all spells cast on initial attack have their hate cut by 50%. Terrors do not… This is why they are so important for agro. Plus u can always cast one 0 cost.

7) Insidious Denial - ae lifetap to nearby enemies
8) Abhorrent bargain - best ae agro nuke DOES NOT STACK with Spear
I have these both keyed to the letter E on my keyboard, I use them frequently to build agro and heal myself with

9) Bond of Vulak

This is key bound to the letter R on my computer, it is vitally important to survivability. It is a very small Heal Over Time DoT that is greatly modified at max level / AA. You can cast it on multiple mobs if you stack it on with a DoT spell. If I have a gang of mobs on me, I will scroll thru them and cast a DoT (usually Blood of Bonemaw) and cast Bond on the mobs. If I'm doing it well, I will have 4 or 5 mobs constantly healing me and I don't have to use any discs to survive the pull.

***You could certainly put Bond on a spam key as well. There's no build up, its just ticking damage. I'm seeing lucky crits in the 110 - 130k range quite frequently

10) Bloodletting Covenant on raids, group/solo Spear or Pestilent Darkness

11) Plague of Zlandicar -- Raiding I crank up touch of zlandicar before an event and get it cast for the hate mod. I unmem it and mem plague
12) Blood of Ikiatar
These DoTs, revamped in ToV, bring a very large addition to the DPS of an SK. Depending on how many and which dots you're running, it can increase your dps significantly. I've run as many as 4 plus bond on certain events. Plague and Blood are the shortest duration and least expensive mana to cast. Something like Derakor, I use Blight and Corruption for their longevity and Gina tells me when to recast, if I can, I do.

13) Cadcane's Skin
That's my spell set. It is now weighted more to bring a balance of tanking ability and DPS ability. AE threat is retained as that is, IMO, the essence of an SK.

This is my hotbar set up:

1) /assist raid - If I am assigned a specific mob in an event, I will write its name out and swap that key into this slot.
2) Taunt / pet attack / specific mob targeting etc... - Taunt is a tricky, slippery slope, once you know how to use it, ask someone else how they use it.
3) Veil of Darkness - 35k hate +debuff
4) ageless enmity - perfect taunt
5) unyielding acrimony
6) bifold focus
7) Thought Leech - large nuke, returns mana and endurance
8) Leech Touch - Large nuke returns Health
9) reflexive revulsion - 10m recast, dps ability
0) Stream of hatred (this is a cone hatred agroing everything in a cone out from you
-) Explosion of Hatred (this is an AE hate AA that centers around your target, great for agroing everyone around a mob.
#ERROR!

AGRO: Generally speaking on agro, I use Taunt, Ageless Enmity, Mindless Hatred and Unflinching Acrimony sparingly. Often, not at all. Spamming taunt only has one purpose, to push u back on the top of agro, nothing more. I only imagine using multiple options listed above or spamming the taunt key when fighting another tank or DPS who is bouncing agro back and forth. Admittedly, I didn't even consider that until Wuddane told me he does it if he's out of options. Spamming taunt is so INEFFECTIVE, its only use is really as a last resort with nothing else to use or do.
I use Taunt more to be 2nd on agro. If Im the backup, I will hit taunt to get to 100% agro then let the MT take it right back away. This keeps me up at the top of the agro list for the fight, if the MT dies, I have the mob. Ageless Enmity is an OH !! type of button for me... for example: Oh !! Zlauk has agro !!

The Zlauk has agro statement is where the SK earns his keep and earns his or her place. Oh happens and you have to know how to deal. First, hit Ageless, don't around with taunt, its more likely to fail. Get the 100% I have top agro.. What you do next, seperates the men from the boys. Here's what I do. I hit Ageless and IMMEDIATELY follow up with Hate's Attraction, and Veil of Darkness and I spam my Terror Key several times before I use Distasteful Bargain and then start a tap / terror / AE rotation on the mob to keep Zlauk at bay. The agro I get from HA, Veil, Terrors and Distasteful is enough to give me a good head start on Zlauk. Now I have to keep the agro piling up or some other tank or Zlauk is going to gank me. If on the off chance it bounces back to Zlauk hit ((Mindless Hatred has been nerfed into irrelevance)) hit unyielding acrimony if you have to or Harm touch for instant agro boost and continue ur build. In the group game I won't do that, they can keep it for the second or two I need to build past their agro. In the raid game, Zlauk can easily be 1 rounded, get it off right the now.

