the good thing also with SK is u can spec right side in prestige (so pot gives CB) without being too gimped in defenses. so u can get loads of pot AND CB. tanks (and heals) who can spec right side can really up their dps and heals and everything because of that. that's a big advantage for SKs
I am also in Offensive stance 99% of the time, unless we are low on healers or tanking progression. On fights like Terris, I switch to defensive stance on 2nd half of fight, and can solo tank that whole encounter. Jaxxan is a beast we did a double SK group the other day and he out parsed me even with my gear being better. Playing around with your aa's till you find what works for you is best. Loving this class though after raiding on a Guardian for so long. I am usually in the top 5 or 6 spots on our zonewide parses.
http://u.eq2wire.com/soe/character_detail/2594166958136 Have an aa spec for PG's, and for fear immunity, then a modified version of Jaxxan's spec that I wanted to try and i'm pretty happy with it so far
As I do more Heroics, I'm finding that being a "tank" (ie. surviving damage) is less of an issue than keeping hate. The first few times I simply could NOT keep the mobs on me, even with 100% hate. There is a mechanic that I hope will change soon that makes hate gain about 1/10th or less than DPS, yet they seem to affect the mob's attention 1:1 with respect to numbers. Technically, what I'm saying is, hate gain is part of the attention of mobs, and a small one. Hate+DPS = your actual "hate gain" unless you're using a force/change target. So, long story short, for good attention of the mobs (which right now is unlikely to be perfect), focus on getting your Potency up above 20k, if possible, near 40k. I know that sounds like something that DPS is supposed to worry about, but it isn't. Right now, hate gains are so low, that even with 100% or more, you're falling behind. Example: while a skill might show 3-5 million damage, the hate gain numbers are stuck in the 100 thousands. And the tradition is that tanks don't need to worry about DPS because of the bonus hate gain. That tradition is being way outclassed by DPS right now. In my experience, whenever a game goes through a period where the DPS is increased, tanks lose "hate" for a while until the problem is re-balanced. To make matters worse, the low tier Heroics provide drops that are abysmal in Potency. The 11-Resolve gear is almost always merely 120% Potency, or close. Experimenting can get you around 30% more Potency per item (that started in the high 500's), if you're using anything crafted Bloody Tooth. But the sad thing is, many BT options are lower in potency than some of the Twark items. Strategic replacement of a few items can net you a big big bonus to potency. When that's not available, or fully maxed, then look into what you'd need to do to get the Wantia White adorns with big Ability Mod bonuses. Remember also that Astral Dominion war rune *IS* for tanks as well as scouts, although we don't get the 100% ones that mages and priests do. I'm honestly nervous about the changes to adorns that are coming. If Purples are gone from gear, then I hope a satisfactory replacement is given for these. Ditto. I've recently switched to Offensive stance as well. It feels so wierd, but it's the way to go atm. I haven't researched tank epic 2.0 yet. But I've helped others on it. Doing so has helped me gain some insights into the current tanking atmosphere. Even "nasty" comments can reveal a truth, so I've developed a very thick skin about random people in pugs. Even with around 11k potency (I've only been "back" for a few months), I still lose the mobs regularly, especially with mega dps classes like Beastlords. Thankfully the Resolve mechanic saves them from the kind of one-shots that used to plague me when I played a paper tiger scout. Be patient about the hate-potency thing. It is likely to swing the other way after a few expacs or updates go by.
Potency ..potency and more potency and CB is King over all. The stronger your spells become the stronger you are as an SK. Ive never had an issue tanking zones with half the mit and block of my guardian. Spam rotation with heals and pop my two dmg reducers when needed. Never had an agro issue even with a conj in the group as soon as they jump up over 80 on the hate meter i threat position them. With stats that can be acquired now its ridiculous how strong an SK can get. i have 25k mit without even trying and thats going for potency and ability mod over everything else. im overcaped on CB and have around 30k potency ABmod is around 800-900 the rest of the stats are something i imagine.
