I gotta admit, this whole thread is entertaining. Yes, SK need raid utility and our raid dps needs 'looked at' (lol dots lol). However this is just.. seriously Essence Emeralds? Come on. No. Just, just no. This is not a fix as much as another gimmick on a class that is the bard of gimmicks. This is neither utility or a dps fix as much as a 'big nuke' that will do absolutely nothing for long or short term dps with dumb restrictions. Also, Sks. Just give up on asking for 'bad' rez effects. Seriously. Tokens, use them love them. They'll probably never ever give us a rez, yet alone a rez that people wouldn't absolutely resent you for casting on them instead of dragging you to a cleric/paladin to get rezed.
not to necrotize this thread but lol. was wondering where this tool ran off to. should ask him for his other game theories and ideas. anyway, sks should get a rez of some sort i agree..before rez tokens existed anyway, jsut from the lore of us being part necro, but, now who cares it's not needed and this nor this ridiculous nuke idea that would be absolutely unfeasilbe to EVER use, could ever give us the utility we need on raids. it's not like we get some ae heal/cure or something ridiculous like that (oh wait..someone does lol) to the guy that said sk's get the fastest xp in teh game, you're wrong. certainly not at level 100, it takes hours to get through 1 level from 99 to 100 now as an sk, i havent tested on rog rgr etc sicne rof launched so idk their rates, but the mobs theyrek illing for better xp die faster so im guessing they get better xp over time. the only way this nuke would be useful, andon ly once or twice, is if you were max xp and you had all those partisan rewards banked, but you cant repeat those so it'd be used what twice in an entire year? waste of dev time to even post it here. then again, you could ask for another <100ac furious bash aug to make you more appetising for raids (sarcasm/insidejoke)
My main is a Druid, I have a cleric merc, we have a corpse summon and a 90% OOC rez, and I still use tokens on rare occasions. Every class can rez with tokens from the Loyalty vendor. There's really nothing else to spend loyalty points on anyway.
fd, tanking, off tanking, kite tanking, DI, snare, lev, itu, invis Sounds to me like SKs have one of the best utility packs out there.
none of those have anything to do with being needed on raids like pally splash or warrior discs, chanter mezz/stun, clr/dru buffs and heals, shm/bard adps etcetcetc. everyoen can fd these days 3 ppl can tank, kiting is not an intended raid mechanic and everyoen can kite, everyoen can snare, sk's dont get DI thats clerics, ivu is not needed on raids whatsoever, and everyoen can ivnis also not needed on raids whatsoever. there is absolutely nothing about sk's that make us necessary to have on raids. absolutely nothing we can do that no one else can that means anything whatsoever.
[preach]Besides splash, paladins could be the same you describe. We're hybrid classes - we can do what several other classes can, but usually nothing as good as any specific class[/preach]. SKs can tank, pull, and offer nice DPS, but if they should be granted anything that sets them apart it should be something akin to paladin splash, an offensive AE buff wouldn't be too hard to think of. Also, Paladins also get a 96% rez from Restoration of Life AA, but honestly I figure my class got that just so I can rez myself from the constant amount of times I die every day due to the vulnerability and downtime of my only fade. SKs get FD, which makes me I'm super jelly. JELLIN' I TELL YOU. But yeah, even I carry rez tokens.
Apparently Tegila, what you want for utility is "No raid can be completed without Shadow Knights". There is no rational response to that which you would consider.
I had only attempted to start us brainstorming different ideas for some new sk spells that utilized essence emeralds or similar items, since the 2 well known necro spells that use them are rez and a big lifetap i suggested a couple. Sk has so much lifetap ability that having a spell that could completely heal self would not change the game much at all. Instead of the several naysayers, why did not a single person suggest something like, making the complete lifetap have a cast time of 30. That would make it next to impossible to cast while main tanking or offtanking many mobs, and how much damage can you do in melee and chain casting normal lifetaps in the time it takes to cast a 30 cast time spell? And tegila, for an sk you sure do look down on your class alot. While an sk is not going to be mezzing, charming, healing, buffing, and even if they are not as good tanks for raid bosses as warriors, or as good pullers as a monk or bard, what an sk has always excelled at is smoothly controlling the flow of battle in a group or raid with the combination of pulling, tanking, and snare or even fear kiting in a single package that is mostly self reliant. Provided some sort of healer, and some sort of support class is present. Having a war to tank, and monk to pull, and cleric to heal... may individually be better, The sk can tank, pull, and to an extent heal self on alot of fights. If you want to get back on the topic, add some ideas for new sk spells. Or go back to saying sk dont need them, or sk suck or whatever "tank thread" regulars do here.
