50's SK Gear Advice

[Keebz]

So I've come back to my SK twink after taking a break, and he's still mostly in classic gear. Green Magelo Link (https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Green:Debu)

I'm not sure where to go with gear. I mostly solo, doing a lot of fear kiting, so I haven't been too concerned about maxing my HPs. My instinct is to try and pick up a Narandi Crown and maybe max my STR to speed things up (though this may require going to Sky, yuck). I have up to 100k to blow, but would rather do something more modest around 20-30k, unless there's a large power bump involved—thing's like epic, blood ember legs, eyepatch of plunder, etc. come to mind.

I theoretically have access to raid loot via my other chars, but I'm trying not to burn myself out immediately after coming back to the game, hence the derping around on the SK. So, some easy to attain raid pieces may be doable, but nothing more competitive. I've been eyeing a Soul Defiler, for example.

Obviously, if I'm just grouping this gear is mostly good enough, but I need some sort of direction to keep me interested other than grinding for grinding's sake.

Any suggestions welcome.

[Jimjam]

My blue SK is geared something like this:

https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Nareik

[Danth]

...if I'm just grouping this gear is mostly good enough...

Fungus twink with plane of air items is a little past "mostly good enough" for normal experience group stuff.

I don't think you need equipment advice. You either already have or are well aware of the big-ticket items. Rather you're running into the level range where melee twinks start to run out of steam and can't effortlessly hack their way through Norrath anymore. It is not for no reason a bunch quit around the high 40's/low 50's range; for a long time I used to pretty regularly see shadow knights in particular in that level range being parted out and sold in EC. If you have multiple other raid-ready characters than you know what level 50+ EQ entails and if you don't want to do that push again then it's time to start planning your next character.

Danth

[DeathsSilkyMist]

If you want to increase your solo speed, improve your mana regen. Since you have Fungi and you are a Troll,
you already have good HP regen. That means Crown of Narandi, Shawl 7, and Blood Ember Greaves. Those will give you the biggest bang for your buck.

Eyepatch is a nice item, but I haven't seen a huge DPS increase with it, and I have https://wiki.project1999.com/Ancient_Fire_Etched_Flamberge .

You could certainly boost your stats quite a bit since most of your items are quite basic, and that should give you some improvements as well if you upgrade enough pieces.

As a fellow Troll SK, you can look at my Magelo in my Sig to get ideas on what to fill your other slots with.

[Keebz]

Thanks for the Magelo's. It's good food for thought. To start, I will work on the mana regen and copy some of yall's accessory slots. Thankfully, shawl should be in game on Green now.

[Toxigen]

Aye, narandi crown prob #1 for your to-get list.

Just find some shaman friends. Duo.

[mattydef]

Fungus twink with plane of air items is a little past "mostly good enough" for normal experience group stuff.

I don't think you need equipment advice. You either already have or are well aware of the big-ticket items.

Danth

[Robersonroger38]

Where is good place at lvl 51 SK to solo grind

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Where is good place at lvl 51 SK to solo grind

City Guards are good until 55. Butcherblock Mountain guards by the various guard shacks and Felwithe guards (fear kite them so they don't heal) are great for xp and money.

Charasis is good XP too (plus you can use your undead spells), but I am thinking 51 may be a little low. It is better when you are 55+.

I can't remember exactly when Crystal Cavern Geos green out, but those are pretty good in the 40s and maybe low 50s range.

Killing trash in Dreadlands is a pretty classic way to go. Not great xp and money, but it is a very good place for easy fear kiting if you pull to Karnor's Castle.

Wakening Land Goos are great too. They are a great source of XP + Cash until 56 at least, and they are pretty easy for Velious mobs.

[Crede]

Where is good place at lvl 51 SK to solo grind

The 3 barb guards in everfrost. Can’t beat it, good until 55. Decent noob zem now too.

[Swish]

Not to hijack but my 60 SK (very fresh and non-raided honestly) is a dark elf and really struggling in terms of HP/STA.

Can anyone recommend some quick fix items that really help in that department? I think my STA is something like 125 unbuffed.

[Jimjam]

The dragon heads quests in kael (barbed dragonscale pauldrons, boots and cloak of the maelstrom) all have some sta on otherwise decent items. WW dragons aren’t so hard to gather troops for. If you don’t have faction someone else can loot / hand in for you.

Red, blue or green?

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Not to hijack but my 60 SK (very fresh and non-raided honestly) is a dark elf and really struggling in terms of HP/STA.

Can anyone recommend some quick fix items that really help in that department? I think my STA is something like 125 unbuffed.

Do you have a Magelo or something? And do you plan on raiding, or are you sticking to solo play?

[Tsunami21k]

Not to hijack but my 60 SK (very fresh and non-raided honestly) is a dark elf and really struggling in terms of HP/STA.

Can anyone recommend some quick fix items that really help in that department? I think my STA is something like 125 unbuffed.

You play on red right? Chardok shoulders are prob the way to go. 15 sta/55 hp, earring of Essence/hammered golden loops/pearly sarnak bauble. I’m not an huge fan of HGL’s on knights due to the ac hit (even though I wear them) but for raw hp/sta they can’t be beat.

[Keebz]

That means Crown of Narandi, Shawl 7, and Blood Ember Greaves. Those will give you the biggest bang for your buck.

I picked up the greaves and wow they are amazing. I was skeptical because I've seen some debate on how good they were before, but I am now a true believer. Absolutely class changing. 3 seconds is perfectly serviceable for most use cases, esp. given there's no additional cool down so you can just spam them. I can't imagine playing without them at this point.

[Jimjam]

I really like them - I often don't even mem FD on my sk. They do make me want the instacast circlet of shadow(s?) than before I had the BE legs though.

Did you get a vindi bp yet? I'm not convinced it is so much substantially better than BE. Not in a transformative way at least.

Anyone got the Fennin Ro worn attack gloves?

[DeathsSilkyMist]

I picked up the greaves and wow they are amazing. I was skeptical because I've seen some debate on how good they were before, but I am now a true believer. Absolutely class changing. 3 seconds is perfectly serviceable for most use cases, esp. given there's no additional cool down so you can just spam them. I can't imagine playing without them at this point.

I really like them - I often don't even mem FD on my sk. They do make me want the instacast circlet of shadow(s?) than before I had the BE legs though.

Did you get a vindi bp yet? I'm not convinced it is so much substantially better than BE. Not in a transformative way at least.

Anyone got the Fennin Ro worn attack gloves?

Glad to see some people trying out the BE Greaves:D They are badass, and I do like the option that you can choose not to mem FD if you want something else on your bar. Clickies do give a lot of flexibility, which can be really underrated. The ability to spam them is also really nice, and they work even if you run out of mana.

I have Circlet of Shadow, Vindi BP, and Fennin Ro Gloves. I certainly enjoy all of them. The Fennin Ro Gloves are nice because most SK gloves suck anyway, so it isn't a huge stat loss slot to begin with, and the extra ATK is nice. Vindi BP is great too. I'm too lazy to get a Fungi for my SK, so the extra regen is always welcome when combined with my Troll regen. The main thing you want Vindi BP for is the resistances. You really can't beat +15 all res in a slot, especially combined with all the other stats. It's your BiS resistance piece for chest, so it will always be useful, even if you get Breastplate of Eradication later.

[ScottBerta]

Try for Eyepatch of Plunder, Scout Bracers, SS items, +6 neck, hierophant cloak, epic ear, pearly Sarnak Bauble, Narandi Crown, PoS shoulders, etc.. lot of room for improvement.

[Samoht]

As a fellow Troll SK, you can look at my Magelo in my Sig to get ideas on what to fill your other slots with.

Some of the gear on this magelo (https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Bazgek) is just... wrong...

Like wearing the 7th Coldain ring full time. 6/65 (https://wiki.project1999.com/Velium_Fire_Wedding_Ring) would be better. I guess an argument could be made that your other ring has INT for mana, but Band of Eternal Flame (https://wiki.project1999.com/Band_of_Eternal_Flame) would be better still. If you're wearing them for MR, please consider putting MR gear in a bag to wear tanking gear unless fighting fearing dragons.

Same for the arms. Get Crystal Chitin Armplates (https://wiki.project1999.com/Crystal_Chitin_Armplates). Dark Runed are Thurg, growth arms (https://wiki.project1999.com/Noctivagant_Vambraces) are better until you get SS arms. I guess you're wearing them for the mana, though, but doesn't really seem worth...

Two more easy upgrades would be Spider Fur Belt (https://wiki.project1999.com/Spider_Fur_Belt) and Barbed Dragonscale Boots (https://wiki.project1999.com/Barbed_Dragonscale_Boots), altho the boots have several better alternatives.

The obvious one would be Vindi boots (https://wiki.project1999.com/Boots_of_the_Vindicator), but hanging out in Kael, you will often see Boots of Dark Passage (https://wiki.project1999.com/Boots_of_Dark_Passage) rotting, and those would definitely be better.

The Fennin Ro Gloves are nice because most SK gloves suck anyway, so it isn't a huge stat loss slot to begin with, and the extra ATK is nice.

The attack is nice on warrior because they already do so much DPS, but with a knight tank not really having DPS as their goal, I'll stick with my Velium Encrusted Gauntlets (https://wiki.project1999.com/Velium_Encrusted_Gauntlets)

[Vaarsuvius]

Where is good place at lvl 51 SK to solo grind

The 3 NRo guards around the inn were a great relaxed semi afk spot for me from 49 to 54. They all come single, drop 11pp swords & FS weapons, die really fast and have à 20ish minute repop timer. You can even sell stuff to the innkeeper


Depending on you OT faction, you might also consider levelling on the sarnak berzerker braids. It’s very good exp too, I still do at 56

[Vaarsuvius]

Eye & Crown of Narandi,
Eyepatch or PoS mask,
Vindi’s BP,
Chardok or PoS shoulders,
Hiero or Kael SK cloak,
Silver Chitin or Scout Bracers,
Chardok 1st ring & Earrings,
Blood Runed gear has amazing HP & AC,
Epic or a ToV weapon,
Pre nerf CoS

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Some of the gear on this magelo (https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Bazgek) is just... wrong...

Like wearing the 7th Coldain ring full time. 6/65 (https://wiki.project1999.com/Velium_Fire_Wedding_Ring) would be better. I guess an argument could be made that your other ring has INT for mana, but Band of Eternal Flame (https://wiki.project1999.com/Band_of_Eternal_Flame) would be better still. If you're wearing them for MR, please consider putting MR gear in a bag to wear tanking gear unless fighting fearing dragons.

Same for the arms. Get Crystal Chitin Armplates (https://wiki.project1999.com/Crystal_Chitin_Armplates). Dark Runed are Thurg, growth arms (https://wiki.project1999.com/Noctivagant_Vambraces) are better until you get SS arms. I guess you're wearing them for the mana, though, but doesn't really seem worth...

Two more easy upgrades would be Spider Fur Belt (https://wiki.project1999.com/Spider_Fur_Belt) and Barbed Dragonscale Boots (https://wiki.project1999.com/Barbed_Dragonscale_Boots), altho the boots have several better alternatives.

The obvious one would be Vindi boots (https://wiki.project1999.com/Boots_of_the_Vindicator), but hanging out in Kael, you will often see Boots of Dark Passage (https://wiki.project1999.com/Boots_of_Dark_Passage) rotting, and those would definitely be better.



The attack is nice on warrior because they already do so much DPS, but with a knight tank not really having DPS as their goal, I'll stick with my Velium Encrusted Gauntlets (https://wiki.project1999.com/Velium_Encrusted_Gauntlets)

There are three problems with your reasoning behind why my gear is "wrong".

1. You assume max HP is the best stat to get on all classes, at all levels, in all situations. That is incorrect. At higher levels, when a tank is benefiting greatly from STA, you don't need to put as much max HP on, unless you are a raid tank warrior who is getting CH chained.

2. You don't take in to account my race, which is Troll. I already have at least +34 STA over any non Ogre/Troll SK race, which means I can focus a bit less on STA/HP and end up in the same place:) That minimum +34 STA is giving me at least 150 HP at 58 over most SK's.

3. You assume inventory space isn't a factor on melee characters who have a lot of items they need to swap out. I don't have much space left in my bags due to having lots of clickies, weapons, resist gear, keys, spell reagents, etc. Some of my items are designed to give me good coverage in all situations, so I don't need another item in my bags.

Now, on to your item suggestions:

1. Vindi Boots honestly suck really bad. They cost a lot of DKP and barely give you more stats than other easy to get boots. You will also be swapping them for Blood Ember Boots or resistance gear, so they don't get used that often. Sorry you wasted your DKP. Barbed Dragonscale Boots are in the same boat, minus the wasted DKP. Most SK boots suck, so it doesn't really matter what you put there. I use SS Boots simply for the AC and decent balance of stats. They are also easy to get in any HoT pick X group, as plate boots are one of the least popular pieces. If I need resistance boots on swap, I have https://wiki.project1999.com/Tribal_War_Boots , which are better than Boots of Dark Passage.

2. HP rings are overrated at high levels, especially on a non raid tank. I would say I survive at less than 5% health 1/100 times when I screw up at something like pulling. If you screw up bad, you will die anyway, a little bit of extra HP won't help. The MR and ATK is helping me more, and I don't have bag room for something like a 6/65 that I would rarely use. Unless you are a super squishy class like an Enchanter, you don't need as much Max HP gear always on unless you want to be a raid tank. If you are playing efficiently as an SK, you should never be at 100% HP so you can make use of things like HP regen and life tap. This is especially true on Trolls/Iksars, who have great innate regen.

3. Most arms suck, so swapping one for another make basically no difference. Thurg arms are better for low INT SK's like Trolls due to the mana, and they also have some MR. Remember, I have way more STR and STA than most races anyway.

4. Same argument with Spider Fur Belt. I have plenty of HP, but I need more DEX for my weapon procs.

5. Velium Encrusted Gauntlets are nice, but they are a raid piece, and honestly not the best use of DKP unless you like moving them around to other toons. You are paying a DKP tax for them being tradeable. Honestly saving your DKP for Gauntlets of Dragon Slaying would be better than Velium Encrusted Gauntlets once we get into raid item territory. For non raid gloves Fennin Ro works well on Troll, as I get more ATK from them than normal gloves with +5ish STR on them, and most SK gloves have low AC anyway. Fennin Ro also has FR, which helps trolls recover from their innate -20 FR. Gloves also get swapped for Blood Ember, so you aren't wearing them all the time.

