Shadowknight Shadowknights Furor may now be cast while in offensive stance, however the riposte chance portion of the spell will be suppressed while the offensive stance is maintained. Look. I'm playing a SK. In the past I have leveled a guardian to 90, betrayed it to zerker, leveled a zerker to 100, leveled a monk and bruiser to 95/92 and now have paladin at 80. SKs in the past were usually offensive stance since their hate was so bad that they had to dps to keep aggro. That wasn't a big deal since most mobs didn't hit that hard. Whichever way you did it, you did need at least a bard to help you keep aggro. SKs also could go offensive stance because of their life taps. Now in AoM, I *have* to go all maxHP and mitigation increase, even on jewelry. I had looted that fabled block chance tank bow from temple 1 but I can't use it because the other legendary bow has 10% mitigation increase. Now I have tanked hhk 2 two days ago and we managed to get to the x2. I had to remove 2 pieces of dps gear and switch it with mitigation and maxHP gear. A dps class logged on a templar, so we had a defiler and a templar. At ~30% I died with ~11k physical mitigation. Almost all slots except 4 have mitigation increase on them. My AA spec is completely defensive and I have ~60% hate gain solo. 4 blue 3 green armor pieces. You know, if I wanted to play a defensive tank I would've picked guardian. But guardian is a boring class. Its low dps is tiresome. And the SK now feels the same. I tanked contested pirates yesterday, in offensive AA spec and offensive stance. When I hit the mob and spam CAs/spells the mob barely gets scratched. It's no fun. So since temple 2 I removed the potency runes and replaced them with 7 STA/mitigation/block runes. And ever since I have 0 fun playing the SK. It's boring, I'm a meat shield with 3 (and one might argue 5 snaps but the "green dagger" prestige snap/heal doesn't work, it doesn't snap aggro) and I do 0 damage. yawn. Things I noticed, general: Defiler = best healer Fury = worst Beastlords constantly keep getting aggro. I have to go all defensive gear and AA to be able to do phantom sea zones, and even then it's a PITA. Idk why you're pushing the tank changes we opposed pre DoV although we really didn't like it. The game was alright, tanks needed to dps to keep aggro and even scouts could tank, if they knew what they were doing (and sometimes even if they didn't). For harder stuff you went defensive and done. Now mobs hit 10 times as hard. I remember, with my warden in Zek 3(kael) I could heal a undergeared tank solo with throwing a group heal when the tank was at ~50%. Seeing 5 million hits at 11k mitigation from the hhk2 x2 mob is insane. And now furor is changed to not parry everything for 12 secs in offensive stance? Or was it worse? I can't tell since I'm in defensive stance always. Perhaps it has been like this for a while but I did not play eq2 for 2-3 years. That means if you want to have fun in group zones you have to raid. But raiding requires dedication. And when you raid you don't go to group zones any more, there's no need to except seeing it once or for showing off. And the raid mentality is no fun. I've been there, I have raided 7 days a week, killed avatars and all that. I don't want that any more. It's either a) you join some random raidcom for fun, but it is no fun because people don't know what they're doing and aren't paying attention or b) you join some progress oriented raid guild. but the mentality sucks. They see it as a job, as a "you must have perfect everything and be able to justify why you did this or that or picked this over that" and you have to listen to instructions and are no more than a puppet for the raid leader's plan. There are exceptions but the "pro" raid game is not something I like any more, because of the mentality and because of the dedication required. anyhow, bottom line is don't make the SK a defensive tank because it's no fun playing a defensive tank as the guardian is the best defensive tank and it's no fun being just a meat shield. And right now personally I have 0 motivation tanking, apart from seeing stuff I didn't see yet once. So the change to furor to not parry everything for 12 secs in offensive stance is bad, if that is a nerf to begin with (since I hadn't played since end of DoV and played my brig and a bruiser in raids in DoV). Right now a SK needs to be completely defensive in gear and AA spec. Thanks for reading.