no, but there isnt any raid anywehre that can't be comleted without sk's. "besides pally splash"..yeah, besdies splash one of the most useful utilities in today's raiding game...uh huh. and something absolutely no one else gets. cleric splash doesnt ae cure. as for ae or otherwise grp dps discs, we've asked. they won't even give sk's a group mini-visage muchless some ae-dps buff. an ae-shortterm fearless would be nice but theyd shoot that down bc they only want tanks (and necros) to be fearless, or otherwise require discs (only available to melee types not casters and priests) so there isnt a whole many other options , just SOMEthing unique and useful to a raid that circumstnatially is either necessary or beneficial enough that raids would be foolish not to have a few sk's. in HoT guilds were loading up on war and pally and 1 token sk, for thisvery reason. Sk's have no specific purpose that is useful to raids. it's not like there are any raids where you HAVE to hate'sattraction a mob or anything even. Chanters arent required on all events but because they are on enough of them, plus buffs ofcourse, they're brought on all raids. Sk's dont have a minimum ideal count in a raid setup, just a maximum. granted, monks may be in the same boat but this isnt about them. Point is, no guild sets out an ideal raid makeup spread sheet that says we must have sk's. jsut we must limit sk's bc they take up spots actual useful and/or necessary classes could use. msot even now have a token 1-2. That's not an issue for me personally, but of the class itself, it is. and smak, i dont look down on the class wahtsoever, i jsut know that we have no selling points to a raidforce. we're only here because there's room or we're just that good and there's a lack in something we can partially do etc. Ideally though, sk's arent needed in a raid force today. That doesn't mean the class sucks, bc we don't. But this reminds me of Ink Master lol, we're jack of all trades master of none. Ok so we're master of one that's gone in teh dust at this point in time and is absolutely useless to raids. Pals are masters at undead, but they ALSO have buffs and heals and rezzes and the all-important splash. Trust me we don't want splash, but we need SOMEthing. This has nothingto do with soloing or grouping, only raiding, and our place in raids right now is lastplace pulling, last place tanking (all things equal, skill etc varies of course) last place dps, which is WHY we get delegated to kiters when whomever decides kiting is needed. In my guild, taht's not the case whatsoever, but we're short pallies, and warriors, and have some really good sk's so when a 3rd 4th MT is needed, it's us, for many raiding sk's, that's not the case. Many guilds have in recent years closed teh sk class as long as they have 1 fulltime, and thats more for flavor that they didnt close it without one, or the sk was an officer or leader. Look around, generally teh only one's pushing for more sk's in a raid, are other sk's.
Sk rezz goes against the core thread of what an sk is. I realize class descriptions have gone out the window, but I cringe every time a hear sk and rezz in the same sentence.
can't say i 100% agree here, necros can rez. but itshould be with some negative effect like 50% or 0% xp and no ability to rez later, or soemthign weird like that, but i dont see a need for it with rez tokens anyway.
What if a player rezzed by an sk was undead, in fact what if sk could rez a downed player in a fight and they could jump back up with no rez effects but they would become essentially a shrouded player that was undead, maybe even a basic skeleton but it could attack and do moderate damage, maybe half of what an average melee class does in combat. And what if a player rezzed in this way could only be returned to life by a necromancer, returned to normal player character form, failing to find a necro after a time and the character dies for real and eats the exp loss of the initial death. This is what im talking about, just brainstorm ideas, dont rant about what is, what is not, and what the general consensus of what should not be, be the only thing you can say.
Technically it wouldn't be a resurrection. You are thinking along the lines of an ability which death knights get in wow where the toon is brought back as a zombie for a brief amount of time. I Know the raised toon has control, but I don't recall if they have their normal abilities. An idea like that could be interesting, but I wouldn't call it a resurrection.
Well at first I'd agree that Shadowknights wouldn't get a rez, but let's face it - just about every other class in the middle spectrum gets some form of rez besides them and bards. Giving them any form of rez below 90% these days is pointless, because there's plentiful other classes readily available to give better, if not mercenaries on hand. The only reason I even cast a rez anymore is because my merc is a sometimes. But think about it for a moment on rez effects. You're dead, you're revived, and you're now a slow, mana-less zombie for the next three minutes. Shadowknights epitomize that exact mechanic, so why not give them an innate AA that shortens their duration of rez effects, or gives them ~25% mana upon zoning in, or even have them auto-FD after accepting rez? That's something no other class has. We all take rez, we all sit there for several minutes recovering, except the SK who can get right back into the action. If I, a Paladin, were to take a battle rez (not just to get credit for a kill or have mana rod handy), my usefulness is next to zero and chance of survival is even less than before I died. There you go, I offer another idea. First it was a splash-type DPS buff, now I gave the idea of an innate passive to go on.