6. I don't like Band of Eternal Flame as an item. The -10 CR sucks, so you need to swap it out situationally more often than other rings. I prefer a 6/65 ring over that item. If you want a wider distribution of stats similar to Band of Eternal Flame, https://wiki.project1999.com/Di%27Zok_Signet_of_Service is better.

[Samoht]

There are three problems with your reasoning behind why my gear is "wrong".

1. You assume max HP is the best stat to get on all classes, at all levels, in all situations. That is incorrect. At higher levels, when a tank is benefiting greatly from STA, you don't need to put as much max HP on, unless you are a raid tank warrior who is getting CH chained.

2. You don't take in to account my race, which is Troll. I already have at least +34 STA over any non Ogre/Troll SK race, which means I can focus a bit less on STA/HP and end up in the same place:) That minimum +34 STA is giving me at least 150 HP at 58 over most SK's.

3. You assume inventory space isn't a factor on melee characters who have a lot of items they need to swap out. I don't have much space left in my bags due to having lots of clickies, weapons, resist gear, keys, spell reagents, etc. Some of my items are designed to give me good coverage in all situations, so I don't need another item in my bags.

Now, on to your item suggestions:

1. Vindi Boots honestly suck really bad. They cost a lot of DKP and barely give you more stats than other easy to get boots. You will also be swapping them for Blood Ember Boots or resistance gear, so they don't get used that often. Sorry you wasted your DKP. Barbed Dragonscale Boots are in the same boat, minus the wasted DKP. Most SK boots suck, so it doesn't really matter what you put there. I use SS Boots simply for the AC and decent balance of stats. They are also easy to get in any HoT pick X group, as plate boots are one of the least popular pieces. If I need resistance boots on swap, I have https://wiki.project1999.com/Tribal_War_Boots , which are better than Boots of Dark Passage.

2. HP rings are overrated at high levels, especially on a non raid tank. I would say I survive at less than 5% health 1/100 times when I screw up at something like pulling. If you screw up bad, you will die anyway, a little bit of extra HP won't help. The MR and ATK is helping me more, and I don't have bag room for something like a 6/65 that I would rarely use. Unless you are a super squishy class like an Enchanter, you don't need as much Max HP gear always on unless you want to be a raid tank. If you are playing efficiently as an SK, you should never be at 100% HP so you can make use of things like HP regen and life tap. This is especially true on Trolls/Iksars, who have great innate regen.

3. Most arms suck, so swapping one for another make basically no difference. Thurg arms are better for low INT SK's like Trolls due to the mana, and they also have some MR. Remember, I have way more STR and STA than most races anyway.

4. Same argument with Spider Fur Belt. I have plenty of HP, but I need more DEX for my weapon procs.

5. Velium Encrusted Gauntlets are nice, but they are a raid piece, and honestly not the best use of DKP unless you like moving them around to other toons. You are paying a DKP tax for them being tradeable. Honestly saving your DKP for Gauntlets of Dragon Slaying would be better than Velium Encrusted Gauntlets once we get into raid item territory. For non raid gloves Fennin Ro works well on Troll, as I get more ATK from them than normal gloves with +5ish STR on them, and most SK gloves have low AC anyway. Fennin Ro also has FR, which helps trolls recover from their innate -20 FR. Gloves also get swapped for Blood Ember, so you aren't wearing them all the time.

6. I don't like Band of Eternal Flame as an item. The -10 CR sucks, so you need to swap it out situationally more often than other rings. I prefer a 6/65 ring over that item. If you want a wider distribution of stats similar to Band of Eternal Flame, https://wiki.project1999.com/Di%27Zok_Signet_of_Service is better.

nah, all this shit is just wrong. max HP is pretty much the only thing to go for on any melee and some priest/caster classes, too. no reason not to go for max HP even if you're a troll. you're very clearly wearing situation resist gear then go on to complain about situation resist gear, lol. you're just wrong about HP, boots, spider fur belt, everything.

please don't make gear recommendations to anybody else on this forum ever again. i'd recommend deleting your magelo so that nobody else ever has to witness that again.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

nah, all this shit is just wrong. max HP is pretty much the only thing to go for on any melee and some priest/caster classes, too. no reason not to go for max HP even if you're a troll. you're very clearly wearing situation resist gear then go on to complain about situation resist gear, lol. you're just wrong about HP, boots, spider fur belt, everything.

please don't make gear recommendations to anybody else on this forum ever again. i'd recommend deleting your magelo so that nobody else ever has to witness that again.

Nah. Anyone who thinks max HP is the only way to go clearly hasn't played the game enough, or understand mathematical statistics.

You honestly don't need more than 3k HP for most content. Any content needing more than 3k HP usually need disciplines that SK's don't have. Your first mistake is trying to gear your SK for raiding, and no real raider uses their SK for anything other than collecting raid gear for solo/group content:) Building your SK outside of Solo/Group content is silly.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

As for situational gear, you need to think a little harder to understand why Ring 7/Sky Ring are a better combination than 6/65s, especially when it comes to saving bag space. Those two rings give me MR and AC at their core. This means I can maintain my AC bonus and MR bonus in more situations, as there are mobs that have bad MR spells, but not necessarily bad FR/CR spells. That means I only need to swap my rings for Velium Diamond Wedding Rings when I really need FR/CR or a combination of MR/CR/FR. I only need four rings total on my toon, and I am not swapping my 6/65's every time I need to deal with MR (this means I keep my AC more often). Ring slots suck because they are a prime candidate to swap for resistance pieces (since Velium Diamond Wedding Rings are great and cheap), so assuming you are going to keep your 6/65 rings equipped often is silly, unless you have really good raid gear in your other slots which have stats AND resists.

[Samoht]

d-d-d-double post! there's NO reason to think a ring 7 is better than ANYTHING (other than ring 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, LOL!). and are you really complaining about BAG SPACE? Just get a HAND MADE BACKPACK. They weigh 0.1!

i'm not reading any of the rest of your drivel, and honestly, nobody else should either.

i tried to make some suggestions on how to improve your gear, and you went off the deep-end.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

d-d-d-double post! there's NO reason to think a ring 7 is better than ANYTHING (other than ring 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, LOL!). and are you really complaining about BAG SPACE? Just get a HAND MADE BACKPACK. They weigh 0.1!

i'm not reading any of the rest of your drivel, and honestly, nobody else should either.

i tried to make some suggestions on how to improve your gear, and you went off the deep-end.

I didn't go off the deep end, you just like shit posting and not reading:) If you don't understand how the game works, you should play more and read up on it, instead of just assuming Max HP = good. That isn't true, and whoever told you that is also wrong.

EDIT: Also, https://wiki.project1999.com/Hand_Made_Backpack weigh 3.0, not sure what you are even talking about.

[Samoht]

you just like shit posting and not reading

You haven't posted a SINGLE THING worth reading!

If you don't understand how the game works, you should play more and read up on it, instead of just assuming Max HP = good. That isn't true, and whoever told you that is also wrong.

It is NOT an assumption. It's well established FACT. Your little note about those shit boots you're wearing having "balanced" stats just shows you have NO IDEA what you're talking about. Balanced stats is good raw HP/mana/MR. Those boots barely have any MR and a negligible amount of INT. They are literally TRASH.

EDIT: Also, https://wiki.project1999.com/Hand_Made_Backpack weigh 3.0, not sure what you are even talking about.

Your shitty rings that you don't have bag space for weigh 0.1. They don't need to go into a tink bag. They can go into a handmade backpack just fine. Buy more and quit bitching about bag space.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

You haven't posted a SINGLE THING worth reading!



It is NOT an assumption. It's well established FACT. Your little note about those shit boots you're wearing having "balanced" stats just shows you have NO IDEA what you're talking about. Balanced stats is good raw HP/mana/MR. Those boots barely have any MR and a negligible amount of INT. They are literally TRASH.



Your shitty rings that you don't have bag space for weigh 0.1. They don't need to go into a tink bag. They can go into a handmade backpack just fine. Buy more and quit bitching about bag space.

Yes, I am the one going off the deep-end, when you are just cursing and shit posting. Got it:)

Resistances and AC will save you more often on most content than max HP. Do you even play the game at high levels? Monsters either don't hit very hard/often due to AC and defensive skills, or hit so hard that there is no difference between 3k and 3.5k hp other than you dieing in 5 seconds instead of 8 seconds. Anything that kills you that fast either needs to be slowed or disc'ed (which SK's don't have).

Please, if you want some basic understanding of the game, create a Dark Elf SK Magelo and you can see the stat comparisons with my setup. They are pretty similar. If you assume a Dark Elf SK with average gear can't play the game, you clearly don't know what you are talking about lol.

EDIT: You also missed the part about Tribal War Boots being better resistance boots than Boots of Dark Passage (I have Tribal War Boots for resistance swap). But that isn't surprising, since you said you weren't reading.

[Samoht]

Resistances and AC will save you more often on most content than max HP. Do you even play the game at high levels? Monsters either don't hit very hard/often due to AC and defensive skills, or hit so hard that there is no difference between 3k and 3.5k hp other than you dieing in 5 seconds instead of 8 seconds. Anything that kills you that fast either needs to be slowed or disc'ed (which SK's don't have).

This is plain WRONG. A creature hitting you for max damage over and over again (think flurry drakes in NTOV) is not going to be stopped by your measly mana pool or a few extra AC. If you stacked max HP, you could survive it longer and get healed. Do YOU even play high levels? If you tried to raid on this character, you would be expected to tank those drakes or you would be LAUGHED AT by the raid for bringing such a useless character. You don't gear for trivial content... it's TRIVIAL by definition.

HP is KING.

I'd offer to help you because you seriously need help with gearing and tanking, but it's obvious you wouldn't listen.

Just quit please trying to spread your misinformation.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

This is plain WRONG. A creature hitting you for max damage over and over again (think flurry drakes in NTOV) is not going to be stopped by your measly mana pool or a few extra AC. If you stacked max HP, you could survive it longer and get healed. Do YOU even play high levels? If you tried to raid on this character, you would be expected to tank those drakes or you would be LAUGHED AT by the raid for bringing such a useless character. You don't gear for trivial content... it's TRIVIAL by definition.

HP is KING.

I'd offer to help you because you seriously need help with gearing and tanking, but it's obvious you wouldn't listen.

Just quit please trying to spread your misinformation.

Wow you really can't read. Did I say "AC/Resistances are good on Flurries"? Lol if you had read my post earlier, you would have clearly seen me say "The first mistake is taking your SK on raids". If you are off-tanking flurries as an SK, you are raiding wrong. Bring a different class or play the Cleric Bots.

I am building my SK for Solo/Group content (which is what most people do). I am not building my SK for raiding in the silly hope I can be useful in a raid. If you want to be a hybrid offtank in a raid, play a paladin for Divine Strength and Soul Fire charges, you will be more useful.

Are you one of those weird raiders who main SK and only main SK?

[Jimjam]

This is plain WRONG. A creature hitting you for max damage over and over again (think flurry drakes in NTOV) is not going to be stopped by your measly mana pool or a few extra AC. If you stacked max HP, you could survive it longer and get healed. Do YOU even play high levels? If you tried to raid on this character, you would be expected to tank those drakes or you would be LAUGHED AT by the raid for bringing such a useless character. You don't gear for trivial content... it's TRIVIAL by definition.

HP is KING.

I'd offer to help you because you seriously need help with gearing and tanking, but it's obvious you wouldn't listen.

Just quit please trying to spread your misinformation.I think while your advice is valid, and HPs generally are good, if we step back for a moment to consider the context of the thread, "50's SK Gear Advice ... mostly solo, doing a lot of fear kiting, so I haven't been too concerned about maxing my HPs.... easy to attain raid pieces may be doable, but nothing more competitive. " perhaps you are fixating on scenarios which may be less appropriate to how Keebs plans to use their SK in the foreseeable future?

[Samoht]

I think while your advice is valid, and HPs generally are good, if we step back for a moment to consider the context of the thread, "50's SK Gear Advice ... mostly solo, doing a lot of fear kiting, so I haven't been too concerned about maxing my HPs.... easy to attain raid pieces may be doable, but nothing more competitive. " perhaps you are fixating on scenarios which may be less appropriate to how Keebs plans to use their SK in the foreseeable future?

Dude offered his magelo as a gear template, I reviewed the magelo and it had a few odd choices, even for solo/group content. I made suggestions for better pieces that are readily available for anybody in the tunnel. Now he's defending his gear in an obsessive manner, HE brought up tanking high end, not me.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Dude offered his magelo as a gear template, I reviewed the magelo and it had a few odd choices, even for solo/group content. I made suggestions for better pieces that are readily available for anybody in the tunnel. Now he's defending his gear in an obsessive manner, HE brought up tanking high end, not me.

You came in claiming my gear was bad, and then refused to read what I have to say as to why maxing HP isn't necessary for most content. I have the right to defend myself lol, I am not sure why that upset you so much.

Once I replied, you start cursing and shit posting, under the unexplained scenario where you assumed myself and OP are trying to raid with our SKs:) As I have said many times on this forum, the sad reality is SK's are basically useless in P99 raiding, so I would never advise someone to roll SK for raiding. The only way SK's would become useful again is if they got Harmshield and/or Lifetaps became un-nerfed. But I don't think that is ever going to happen.

The reality is a lot of people recite the "Max HP is best" mantra without actually trying out different gear. I can tell you from much gameplay experience (both on my SK and my Shaman), I haven't needed more than 2.5k-3k HP for any solo/group content I have come across. AC and Resistances help more in those scenarios, as they help minimalize spikes in DPS, which tend to get you killed the most in Solo/Group scenarios.

Any time my SK has been overwhelmed in the tanking role was because we didn't have a Warrior at the time, and were attempting to tank something that needed a disc, or I wasn't level 60 hehe.

[Samoht]

I have the right to defend myself

There's no defending the indefensible. Boots/belt/arms/rings are still very easy upgrades for your gear based on the profile.

