SK Race question + item help (have never played a tank)

[Ripqozko]

Originally Posted by Keebz [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

How useful is the Ring of the Dead? It's certainly neat, but I can't think of anything super awesome to do with it.

As for stam, I cap it on my troll without buffs with shitty gear. Also, https://i.imgur.com/0A0oVLn.png

It doesn't exist anyways and yea it's really only DE that have it lot harder stat wise.

[Kirdan]

Originally Posted by Keebz [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

How useful is the Ring of the Dead? It's certainly neat, but I can't think of anything super awesome to do with it.

As for stam, I cap it on my troll without buffs with shitty gear. Also, https://i.imgur.com/0A0oVLn.png

It made binding at firepots much easier, not even sure how many lockets existed when they ended firepot binding, it was pretty quick after Kunark launch. Definitely a gimmick to be bound there as an SK though, since you don't have the ability to easily gate. I haven't found a way to really take advantage of it yet. It makes velious DESKs more flexible, if you want to move your bind away from ToV then you can without it costing an arm and a leg to change it back etc. Still, it is added capability that the other races lack. OP is only choosing between DE/HUM/ERU.

[Crede]

I've done quite a few SK builds. Troll regen is really nice, but 50+ mana & mana regen is what keeps you going the longest, especially if you can afford a fungi as well.

Go human if you like being more rare, otherwise I'd go DE for fashion, INT, and nice AGI. Perma ultravision is nice as well, although SKs do eventually get the spell. Avoid Erudite if you can, unless youre just specifically going to wear the steelsilk armor and dont plan to upgrade to more respectable gear. Their plate fashion is trash.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by Crede [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I've done quite a few SK builds. Troll regen is really nice, but 50+ mana & mana regen is what keeps you going the longest, especially if you can afford a fungi as well.

For soloing Troll regen is generally > max mana if you have fungi and all the clickies like BP greaves. My Troll SK's gear fluctuates his Mana between 1700 and 2100 or so, and I never notice when I have the 2100 vs the 1700. I'm rarely at max mana anyway. Clickies and Flowing Thought are doing most of the mana saving on an SK (and Soul Defiler if you can grab one).

Troll Regen = less need to lifetap = more mana saved. At 60 you are gaining 80 HP/Min standing over other races, and Drain soul is around a 1.5 HP / Mana ratio. So you are potentially saving 53 mana per minute on less life taps, which is the equivalent of Flowing Thought 5.

Not saying max mana can never help. If you are in a bad situation, being able to tap a few more times is nice. But it's not going to be better than half of a Fungi Tunic's worth of HP regen at 60, when soloing at least. In Raids/Groups it's different, since you are going to have a healer anyway. But SK's are the worst raiding class, so I wouldn't generally recommend people trying to min/max for it.

[Danth]

Originally Posted by DeathsSilkyMist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If you are in a bad situation, being able to tap a few more times is nice.

If you're talking dark elf versus human, it's one more tap effectively--or same number of taps but with the DE keeping a better reserve for a last ditch feign. Drain Soul is 225 mana, so that's about the same as the typical mana difference between human or dark elf given equivalent equipment. Might work out to about two taps versus a troll depending on whether the troll added anything to intelligence at creation.

But my human shadow knight has a winged serpent helm, so other arguments are invalid.

Danth

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by Danth [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If you're talking dark elf versus human, it's one more tap effectively--or same number of taps but with the DE keeping a better reserve for a last ditch feign. Drain Soul is 225 mana, so that's about the same as the typical mana difference between human or dark elf given equivalent equipment. Might work out to about two taps versus a troll depending on whether the troll added anything to intelligence at creation.

But my human shadow knight has a winged serpent helm, so other arguments are invalid.

Danth

Oh I was talking about Troll vs Dark Elf. Yeah DE > Human stat/racial wise.

For level 60 fights, Max Mana vs. HP Regen is heavily dependent on a number of factors. A Troll who puts 20 into int is going to have 27 less INT than a DE who puts their points into STA. So the difference is roughly 150-300 mana, depending on if you are over 200 INT. That is basically 1 Drain Soul (335 HP).

