Well im a lvl31 Shadowknight, compared to my Paladin I am taking on the HIll Giants alot better. I am not wearing the next set of defiant, so my AC sucks, but the shiny new 100point life tap, Heat blood, the series of debuffs, makes it alot easier then my Paladin. My armor sucks and I do take gobs of damage but the increase in my own damage but life taps make it easier. But I am stuck wondering what do I drop off my bar when I get new spells? I still have Despair and Siphon Strength. I am thinking the next spell I drop off will be Despair. I get Scream of hate that does the same thing. My bar currently has Heat blood, Engulfing Darkness, Siphon Str, Scream of hate, Scream of I dont know, Despair, Vampiric Embrace and Life Draw I do have FD but idk what I really wanna drop off to put it on. Also, does Despair not stack with Scream of Hate when I put it on the mob? Just more random stuff wondering sup with the SHadowKnight, so far I find it kinda more fun then a Paladin. But who knows
Are you using a cleric merc? And everyone finds a class that suits them, 99% of pally's will prefer pally's and 99% of SK's will prefer SK's, but all depends on their play style. As for the spells and armor, you should be lvling fast enough to where that shouldn't really be a issue. Soon your stats should be capped so won't need siphon strength much longer.
No, im not using Mercs. Not a huge fan of them. Yeah, I think once I get the 35Armor I will prolly just remove that from my bar. Also, the higher lvl Strength steal spells arekinda pointless to buy? Except maybe to weaken the mob? Its the only reason I sometimes cast it.
Just about any debuff you cast will decrease the mob's damage output. Str is figured in with attack, which determines damage. The AC debuff allows you to hit the mob for more damage while giving you AC to decrease mob damage. Scream and despair do stack. I guess you have to weigh casting time vs mob damage output. Probably the biggest hurdle you will have at this level (since defiant is way more powerful than these mobs were tuned around) is your dps. I would probably stick with spells that increase your attack, decrease mob AC, or cause damage. Eventually your dots will be your biggest damage output, notably the fire line until 71+.
Well my usual combo is Engulfing Darkness for snare, Heat blood, Then any combo of my Despair, Screams and str. And sup with the ward spell Shield Skin? 54dmg? Seems like nothing lol, Giants kill it in like the first hit. Then it takes a 4g cat eye agate to cast? Barely seems worth it. I thought it was an actual damage shield at first....but..oops. Is that spell really worth it to cast? Does it get better?
I believe it's categorized as a rune which gives you hate plus absorbs some damage. It was more valuable when the gear was current. Personally I wouldn't bother with it unless you really, really need it. ED is great for snare and hate and the small amount of damage. If you just want the hate, spam the lowest level snare. Heat blood is good damage. I wouldn't bother with despair unless you really, really need the mitigation. The two screams both debuff the mob and buff you. I would use ED, HB, and both of those on every mob. You get upgrades to both of those soon (shroud of hate at 35, shadow vortex at 37) plus a new proc buff scream of death at 37. You also get your first poison DoT at 41 and an undead nuke at 39. You are hitting the levels where SKs start to become rather fun. It just keeps getting better from here on out.
BUt when I get all those spells, which ones do I put on the bar and which ones i leave off? Im sure I will have more spells then I have spell gems lol. I also put on Vampiric Embrace....not that it really does a whole lot. I wish it lasted longer so I didnt need to cast it every..literally,3 minutes..
