Shadowknight SPAs and Stacking

Discussion in 'Tanks' started by Sashnia, Mar 2, 2016.

  1. sojero One hit wonder

    fades after the damage cap is reached. I generally find that it protects one hit and very rarely goes past 1 hit, on raid mobs. In group game I just click and don't pay attention as they dont hit hard enough to reach the cap in 1 hit.
  2. Wyvern Lorekeeper

    We need to propose the following changes:

    Absorb melee damage: SPA 162
    Doomscale Mantle 35% -- fine as is
    Impudent Influence/Carapace 20% - fine as is
    Vizat's Skin - currently 100% - reduce to 50% to spread it out
    Cascading Theft of Defense XII - currently 100%, reduce to 50% to spread it out (base2 limit needs upgraded to about same as Skin)
    Repel - Currently 90% - reduce to 45-50% to spread it out

    These changes would help reduce spikes by spreading out the effects across hits and also make it less likely to have partial effects that are worse than the 20/35% from Mantle/Carapace. We would also not have to worry as much if any were in use while under Mantle or Carapace Disc.

    If these changes were made I would be ok with DP Stance being reduced to 22.5% or 25% from the current 30% for Knights. As it is we are hurting ourselves with these effects when using Mantle and sometimes with Carapace.

    -- As a side effect, all these change might placate Warriors - lol, ok maybe not...
  3. sojero One hit wonder


    vizat skin will always be bad to use when running your vie discs. Lowering the % amount on the others to anything other than 19% or less wouldn't do anything for us, and would just make them not really use able.

    cascading is so rare to cast I don't think its really an issue with 100% / 34k/ 5 hits

    Repel should only be used when you know you are gonna be taking really bad hits if you are using your vie discs and you know it will eat it in 1 hit or instances such as summon tanking or picking up an add on the initial hit if shield flash is down to give time to healers to switch to you. Since you have complete control over when you use repel line, its fine as is, just use it when its beneficial to you, and don't when you don't think it will be.
    Xanathol likes this.
  4. Ravengloome Augur

    Skin and Terror recourse have hit limits reducing them to 50% isn't helping . You would be cutting their value in half outside of raids (where they actually matter) and furthermore reducing repel would also be just as dumb. These are situational abilities that you would be vastly reducing their effectiveness for the situation they are perfectly matched for... that's silly
  5. Ghubuk Augur

    Aye, reducing their effectiveness isn't the way to go. They need to be on a different spa so they don't take precedence over defensives. Assuming that is what is happening.
  6. Sashnia Elder

    I don't agree with your suggested changes Wyvern as I don't believe it would fix the problem, the only solution I can think of for both of these is to move both cascading theft of defence and vizats skin effect to SPA 55.


    Questioned this during beta, the impression I got from many SKs in beta at the time was that they wanted the extra hits for tanking multiple weak hitting enemies at once, and this AA is fine for that.
  7. Warpeace Augur

    Reproval is not just a SK ability and changing it is not needed. Keep in mind you might get the developers to move some SPA's for you but not everything is intended to stack.
  8. mackal Augur

    You could also add Vizat's Skin to the buff block list (and then remove it) with your mantle/carapace hotkeys. Then just be smart enough to not recast it :p
  9. Wyvern Lorekeeper

    I had to run out before I could finish thinking over my last post. What I did not add is that base2 would have to be doubled or more to make them useful under Mantle and maybe Carapace. I don't see any other suggestions other than the original poster SPA (55) change or to block them which is not something we should have to do. Possible fixes: SPA change (make the effect a heal or Rune).

    Simplest "bandage" fix would be to just raise the base2_x to about double or more from where they are now or make the base2_x = 0 like the others (ie no limit). You will still have spikes but at least you would not always be below Mantle/Carapace.

    Cascading Theft of Defense XII (proc from using terrors): Max Hits: 5
    Slot Description
    8: Mitigate Melee Damage by 100%, 34000 total
    base2_8: 4600
    max8 34000

    : just noticed this!
    5 hits x 4600 = 23000 --- so even if you make use of all 5 hits for 4600 base2 limit you will not reach the 34000 max total (it should have been base2_8 = 6800; (5 x 6800 = 34000)

    35k hit - 6800 = 19.4% absorbed
    25k hit - 6800 = 27.2%
    20K hit - 6800 = 34%
    -- this looks more reasonable. Another way to do it maybe is to raise base2 to 12.5k-15k base limit, or remove base2 limit.

    -- At least this rarely buffs us so the negative effect is minimized when using Mantle/Carapace. Fix it to the 6800 base_2 and it would make it less of an issue, but really should be higher.