[Jibartik]

people solo tank raid bosses with necros now things/strategies change over time.

Maybe the beefiest shamman is right seems like hes got some good data to back up his strats lol

[DeathsSilkyMist]

There's no defending the indefensible. Boots/belt/arms/rings are still very easy upgrades for your gear based on the profile.

This is where you are wrong, because again you overestimate the importance of max HP. Sadly you seem unwilling to change your mind, so this info is directed more at other people reading this thread, rather than yourself.

Also, I never claimed I have the best in slot for those items lol, you seem to be assuming that. They are good pieces for solo/group content to make up for the lower Dex/Int Trolls get, and I dont want to spend the money/dkp on getting the next tier of upgrade, which will be quite expensive and not give me much of a boost. I will not solo or group any faster/better with your suggestions, they are side-grades at best for very specific content.

[Samoht]

As a fellow Troll SK, you can look at my Magelo in my Sig to get ideas on what to fill your other slots with.

I guess your right, you said you had ideas, but you never said you had GOOD ideas.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

I guess your right, you said you had ideas, but you never said you had GOOD ideas.

Just reciting the mantra "HP = Good" does not make it so, nor does attempting to shut down the discussion because you can't be bothered to play the game:)

[Samoht]

Just reciting the mantra "HP = Good" does not make it so, nor does attempting to shut down the discussion because you can't be bothered to play the game:)

I'm pretty sure that at this point, neither one of us knows what you're talking about.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

I'm pretty sure that at this point, neither one of us knows what you're talking about.

You literally said HP is King. That is the "HP = good" mantra people repeat on these forums ad nauseam, and it honestly doesn't apply in most situations. If you blindly believe this to be the case, I can only assume you don't play the game, or don't pay too much attention to it.

For people who are not fixated on maxing HP without thinking:

1. For levels 1-40 or so, max HP is king on all classes. This is because STA scaling is bad at that range, most good proc weapons don't proc, your spells suck, and your offensive skills are bad. This means ATK, Dex, and Mana aren't helping you too much, whereas the tuning of the game from 1-40 isn't designed for players running around with +500 HP or so from items.

2. Once you get to levels 50+, ATK + Dex + Mana + a good weapon play a bigger role in terms of DPS and kill speed. The difference is content is tuned to expect the player to have a ton of HP, because by levels 50+ you start getting good buffs on buffing classes, so +500 HP isn't that great anymore. Killing a monster 5 seconds faster due to a higher ATK + Dex + Mana + a good weapon means you are saving hundreds of HP by not getting hit for those 5 seconds. You are also able to hold down camps better, get more money, etc. Stacking max HP doesn't increase your kill speed or ability to hold down camps, so it is the lesser stat for solo/group content in most cases.

3. Max HP is better on caster classes like Enchanters 50+, because they NEVER get good STA scaling, so you are always going to be fairly low on HP. High raw +HP items are the only way to go on those classes, especially since most caster gear is very lack luster in Classic -> Velious.

4. Max HP is good in specific situations where mobs are casting unresistable (or nearly unresistable) spells, as it is the only way to counter that kind of spell. For most other spell casting situations, resistances are better. If this wasn't the case, you wouldn't see people carrying around resistance gear:)

5. Max HP is the best stat on Warriors, because most Warriors build themselves for raiding on this server. It synergizes the best with Complete Heal chains, and many raid mobs (such as AoW) don't cast spells anyway.

6. SK's are not good in raids at all on P99. If you want to play a hybrid raid class, play Paladin or Ranger. In those specific cases, if you are trying to be a Flurry offtank, max HP is indeed good. But that is not what OP was asking.

7. Finally, in most group content gear doesn't matter that much, because your group mates are bringing way more to the table, and most monsters do not have spell immunity to things like slow, which trivializes most content anyway. More DPS (even from an SK) means faster kill rates for your group.

[Samoht]

You literally said HP is King. That is the "HP = good" mantra people repeat on these forums ad nauseam, and it honestly doesn't apply in most situations. If you blindly believe this to be the case, I can only assume you don't play the game, or don't pay too much attention to it.

Or people who say this play at an extremely high level that you've ever experienced. HP is king. It's been true since 1999. I've been playing that way ever since.

The rest of your post is TL;DR. Probably just more nonsense and backtracking from things you've said that have already been shot down in this post.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Or people who say this play at an extremely high level that you've ever experienced. HP is king. It's been true since 1999. I've been playing that way ever since.

The rest of your post is TL;DR. Probably just more nonsense and backtracking from things you've said that have already been shot down in this post.

You didn't shoot down anything, because you yourself said you can't be bothered to read it. That is not a valid argument, and you just look like a fool saying stuff like this. I haven't done any back tracking either. You admitted you haven't read what I said, so it boggles my mind that you can even claim I did back tracking to begin with:)

You are the one who keeps bringing in red herrings like Flurries, which are completely different from the majority of content on P99, and a poor example at that considering SK's are literally the worst raid class in P99.

I am not sure what "extremely high level" you are referring to. I have raided all content on p99 many times with the exception of Veeshan's Peak (too lazy to get the key). I have also done many solo artist challenges. Is there some secret content I am not privy to?

Your experience on live is irrelevant anyway, since P99 does not operate the same way it did on live, even from 1999-2002. So honestly it doesn't matter what you think or remember, it matters how P99 actually works right now.

[Samoht]

It's just a lot of words that you're using to defend your position that Silken Cat-fur Girdle is better than Spider Fur Belt.

So many words to type and still be wring.

I feel sorry for you.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

It's just a lot of words that you're using to defend your position that Silken Cat-fur Girdle is better than Spider Fur Belt.

So many words to type and still be wring.

I feel sorry for you.

Why do you assume spider fur belt is better? you are trading 5 AC and 40 HP for 4 STR and 8 DEX. Both cases are honestly mostly irrelevant, but more STR and DEX will increase your kill speed, whereas 5AC and 40HP do nothing for you 99.9% of the time.

Right now my SK only loses somewhere around 1000 HP per mob when face tanking solo, and I have 2.8k HP self buffed. I am not sure where an extra 200 HP would help me. More damage and procs will increase my kill speed though:)

[Samoht]

Why do you assume spider fur belt is better? you are trading 5 AC and 40 HP for 4 STR and 8 DEX. Both cases are honestly mostly irrelevant, but more STR and DEX will increase your kill speed, whereas 5AC and 40HP do nothing for you 99.9% of the time.

This is just so wrong that it's not even funny. There's no justifying your opinion at this point.

You should stop typing and find an easier game to play.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

This is just so wrong that it's not even funny. There's no justifying your opinion at this point.

You should stop typing and find an easier game to play.

You can't actually articulate any words to argue your point, you just throw insults. Clearly you have no idea how the game operates, and are unable to justify your opinions.

[Samoht]

My point is already articulated. HP is king. The consensus on everybody who came before you agrees. Look at you. You're arguing that 4 STR is a good investment. 4 STR is a negligible amount of STR. You're already over the STR soft cap. A STR buff from a druid or shaman would put you over 255, so that 4 STR is wasted, anyway.

You are out of your league here. I'm not obligated to explain the basics of this game to you, and you are obviously not a person who can learn them even if I tried.

So keep thinking that your 4 STR is better than 5 AC and 40 HP. Keep thinking the stats on your boots are well balanced.

I just hope I never have to play with you in game.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

My point is already articulated. HP is king. The consensus on everybody who came before you agrees. Look at you. You're arguing that 4 STR is a good investment. 4 STR is a negligible amount of STR. You're already over the STR soft cap. A STR buff from a druid or shaman would put you over 255, so that 4 STR is wasted, anyway.

You are out of your league here. I'm not obligated to explain the basics of this game to you, and you are obviously not a person who can learn them even if I tried.

So keep thinking that your 4 STR is better than 5 AC and 40 HP. Keep thinking the stats on your boots are well balanced.

I just hope I never have to play with you in game.

I can tell you from experience that in any normal solo/group situation, I am not losing more than 2000HP per encounter, unless something goes so horribly wrong and there is a wipe. We are NOT talking about raiding, which an SK should never do, and this thread is not about raiding to begin with.

In this situation, whether buffed or unbuffed, I am at least 800HP from dying at all times. Having 840HP vs 800HP makes no difference in that situation. However, my character is NOT DEX capped, even with Focus of Spirit + Mortal Deftness. This means I am slightly increasing my proc rate, as opposed to doing nothing.

Obviously STR gets easily maxed in a group, but we are talking about Solo + Group, not just Group:) Not everybody runs around with full buffs all the time when soloing. When you are no-where near dying (which is most of the time in solo or group scenarios), max HP is doing nothing for you.

If you or your group is consistently wiping, the issue is with what you are fighting and your group comp/skill level, not your max HP. If you are losing something like 90% of your total life in an encounter consistently, that is simply a high risk encounter to begin with, and you probably shouldn't do it if you don't want a high risk of death.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Procs per minute are capped, making the DEX soft cap about 144.

Not sure who told you that you needed more than that.

Maybe we should blame them instead of you?

You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

Not sure where you are getting that information.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Weapon_Procs

This says 170 is the sweet spot, but you are still getting returns after 170, but at a 50% penalty. A slight increase in PPM is still better than Max HP when you are never close to death, which is the normal case for any skilled player or decent group comp.

[Samoht]

144/170, blah blah blah. Now you're splitting hairs.

Fact of the matter is: DEX isn't as good as you think it is. The influence on procs is EXTREMELY low.

Proc rates are based on proc/min, which means slower weapons influence your procrate just as much because they have fewer swings per minute.

Also, think about why you're so focused on procs to begin with. Do you have a reason? Is the 100 damage from your welfare sword going to make or break you in a fight? You think the 29 damage from your vampiric embrace proc is going to be that big of an influence? But the 40 HP from spider fur belt isn't?

Look at you, you've managed to sucker me into explaining to you how this game works. It's such a shame you're not going to listen to a lick of it.

[Danth]

Two people with NTOV loot arguing about group content that both of them outgear. This is past absurd. I've done about all the group content there is to do in this game, most of it duo with the wife, and I have mainly Thurgadin-quality stuff.

I don't know why DSM thinks he needs to stack resists for group content, but I ignore resists almost entirely and it causes no issues. Stupid 40 second poison dots in Sebilis or the occasional Togur's landing or those 250 damage dragon AE's in west wastes don't matter enough to care about. Only time I put on MR gear outside raids is if I'm going to be fighting something that can charm. Might matter more if you're trying to gear to be a soloist but I can't imagine why you'd make a Shadow Knight if you wanted to mainly solo.

Not going to argue that stacking HP is "wrong" if you want to try to be the best raid tank you can be because it's the correct approach to that problem. That type of job plays against the strengths of the class to an extent, but only moderately--there are a lot of raids the knights can and do tank for. I approve, anyway, because I dislike the notion that a guild might bully a person into playing something he doesn't want to as opposed to what he does. Some guild invites me on my Shadow Knight, that's what I am, and I'm going to tell them to piss off if they ask me to log their stupid cleric bot.

For group stuff you want some focus on AC as well, especially if you're like me and receive a lot of torpors without necessarily always having a cleric around. Mitigating those hits down matters a lot when you're trying to out-heal something that hits for 400's or more and don't have a bunch of people at your back. If your idea of grouping is Karnor's trash then you could be wearing Crustacean and nobody would notice the difference. People do that every day.

Danth

[DeathsSilkyMist]

144/170, blah blah blah. Now you're splitting hairs.

Fact of the matter is: DEX isn't as good as you think it is. The influence on procs is EXTREMELY low.

Proc rates are based on proc/min, which means slower weapons influence your procrate just as much because they have fewer swings per minute.

Also, think about why you're so focused on procs to begin with. Do you have a reason? Is the 100 damage from your welfare sword going to make or break you in a fight? You think the 29 damage from your vampiric embrace proc is going to be that big of an influence? But the 40 HP from spider fur belt isn't?

Look at you, you've managed to sucker me into explaining to you how this game works. It's such a shame you're not going to listen to a lick of it.

You still refuse to explain how 840HP vs 800HP from dying makes any difference at all. As I said before, neither Spider Fur Belt or Cat Fur Girdle are making much of a difference in the long run. I already said that lol. But a 1% increased chance of procing is still better than a 0% decreased chance of dying.

If 40 HP was the difference between life and death, you simply screwed up some how. It's a skill problem, not a gear problem.

[Samoht]

This conversation has already been hashed out and agreed upon 100 times before you came along. I don't know why you think you have something new or innovative to add.

I found this one in just a few seconds of searching:

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=337229

It's time to move on.

[Danth]

Only weapons I'd want to gear DEX for are the epic or greenmist, and even then only if gearing as a specific solo build. In reality I don't gear for it, I just ask the wife to stack DEX and Focus and that takes care of that.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

This conversation has already been hashed out and agreed upon 100 times before you came along. I don't know why you think you have something new or innovative to add.

I found this one in just a few seconds of searching:

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=337229

It's time to move on.

Still dodging my question I see:) Let me know when you can tell me why 840HP after an encounter vs. 800HP after an encounter matters. If your group gets attacked unexpectedly, that is a player screw up, not a gear problem.

As Danth points out, he is correct that it doesn't matter much either way, as skill is usually the determining factor in most encounters, not raw gear. I simply like to know which is better.

When you have two highly skilled players, resistances, AC, ATK, Dex, etc., will matter more in most cases than Max HP. Why? Because they help you reduce the odds of a completely random RNG event disrupting the flow of your gameplay, whereas Max HP is simply a crutch to help avoid death during a screw-up. If you are a skilled player, you don't need the Max HP crutch most of the time.

We have already gone over when max HP matters more, such as raiding, but honestly the discussion was NEVER about that. You simply brought it in to try and prove your point, which again is silly because SK's shouldn't raid lol.

[Danth]

If 40 HP was the difference between life and death, you simply screwed up some how. It's a skill problem, not a gear problem.

Earlier today I did get to 32 HP for a second pulling Tpos Icepaw out of a fully-spawned room before I clicked a wort pot click (and even then feigned successfully at 168 HP). Lot of casters there, lot of feign breaks, but that's the kind of thing you know is touch and go even trying. In the end if you have 40 HP less you just click the wort 40 HP sooner so it's not make or break.