Edit: On an off note about agro and peeling agro from DPS types or healers etc... As an SK, specifically a raid SK. If you're having to do this on all but a rare occasion, your SK team is a failure. Your SK's need to be hitting the raid with enough AE hate that keeps mobs wanting to kill you the second another tank dies. By doing so, you allow enchanters to mez and park mobs by holding mob attention, you keep a spawn of mobs from killing DPS by gaining attention. Keep something non dps ae available for when a pile of mobs spawn, if you have to, throw a damaging ae at the mobs. Enchanters and such can deal with recasting, the point is, keep mobs off DPS and squishy casters. That's our job 100% of the time. Anything less sucks. I get that on occasion a dps gets agro or something like a whorling spawns and pretargets a dps, you need to deal with that as an SK.

Harmonious Disruption: ((Has been nerfed into obsolescence))) its worthless -- its a 4min self buff with a 48 counter. When healed by another, u will try and lifetap the mobs around you and generate a mega ton of agro. If u want all the mobs on you, cast this and tell the healers to pound u with fast heals as soon as the mobs are incoming. ALL other tanks will hate you. Until you die, then they will laugh at you. Raid use: hmm.... my list is: PO Health raid 1 clear. Droga maybe but not really necessary. I don't even consider this anymore, it's not on any spell set.

AE HATE: AA hates, one is a cone, figure that out on ur own, if u can't, roll a Paladin. One is an AE around the mob u r targetting (explosion of Hatred). I hope I don't have to detail how to use that. Explosion of Spite is centered around YOU. I use them quite a bit, during raids I'll randomly send em off so mobs can hate me more than they hate clerics. Same for the spell cast AE's. Just toss em out when u can. AE HATE IS ESSENTIAL FOR THE SK ON RAIDS. You have to spam ae hate in most raid environments. You have to determine and walk the fine line of getting agro when you don't want it, and keeping yourself above everyone but the MT, 2nd Tank. Good luck, most SK's and other tank types can not do this. If in doubt, get agro.

Spire: You're down to one. use it.

Bloodletting Alliance: basically u cast it, other sk's tap and fap and they get a dmg bonus to their casts. If they get enough off in 18 seconds, a very big nuke is triggered. I think its around 1m dmg. If you can get the other SK's in a rotation using it, it becomes a lot of DPS. PS, they don't stack so figure it out.

What else goes in the Letter Q general lifetap spam key.... Ok here is what else is in my Q key.
bash, repel, Vicious Bite of Chaos, Banestrike and....... disarm (cause why not?). Also Lacerating blade is on this key as well.

OK, fine, let's burn.... or try to. Here's what I'm thinking on burns.

First, have your 2 hander up if you have one.

1. Glyph of Cataclysm (destruction II whatevs) NOTE: **** Dragon Glyph is such a huge advantage be very sure of your situation when using Glyph of Destruction II, they share the same cool down. You may want to save this for Dragon Glyph.
2. Epic
3. Intensity of the Resolute (7th vet aa) 3-6 are on a hotkey and go off at the same time
4. Visage of Death
5. T'vyl's Resolve (coordinated with other SK's if possible)
6. Cerise Blade
7. Reflexive Revulsion -- this is also on my spam key with half the cool down of cerise blade, i want it used as much as possible.
8. Harm Touch
9. Leech Touch
10. Thought Leech

When your melee burn ends....

1. Unholy Guardian Disc, click it off when u click it on and immediately cast - Unholy Aura. You will get the tap effect you want from Unholy Guardian and gain the bonus to lifetaps with Unholy Aura.
2. Visage of Decay
3. Gift of the Quick Spear if running spear
4. Keep dots on target



So... the first 11 are self explanatory, that's essentially a Melee pour in of DPS and modifiers available. HT LT and TL are going to be big agro, be careful there and watch where u are and what's going on in the fight, you may need to wait until later in the fight to use. Once u get gift of quick spear in, you can start spamming spear along with lifetaps. That's pretty much it for me.

Visage of Decay, most fights doesn't last that long but it will give u more cast dps. It's great to have up with gift of quick spear and dots going. In long boss fights its a nice dps extension to your burns. I'm now more into keeping Visage of Decay on cool down unless I know where I'm going to want it in the boss fight.