There's something else I'd like to add about hate gain. If you read your attention skills carefully you'll notice that two of them are Aggression Mastery, and two are not. The Ancient one (Touch of Death, from Epic 1.0) and the Sneering Assault are more likely to be resisted in my experience. I listen for the "metallic rumble" sound the resist makes, and I noticed it with Sneering Assault first, and then figured out that it was the ones not linked to Aggression skill that get resisted. Don't use them in a "losing the mob" situation. And if you use the Ancient one, it will force them on you, but as soon as the time is up,you lose them again if you don't follow up with another one or a big wallop (maybe Chaos Cloud or Unending Agony because they have DoT effects). As others have pointed out, enough potency will solve this, but we can't all be raiders.
The only way your going to get gooderest without raiding is this. 1.Sig line 2.Epic update 3.Goblin Earing 4.Ascension charm and earing 5.Burnt Key gear with Legates to fill in other slots. 6.Crafting Cloak
What kind of solo mit are you guys running? Just finished my SKs 2.0 and while I'm loving the extra potency from off stance, the drop in mit was bigger than I expected
Mine is 12k in defensive, and 10.3k in offensive stances. This is pre Epic 2.0. My offensive mit is already below 75% before any zone debuffs or mob debuffs, so I'm not sure there's much room for any more loss. I always always use a shield, I just can't fathom playing a tank and not using one.
The Itemization in crossover is insane this xpac. Starting out You will suffer until you find the rare hard to get Mit Gear. When i was Pre Epic / Pre MIT Geared, i was sitting around 24k MIT. I was Raid Geared from last xpac so that helped alot Right at the beginning, my Mit droped from swaping out some pieces just to get my resolve up ,Resolve really messes you up the most. i used my old white hate adorns that seemed to be completly useless, didnt even notice a difference when i forgot to add them to my new gear lulz, agro seemed completly broken at that point.So i had to make adjustments to survive and still have some sort of hate gains. Went all Wantia Potency adorns / Reforged into hate i was short on. War Runes-Relentless Conviction and Bolstered Endurance. Ethereal Protection keep that, Ultra Rare drop in old Kralet contested and of course Field of War is a must have for aoe Taunt/dmg. Purples i used Hate/STA in the beginning with Mit in the chest, Exceptional Jewel of Puissance i got out of Rum Cellar Raid. (4 man group) This gave me survive-ability with the advanced solo non mit gear That had higher potency, ab mod, and resolve. later on after getting the Cloak, burnt armor,Epic ect completed with higher resolved Mit Gear i swapped over to the New purple adorn Sets. At this point kept field of war and conviction, went with proven grounds ring's and adorns. you can get your potency and ability mod through the roof with Proven Grounds. Your Ferver , Resolve, Potency, CB, ect will all make huge increases. The only times i have issues with Agro now is when i get a 2-3 billion DPS conj pet ripping it off me and if a mob does alot of incurable stun script (even my stun utilities black out) and i cannot rotate my hate generation, other than that i havn't been having to many issues as i was starting out.
I tried the Twark potion for increased mitigation. Don't bother. It gave me 0.2% bonus in each stance. Not even a 1% increase. Some quick math shows that this equates to roughly, a bonus of +20 to mitigation. Not sure I'd bother to even use a debuff of -20 mit on a mob, and surely they debuff us more than that. My mit in offensive stance is 10454: 10454 * 1/100 = 104.54 104.54 * 1/5 (or 2/10) = about 20 and change Defensive stance doesn't modify this much.
My Mitigation in Offensive stance ranges from 20k to about 26k depending on how I gear up. I get this through mit armor, and a few mit pieces elsewhere- Go to Shrouded Temple, you can get the lost in fog ring, and the smothering bracelet, both great for tanks. For heroics/experts I run at 20k with high potency gear. I use this also with T1 raid. For T2 raid and above, I'll swap on a few high mit/still decent potency pieces. For instance, the neck I use normally has 1228 potency and no mit, 14% resolve- I'll swap on an expert raid monkey neck with mit, 20 res, and 2/3 that potency. I have a few pieces like that. You don't need the mit past 20k for experts, and once you have enough resolve you don't need more resolve.
I'm tanking T4 with around 20k. But you have to have some crazy nice healers for that. I never really switch gear around much either
Shadowknights are lower on the totem pole of survivability compared to every other tanks defensive abilities. That being said, we also pump out a lot more dps then pretty much any other tank currently in game.