Danth

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Earlier today I did get to 32 HP for a second pulling Tpos Icepaw out of a fully-spawned room before I clicked a wort pot click (and even then feigned successfully at 168 HP). Lot of casters there, lot of feign breaks, but that's the kind of thing you know is touch and go even trying. In the end if you have 40 HP less you just click the wort 40 HP sooner so it's not make or break.

Danth

Oh don't get me wrong, I have had some hairy FD's at sub 5% life too:) My point is that most of the time you don't get to that point. You either die horribly or FD successfully with a good chunk of life.

At the end of the day a skilled player can pull successfully most of the time without 1000s of HP lost. When that occurs, that usually boils down to a mistake, or horrible RNG, such as failing FD 3x in a row, or getting nothing but interrupts. Sadly there is nothing to be done about something like FD fail RNG, it happens or it doesn't.

[Danth]

No argument, because if there was an argument we'd all be Ogres for their stamina advantage. You make do with what you have. EQ's a Big Numbers game and a few points of a stat here or there don't make enough of a difference to matter overmuch for the most part. 10 AC here or 30 HP there aren't enough to get bent out of shape over, especially if you're wearing TOV-quality gear in some slots so it can compensate you having mediocre stuff in other slots and average out.

---------------------------

I do think DEX improves proc rate more or less to the cap. I notice a difference in average epic proc uptime between, say, 170 to 245 DEX. I don't need to gear for DEX since my wife plays a shaman, but for a few specific weapons I can see an argument in favor of stacking it if the player in question doesn't happen to have a shaman spouse. Fact is this game allows for more than one way of accomplishing most goals, and that's part of what's fun about it. We don't all have to be cookie cutter.

Danth

[Samoht]

You're not thinking big enough. It's not just the HP from the spider fur belt. You have to add the HP from the boots of dark passage, the 6/65 rings, and the crystal chitin armplates. That's a 235 raw HP increase.

It's called soak. The effective HP of your total HP+mitigation+avoidance.

Adding HP directly increases this. And every HP you have effectively increases any healing you have, including life taps, vampiric embrace, and even your troll regen because every time you your displayed hits 2621 HP, anything over that is a waste. But increasing it by 235 means that you have that extra little window on top that you will fill up every single time your HP goes above 2621.

Quit thinking about the HP on the bottom end like a bottom end player.

Besides, you do 0 dps when you're dead. You have 0 procs when you're dead.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

No argument, because if there was an argument we'd all be Ogres for their stamina advantage. You make do with what you have. EQ's a Big Numbers game and a few points of a stat here or there don't make enough of a difference to matter overmuch for the most part. 10 AC here or 30 HP there aren't enough to get bent out of shape over, especially if you're wearing TOV-quality gear in some slots so it can compensate you having mediocre stuff in other slots and average out.

---------------------------

I do think DEX improves proc rate more or less to the cap. I notice a difference in average epic proc uptime between, say, 170 to 245 DEX. I don't need to gear for DEX since my wife plays a shaman, but for a few specific weapons I can see an argument in favor of stacking it if the player in question doesn't happen to have a shaman spouse. Fact is this game allows for more than one way of accomplishing most goals, and that's part of what's fun about it. We don't all have to be cookie cutter.

Danth

Exactly, that is a succinct way to explain my over-verbosity:)

You're not thinking big enough. It's not just the HP from the spider fur belt. You have to add the HP from the boots of dark passage, the 6/65 rings, and the crystal chitin armplates. That's a 235 raw HP increase.

It's called soak. The effective HP of your total HP+mitigation+avoidance.

Adding HP directly increases this. And every HP you have effectively increases any healing you have, including life taps, vampiric embrace, and even your troll regen because every time you your displayed hits 2621 HP, anything over that is a waste. But increasing it by 235 means that you have that extra little window on top that you will fill up every single time your HP goes above 2621.

Quit thinking about the HP on the bottom end like a bottom end player.

Besides, you do 0 dps when you're dead. You have 0 procs when you're dead.

I have been a part of many raids as a healer both on my Shaman and Cleric. I understand how HP soak works. I understand that in raid situations where you are being riposted for 500 damage and hit with a 300 damage AoE every 20 seconds, survivability matters more than a bit of extra PPM or DPS. Dead means 0 DPS as you point out.

The issue here is you are really stuck on the idea of how P99 works in raiding situations. That is the minority of content on P99 that MOST players do not experience, and SK's shouldn't be raiding. This thread was not titled "How should I try and gear my SK to tank Flurries?"

In most solo/group encounters as an SK, I am rarely at 100% HP (so I can benefit from taps + regen), AND I am not close to death, usually 800HP or more away. It is the same with my Shaman. He has 2.5k HP, and I am rarely at full HP or near death unless I screw up somehow.

Skilled players don't need 3k+ HP for solo/group content in most cases, which is what this thread is about. When you do need more than 3K HP, that usually means the content actually needs a Warrior to disc. Sadly P99 doesn't have a lot of true "in the middle" encounters. It is either trivial, or requires specialized classes.

[Samoht]

In most solo/group encounters as an SK

It's funny how I just explained how it impacts your shitty SK and you're still arguing.

I've provided evidence where other players are saying the same thing.

You just don't learn things very well, do you?

[DeathsSilkyMist]

It's funny how I just explained how it impacts your shitty SK and you're still arguing.

I've provided evidence where other players are saying the same thing.

You just don't learn things very well, do you?

Oh I understand what you are saying completely, but you aren't talking about normal encounters, you are talking about raiding:) If you are the type of player who spends most of their time raiding, you may have forgotten how the majority of the game works, which is understandable if you love the raid scene. It is quite enjoyable, but not how most of the game works, and that is the realm in which OP was asking about.

[Samoht]

I mean, the difference between raiding and not raiding is that you are much more likely to die when you're wrong when you're raiding.

You can be wrong when you're not raiding and be less likely to die.

But it doesn't make you right.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

I mean, the difference between raiding and not raiding is that you are much more likely to die when you're wrong when you're raiding.

You can be wrong when you're not raiding and be less likely to die.

But it doesn't make you right.

Are you the type of player who doesn't let anyone into their group unless they are raid geared? As Danth points out, you do realize MOST content on P99 can be done basically in rags (and people do that often)? I really don't know why you have such a hard on for Max HP, as it really is situational, and not in OP's line of questioning.

[Danth]

I understand that in raid situations where you are being riposted for 500 damage

Tip of the day, unrelated to the thread at large: If you're in a raid being hit for those 500's, tank with attack off and hold aggro solely with spells. You take no ripostes that way and your healers will notice the spike reduction. Knights seldom receive CH chains but even if you are it allows you to plan it without needing to account for riposte spikes.

[Samoht]

Are you the type of player who doesn't let anyone into their group unless they are raid geared? As Danth points out, you do realize MOST content on P99 can be done basically in rags (and people do that often)? I really don't know why you have such a hard on for Max HP, as it really is situational, and not in OP's line of questioning.

OP requested gear suggestions for a 50s SK. You suggested some bad gear. I offered suggestions on improvements for that bad gear. You requested detailed explanations on why the suggestions were better but refused to accept any of the suggestions without a fully cited bibliography, and are still refusing to accept the suggested improvements because you just can't fathom that somebody would want good gear suggestions when asking for gear suggestions.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

OP requested gear suggestions for a 50s SK. You suggested some bad gear. I offered suggestions on improvements for that bad gear. You requested detailed explanations on why the suggestions were better but refused to accept any of the suggestions without a fully cited bibliography, and are still refusing to accept the suggested improvements because you just can't fathom that somebody would want good gear suggestions when asking for gear suggestions.

I did not suggest bad gear, you simply incorrectly assume Max HP is better than everything, which is wrong.

[Samoht]

I did not suggest bad gear

No, you very much did right here:

As a fellow Troll SK, you can look at my Magelo in my Sig to get ideas on what to fill your other slots with.

Link to said magelo (https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Bazgek)

[DeathsSilkyMist]

No, you very much did right here:



Link to said magelo (https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Bazgek)

Again, you being wrong does not make my gear bad:) If you are unable to play the game without the Max HP crutch, that is fine. But not everybody needs that crutch, and have the experience to trade a bit of survivability for a bit of kill speed without increased death rate. Increasing kill speed is the superior way to go when you do not need the survivability. This is especially true on an SK, who already has great built in survivability, but needs a DPS boost when soloing and sometimes when grouping. If you are raiding with your SK, your are doing it wrong.

[Samoht]

LOL - gearing correctly is a crutch now?

I can't even...

[DeathsSilkyMist]

LOL - gearing correctly is a crutch now?

I can't even...

I didn't say that. Great straw man:)

The problem is you are incorrect as to what "gearing correctly" means, and which situations warrant what gear.

If you simply max HP on all your chars regardless of class or level, that is a crutch, as you are not maximizing your toon's potential in a lot of cases. Of course we are not talking about raiding Warriors here, as this is an SK thread.

[Samoht]

The problem is you are incorrect as to what "gearing correctly" means, and which situations warrant what gear.

No, I'm not incorrect. You're just trying to bend the definition to support your bad suggestions.

Anybody else would suggest 6/65 rings on basically any character over a ring 7 any day or that trash sky ring.

I wouldn't even classify those as resist gear. If you want resist gear, wear resist gear, not that crap.

It's not a crutch to understand game mechanics or gear intelligently. It's not a crutch to prevent someone from making bad gear suggestions.

You've obviously got some kind of mental condition, though, so I'll let that explain why you keep making up these reasons to defend your bad choices.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

No, I'm not incorrect. You're just trying to bend the definition to support your bad suggestions.

Anybody else would suggest 6/65 rings on basically any character over a ring 7 any day or that trash sky ring.

I wouldn't even classify those as resist gear. If you want resist gear, wear resist gear, not that crap.

It's not a crutch to understand game mechanics or gear intelligently. It's not a crutch to prevent someone from making bad gear suggestions.

You've obviously got some kind of mental condition, though, so I'll let that explain why you keep making up these reasons to defend your bad choices.

If you think +5MR or +7MR on most items is bad, you clearly don't play this game in the same reality everyone else does.

You do realize most people run https://wiki.project1999.com/Velium_Diamond_Wedding_Ring for resistance rings, which have +8MR, right? You do also know that many casters in the game have dangerous MR spells, while not having dangerous CR/FR spells? Next you are going to say https://wiki.project1999.com/Earring_of_Essence is bad lol.

By having to swap out your 6/65 rings for resistance rings, you do realize that you play the game with LESS max HP, AND you don't die right?:) I think people forget that when you swap gear for resists, you are playing with less max HP, and you do survive just fine.

[Samoht]

You do realize most people run https://wiki.project1999.com/Velium_Diamond_Wedding_Ring for resistance rings, which have +8MR, right? You do also know that many casters in the game have dangerous MR spells, while not having dangerous CR/FR spells?

I have no idea what point you're trying to make here, but one thing you're making is clear: you're making shit up.

People might wear the generic velium ring when they want resist vs all. People wear JACINTH (https://wiki.project1999.com/Velium_Jacinth_Wedding_Ring) rings when they want MR.

Quit making shit up to support your point of view. Or maybe you really think you're right and the need to support this delusion is why you keep posting here.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

I have no idea what point you're trying to make here, but one thing you're making is clear: you're making shit up.

People might wear the generic velium ring when they want resist vs all. People wear JACINTH (https://wiki.project1999.com/Velium_Jacinth_Wedding_Ring) rings when they want MR.

Quit making shit up to support your point of view. Or maybe you really think you're right and the need to support this delusion is why you keep posting here.

Of course Jacinth Rings are good too. But they don't have AC or HP on them, and according to you HP is better than everything:)

The simple fact that you don't believe there are mobs out there that use melee AND magic (therefore AC + MR is a good combo), you aren't playing P99. Many mobs don't need 200+ MR to consistently resist them, so why wear Jacinth rings and lose your AC AND HP?

I am convinced you only raid at this point, or don't play the game at all lol. You are in fairy tale land.

[Samoht]

The simple fact that you don't believe there are mobs out there that use melee AND magic (therefore AC + MR is a good combo)

HP + AC is a better combo because it will work for EVERY mob and not just caster mobs.

That's why HP is king.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

HP + AC is a better combo because it will work for EVERY mob and not just caster mobs.

That's why HP is king.

You get neither when wearing https://wiki.project1999.com/Velium_Diamond_Wedding_Ring or https://wiki.project1999.com/Velium_Jacinth_Wedding_Ring (you lose 130 HP!), and yet people survive just fine for 90%+ of the content here when wearing them. This fact alone disproves your HP is king argument.

If this was a game where HP trumped all, you wouldn't even run resistance gear, as it takes too much away from your HP. Just by wearing https://wiki.project1999.com/Velium_Diamond_Wedding_Ring + https://wiki.project1999.com/Velium_Blue_Diamond_Bracelet , you lose 210 HP when removing 6/65s and https://wiki.project1999.com/Silver_Chitin_Wristband .

If 210 HP was such a huge deal, people wouldn't do this lol.

[Samoht]

Sigh. Not even responding to that nonsense.

Instead, I'm going to say: I just realized your shaman is wearing a Living Thunder Earring. That thing is a noob trap, even for a melee. And you're wearing it. On a fucking shaman.

I have no words.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Sigh. Not even responding to that nonsense.

Instead, I'm going to say: I just realized your shaman is wearing a Living Thunder Earring. That thing is a noob trap, even for a melee. And you're wearing it. On a fucking shaman.

I have no words.

You have such a hard on for max HP you cannot even fathom why a Shaman would wear a living thunder earring. Shamans have limited buff slots, and that earring is the best piece that gives see invisibility, reducing my total buff count by 1. Reducing total buff count by 1 is a bigger advantage than 30 HP lol.

Of course super amazing raid gear like Tormax crown offers see invis, but I have no inclination to get one. Not everyone gets super high DKP items in all slots.

Again, you are living in some strange fantasy land where nothing but HP matters.

[Samoht]

that earring is the best piece that gives see invisibility

this is a joke, right? please tell me this is a joke

[DeathsSilkyMist]

this is a joke, right? please tell me this is a joke

Nope. If you aren't planning on getting a true sight item (which is very expensive DKP wise), overall this is the best piece for a shaman for See Invis. Every other piece will lose you stats overall when you combine that slot with the earring slot.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

If your answer to everything is "just spend 1000 DKP on an amazing raid item", you are really in fantasy land lol.