All tanks parry/dodge temps won't work while in offesive stance. I disagree with it cause it's not like the new offensive is as op as recklesness was pre nerf and tanks getting consistenly beaten by healers in dps just looks wrong. Dunno what your gear is like but 11k mit is really low for a plate tank, even my chain healer got higher mit than you. Also furies are great healers unless you keep getting one-shotted.
Its a silly situation right now but if you can hold and survive agro your DPS is pretty much meaningless as a fighter. Reguardless of stances we "overpay" for the +health +mitigation +block stats on gear - the potency buff will help but its a small drop in the much larger issue.
Im sorry but what is hhk2? To the OP i gotta say that 11k mit is very low and it sounds like ur having a gear issue. This is my SK im currently lvling: http://u.eq2wire.com/soe/character_detail/446680039500 As you can see he has already 10k mit and this is in "lvling/solo gear", wich means i have no items that can only be equipped by a lvl 100, i do not have any mitigation jewelry/armour, the cloak and belt has doublecast and also i am using the fighters potency rune in the chest armour instead of the 14% mitigation. The only things i have mit on is the handcrafted sword/shield and bow.
11k MIT your joking right? That entire run had to be you cycling temps and the healer blowing all the crap they could. Everyone thinks the tanks job is to hold hate and only that. No a tanks job is to hold hate, manage as much incoming DMG as they can(by cycling cool downs, using proper gear(as much MIT gear as needed to get job done)), we must pull mobs, position mobs, try to position the group, then once all that's done we try and increase our dps. Any tool can pull a room put furver up and grave sac and call them self's a tank. Any zerker can do the same. Pally put amends on the best dps and say look I tank. A true tank thinks thru the encounter. Anticipates what the mob will do and where the dps is doing. A good tank make it look easy. Sounds like you think a SK should be able to tank in offensive stance? Sounds like you feel its the healers job to just keep you going because hey I am the tank? You just need to dps moar so you keep hate . Here's a few tips Run AE auto attack rune in your legs and forearms Flurry rune in shoulders Accuracy rune in head, gloves, and feet +MIT rune in chest(get it from ToV etyma merchant) For your armor choices go with +MIT set Belt and cloak get the flurry set Try for dpsish jewelry and tankish charms And for god sakes put your defensive stance on. Read it it increases aggression, your max HP(increases your life tap number thus adding to hate), and ups your mit.
This reminds me how much I hate pickups tank who are failing at turning mobs. Recently it has been spreading like cancer. Just because I can heal all the frontals hitting group, doesn't mean tanks should be lazy and rob me of huge chunk of time I could have been dpsing.
This is exactly how i gear my bruiser, seeing as he tanks with two hander flurry and sum wdb gives the best results. For my Sk however, as he has spells Wich has higher Base dmg then my bruiser im going to go for a potency build instead of autoattack. Doublecast stuff and potency runes instead of Accuracy. With the new tank armour having potency i think sk will benefit from quite a lot of AB mod. Well spoken to the rest of your post btw
If I recall it was 15k mit min for Dom in ToV so keep that in mind, you might want have 4/4 blue gear min before tackling green zones. Most the stuff in this xpac is NOT hitting tanks super hard, so when people run into something that is it is super surprising, I'm running a split prestige 90 percent of the time. Darks tips were spot on. I'm glad they are letting us keep furor in the new offensive without riposte, it wouldn't make sense for it to have riposte and be in new offensive (it's like recklessness now kinda). But that's awesome, its one of our strongest tools for holding hate, would be bad to not have in offensive, no sk has any reason to complain with the upcoming changes- for gods sake they letting us cast blood letter during combat, adding potency to our gear AND making recklessness viable? Offensive stance was a joke before, I tried it but it the gain was never worth the loss of survive. The new offensive should be. http://u.eq2wire.com/soe/aas/446679781428 my sk
I think he means Castle Highhold: Thresinet's Den since he is talking about the last boss being an x2. As has been said the gains from the current offensive stance make it a pointless tool to use when tanking you just make more work for the healer(s). In defensive stance and gear an SK can still reach 8mill or more(good VC helps) in most heroic and contested trash encounters with ease. With the coming potency added to our gear our dps will go up even more. From what you have said it seems that maybe you should rethink how you play your SK then bemoan the changes to something you shouldn't be tanking in anyway.