The higher level ones last longer. And nows a perfect time to learn how to create spellsets and how to use them quickly/efficiently to switch out spells on the fly. Make a social for the casting of the screams Heres how it would go /cast 3 (or wherever it is) /cast 4 (Or wherever it is) Recast time is 6 seconds so just tap that once to cast the first scream, then after global recast is up tap again for the other scream. ^ The above comes into play at higher levels for making a spam macro for Terrors and other things. As for what spells to use when to use them. Play around with them find out how they work/look them up on Lucy. Really at low levels it don't make much of a difference, your going to plow through the levels quite quickly.
engulfing darkness is a moderate snare, panic the dead or I think its spook the dead is an undead fear that only costs 5 mana. If you find a good location with the right pathing you can fear kite and only get hit once or twice when the fear wears off before you pull it back to the start of the fearing position and re apply darkness and fear. Now that there are haste and clarity potions you do not even need to bother an enchanter to keep this going. You can also take advantage of the rested regen to refill your mana in just a min or two of sitting still. When you get dooming darkness, that is going to be your best most mana efficient snare. I do not believe any other snares reduce movement any more than it, and it costs a fraction of the mana of cascading or other snares you will get. And if you are tanking in a group, landing dooming darkness and casting a couple of the terror direct agro spells will normally lock the mob onto you as its target, until much higher levels. I have always thought the sk had the advantage over paladins since a lifetap damage the target and heals you, and you also do not have to stop fighting target yourself to heal. Not to mention feign death and snare.
Yeah, so far, overall im finding the SK a fair bit more fun. Really, I think the paladin would be more fun if the stuns applied a mild bit of damage and if it got a few low damage nuke lines, similar to the Spike of Disease line the SK get. MIld damage, long recast. The no dmg stuns are kinda meh. I kinda like Paladins, I see the usefulness of 3 stuns, the bash and buffs....but the lack of damage is a bit annoying.
Reasonable point, but there needs to be some class differentiation - SK is the offensive knight, Paladin is the defensive knight (broadly), warrior is the ultimate meatshield
I would say all three are defensive, the paladin is more of a protector with its group heals, cures, buffs. The sk is more offensive, capable of a lot of damage with harm touch and visage of death, and I think the best tank/puller with snare and feign death. The warrior is just a raw tank, its weapons and armor plus a few discs, it doesn't have much utility but is capable of reaching higher statistics/defensive ability. I think the original poster was trying different classes, trying to pick one to play. I would suggest sk if planning to solo/molo, yet still be able to tank or pull in exp groups. Paladin if you like to help out in a group more, with buffs heals rez, and be able to tank in exp groups. If your goal is to be the biggest toughest tank, and be the one selected to tank on raids, try warrior.
I am playing the Paladin and SK, was just wondering what they are about in this game. Wondering if im doing something wrong. That trick to the warrior thread is not me. GuardDorko? really? That is some dumb trying to troll me or something. I do not even play the warrior.
A SK is more self sufficient then a pally, being able to self lev, invis, snare and pull with FD and such. Pally is better group utility with buffs, heals and cures. SK's are more of an offensive tank where as a pally is more of a defensive tank. A lot of it just depends on your play style on which is more suited for you.
Sk ability to invis, and invis undead, along with snare and fd and locate/summon corpses made them more useful to recover bodies than paladin, most would not want a little paladin rez especially in a hell level. But since corpse recovery, and exp in general is not an issue anymore... Still the sk can get around a lot easier and with mercs you can do some cool stuff with fd. Like fd, passive merc, /q and log back in and fd again to have cleared agro after running to the bottom of a zone.
Unless you always have someone to play with, which is rare at lower lvls these days unless you got friends playing, you are seriously hampering yourself by not using a merc. Once you get to the level that you can start swarming you can do without a merc, but until then you're just frustrating yourself.
Given creating accounts is free you might want to think about 2 boxing with a shammy. If not you should try and get a willsapper for the slow clicky on mobs.
Tanks are hard mode now, you need AA's and gear and buffs help alot. I added a shammy to my sk/mage setup and noticed a difference with the group buffs especially since they both have the pet aa that let's them count as group members and get buffed. Between that and pet toys weal little Gober can actually act as a DoT and take a few hits, every bit of dps is going to help, but you really need up to date gear and defensive AA's as well. Use a merc there in the game for a reason, I can handle blues solo, but the killing is non stop with a merc and he is there for those oh &^%$ moments were you get 2 or more adds.