Let's discuss defensive postures.

First, Shield Flash has to be the single most handy defensive there is. It allows you critical time to make fast decisions. Such as: MT dies, you being the good SK, get the agro. You hit shield flash, realize the 2nd tank is down as well so you're going to go balls deep in this mob. First thing you gotta do is hold agro. Unflinching Acrimony isn't a bad idea here. Because you need to do other things quickly besides build agro and your 6 second shield flash timer is running. Next, you need to survive, what's your plan? first thing's first, EPIC.... It isn't what it used to be but it helps, a lot. Then decide if you think you need to deflect this mob or if the heals are spot on, you can roll with DOOMSCALE MANTLE. This is typically high on my choices. It's a relatively short duration yet mitigates a good bit of damage. EPic's running, Doomscale is going, if its a single mob without a gay pile of adds, HARMONIOUS DISRUPTION won't hurt here. More agro, more heal... can't be wrong. Now, you need to get agro built. Good time for a HT, TL, LT, HA, VEIL OF DARKNESS, DISTASTEFUL BARGAIN TO HAPPEN. Now, mash the out of Terror, if you have 2 and harmonious going, get some taps in on cool down, if you have 3 going, get some taps in every couple rounds. Keep mashing ur main masher cause you have bash, repel on that key. It goes without saying, you already have Bond of the Bonemaw on it. Or go roll a rogue.

BOND OF THE BONEMAW It goes on everything all the time.... period. If you don't believe me, go parse it on a dummy, dummy. OK, it's a heal over time DOT on the mob. You can cast it against multiple mobs as well. Use it for the win. On a big pull, scroll thru, toss bond and a dot on each mob, then u can afk if u want to cause u wont die.

REAVER'S BARGAIN: devs. Its pretty much a last ditch discipline I rarely use. It has its use, but its a distant fraction of what it was. When Im out of everything, I use it.

Helpful hint's for hopeful heroes:
Here are some of the hotkeys / socials etc I use....

First, anything combat related or something I expect to use quite often is key bound to a specific location on my key board for ease of use. Some of them are:

/ key on my number pad is the epic
7 on number pad is HA, 8 is Projection of Doom, 9 is FD the FD is a social key written as follows:

/alt activate 7756 = Death's Effigy - This is really the only FD option we have any more. Nothing else seems to work.

1 on the key pad is Restless mantle
2 Cadcane's Carapace
3 Deflection
4 leechcurse disc
6 Shield Flash



Pretty much everything else is a mouse click.

The question I got tonight was: "whats the SK's biggest agro spell or item?"....

So, for sure, if you don't have agro and you want it... /taunt, ageless enmity, unbroken acrimony will all get you to the top of the agro list. mindless, and unbroken will give u time to build ur agro while holding u at top agro, ageless and taunt just get u there....
So the next thing to do is build big agro to stop the Axefall and Bleve's of the world from ganking ur mob and hating on u.
Harm Touch is HUGE AGRO. If u gotta get a mob, why not use it
Thought Leech / Leech Touch combo is big agro
Hate's Attraction, Distasteful Bargain, veil of darkness, Dichotomic Fang are all big agro boosts
My personal favorite agro builder is TERRORS.... Terrors are pure hate, the cost 0 to cast and no time. Spamming em will drive ur agro thru the roof..

OK, what if I have a Bifold Focus item? Generally I try and pair it with Dire Indictment, Spear, Touch of Drendar or Abhorrent Bargain. IT DOES NOT STACK WITH DISSIDENT FANG.

Special thanks go out to: Nabtinn, Zlauk, Drogba, Wuddane, Thadious and everyone else I've run across that had a really good idea.

Here are some random musings to add to this:

OK, what if I have a Bifold Focus item <-- use with Blood line of dots, with all the new focii + type 3 + rk3 etc it will crit for over 2 mil with LI xpac

Reavers while much weaker than when it came out, is good to use when tanking and you know you will be taking big spell damage as well, it combines with our other discs, or if you are just going to be eating a lot of AE spells and no chanters have their glyph spray on you

For agro, start out with terror for hate override (or explosion of hatred), fang or veil if needing a ton of initial agro, throw a parley on if it will be up a while, then go back to your dps spells, you will be fine on agro

Always use a 2h, highest agro and most dps, only use sword and board when you need flash or deflection, you can make a hotkey for those to bandolier to S&B + the ability

always use spire + harm touch for crits, I use spire + harm touch then bifold blood line of dots

If you are going to use unrelenting line, follow it up with taunt (ageless if taunt fails) otherwise you will lose agro again if someone else is still above you when it wears off.