[Samoht]

That means Crown of Narandi, Shawl 7, and Blood Ember Greaves. Those will give you the biggest bang for your buck.

Nah, somebody else already established that wearing expensive raid loot is a good way to gear your mid 50s SK.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Nah, somebody else already established that wearing expensive raid loot is a good way to gear your mid 50s SK.

And when you can't rebut my points, you just change the topic nonsensically.

Tormax crown is no-where near as easy to get as Narandi Crown lol. If you think so, you don't even raid here. Comparing a Truesight item to Narandi Crown is truly ridiculous.

[Samoht]

And when you can't rebut my points, you just change the topic nonsensically.

A) Did you have a point?
B) Pointing out your insane level of hypocrisy should count as rebuttal

[DeathsSilkyMist]

A) Did you have a point?
B) Pointing out your insane level of hypocrisy should count as rebuttal

Yes, I clearly explained my point. Comparing Narandi Crown to something like Tormax crown is nonsensical. Your attempt to do so is silly, and it is your attempt to grasp at straws while losing every point you are making.

[Samoht]

But I never compared narandi crown to tormax? Who are you even arguing with? Do we need to get a refill for your thorazine prescription?

[DeathsSilkyMist]

But I never compared narandi crown to tormax? Who are you even arguing with? Do we need to get a refill for your thorazine prescription?

You did, but it wouldn't surprise me that you don't even read what you write. I apologize if your terse, silly comments are difficult to decipher.

First, you were trying to imply that Living Thunder Earring isn't the best See Invis piece for a Shaman, to try and win a point. My counter to that was simply that it is the best piece when you do not factor in items like Tormax Crown, which are almost impossible to attain for most characters, and is way out of scope of this argument.

When you couldn't counter that point, you tried to imply I was doing the same thing by suggesting OP gets Crown of Narandi, Shawl 7, or Blood Ember Greaves. All of these items are low tier raid items, and easy to obtain with anyone who is a casual raider, or someone who farms cash fairly well.

Trying to compare a Truesight item (See Invisibility) like Tormax Crown to Crown of Narandi is silly.

Therefore, your point about me being a hypocrite is moot. I am not suggesting OP gets a high end raid item like Tormax Crown, just like I am not suggesting that most Shamans spend all their DKP on a Truesight item like Tormax crown to get see invisibility. Living Thunder Earring is the best See Invis choice for Shamans if you want to save on the buff slot for most Shamans who aren't raiding hardcore.

Yes, you can swap your earring out for something else if you don't need see invis, but honestly earring slots don't give a ton of stats anyway, so you are wasting a bag slot by carrying around a see invis earring, an HP/MP/AC earring, and a resist earring. Unless you have a really nice raid earring, you would have to do that. I did try doing that for a while with a few pieces, and I NEVER used the HP/MP/AC piece lol. It just gathered dust in my inventory, wasting space.

[Samoht]

You did, but it wouldn't surprise me that you don't even read what you write. I apologize if your terse, silly comments are difficult to decipher.

No, I never once compared your bad earring to tormax crown, sorry

[DeathsSilkyMist]

No, I never once compared your bad earring to tormax crown, sorry

Then what See Invis item is better for a Shaman than Living Thunder Earring, when Excluding the high value DKP items from this list https://wiki.project1999.com/Truesight ?

You really should write a little bit more than one sentence if you want to be understood lol.

Your entire argument from page 9 collapses if you can't even prove this point. It just reinforces the idea that you like to nitpick gear, but cannot actually give valid alternatives.

[Samoht]

Then what See Invis item is better for a Shaman than Living Thunder Earring, when Excluding the high value DKP items from this list https://wiki.project1999.com/Truesight ?

Now you're moving your goalposts. First, the terrible earring was the best see invis item. Then the only other see invis item you could get was the tormax crown, but it costs too much DKP for you. Now I'm not allowed to compare it to any see invis items that are raid drops, but the narandi crown is a raid drop, sooooo...

Why don't we go back to the root of this problem, though. Why do you have to have worn see invis? Why are you constantly running around with 15 buffs?

Never mind, I don't care. You've already derailed this thread enough with your desperate attempts to defend your terrible SK gear choices. We don't need a repeat for your terrible shaman choices.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Now you're moving your goalposts. First, the terrible earring was the best see invis item. Then the only other see invis item you could get was the tormax crown, but it costs too much DKP for you. Now I'm not allowed to compare it to any see invis items that are raid drops, but the narandi crown is a raid drop, sooooo...

Why don't we go back to the root of this problem, though. Why do you have to have worn see invis? Why are you constantly running around with 15 buffs?

Never mind, I don't care. You've already derailed this thread enough with your desperate attempts to defend your terrible SK gear choices. We don't need a repeat for your terrible shaman choices.

I didn't move the goal posts. Your strategy is to write as little as possible so you cannot commit to your terrible points that you can't back up lol. You also claimed you don't read my posts, so I am not sure how you even know where the initial goal posts are.

You must have never buffed in a raid, where people invis themselves, making them untargetable. See Invis speeds up the buffing process. I am not sure why you wouldn't be running at full buffs in a raid. I would be concerned if you are one of the raiders who never asks for buffs lol. Shamans also get one less buff slot because they need one for Torpor, so we only have 14 really.

You also don't understand the tiers of raid drops in P99 if you think "Crown of Narandi and Tormax Crown are raid drops, so they are comparable, right?". You can buy Crown of Narandi for 100k or so, or get it for a reasonably small amount of DKP. You CANNOT buy a Tormax Crown, and if you could it would be a million plat easily. I am not sure why you think they are anywhere near the same thing in terms of attainability, which makes your point moot.

If your point is simply that "All non BiS gear is garbage", then yeah I guess that is right. But 99% of players don't attain full BiS, nor is this the point of the thread, so you are really not making any valuable contributions here, either for Shadowknights or Shamans.

[Samoht]

I didn't move the goal posts.

That's exactly what you did. Not only are you an idiot and terrible at EQ, but you're a fucking liar, too. Whether you're lying to me or you believe this shit you type, then you're lying to yourself. I don't care. I just hope that you're taking your medicine and taking care of your mental health because it's obvious that you've got issues.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

That's exactly what you did. Not only are you an idiot and terrible at EQ, but you're a fucking liar, too. Whether you're lying to me or you believe this shit you type, then you're lying to yourself. I don't care. I just hope that you're taking your medicine and taking care of your mental health because it's obvious that you've got issues.

Lol when you can't back up your claims with tangible data or reasonable points, you just go off the handle. Maybe it is you who needs their meds.

Come back when you can actually write an argument. You have made yourself look like a complete fool here.

[Duik]

Holy Cow!
Nope, just wholely cowed.
I give up.
HP good. Everything else, bad. Oh AC good too. And raid loot. And bis.

[Ripqozko]

Y'all wild

[Vaarsuvius]

Then what See Invis item is better for a Shaman than Living Thunder Earring, when Excluding the high value DKP items from this list https://wiki.project1999.com/Truesight ?

You really should write a little bit more than one sentence if you want to be understood lol.

Your entire argument from page 9 collapses if you can't even prove this point. It just reinforces the idea that you like to nitpick gear, but cannot actually give valid alternatives.

Bracer of the Hidden? Alright, it does use a buff slot but it’s dirt cheap and can even be used to reset the GCD, and to give an instant trash buff to your whole group vs an AoE dispelling mob

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Bracer of the Hidden? Alright, it does use a buff slot but it’s dirt cheap and can even be used to reset the GCD, and to give an instant trash buff to your whole group vs an AoE dispelling mob

Yes, Bracer of the Hidden is great! I don't use it on myself due to the buff slot it takes up, but I do love it's other qualities as you point out. I was strictly refering to best worn see invis for a Shaman that isn't high tier raid loot. I can easily get to 13 buffs on my Shaman (leaving 2 slots open for Torpor and a Potential DoT), so having worn see invis is a better use of a generally low stat slot like earring. I am not sure why Samoht thinks it is a trash item, as it also gives 10 AC and 10 MR.

[Crede]

OP stated he mostly solos as a casual and is asking for gear advice. DSM is right, for sks this means lots of str/dex/mana helpers(narandi crown, BE greaves, etc.) and hp regen where it makes sense. As a 50+ sk trying to solo efficiently going out of your way to stack hp is meaningless.

[Jimjam]

I've found since getting my Vindi BP I am keeping my Blood Ember BP bagged to use the shielding clicky.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

I've found since getting my Vindi BP I am keeping my Blood Ember BP bagged to use the shielding clicky.

Oh yeah Blood Ember BP is a great bagged clickie. I still need to get one myself, I am still using Stave of Shielding hehe.

OP stated he mostly solos as a casual and is asking for gear advice. DSM is right, for sks this means lots of str/dex/mana helpers(narandi crown, BE greaves, etc.) and hp regen where it makes sense. As a 50+ sk trying to solo efficiently going out of your way to stack hp is meaningless.

Exactly! Great summation of my over-verbosity:)

[Jimjam]

May be worth just sticking with the SoS... I think a large part of my love of my BE Bp was how long I was wearing it; I've grown emotionally attached.

The buff does grant some MR and I've found levels 50-52 Magic Resist to be super useful, partially because it helps you shrug off slows/roots/charm/other spells that can ruin your day (*shakes fist at kobold noble*) but also at these levels you may drop in to a naggy / vox raid and that MR really helps stay in toetotoe with the dragon (last dragon fight I was the only one never to leave Naggy's side /flex).

I see Keebz has broken out of 52 now, so I suppose MR loses some of it's appeal. I'll probably keep most of my MR gear once I surpass 52 - my hp/ac have appeared to be more than sufficient and honestly root and slow particularly are annoying.

Anyone got an upgrade to Clay Guardian Shield for sale on blue? Sarnak Battle Shield or that one beginning with A from CoM? Is it fairly easy to get an SK shield for rot DKP in ToV?

[DeathsSilkyMist]

May be worth just sticking with the SoS... I think a large part of my love of my BE Bp was how long I was wearing it; I've grown emotionally attached.

Agreed, it is not a necessity, SoS works fine. I just like the clickie because sometimes SoS takes a while to proc, so it slows down my kill speed at times. The clicky would fix the issue, but it is more of a nice to have than something I need, which is why I have been dragging my feet on it.

[dablackgoku1234]

Does the SoS proc heal?

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Does the SoS proc heal?

I am pretty sure the mage shield line of spells does not heal, to prevent those classes from being ghetto healers. That would be cool if it did though hehe.

[Jimjam]

Agreed, it is not a necessity, SoS works fine. I just like the clickie because sometimes SoS takes a while to proc, so it slows down my kill speed at times. The clicky would fix the issue, but it is more of a nice to have than something I need, which is why I have been dragging my feet on it.

It is good to have for fashion - for trivial content i’ll often switch out to the blood ember suit to just get a cohesive look.

[Keebz]

SoS Major Shielding proc does not heal. Can't speak to the BP, but I'm assuming no.

BE greaves plus prioritizing STR worked well for grinding through HHK. Now that I've outgrown it, and mobs hits harder, I'm switching over to a lot more HP/AC items, but kill speed is still a limiting factor.

Still no Narandi Crown, but managed to snag a ToV weapon somehow so progress is progress. Turns out, half the ToV dragons are knight weapon pinatas.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

SoS Major Shielding proc does not heal. Can't speak to the BP, but I'm assuming no.

BE greaves plus prioritizing STR worked well for grinding through HHK. Now that I've outgrown it, and mobs hits harder, I'm switching over to a lot more HP/AC items, but kill speed is still a limiting factor.

Still no Narandi Crown, but managed to snag a ToV weapon somehow so progress is progress. Turns out, half the ToV dragons are knight weapon pinatas.

Sounds like great progress so far! Yes lol, ToV is a great place to get cheap knight weapons that are great.

[Toxigen]

You have such a hard on for max HP you cannot even fathom why a Shaman would wear a living thunder earring. Shamans have limited buff slots, and that earring is the best piece that gives see invisibility, reducing my total buff count by 1. Reducing total buff count by 1 is a bigger advantage than 30 HP lol.

Of course super amazing raid gear like Tormax crown offers see invis, but I have no inclination to get one. Not everyone gets super high DKP items in all slots.

Again, you are living in some strange fantasy land where nothing but HP matters.

Why do you need see invis? lol

just cast it on yourself like wtf this game isnt hard

[Samoht]

Why do you need see invis? lol

just cast it on yourself like wtf this game isnt hard

You don't. The earring is a total noob trap. 10AC/10MR is not as good as 30HP/10MR.

But you can't explain that to a guy who thinks 7 str is better than 65 HP.

It's befuddling.

[Danth]

Shamwowi was talking about his mainly solo-built shaman, for which specific purpose the vindicator ear is indeed a reasonable choice. 10 AC is better in that slot than 30 HP when a character that isn't getting complete heals and seldom reaches full health once engaged in combat. He can kill anything Torpor can out-heal, and more raw HP isn't helping Torpor out-heal anything. Since this is a shadow knight thread that's a tangent discussion, though.

Since I don't care for raiding my own ear slot items on my Shadow Knight are an Ivandyr's Hoop and (usually) a Shrunken Goblin ear. Laugh all you want but my character has sufficed for duo'ing practically all the group content in this game and I've been to the same temple veeshan raids everyone else has. I obviously don't call that type of stuff "best" but I do call it "good enough."

Danth

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Why do you need see invis? lol

just cast it on yourself like wtf this game isnt hard

Clearly you don't buff people in raids enough, or play a class who has a lot of buffs:) Earrings are also prime candidates to swap for resistance gear, so you shouldn't get attached to what you put there, unless you have high tier raid loot like vulak earring. Half of the time you aren't getting anything other than resistances in an earring slot.

You don't. The earring is a total noob trap. 10AC/10MR is not as good as 30HP/10MR.

But you can't explain that to a guy who thinks 7 str is better than 65 HP.

It's befuddling.

The only befuddling thing here is you think Crown of Narandi and Tormax Crown are somehow equal, and that more than 144 DEX on a character doesn't increase PPM.