    Vizat's Skin
    Slot Description
    6: Mitigate Melee Damage by 100%, 0 total: Max Hits: 3
    base2_6: 5091
    -- does not have a max6 value

    3 x 5091 = 15273 --- so even on 3 hits for 5091 it looks weak vs anything on a raid.
    --Only load for UG 36% or non-disc.
    -- Presence of Fear and putrid skin bp clicky will both remove skin so this can be dealt with fairly easy.

    I still feel Repel should still be 50% vs 100%. It would give a better chance to have absorb happen more evenly on 2-3 hits vs 1 (and a negative partial) now on raid. The Extension AA is only useful in group game and then not likely to help in most situations. For this AA to work in the group game, % has to be dropped to spread it over the 6 hits. It might fade on 4th hit sometimes but likely after 3.
  10. Ravengloome Augur

    Situational Abilities are situational
    Xanathol likes this.
  11. josh Augur

    Repel is still worth it on raid bosses with mantle running. on a mob that hits for 71k with defensive proficiency i get hit for 50k, mantle asborbs another 35% which means it absorbs 17500 damage per hit.

    Best case scenario, the first roll from this boss after i hit repel is a 20 and i get hit for 50k and repel absorbs 90% and fades giving me 2158 damage for that hit. mantle then aborbs 35% from any subsequent hits and i mitigate an extra 18092 damage from that round.

    Worst case scenario in a single round is, he rolls a 15 and after DP its 37750, repel absorbs 90% and i get hit for 2158. this leaves 1617 damage left on repel. the next hit is a 20 and i take 48383. If it stops there then with repel i took 50541 damage and without it i took 57038. If i continue taking hits after that then mantle will absorb them and Repel is still better.

    The absolute worst case scenario i can come up with is repel survives an entire round with a minimal amount of damage left and the first hit from the next round is a roll of 20. In that scenario, that is just straight up bad. Repel genuinely made things worse. but that would be rare, and it relies on the previous round being a weak one so you should have full hp. so overall, i'd say repel is worth using.

    Yeah yeah, the most important thing is to make certain when that boss rolls 4 20's it is as mitigated as possible. repel will help with this more often than it will hurt from what i can tell so its still good.

    Would certainly be nice if it was its own SPA though so this wasn't even a consideration.

    vizat's and cascade definitely shouldn't be used with mantle or carapace. but with guardian they are better than shining defense, depending on how hard the mob hits.

    extremely hard hitter for this. max damage of 90300. after guardian and knight's sedulity's 41% DI mitigation, we have 55040 max damage. Shining defense would bring that down to 49536, mitigating 5504. this is less than vizat's max of 5613. So even on this ridiculously hard hitting boss vizat's is better. But vizat's is even better than that. it will almost always mitigate 5613. if this boss were to roll a 19 against me, shining defense would only absorb 5250 damage. if he rolls a 1 it only mitigates 683.7. Even with a roll of 1 against this boss vizat's would still absorb 5613

    The softer a mob hits, the better vizat's is, which i think is the point of the ability, so i don't think it should be changed, you guys just have to learn to use it appropriately.
  12. Xanathol Augur

    Please stop making such suggestions. What you are talking about would be a direct nerf to the ability where it matters most.

    Theoretical quad of 25k values would be 2500, 11908, 25000, 25000 with just Repel 3. Adding in 35% from disc on the last two hits only because of the conflict with Repel on the first two and that becomes 2500, 11908, 16250, 16250 or 46908 total damage. If Repel was 50% like you're asking for, that comes out to 12500, 12500, 14408, 16250 or 55658 total damage. Same thing plays out with 50k quads (111908 total damage vs 129408). The reason is because you would stretch out an ability with a low damage cap and lower the percentage vs a high percentage that gets its capped soaked up ASAP. Your suggestion is prone to leave 'spare change' left over in that cap which thereby blocks the benefits of other abilities while failing to mitigate as much as the ability would have if left alone.

    No one cares if 'hits' themselves are spiky - I cannot recall the last time I faced a mob that didn't triple, quad or more in a given round. The only time you should not use repel currently is when the mob hits for more than 105k as beyond that, the cap limit will bring the actual percentage mitigated down to under the 35% other abilities will give you.

    Please do NOT lower the percentage on Repel and spread it out over more hits. It is just fine the way it is.
    Abazzagorath likes this.
  13. Wyvern Lorekeeper

    The only SPA 162 really bugging me is Cascading Theft of Defense XII. We can only block the buff which is not something I want to deal with. The others I can deal with as is, but the ones with base2 limits should have the base2 limit increased 50-75% at least from where they are to make them more flexible/useful.