You need 4+ mobs to be hit by bargain for it to be better than spear, more if you are running quickspear.

Multidot - learn your agro, learn your raid/crew's agro, know when you can and switch between targets and dot to your hearts content.

Reavers for spell damage?

[Mon Nov 27 14:19:55 2023] Sakkurah has accepted your challenge to duel to the death! Fight!
[Mon Nov 27 14:20:04 2023] Sakkurah begins singing Nord's Disdain Rk. II.
[Mon Nov 27 14:20:06 2023] Sakkurah hit you for 1947 points of magic damage by Nord's Disdain Rk. II.
[Mon Nov 27 14:20:06 2023] You are offended by galling disdain!
[Mon Nov 27 14:20:17 2023] Sakkurah begins singing Nord's Disdain Rk. II.
[Mon Nov 27 14:20:20 2023] Sakkurah hit you for 110395 points of magic damage by Nord's Disdain Rk. II. (Lucky Critical)
[Mon Nov 27 14:20:20 2023] You are offended by galling disdain!
[Mon Nov 27 14:20:34 2023] You begin casting Reaver's Bargain II.
[Mon Nov 27 14:20:34 2023] You make a dark bargain.
[Mon Nov 27 14:20:35 2023] Sakkurah begins singing Nord's Disdain Rk. II.
[Mon Nov 27 14:20:38 2023] You consume 169 mana to absorb 169 damage.
[Mon Nov 27 14:20:38 2023] Sakkurah hit you for 16704 points of magic damage by Nord's Disdain Rk. II.
[Mon Nov 27 14:20:38 2023] You are offended by galling disdain!

The absorb with mana part absorbs 1% of any damage I think.

Reaver's Bargain II
Classes: SHD/254
Skill: Melee
Endurance: 0, Upkeep: 750 per second
Restriction: Cannot Remove
Restriction: Type 49543
Target: Self
Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: No
Focusable: No
Casting: 0s
Duration: 2.5m (25 ticks), Dispelable: No
2: Absorb Damage using Mana: 1%
3: Increase Max Negative HP by 50000
4: Absorb Melee Damage: 75% over 25000, Total: 1500000
5: Cast: Reaver's Exhaustion once if Type 49545
Text: You make a dark bargain.

I've also had the 50k purple hp let a di fire and save me, when I knew i was going to take 2 ae. it all adds up, and better to use it than let it sit there not getting pushed.

certainly no doubt that reavers is great while its going, and taking less melee while lots of ae's are going out def decreases your chance to die, but only the 1% with mana thing absorbs spell damage which isn't much

its the 1% for spells, but also, the +50k for purple, + sk are usually tanking stuff, so its that little bit more protection during that so the melee doesn't compound on the spell damage. many sk don't even use it anymore or leave it up a lot, can help in niche situations.

that's why its a random musing, use what you have when you can to do anything you can to stay alive and kill faster.

Do you share you gina triggers anywhere?

If you're talking to me, not really. I'm also moving over to Kizant's EQLogParser https://github.com/kauffman12/EQLogParser .

If folks want my triggers for that when I finish moving over I can share them.

I don’t even mem parlay/terror these days, reavers isn’t very good standalone but it ties well with other things like mantle or ignominious/carapace. Spire is so good for spell burn, I strictly save it for that or for big HT like
Sojero said.

If you just play the group game terrors are not really needed. Then again I do not pull 5+ mobs at a time. Yes I play boring lol.

Terrors not needed really ever even in raid content, the caveat being like sojero said if you really need it for the hate override.

tuco you said, scroll through multiple mobs and throw a dot and bond on the mobs. is the dot part just for dps? or does the bond need the dot to heal you?

Bond heals you for every mob that it ticks on, so if you put it on 2 mobs, 2 heals every server tick.

the old bond (cant remember when the change was) used to put a buff on you, now its on the mob, so you can stack it.

I personally never use the line.

Denyu weeps...

Bonds healing is capped pretty low, I wouldn't put a lot of stock in it for survival.