Clearly you are out of touch with this game, and should start playing again before giving advise:)

If you are not STR capped, and you never die, 7 STR is 100% better than 65HP on a melee character. But since you clearly can't think for yourself, go on believing max HP is always better in all situations. You can certainly play like that, but you will be less efficient in terms of kill speed on a Shadowknight. Remember, we are discussing SOLO Shadowknights, not raid tanking Shadowknights doing Flurries.

[Samoht]

Clearly you don't buff people in raids enough, or play a class who has a lot of buffs

Who's gonna tell him?

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Who's gonna tell him?

Again with the cryptic, silly sentences. This is the only way you can appear to seem smart, but in reality you are just hoping someone saves you, and you are vague enough to where you can backpedal easily.

You clearly don't play Shaman or Shadowknight, so please don't give people any more advice on either, unless you are willing to actually learn how to play.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Let me just give you a basic example you probably don't know about Shamans.

The spell https://wiki.project1999.com/Inner_Fire stacks with Focus of Spirit. This means if you have Living Thunder Earring equipped (saving a buff slot on see invis), you could cast Inner Fire on yourself (which would take up the see invis buff slot), and you would get +20 HP and +3 AC. This means my Living Thunder Earring is actually a 13 AC, 20HP, 10MR, 9 STR, See Invis (Worn) item. That is clearly the superior item in every way to Earring of Essence. If you stop and actually think, you may learn something new:)

This is precisely why saving buff slots is important. If you TRULY believe Max HP is the ultimate stat, wouldn't you want to cast all of the HP buffs you can on yourself, including Inner Fire? And if you say "Earring of Essence is better because 10 HP is better than 13 AC!", I can't help you.

[Samoht]

https://i.imgur.com/MPTmXAC.jpeg

[DeathsSilkyMist]

https://i.imgur.com/MPTmXAC.jpeg

Precisely! This is the face everyone is giving you when you post:) Progress of a kind. The first step on the road to fixing a problem is recognizing there is one.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

At this point I must assume you don't know that in P99, you can only have 15 buffs on at a time (including bard songs, DoTs, Debuffs, etc). Let me just tell you this now so it can inform your next post.

You probably also don't know that people need to cast junk buffs on themselves to avoid their more important buffs from being dispelled. I typically have 4 junk buffs on at all times, plus Riotous Health and Focus of Spirit. When you include one slot for Torpor, and one slot open for a possible DoT or Debuff, I am already at 8/15 slots used, before any other buffs need to be considered. When you include resistance buffs and levitate, you are already at 12/15. If you are in a group with a bard, that is already max slots if the bard is twisting 3 songs. This isn't even including if you have PoTG, Clarity, and/or Gift of Brilliance.

[Samoht]

https://i.imgur.com/0etU8qg.jpeg

[DeathsSilkyMist]

https://i.imgur.com/0etU8qg.jpeg

Lol when you have lost the argument so completely the only thing you can do is act like a child. You have gotten to the temper tantrum stage, where you aren't able to do anything else. If you had the game knowledge and ability to properly explain why max HP is the best in all situations, you wouldn't need to end up posting memes in a last ditch effort to try and save face.

Maximizing HP is not the ideal strategy in all situations. If you are not dying at all while soloing, more HP will not help you. Decreasing down time (via mana regen, hp regen, clickies, etc), and increasing kill speed (via weapons, STR, DEX, clickies, etc) will help you.

[zati]

This is plain WRONG. A creature hitting you for max damage over and over again (think flurry drakes in NTOV) is not going to be stopped by your measly mana pool or a few extra AC. If you stacked max HP, you could survive it longer and get healed. Do YOU even play high levels? If you tried to raid on this character, you would be expected to tank those drakes or you would be LAUGHED AT by the raid for bringing such a useless character. You don't gear for trivial content... it's TRIVIAL by definition.

HP is KING.

I'd offer to help you because you seriously need help with gearing and tanking, but it's obvious you wouldn't listen.

Just quit please trying to spread your misinformation.

Ya know you sound like someone that got carried to ToV raiding and never actually played the game outside ToV or has a monk or any other classes besides chasing items. HP isn't king LOL. Holy shit. Even on the RNF you post shit you can't even comprehend simple FD mechanics when klaz whats his face trained riot wit multiple angles gifs/ss which even resulted in a raid suspension. Brah you know what, you suck so much at this game you need the most HP items to even get around norrath LMAO.


Maximizing HP is not the ideal strategy in all situations. If you are not dying at all while soloing, more HP will not help you. Decreasing down time (via mana regen, hp regen, clickies, etc), and increasing kill speed (via weapons, STR, DEX, clickies, etc) will help you.

Pretty much this. AC>HP/Mp regen> max HP/mp... You can always equip high hp/mp items at the start of a fight, unequip it once you dip below a certain point for more AC/dex/etc

Shamwowi was talking about his mainly solo-built shaman, for which specific purpose the vindicator ear is indeed a reasonable choice. 10 AC is better in that slot than 30 HP when a character that isn't getting complete heals and seldom reaches full health once engaged in combat. He can kill anything Torpor can out-heal, and more raw HP isn't helping Torpor out-heal anything. Since this is a shadow knight thread that's a tangent discussion, though.
Danth

hits the nail on the head here. once you dip below that threshold "30hp" you can unequip that shit item and go for AC to improve the rest of the fight. UNLESS you are strict talking about fighting only AoW which Samoht(He prolly only logs in to fight this mob) has a hard on for only ONE mob with 15+ clerics ch'ing you. then OK Hp >all. The other 99% of EQ outside of kael max hp isn't the ideal stat to optimize leveling... especially for an SK which OP mentions mostly soloing alot.

[Samoht]

Two things to wrap this up:

1) I've said it before in this thread, there is no reason to gear for trivial encounters. They are trivial by definition. You need to gear for the hardest encounter you will be facing. AoW is used as the benchmark. It hits so hard that AC is irrelevant, but it is not the only mob in the game that hits that hard. If a mob is a redcon and flurries, stacking HP is the only way to live. You're wrapping all of these mobs up into the example when you mention AoW. SKs end up tanking such mobs in ToV. What other use would they have for raiding since they don't tank AoW themselves?

2) When leveling, using a fungi trivializes everything. Get a fungi first. You can't complain about the cost of a fungi in this thread when people are throwing suggestions like Narandi's Crown around. Being an Iksar or Troll stacks with fungi, making it even better. You know how you fully take advantage of the fungi and the regen? By stacking HP. Raising your health pool raises the effective healing. If I stack HP on my SK alt to have 2000+ HP at level 50 and yours only has 800hp, that doubles, triples, quadruples, etc the effect of that fungi every single time my health ticks above 800hp.

In group content (OP did mention grouping), spells keep aggro. Disease Cloud (https://wiki.project1999.com/Disease_Cloud) is level 9 and costs 10 mana. Vampiric Embrace (https://wiki.project1999.com/Vampiric_Embrace) lasts around 2-7 minutes and costs 30 mana. You don't really need to cast anything else, so mana pool doesn't matter there. You're not going to gear DEX just for that spell, or STR just for DPS, because your fungi will allow you to literally bore mobs to death while your group takes care of healing and DPS. It is your job to tank. Clarity + Narandi's crown makes it so that you never even have to sit or med.

If you're fear kiting into the 50s, I admire you're dedication. I've always hated fear kiting because swing timers don't really sync with your location very well as the mob is running away. I hate standing right on top of the mob just to see the "You cannot see your target from here" or "Your target is too far away" messages.

It's doable. Slow/painful, but doable. And still, it's trivial. I'd focus more on surviving when a fear wears off on higher level mobs rather than dealing 1 or 2 more damage every third swing or stacking gear for a spell that procs for less than 30 damage. You'll be sitting between fights, either way.

And who is going to be able to solo those mobs better? The 800 HP SK who is gear focused on STR/DEX who can only take 4 hits before he's less than half health? Or the SK with 3 times his HP and can stand toe to toe in melee against the mob while recasting fear?

What happens when you get an add? I can just fear them and shrug them off while I finish my primary target where you'll have to FD at the first sign of trouble.

And guess what? Which strategy works best at level 1? Stacking HP or stacking STR/DEX?

In other words, get a fungi and stack HP or get wrecked.

[Ripqozko]

Two things to wrap this up:

1) I've said it before in this thread, there is no reason to gear for trivial encounters. They are trivial by definition. You need to gear for the hardest encounter you will be facing. AoW is used as the benchmark. It hits so hard that AC is irrelevant, but it is not the only mob in the game that hits that hard. If a mob is a redcon and flurries, stacking HP is the only way to live. You're wrapping all of these mobs up into the example when you mention AoW. SKs end up tanking such mobs in ToV. What other use would they have for raiding since they don't tank AoW themselves?

2) When leveling, using a fungi trivializes everything. Get a fungi first. You can't complain about the cost of a fungi in this thread when people are throwing suggestions like Narandi's Crown around. Being an Iksar or Troll stacks with fungi, making it even better. You know how you fully take advantage of the fungi and the regen? By stacking HP. Raising your health pool raises the effective healing. If I stack HP on my SK alt to have 2000+ HP at level 50 and yours only has 800hp, that doubles, triples, quadruples, etc the effect of that fungi every single time my health ticks above 800hp.

In group content (OP did mention grouping), spells keep aggro. Disease Cloud (https://wiki.project1999.com/Disease_Cloud) is level 9 and costs 10 mana. Vampiric Embrace (https://wiki.project1999.com/Vampiric_Embrace) lasts around 2-7 minutes and costs 30 mana. You don't really need to cast anything else, so mana pool doesn't matter there. You're not going to gear DEX just for that spell, or STR just for DPS, because your fungi will allow you to literally bore mobs to death while your group takes care of healing and DPS. It is your job to tank. Clarity + Narandi's crown makes it so that you never even have to sit or med.

If you're fear kiting into the 50s, I admire you're dedication. I've always hated fear kiting because swing timers don't really sync with your location very well as the mob is running away. I hate standing right on top of the mob just to see the "You cannot see your target from here" or "Your target is too far away" messages.

It's doable. Slow/painful, but doable. And still, it's trivial. I'd focus more on surviving when a fear wears off on higher level mobs rather than dealing 1 or 2 more damage every third swing or stacking gear for a spell that procs for less than 30 damage. You'll be sitting between fights, either way.

And who is going to be able to solo those mobs better? The 800 HP SK who is gear focused on STR/DEX who can only take 4 hits before he's less than half health? Or the SK with 3 times his HP and can stand toe to toe in melee against the mob while recasting fear?

What happens when you get an add? I can just fear them and shrug them off while I finish my primary target where you'll have to FD at the first sign of trouble.

And guess what? Which strategy works best at level 1? Stacking HP or stacking STR/DEX?

In other words, get a fungi and stack HP or get wrecked.

The SK should be logging on a cleric bot I don’t care what gear they have, hope that helps.

[Allishia]

The SK should be logging on a cleric bot I don’t care what gear they have, hope that helps.

Omg so mean. They can tank the trash mobs just fine ! Just not the flurry's or dragons.

[Jimjam]

If you're fear kiting into the 50s, I admire you're dedication. I've always hated fear kiting because swing timers don't really sync with your location very well as the mob is running away. I hate standing right on top of the mob just to see the "You cannot see your target from here" or "Your target is too far away" messages.

A tip for any readers that are having issue fear kiting is to not stand behind the mob attacking, but instead stand at the flank, looking at the mob and use strafe to move alongside it. Might not work well for everyone, but seems to help for me.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Two things to wrap this up:

1) I've said it before in this thread, there is no reason to gear for trivial encounters. They are trivial by definition. You need to gear for the hardest encounter you will be facing. AoW is used as the benchmark. It hits so hard that AC is irrelevant, but it is not the only mob in the game that hits that hard. If a mob is a redcon and flurries, stacking HP is the only way to live. You're wrapping all of these mobs up into the example when you mention AoW. SKs end up tanking such mobs in ToV. What other use would they have for raiding since they don't tank AoW themselves?

2) When leveling, using a fungi trivializes everything. Get a fungi first. You can't complain about the cost of a fungi in this thread when people are throwing suggestions like Narandi's Crown around. Being an Iksar or Troll stacks with fungi, making it even better. You know how you fully take advantage of the fungi and the regen? By stacking HP. Raising your health pool raises the effective healing. If I stack HP on my SK alt to have 2000+ HP at level 50 and yours only has 800hp, that doubles, triples, quadruples, etc the effect of that fungi every single time my health ticks above 800hp.

In group content (OP did mention grouping), spells keep aggro. Disease Cloud (https://wiki.project1999.com/Disease_Cloud) is level 9 and costs 10 mana. Vampiric Embrace (https://wiki.project1999.com/Vampiric_Embrace) lasts around 2-7 minutes and costs 30 mana. You don't really need to cast anything else, so mana pool doesn't matter there. You're not going to gear DEX just for that spell, or STR just for DPS, because your fungi will allow you to literally bore mobs to death while your group takes care of healing and DPS. It is your job to tank. Clarity + Narandi's crown makes it so that you never even have to sit or med.

If you're fear kiting into the 50s, I admire you're dedication. I've always hated fear kiting because swing timers don't really sync with your location very well as the mob is running away. I hate standing right on top of the mob just to see the "You cannot see your target from here" or "Your target is too far away" messages.

It's doable. Slow/painful, but doable. And still, it's trivial. I'd focus more on surviving when a fear wears off on higher level mobs rather than dealing 1 or 2 more damage every third swing or stacking gear for a spell that procs for less than 30 damage. You'll be sitting between fights, either way.

And who is going to be able to solo those mobs better? The 800 HP SK who is gear focused on STR/DEX who can only take 4 hits before he's less than half health? Or the SK with 3 times his HP and can stand toe to toe in melee against the mob while recasting fear?

What happens when you get an add? I can just fear them and shrug them off while I finish my primary target where you'll have to FD at the first sign of trouble.

And guess what? Which strategy works best at level 1? Stacking HP or stacking STR/DEX?

In other words, get a fungi and stack HP or get wrecked.

Not trying to be mean here, but you need to read threads before commenting please. Your suggestions aren't relevant to OP. They were asking a very specific question, and already gave us information on the gear they have and what they are doing.

