I've got a 34 Beserker, and a 40 shadowknight. I like the concept of the Beserker but he seems to really struggle with staying alive. Does it get better at some point? Or is it just throwing me off because the SK is just so good?
at the level you are playing the difference in gear and ability level can make so much of a difference, i think this may be throwing you off more than anything else. But i dont play either one SK or Zerker so i am not 100% sure.
I appreciate the response. Let me give an example. As a level 30 SK heading into Zek, I was able to take on the level 34 savage ^^^ with his 3 ^ grunts and finish with 75% health. As a level 32 Beserker, I could not even get the savage down below 25% before he died. Two levels higher than the SK, but much much worse. That's the reason my SK is now level 40 while my Beserker is only 34...I WANT to play the Beserker, but I struggle with him....if he gets better later, then I can push through...which is why I ask.
different rules for different classes, the SK has lifetaps to heal during battle, the zerker has defensive abilities to absorb damage. if you're not using those or they are apprentice then you will notice a big difference in survivability. perhaps you are just more adaptable to playing a crusader than a warrior, it happens. at 95 only my beastlord can compare against my zerk and has less AE ability, so my zerk winds up rounding up whole rooms/half a zone and just pours out clouds of damage versus any of my other toons. so, it does get better but only if you can adapt. at that level you are missing some rather important abilities for the zerk which you will be getting soon and on into your later levels. near cap you will have more buttons to press than you will ever know what to do with, and with skill you will find a niche as a zerker. they are great for solo but probably still not quite as adaptable as the SK is now. the zerker will rely more on armor and offensive abilities, so make sure you upgrade your armor and at least get adept combat arts/self buffs. the key is to deal out more damage than you take, the faster you kill the more efficient you will become. don't think of the class as just a tank but a DPS character that mitigates damage decently, i never even used defensive stance unless i am tanking for a group on a tough mob, where they are doing the damage for you. in most cases you will deal damage slower in defensive than you will mitigate and deal damage in offensive, so you die faster than you deal damage. but i've been playing a zerk for 7 years, so it's difficult to say it's easy, i can do more damage with that 1 toon than even most of my pure dps characters. i stopped playing it several years ago to make a point and since things seem to have gotten better, some.
Some classes are late bloomers. A zerker is very very fun once you've got his mythical buff (85+) and some decent AAs, but is a bit meh at lower levels. Make sure you have Blood Rage as high as possible. How many AAs do your two tanks have?
I have 120 AA on the Zerker and 145 on the SK. Of course, until I get to level 50, I can't spend more than the first 100 on either. I've started treating the Zerker the same as I would my Ranger and being a bit more careful about my pulls and he's doing alright...it's not like he can't handle the content, I was just spoiled with my foray into the SK. However, I'm one of those who JUST...Can't...Do...Evil and like it. I tried to pretend that he was a "good" SK, but that just wasn't working for me. So I started a Paladin and his DPS is so horrid at 26 that's it gives me a pain behind my right eye when I play him now. So, I'm back to my Zerker. I'll probably try and push through with my Paladin too to see if he picks up any.
You want to pick the Focus: bloodrage. so that it procs more often. And you want BATTLE HARDENING in the shadow line. Don't be afraid to use a shield. But anyway blood rage and battle hardening, the more you get hit the more you heal ( 5 points in battle hardening alone will make you almost invincible until leve 60 ) so if your dying, your not pulling enough lol
i don't remember the last time i used a shield, still. unless you're tanking epics there's simply no reason to as a zerker, as i mentioned above you lose more than you gain.
zerk doesn't start to come into it's own until they get the myth buff at that point you're able to kill several mobs at once while staying healed from reactive heals. the more mobs you have on you the better your survivability gets unless they are hitting you hard then.. yea your dead. sk also benefits from more mobs but not as much as zerk and also has better solo survivability than zerk. as i said earlier zerk doesn't get really fun till myth buff(100% aoe attack) but sk is pretty good from lvl 1 and gets better obviously at later levels.
Just to add a bit more to the differences in playstyles between the zerk and the sk.... In my opinion the zerk is a more active tank class, requiring you to use and sometimes stack temporary defense buffs available to the class. This is less true with the SK, unless you are tackling considerably harder content with the SK.
Yeah, this is just a case of wanting my cake and eating it too. My SK is now 38 as is my Zerker Last night in Zek I was at siren island with both. There is a named on the top of the peek there that is ^^^ linked with another ^^^ and 3 ^ mobs. My SK took them all and finished with full health.(they are all level 38 so white to me). My Zerker got the named down and the second ^^^ using my death save, but died before I could finish the final 3 ^ mobs. This was in Knight stance with all three of my defensive cool downs blown. My SK does not put out more damage than my Zerker, but at least at these levels, he survives pretty much anything better than my zerker. I've resolved that I just need to be careful with my Zerker and he can get the job done. It's a matter of perspective at this point. I just can't faceroll like I can with my SK. I still like the game play more on my Zerker so I may retire my SK for now. I have 8 Alts, so I KNOW that later levels changes the game play, so I'll just wait to see how it shakes out.
There is some awful misinformation about Shadow Knights in here,alot of looks like its stemming from people comparing the classes at the lower levels. That said, as it's been said, Zerkers and SK's are both both AoE style tanks, the more things we have to hit, the more fun we get to have, at low aa levels, as well as character levels, its about the same with the slight edge going to the SK for the few extra heals, and now that two of our old melee quick fires are heals, its even easier. The difference comes in as you start to add AA's. You said you have about 140aa per toons, unless you are completely messed up your SK tree,there's a good chance you have Reaver. If you didn't' read the tooltip, everything that does magic, our aoe debuff, and both taunts [not shield] Will now heal you, So that Aoe encounter is now instantly easier on a class that constantly heals its self for most buttons, that has lots of blue buttons on top of it. You're zerker can and will do fine, but like they've had to in the older days, it comes down to gear and CD stacking. As you get up in levels you want to look for old world items with a proc called Stonewill, you can have Stonewill I,II,III items and all will stack, there are also life tap items [\aITEM 873456196 1146567372:Gwarthlea's Hoop of Matriarchy\/a] if you really want to get the heals going, mostly out of date now for most other slot items , but the heal does proc often. There are also belts, earings, and a few cloaks that have some sort of tempory item shield, and it wouldn't be hard for you to get 4000-5000 in wards procing, and you're survivability will go up alot. Cheers