Any solo challenge fight that lasts 4 minutes or less would be in the DE's favor, assuming you are going into the fight at max HP/Mana. You would have 335 HP via Drain Soul vs. the Troll's 320 HP via HP Regen. The Troll's number would decrease as the kill time decreases.

Any solo challenge fight that lasts over 4 minutes would be in the Troll's favor, since you would have regenerated 400 HP in 5 minutes, and you don't have to spend time casting Drain Soul. The longer the fight lasts, the more the Troll regenerates, whereas you will probably never get back to max mana during that fight.

When you are fighting many mobs over the course of an hour to XP, grind plat, etc., Troll is also better since you are not going to be at max mana most of the time. The HP regen is going to be giving you a lot more HP per hour. That is why Trolls generally are better over DE. There are more situations where HP regen is superior to max mana. The only real exception to this is if you mostly group/raid. HP regen loses a lot of utility in those situations, because you are either dying very quickly (raiding), or you are getting healed, so you are regenerating less (groups).

[Danth]

Trolls are good but not good enough to make me want my guy to look like a green tub of lard.

In terms of leveling, my own experience was that the penalized races could not maintain equal XP/hour (controlling for other factors) as the unpenalized races, racial regeneration notwithstanding. However, note that my own leveling was done a solid decade or more ago (I've been 60 a long time) when conditions were very different on P1999 than they are today. Seems like fungus tunics can practically be used as a currency and narandi lances just about fall out of the sky now, so things might be different today.

Between the races listed by the original poster, or any races really, having the right weapons or a good duo partner will improve quality of life far more than worrying overmuch about racial differences.

Danth

[Keebz]

Originally Posted by Crede [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I've done quite a few SK builds. Troll regen is really nice, but 50+ mana & mana regen is what keeps you going the longest, especially if you can afford a fungi as well.

This is very true. You always gotta balance Int/Mana with hp/ac. Spells are where we get out power. This is obviously end game, but I will say the regen is plays into this by offsetting Call of Bones from Souldefiler.

Honestly, I secretly think Iksar might be the best endgame race due to the AC, better resists and more manageable size than Troll, but that 2hs animation is just too cringe for me. The Blood Ember clickies are sick while leveling, but at 60 it's pretty rare that they come in handy.

Of the choices though, I'm still on team DE. Human would be my second choice for more well rounded stats, better faction and solid fashion.

[Toxigen]

iksar because greenmist

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by Toxigen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

iksar because greenmist

Blood Ember clickies are generally going to be more useful than Greenmist when soloing. It's not that great of a weapon. Epic is better, and swapping Greenmist + Epic before going back to your DPS weapon is going to lose you a lot of DPS, which means taking more damage or spending more mana anyway.

I would only recommend Iksar for Greenmist if you are 100% sure you are never going to raid. By this I mean you are not going to get raid gear for your SK, you are fine with being level 60 in EC gear. It's a good weapon in that specific scenario, since it is kind of an "Epic lite", and one of the better non-raid weapons. MQing an Epic is pretty expensive for that kind of player, probably outside of their budget. Greenmist is much cheaper.

Epic is 50 HP/Tick over 5 ticks.

Greenmist is 30 HP/Tick over 8 ticks.

If you have 255 DEX you are procing an average of every 5 ticks (2 per minute). Epic is giving you 500 HP per minute (10 ticks of 50 HP), where Epic + Greenmist is giving you 490 HP per minute if you always proc Epic first and let Greenmist finish during the next minute.

The only thing Epic + Greenmist lets you do is stack the DoTs, so you could get a bit of extra HP in that scenario, but that just depends on when you proc them. If you proc Epic + Greenmist within two ticks, that is 350 HP (7 ticks of Epic if you reproced it) vs. 490 HP (250 from Epic + 240 from Greenmist over 10 ticks total). This assumes you wouldn't have proced Epic a third time within those 10 ticks.

The extra 100 HP or so you could gain in the short term via stacking the DoTs is probably not worth the DPS loss you are getting from swinging with Greenmist. That is basically 1 attack from a higher level mob, so finishing the fight a few seconds earlier will probably get you to around the same place.