1. The idea about gearing for "trivial" encounters is wrong. Most people on the server are not hardcore raiders, and OP isn't even 60. This means he will not be let in to most raids until 60 (especially ToV raids), and should gear for maximum efficiency when leveling. Gearing a level 50 SK for ToV or AoW is nonsensical. Also, your AoW benchmark is wrong. It is a very specialized encounter, and the majority of raid mobs are not like him, and neither will SK's be tanking anything as difficult as AoW. Not every SK aspires to be a Flurry tank, and I am really not sure why you are forcing that on to everybody, as well as your misinformed AoW benchmark. Please stop suggesting this, you are not correct, and you are just confusing people.

2. If you read OP's posts, you would know he already has a fungi, which is why we aren't suggesting that. You are also wrong about raising max HP is a guaranteed means of keeping fungi ticking. Your playstyle affects this quite a bit. On my Shadowknight I am never at full HP, and I am not blindly stacking HP items either. Fungi has a predictable pattern, it really isn't difficult to keep under 100% HP. I am not saying you should not get +HP on a character, but there is a difference between necessary max HP and unnecessary max HP. For whatever reason you like to stack HP past it's useful point, and that isn't a good strategy in a lot of situations. You are just slowing down your kill speed for no reason.

3. Mana regen does matter when soloing and grouping. If you have played an SK, you would know SK's use a lot of mana in groups because there are more mobs, which means you are casting a lot more spells, including FD for pulling. Even though they are low cost spells, it adds up pretty quickly in any group that is pulling mobs at a good pace. Remember, when you are standing/FD without mana regen items/spells, you only get 1 per tick. Not all groups have an Enchanter or PoTG druid either for extra mana regen, which means having mana saving items is critical to keeping the mobs coming at a consistent pace. With the extra mana regen from my items and mana saving clickies, I usually never have to med in groups without clarity/potg, and it is the other group members asking for a break.

4. Your entire point about fear kiting is very strange. Since you don't like doing it, it is understandable you don't fully understand how it works. For one, unless you are like level 30 or something, you are going to have way more than 800HP just from your baseline HP pool. When you are that low level, mobs hit much less hard. I am not sure why you think OP's level 50ish SK is going to have 800 HP without gear. Secondly, when you are doing fear kiting, you need to know the layout of the area you are fear kiting in. That is the way to prevent adds, not by stacking HP. Once you know the area well, you should rarely if ever get adds. So your scenario about stacking HP for the odd chance of an add would basically never come into play. And yes, since SK's get FD, they almost always have a great shot at landing FD if something screws up. In terms of the points where fear wears off, you can learn to back off of the mob before the fear timer runs off. Then when it is running back at you, you can re-fear before you get hit. With fungi and lifetap, your HP will usually stay pretty high. That has been my experience.

The problem here is you seem to be really afraid of dying, which is why you stack HP in all cases. If you are good at the game, you can prevent death from skill and game knowledge rather than stacking HP. Once you get to the point where you can consistently fight in an area without dying, you should focus on killing efficiency, rather than survival. Again, we are not talking about a Warrior tanking AoW, we are talking about a level 50ish SK trying to level. Context matters when giving suggestions.

Finally, you don't understand the simple context of when stacking HP matters. Of course stacking HP from level 1-40 or so is the best strategy. This is NOT because HP is the best stat in all scenarios, it is because Everquest is a game where stats and equipment are scaled for the endgame, not the beginning. STR, DEX, ATK, etc. don't matter that much levels 1-40, because mobs are really weak anyway, most good weapons don't proc, you miss more due to low skill caps, etc. Stacking HP gives you great survivability then, as the game isn't balanced for a level 20 having +500HP from gear. But we are NOT talking about that level range lol, OP is in his 50s. Once you get into your 50s, where mobs hit for 140 regularly, that HP really doesn't help much. This is because if a fight was determined by 140 HP, you were fighting an encounter that was too risky, it isn't a problem with your max HP.

EDIT: Also, to your point about DEX, DEX doesn't affect the proc rate of Vampric Embrace. You get DEX for your weapons. OP has Kyldorn, the Blood Drinker, so more Dex means more life tap procs from his weapon. My SK only has proc weapons now, so DEX matters for more procs on those weapons. Procs help kill speed, and they help maintain agro in groups. Disease Cloud is obviously the main way to maintain agro, but some group members (such as well geared Monks), are good at stealing agro, even when spamming Disease Cloud. Also, sometimes you don't want to use Disease Cloud in a group if you have an Enchanter. This is so they can Mez mobs without the damage tick breaking it. In that case you need to use your higher mana agro spells such as Shroud of Hate/Pain.

The SK should be logging on a cleric bot I don’t care what gear they have, hope that helps.

This is 100% true sadly, as I have said repeatedly in this thread. I am not sure why Samoht has such a strong desire for raiding with an SK. It is the worst class in the game for raiding. If you want to raid as a hybrid, Ranger or Paladin are much more useful.

[zati]

Two things to wrap this up:

1) I've said it before in this thread, there is no reason to gear for trivial encounters. They are trivial by definition. You need to gear for the hardest encounter you will be facing. AoW is used as the benchmark. It hits so hard that AC is irrelevant, but it is not the only mob in the game that hits that hard. If a mob is a redcon and flurries, stacking HP is the only way to live. You're wrapping all of these mobs up into the example when you mention AoW. SKs end up tanking such mobs in ToV. What other use would they have for raiding since they don't tank AoW themselves?

2) When leveling, using a fungi trivializes everything. Get a fungi first. You can't complain about the cost of a fungi in this thread when people are throwing suggestions like Narandi's Crown around. Being an Iksar or Troll stacks with fungi, making it even better. You know how you fully take advantage of the fungi and the regen? By stacking HP. Raising your health pool raises the effective healing. If I stack HP on my SK alt to have 2000+ HP at level 50 and yours only has 800hp, that doubles, triples, quadruples, etc the effect of that fungi every single time my health ticks above 800hp.

In group content (OP did mention grouping), spells keep aggro. Disease Cloud (https://wiki.project1999.com/Disease_Cloud) is level 9 and costs 10 mana. Vampiric Embrace (https://wiki.project1999.com/Vampiric_Embrace) lasts around 2-7 minutes and costs 30 mana. You don't really need to cast anything else, so mana pool doesn't matter there. You're not going to gear DEX just for that spell, or STR just for DPS, because your fungi will allow you to literally bore mobs to death while your group takes care of healing and DPS. It is your job to tank. Clarity + Narandi's crown makes it so that you never even have to sit or med.

If you're fear kiting into the 50s, I admire you're dedication. I've always hated fear kiting because swing timers don't really sync with your location very well as the mob is running away. I hate standing right on top of the mob just to see the "You cannot see your target from here" or "Your target is too far away" messages.

It's doable. Slow/painful, but doable. And still, it's trivial. I'd focus more on surviving when a fear wears off on higher level mobs rather than dealing 1 or 2 more damage every third swing or stacking gear for a spell that procs for less than 30 damage. You'll be sitting between fights, either way.

And who is going to be able to solo those mobs better? The 800 HP SK who is gear focused on STR/DEX who can only take 4 hits before he's less than half health? Or the SK with 3 times his HP and can stand toe to toe in melee against the mob while recasting fear?

What happens when you get an add? I can just fear them and shrug them off while I finish my primary target where you'll have to FD at the first sign of trouble.

And guess what? Which strategy works best at level 1? Stacking HP or stacking STR/DEX?

In other words, get a fungi and stack HP or get wrecked.

Did not read, Gonna assume it's all gibberish and wrong information.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Here is a video of me soloing in Howling Stones, so you can see how much HP I lose typically. I made it very quickly and on the fly, so I could definitely do much better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmDvk3udrhI

First three kills 00:00:00 - 00:06:00 show how few resources you can spend per kill with the right strategy and gear. If you maintain single mob pulls and keep track of the 20 minute respawn timer, you will barely lose HP, MP is the bigger factor. You can sacrifice some HP by using clickies to help mitigate MP loss.

The pull after that 00:06:10 - 00:09:50 shows double fear kiting. It wasn't planned, which is why it is a bit messy. I had to decide on the fly whether to FD or show a double fear kite. I decided to show the double fear kite, where you can have two mobs fear kited if you have a bad pull and do not want to FD it. I do not go below 50% health even here.

A mob is pulled after that 00:10:08 - 00:11:30 to show you can still do another kill or two on low resources before recovering. I don't lose much here due to it being a single pull.

Last pull was a bad one, but FDed just fine.

As you can see, at the end of the video I did not even dip below 50% health. There is no benefit to me stacking more HP here, as I still have at least 1.5k HP remaining before I take a med break. Increasing kill speed, however, will reduce damage taken, potentially save me having to cast a spell, and get more kills in per respawn cycle.

[Danth]

I am not sure why Samoht has such a strong desire for raiding with an SK.

On that part I agree with him. If a guild invites me I'm going to play my own character, and if they ask me to play someone else's I'll tell them to get lost. Don't invite me if you don't want me to be---me.

Shadow Knight is by no means hopeless anyway. Less than optimal at the very end doesn't mean wholly incapable. Through most of the game it's good. It'll pull or tank for the lower-tier and some of the middle-tier raids just fine. Runs out of gas as a boss tank around Vindicator, but can continue pulling all the way to the end-game. High-end pulling is more about proving oneself to a guild's established pull team and most guilds stick with what they know or are used to more out of inertia than necessity.

Of course, none of this matters to an already-overgeared solo leveler.

-----------------------------------------

If a shadow knight thinks disease cloud is all he has to cast in groups, he's probably not very good. That's just serviceable enough to level with and get into a guild that'll hassle him to play something else.

Danth

[DeathsSilkyMist]

On that part I agree with him. If a guild invites me I'm going to play my own character, and if they ask me to play someone else's I'll tell them to get lost. Don't invite me if you don't want me to be---me.

Shadow Knight is by no means hopeless anyway. Less than optimal at the very end doesn't mean wholly incapable. Through most of the game it's good. It'll pull or tank for the lower-tier and some of the middle-tier raids just fine. Runs out of gas as a boss tank around Vindicator, but can continue pulling all the way to the end-game. High-end pulling is more about proving oneself to a guild's established pull team and most guilds stick with what they know or are used to more out of inertia than necessity.

Of course, none of this matters to an already-overgeared solo leveler.

-----------------------------------------

If a shadow knight thinks disease cloud is all he has to cast in groups, he's probably not very good. That's just serviceable enough to level with and get into a guild that'll hassle him to play something else.

Danth

Oh don't get me wrong, I have raided with my SK before when he was my main, and I have seen some great SK mains with BiS gear. They certainly have a spot in the raid if a guild is willing to use them (which isn't that often sadly).

The reason why I advise against it is because Samoht is specifically trying to bend the conversation in the direction of "Build your character for end game raiding AoW all the time!". Honestly my response to that is "If you are really trying to build a hardcore raiding character, don't do it on an SK in the first place".

His viewpoint just doesn't make sense. If you are a hardcore raider, you probably won't roll an SK for raiding. But if you have an SK, Samoht wants everyone to try and make them the best raid SK possible? It just doesn't add up. Obviously if someone's goal in life is to make the best SK raider on P99, go for it! Some people have done it, and they have awesome characters. But that isn't what most people do, and people should know that SKs are the worst raiding class in the game sadly.

[Danth]

I agree with you there, and if you were to browse my 12 years worth of post history you'd see the proof (obviously--don't do that). I'll play my own guy over some bot when I feel like raiding, but I don't particularly like raiding to begin with and don't do it often. I haven't been to temple veeshan in at least a couple years, now. If I wanted to do that stuff regularly I'd pick something more geared towards that part of the game.

Danth

[Jimjam]

WmDvk3udrhI

First up, Love the AG tag!

Second, I don't know if you were using a pointer to showcase what you were doing better but please buy a keyboard ;)

Third I noticed you got interrupted by a bash, but not because it stunned (it wasn't a stunning hit), just from the bash's innate boost to interrupt chance.

Fourth, I didn't realise Rest the Dead was such a powerful lull! Wow!

Fifth, nice looking weapon, which one is it again?

Thank you for taking the time to record/post.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

First up, Love the AG tag!

Second, I don't know if you were using a pointer to showcase what you were doing better but please buy a keyboard ;)

Third I noticed you got interrupted by a bash, but not because it stunned (it wasn't a stunning hit), just from the bash's innate boost to interrupt chance.

Fourth, I didn't realise Rest the Dead was such a powerful lull! Wow!

Fifth, nice looking weapon, which one is it again?

Thank you for taking the time to record/post.

No problem:)

1. Hehe thanks. I still need to move him over to Vanquish, I am bad at moving alts.

2. Yes, I do use keyboard hotkeys. When I am playing for fun sometimes I will use the mouse instead if timing doesn't matter. On my Shaman, for example, I must use hot keys all the time for cannibalizing/Torporing, but on my SK nothing is really that time sensitive when soloing. Could I do better by optimizing my hotkeys for him? Of course, but I haven't needed to go that hard on him.

3. As for the bash interrupt, you are correct. There are two components to a bash. The stun (an automatic interrupt), and the random chance interrupt. Unfortunately nothing in the game can prevent the random chance interrupt, it is completely RNG. FSI on Ogres is good for mitigating the automatic interrupt, which means you still have a chance for success, because you are now rolling on the random chance interrupt.

4. Yeah playing in Undead zones really makes an SK shine, similar to necros. Having lull and a 10 mana fear (Spook the Dead) is really nice. Rest the Dead has a very low agro radius. Only downside is you can't use CHA to help improve your chances. RNG is your friend and only friend.

5. My weapon is https://wiki.project1999.com/Ancient_Fire_Etched_Flamberge .

[Keebz]

This isn't really my thread anymore, but I'll try to keep updating for posterity. Up to 58 now.

Some good solo spots, 46-51 spectres / LOIO goblins. 51-56 HHK (55 and 56 were dyrna and running upstairs to kill a couple nobles in between spawns) 56 Hole Ent / Tar Goos (they basically deal 0 damage to you, could probably start these earlier) 57 PoM rats / Hole Castle. After 55 it's been about 4% an hour, which is something.

From here I'll do some combo of PoM rats / the Hole.