    Cascading Theft of Defense XI in particular should be moved to another SPA, or at minimum upgrade base2 to the expected 6800 so it fades by reaching the max of (5 x 6800) 34000 after 5 hits. It is currently 5 hits x 4600 = 23000 (so it never get to max total 34k, 11k short of max.!!!).

    I am sure nothing will be done with any of them but it is nice to know we can "screw" ourselves using things that should help us.
  14. Warpeace Augur

    Zero reason to change repel you can refresh it every 15 seconds. Its not intended to be on full time hence why it absorbs as much damage as it does
    .

    Its an extremely powerful defensive ability that you just need to know when to use and time it right. It really doesn't matter if it drops in one hit or the full six its removing over 35k damage you would have taken.
  15. Sashnia Elder

    This thread was really just meant to be an information thread for SKs, trying to shine some light on the less obvious aspects of the class and my focus has never been about changing what we have, if our class rep feels that's a good idea then all good.

    Anyway, here are my hotkeys I use for raiding, hope its useful to some.

    ID 43288 = Repel Line (Make your own mind up on this one)
    ID 16101 = Cascading Theft of Defense Line
    ID 43700 = Vizat's Skin Effect Line

    The following hotkey is what I use to block the absorption skills I don't want.

    /blockspell add me 43700
    /blockspell add me 16101

    The following hotkey is what I use to unblock those skills when not using a SPA 162 disc (Mantle/Carapace).

    /blockspell remove me 43700
    /blockspell remove me 16101
  16. Abazzagorath Augur

    Yep. I'm really scratching my head why anyone would request it be lowered. The only mathematical situation I can come up with in which it would be beneficial would be ones where it doesn't matter because damage output is too low to kill you.
  17. Wyvern Lorekeeper

    Repellence is directly applying 90% of the TOTAL incoming damage of a hit to the max. total (32283) until max. is reached then fades.

    Let's say you take 3 hits for 35k each using Mantle and Repel:

    35k hit - 3,500 damage taken due to Repel, Mantle ignored, 31.5k absorbed, 783 remains for Repel.
    35k hit - 34,217 damage taken due to Repel, Mantle ignored, 783 absorbed by Repel - effect fades.
    35k hit - 22,750 damage using Mantle.
    Total: 65,467 damage taken.
    -- anything hitting harder than 37k will use up Repel Rk. I in 1 hit

    This is the issue: 34,217 - 22750 = 11,467 loss of mitigation on 2nd hit (if it was just Mantle)
    -- spike in 2nd hit damage is greater than damage with just mantle and no repel.
    -- If a single hit takes out the max. You get the most benefit from Repel. If there is left over Repel on 2nd hit that is less than mitigation of Mantle then you will have spike in damage.

    Let's say you take 3 hits for 35k each while using Mantle & Repel (if Repel was 50%)

    35k hit - 17,500 damage taken due to Repel, Mantle ignored, 15k absorbed, 14,783 remains for Repel.
    35k hit - 20,217 damage taken due to Repel, Mantle ignored, 14,783 absorbed by Repel and fades.
    35k hit - 19,500 damage using Mantle.

    Total: 57,217 damage taken. (8,250 damage less than above)
    -- as you can see less damage taken, spike is lower, and spreads Repel effect more.
    -- does not stop spikes though, especially at 40-50k+ hits.

    Best option I think is to just make Repel fade after 1 hit and make it 100%, no limit. No spikes and would always help and not hinder.
  18. mackal Augur

    Do you actually have parses to back that up? I personally haven't looked at it that deeply, but I only ask because the max value controls when the buff fades and the base2 controls the max that can be absorbed per hit. Since these two things are very different and are controlled differently, I could totally see the 2nd hit absorbing the full 90% then noticing the remaining absorption is less than 0 so it fades. But I could also see it working as you stated.

    But I haven't actually looked into logs with that much detail ...
  19. Ravengloome Augur


    Then repel would be even more situational, and a vast majority of the player base would have no use for it as a 1 hit block.

    Leave the alone. Learn when/how to use it correctly and you'll be alright.

    Also I second what Mackal is saying, Have you actually parsed/checked to validate that it doesn't "accidentally" absorb too much damage due to the way its coded? Its actually quite possible (in theory) that it does.
  20. Brudal Augur

    If you are concerned about repel, use reprove, it will still absorb 1 hit and drop on a 35k hitter with no partial.