Maybe you just know what you know because you have been told that way, im not going to pick out everything i think you said that is flawed. i will say that from my experience, you dont form a raid by first looking for a maximum number of sks. You form a raid, (generally speaking, not for every specific raid), by making sure you have a few specific things covered. in no particular order: 1. Tank(s) 2. Healer(s) 3. Support class(s) 4. Damage dealer(s) 5. Friends You need a tank for the raid boss types, or if no raid boss then one to hold aggro on the endless trash mobs you are killing. And depending on the fight you will need a rampage tank, a second assist to take over if the main tank dies, and possibly a 3rd assist. If you go through more than 3 tanks and the mob doesnt have some sort of death touch ability, you may be lacking in one other area. For healers you will want mostly clerics, in fact aside from buffing and slowing that a shaman does, you can get by with one cleric for each group. Clerics are what will keep the main tank alive, and they also have some of the best direct group heals for melee and casters who take some damage from aoes or adds. For support classes you will want at least one chanter for clarity and haste buffs, and they are also the best at tashing to help slow, and mezzing or charming adds for duration. You also will want support classes that have any specific spell or ability you need for the raid, mage if you need to use coh, rogue if you need to pick a lock or deal with a trap. In a way clerics can also be a support class since they have one of the best hp/ac buffs, as well as spells like divine intervention that you may need. You may also need a wiz for evac or translocs. Damage dealers are most of the other classes, as for high damage... if your raid force has sufficient damage to complete the raid and within its time constraints then its not super important to have only the highest dps classes and geared players. Having a good mix of melee and casters is normally a good idea, unless the fight specifically is immune to melee or nukers. Im not going to go into specifics about what each class can do, partly because there are alot of newer things i just dont know about, but here are two hypothetical raids of four groups each. the first one is what most players think is an ideal raid structure, and the second is one that has a larger than normal number of sks in it. Group 1: Warrior- Main Boss Tank Cleric-Dedicated Main Tank Healer Shaman-Debuffs and heal over times for group Bard-Pull Tagger, initial mez, and magic debuffs for slows ect, can buff main tank on fights Paladin-Offtank, Rampage tank, group heals and lay on hands for main tank Druid-Main healer for rampage tank, Evac for tank group Group 2: Shadowknight-Main Trash Tank, assists monk and bard with splitting spawns Cleric-Healer for Sk and monk puller Monk-Dedicated puller is sk or war needs Shaman-Main Slower, and secondary group healer Mage-Coh for puller Druid-Secondary Healer/Evac for pull group Group 3 Warrior-Second Assist For Boss Fights Cleric-Group and Second Assist healer Beastlord Enchanter-Main Mezzer/Tasher Rogue-Opens Doors, Disarms Traps Wizard-Evac for mez group Group 4 Shaman-Dps group healer Ranger Berserker Bard Rogue Necro Those 4 groups have an abundance of healing and slowing classes, as well as enough tanks to handle 4 harder targets at once, along with the ability to charm or mez quite alot at once. It also has a full group that can focus purely on damage dealing. I was going to list out a second set of 4 groups, but the basic idea is this: Have at least 2 clerics, have one cleric in each group or 2 of shaman/druid types in the last 1 or 2 groups. Have 3 damage dealers per group, damage dealers being rogue, monk, ranger, berserker, beastlord, mage, wiz, necro any mix. Have at least one chanter, and one shaman, one mage, one wiz in the raid for buffs and mobility. Have one war/pal/sk type tank for each group. Or at the very least one to main tank and one to be second assist or offtank. And its totally possible to use sk to fill the role of half of the dps slots, so up to about 8 sk's in a raid before you really must limit them. Now here is the most important part, whatever classes you decide to bring on a raid, find a way to fit as many of your friends in it as long as you can still complete the kills. Sure that what you may use today for raids, likely different than what you would use for general killing before planes of power. But you can do alot with some lopsided groups/raids.
I like the idea, but what about taking it a step further, what about a combat rez for sk restore all of the beneficial buffs they had when they died, and 75% hp, and 25% mana. So it could be like an extended delay death, if they get rezzed within 90 seconds of diein and the innate ability can only go off once every 3 hours or so. As for a splash type dps buff, what about making it so sk gets an aa that does an effect similar to the 2.0 epic click, giving group members the ability to gain life with their melee attacks, but instead of working like a leech disc and getting just life back for melee swings, players did their normal damage but ALSO proc lifetap direct damage spells equal to half of the damage of their melee swings for a short period of time? SO one melee swing that would hit for 100 normally, hits for 100, and that player also procs a 50 point lifetap direct damage spell. You could take it a step further and say that half of the healing damage of their parties melee swings would heal the sk who cast the aa buff ability on the group, and half of the lifetap heals would go to the player who used the weapons causing the proc damage.