Soloing tips: Your pet is crucial for DPS even though it seems like trash. I believe you can torch it if it's under DW level. Can summon after splitting to save the headache. Hang out places there are enchanters--a C goes a LONG way (haste is nice too).

Pre-60 desirable Gear list: Soul Defiler, Crown of Narandi, Eyepatch of Plunder, Ring 8. If I get any of these I'll let you know how they help.

Post-60 it's just HP/Resists/AC for me. Don't plan to tank anything crazy, just wanna tag / pull stuff and do fun solo challenges.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

This isn't really my thread anymore, but I'll try to keep updating for posterity. Up to 58 now.

Some good solo spots, 46-51 spectres / LOIO goblins. 51-56 HHK (55 and 56 were dyrna and running upstairs to kill a couple nobles in between spawns) 56 Hole Ent / Tar Goos (they basically deal 0 damage to you, could probably start these earlier) 57 PoM rats / Hole Castle. After 55 it's been about 4% an hour, which is something.

From here I'll do some combo of PoM rats / the Hole.

Soloing tips: Your pet is crucial for DPS even though it seems like trash. I believe you can torch it if it's under DW level. Can summon after splitting to save the headache. Hang out places there are enchanters--a C goes a LONG way (haste is nice too).

Pre-60 desirable Gear list: Soul Defiler, Crown of Narandi, Eyepatch of Plunder, Ring 8. If I get any of these I'll let you know how they help.

Post-60 it's just HP/Resists/AC for me. Don't plan to tank anything crazy, just wanna tag / pull stuff and do fun solo challenges.

Hey it is still your thread! Hopefully the discussions here-in were enlightening. Glad to see you are making progress. Getting 5 levels since the start of this thread is impressive. Your list looks pretty good. You may want to add Shawl 7 in there if you get the chance, every bit of mana regen helps. Unfortunately all of the other Flowing Thought I items that SK's get are pretty expensive DKP wise (Cazic Brain/Eye for example). Way more than Soul Defiler typically, so Shawl 7 is probably the easiest Flowing Thought I item to get.

[Keebz]

For FT 1, I looked into the shawl, but that seems like a whole thing. I think Eye will be my eventual target, but I'm not in a rush as Crown and Soul Defiler should give 10 mana a tick. The Brain would be ideal, but that might take me a couple years.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

For FT 1, I looked into the shawl, but that seems like a whole thing. I think Eye will be my eventual target, but I'm not in a rush as Crown and Soul Defiler should give 10 mana a tick. The Brain would be ideal, but that might take me a couple years.

True, if you can get Soul Defiler it won't matter too much. Crown won't even be that great if you have Soul Defiler.

Just be aware Soul Defiler is a pretty rare item, and there is usually at least 1 SK you are bidding against. Last Soul Defiler I saw went for like 700 DKP too, and that was only a few months ago. I only suggest Shawl 7 because even though it does take a while to finish, you may be waiting longer on Soul Defiler. Same with Brain or Eye. Everybody on the server wants them (every class/race can use both), and they have a pretty low drop rate. I don't know what your raid attendance is like, but I am just trying to warn you ahead of time. They are great goals for sure, but they are lofty hehe.

[Samoht]

For FT 1, I looked into the shawl, but that seems like a whole thing. I think Eye will be my eventual target, but I'm not in a rush as Crown and Soul Defiler should give 10 mana a tick. The Brain would be ideal, but that might take me a couple years.

Honestly, the shawl is a terrible item for what you get for the effort put into it. There are so many better shoulder items out there. If you end up in a guild capable of killing CT, definitely save up for the eye or brain. Don't feel bad for maining an SK, just show up to raids when they're called and be prepared to tank and die as necessary. No matter how little you think you'll contribute to the raid, it will still be as much as or more than anything that DSM plays.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Honestly, the shawl is a terrible item for what you get for the effort put into it. There are so many better shoulder items out there. If you end up in a guild capable of killing CT, definitely save up for the eye or brain. Don't feel bad for maining an SK, just show up to raids when they're called and be prepared to tank and die as necessary. No matter how little you think you'll contribute to the raid, it will still be as much as or more than anything that DSM plays.

Don't trust anything this guy says unfortunately. He is so incapable of admitting he is wrong he will give you wrong advise until the end. I have completely trashed all of his arguments, and created video proof. He has nothing other than insults and silly memes. His idea of what "trash" items are is completely delusional. He has demonstrated in multiple posts he doesn't seem to know much about the raiding scene, either. So take any raiding advise with a grain of salt too.

[Samoht]

Another post from DSM that does nothing but sling mud with nothing to back it up, sigh.

I'm sorry you spent so much time acquiring the shawl on multiple characters and now you have to come here to defend your terrible decisions.

Consensus among players actually good at this game though agrees that it sucks. Shawl isn't good until 8, and we won't get that here.

You should have gotten a choker on your shaman instead.

Hope that helps.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Another post from DSM that does nothing but sling mud with nothing to back it up, sigh.

I'm sorry you spent so much time acquiring the shawl on multiple characters and now you have to come here to defend your terrible decisions.

Consensus among players actually good at this game though agrees that it sucks. Shawl isn't good until 8, and we won't get that here.

You should have gotten a choker on your shaman instead.

Hope that helps.

You do know you always start the mud slinging, right?:) The thread histories are quite clear lol. Its a little late to try playing this game. The mud slinging occurs between us because you are incapable of budging on any opinion you have, even when I have proven you wrong and the majority of posters agree with me. I will happily talk to you in a more civil manner if you can act like a normal human being who can accept when they are not right all the time. You may end up learning something new about a 20 year old elf sim.

Don't be sorry, I enjoy the Shawl quest immensly, and may do it again on a third toon for fun. Shawl 7 is the easiest FT 1 piece to get for an SK, as our other options are high tier, high dkp, highly coveted items.

Choker is not better on Shaman unless you have a BiS shoulder piece. It is much easier to get a high stat combo with Shawl 7 + Necklace instead of Choker + Shoulder. Both necklace and shoulder are lower stat items for Shamans, so it doesn't matter too much either way. Choker also has no resists.

[Ennewi]

Duo'd in Skyshrine with a bard trying to get his robe not too long ago and even he had shawl 7, despite the questionable reactions it got from within his own guild. Granted he was every bit the completionist but still, bards have only one(?) other option for flowing thought which requires a doze tear and dedicating a weap/instr slot for it. The later version of charm eats through mana pretty fast; for that reason alone, I also plan to get shawled on one of my bards eventually. Other classes might shrug at it, but they have their pick of FT items to mix and match. Hybrids don't get much in the way of variety there. CT loot is a big DKP dump with multiple classes all vying for the ranged/mask slot. Also, if a version of shawl 8+ ever sees the light of day on here, 7 won't have been a terrible decision.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Duo'd in Skyshrine with a bard trying to get his robe not too long ago and even he had shawl 7, despite the questionable reactions it got from within his own guild. Granted he was every bit the completionist but still, bards have only one(?) other option for flowing thought which requires a doze tear and dedicating a weap/instr slot for it. The later version of charm eats through mana pretty fast; for that reason alone, I also plan to get shawled on one of my bards eventually. Other classes might shrug at it, but they have their pick of FT items to mix and match. Hybrids don't get much in the way of variety there. CT loot is a big DKP dump with multiple classes all vying for the ranged/mask slot. Also, if a version of shawl 8+ ever sees the light of day on here, 7 won't have been a terrible decision.

This is exactly correct!

[Samoht]

Right, Shawl 8 is good. Not 7.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Right, Shawl 8 is good. Not 7.

Wrong, both are good. You do not have a good opinion on items.

[Samoht]

You can keep posting that I'm wrong, but the reality is that you're just a baddie making a bunch of feel good posts because I'm telling you the gear you're wearing is bad. That doesn't make you right.

That makes you a baddie wearing bad gear.

Your gear decisions fly against the conventional wisdom and established gear standards. The mechanics of this game are known, but you're ignoring them because feelings.

You feel like your gear is good.

I'm sorry for the rude awakening, but it's not. Please quit making gear recommendations.

And you should delete your magelos before anybody else sees them.

Omg so bad.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

You can keep posting that I'm wrong, but the reality is that you're just a baddie making a bunch of feel good posts because I'm telling you the gear you're wearing is bad. That doesn't make you right.

That makes you a baddie wearing bad gear.

Your gear decisions fly against the conventional wisdom and established gear standards. The mechanics of this game are known, but you're ignoring them because feelings.

You feel like your gear is good.

I'm sorry for the rude awakening, but it's not. Please quit making gear recommendations.

And you should delete your magelos before anybody else sees them.

Omg so bad.

Yes, the game mechanics of this game is well known. You do not know them, and you have demonstrated it repeatedly. You don't know how DEX works, you don't know how targeting works, you don't know how buffs work, you think AoW is a raiding benchmark (it's not), and you think Narandi Crown is the same as Tormax Crown (they are not). You also think resistances are a noob trap lol.

The reality is you feel stacking HP is good in all situations. I have an entire youtube channel showing you are wrong. You have no counter evidence other than your silly memes, and most people disagree with you here.

Please actually play the game, and read up on it. Being this close minded is just hurting your ability to play the game properly. Every post you make just chips away at your credibility.

I am not sure where you got your "conventional wisdom and established gear standards", but they are really bad, and not the conventional wisdom and established gear standards of P99.

[Ennewi]

Always raiding at the bleeding edge, it would be easy to conclude that shawl 7 isn't worth the effort, especially if other aspects of the game seem tedious like questing and trade skilling. Stat-wise, 8 isn't even that good by those min/max raid tank standards though.

The effect is what makes hybrid players rank shawl 7 highly, myself included. Anything that constantly helps reduce solo/group downtime—sitting, feign deathed, or standing—is significant, especially when it doesn't cost a thunder of dragons in terms of DKP. And, unlike virtually every other item, shawl has decent enough potential to maybe one day receive an upgrade since the Ring 10 treatment was originally intended for it, only to be postponed due to time constraints. What would a custom content shawl 10 look like? If it's anything along the lines of...

AC: 10 STA: +10 CHA: +10 WIS: +10 INT: +10 HP: +100 MANA: +100
SV FIRE: +10 SV DISEASE: +10 SV COLD: +10 SV MAGIC: +10 SV POISON: +10
Effect: Flowing Thought IV

...than 7 seems worth the time investment for many classes.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Always raiding at the bleeding edge, it would be easy to conclude that shawl 7 isn't worth the effort.

Even when I was raiding at the bleeding edge, the secret is simple: Most really good BiS gear is highly contested and takes a long time to acquire. This is what Samoht is living in a dream land about. The reality is you need to build your character up the best way you can with what you have available. Even with 2000+ DKP in Aftermath I had the choice between getting like 3 BiS pieces, or filling most of my slots with raid gear. Doing the latter has overall increased my stats more than those 3 BiS pieces would.

Samoht would take the first route, and his character would still be way far behind in terms of capability. It is not a bad dream to want all BiS, but only the most dedicated of players can accomplish this. For everyone else, second to fourth BiS is still amazing, and if you get that in all slots your character will be well above average for all content on P99.


The effect is what makes hybrid players rank shawl 7 highly, myself included. Anything that constantly helps reduce solo/group downtime—sitting, feign deathed, or standing—is significant, especially when it doesn't cost a thunder of dragons in terms of DKP.

Exactly. The mana regen effect does more for players than a bit of extra stats. It reduces downtime more than the stats would. That is why it is better than most other items in the same slot.

[Keebz]

Ding 60.

At 58, I did Hole elementals on the balcony in the castle, which was super fast. For 59, I mainly did the frontier giants and Velks. I also solo'd a bit in the hole--rats, elementals, fallen erudites, but there were issues with all those camps that made doing them for extended periods of time less than ideal.

The FM giants are around 3% and hour and mindless. Velks is a little better, but spicier. Head up to the fake wall and pull to there. You can fear kite a little, but be careful to keep your mob from going towards the dogs. Your spider will warp down there and aggro everything. The other option that I would be ideal for 59 is PoM, but getting there is kind of a pita, and I was too lazy to try to find a COTH or a DA.

I didn't get any new gear acquisitions since last time. So basically I had decent dropable Velious gear, Fungi Tunic, Blood Ember Greaves, and a NToV weapon as the notable pieces.

As for other lofty gear options that might have improved my leveling speed, the main one's are Soul Defiler and Crown of Narandi for mana, Eyepatch of Plunder for DPS, and possibly epic for sustained life tapping, which may have opened up some face-tank camps.

The vast majority of my fighting was via fear kiting, except for the tar goos at 56, which I could easily face tank.

EDIT: An invigorate BP also probably would have been useful for face tanking.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Ding 60.

At 58, I did Hole elementals on the balcony in the castle, which was super fast. For 59, I mainly did the frontier giants and Velks. I also solo'd a bit in the hole--rats, elementals, fallen erudites, but there were issues with all those camps that made doing them for extended periods of time less than ideal.

The FM giants are around 3% and hour and mindless. Velks is a little better, but spicier. Head up to the fake wall and pull to there. You can fear kite a little, but be careful to keep your mob from going towards the dogs. Your spider will warp down there and aggro everything. The other option that I would be ideal for 59 is PoM, but getting there is kind of a pita, and I was too lazy to try to find a COTH or a DA.

I didn't get any new gear acquisitions since last time. So basically I had decent dropable Velious gear, Fungi Tunic, Blood Ember Greaves, and a NToV weapon as the notable pieces.

As for other lofty gear options that might have improved my leveling speed, the main one's are Soul Defiler and Crown of Narandi for mana, Eyepatch of Plunder for DPS, and possibly epic for sustained life tapping, which may have opened up some face-tank camps.

The vast majority of my fighting was via fear kiting, except for the tar goos at 56, which I could easily face tank.

EDIT: An invigorate BP also probably would have been useful for face tanking.

Thanks for the update, and for sharing where you went! Yes, having an invigorate BP is very helpful, I use a Thurg BP on my SK for that purpose. It heals 2x faster than Fungi, which makes it very nice for quick recovery.

[Keebz]

I kinda forgot about it because I mainly fear kited, but it may have made a few camps where fear kiting was sketchy more tolerable. Namely, fallen erudites, ratmen and to a lesser extent Velk's spiders.