I know what your saying. Due to the number of DoTs we have(nearly every skill) potancy and ability mod don't help a whole lot. We also have relitivly low attack values on our spells. They are the highest value of the tank classes. I found pugging my casting skills(disruption) were low and I clipped a lot of resists or just low DMG hits. I swapped my double cast for flurry(running around 50%). It seems weapon skills come easier to find in group the casting skills. My parse runs about 20-25% melee auto attack next 4-5 are price/buffs. The first skill of mine that I cast is earth shatter(?)(the new prestige attack)
Amusingly I noticed that after I returned and was getting into the swing of things once muscle memory took over I was spinning mobs and tanking in the corner in solo instances without thinking Even though SK's will have the highest damaging CAs and Spells of all the fighters I would still push Crit Bonus over Potency if given the choice as autoattack will remain your highest damage and CB effects both Auto as well as your Spells as well as get the DPS mod to 600 or so solo. (yes I know I fail in this regard)
Autoattack and flurry will be highest on singletargets but it wont even get near in AoE scenarios, especially not with the new tank armour.
Yeah this is with current tank armour? Switch to full pot/cb kit with doublecast instead of flurry and try it out. Im using pot/cb fabled lvl 98 armour from oss contested while lvling and the outcome is looking very promising! Even tho most abilitys have dots on em the initial attack is actually very high for a tank. Reapers touch and grave Sacrament is amazing with high pot/ab mod and doublecast. Also potency helps with aggro! I am going to try this out either way, i am convinced that pot will provide a higher potential then pure autoattack.
OK, lets review a parse: A Named with AoE adds (sure not up most of the time but enough to inflate my DPS.) Its pretty much procs and autoattack - if I massively increase my potency to say 1000% (from 350%) and add in 100% SDA Autoattack is still going to be top - and procs are still going to be up there I'm not saying ignore potency and spell double attack completely - but if you have the choice increasing Crit Bonus over Potency is more than likely going to increase your DPS more even for the Shadowknight.
Look at the SKs Skills. Out side of wrath, harm touch, and grave sac the dps values are lowish. 20k an mod would more then cover almost all the skills. You gotta remember AB mod and pot is split out amongst the whole spell duration. On AoEs the efficiency of potancy is cut to 1/3(1k pot is only 333.3 on any ae we cast(we have the most even having skills that make single targets into ae devour vital is one of them) I average 1.5mil dps zone wide At my parse being 20-25% auto attact thats 370k dps. Next few procs are from 5-3% of the parse. To get to my first skill that is cast I am looking at Maby 5% tops on my pass. I simply can't get enough pot\ad mod on tank gear to raise spell dmg. I can on the other hand stack CB and raise total dps auto attack included. We are better off raising our main DMG source then trying to force a gain in something that combined makes up well less then 50% of our total parse
I suppose you could run a very high spell gear set. Meaning you stopped gaining heaste at 100 and reforge to cast speed to try and get as much double cast as you could. You would have to over 50% double cast to really see. I still think we couldn't get enough potancy to really push the issue though.
I really cannot argue this yet since i am still lvling my SK and i do not have anything to show as a comparison. I will however try to post a parse here once i have started tanking using doublecast and AB mod. Please know tho that im not trying to make this into a "i told you so" thing. I simply just love experimenting with classes and try different things and ill admit that even tho i say that im sure im right, i could just as easily be wrong Ill get back to you when i have anything to show for my talking
