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

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

Shamwowi, you have numerous 60 Shadowknights, myself included, telling you the blood ember clicks aren't a big deal at 60. Don't write off that collectively huge amount of experience. Your own SK is not 60. You get more mileage out of blood ember when you're grinding low blues or high greens. It doesn't get used so often later on, although I've heard of the clicks being used for the rare West Wastes dragon melee solo.

I don't much care about raid gear on this class. Main reason people put raid gear on a hybrid melee is so they can go solo stuff they out-gear. Whoop-de-do (rolleyes emote). That does not impress me any more than a level sixty player beating up blackburrow. That being said, not everyone is so meek as to shelve his own character in favor of a guild bot when demanded by Almighty Guildleader. Someone asks me to do that, I'll tell him to shove it. So high-end min-maxing has some relevance, albeit diminished compared to the raid-centric classes.

Iksars are objectively better than the non-monster race shadowknights at 60. Racial regeneration and AC bonus outweigh a handful of click items that don't get used all that much. As a general rule of thumb SK races can be classed into monster races (slower leveling, but stronger overall) and non-monster races (no experience penalty, but not as many bonuses). I like trolls a bit better than iksars, but it's close.

Danth

Unfortunately experience does not mean you are correct. Mathematically speaking Greenmist is inferior to Blood Ember. I would be happy to see counter data, but saying "I am right because I am level 60" is not a valid argument. Leveling to 58 has given me a pretty good idea of the class. Two more levels are not going to give me some massive revelation. I know how hard mobs work as well, because I have years of experience playing around with my 60 Shaman.

You will do better as a Troll with Blood Ember at level 60 as opposed to an Iksar with Greenmist. The extra AC bonus is not saving you thousands of mana, nor is the Greenmist proc/stats.

To me it seems like a lot of people are trying to use the example of SK's soloing level 55+ mobs as a reason for why Blood Ember is bad. The strange thing about this argument is an SK soloing Cliff Golems is already going to be well geared. You will probably have Epic, Eyepatch, and raid gear. Greenmist is irrelevant in this case, because you have Epic, which is objectively better. Also, not all 55+ mobs are spawned in a way that you get no adds. Even at level 60 you still need to split mobs with Snare/FD to get to your intended target. Saving mana during that process means you have more mana for the real fight.

I see people saying they don't use JBB at 60 or think it's a bad item in this thread and others (not saying you specifically). This screams that people have serious misconceptions about clickies in general. Honestly I used to think the same way on live. I thought clickies were bad because they took longer to cast than regular spells. So I understand the confusion, but it isn't correct.

I also disagree that Iksars are better than Humans/Dark Elves, etc. Mana is the bottleneck on Shadowknights. I would rather save thousands of mana over thousands of HP, because mana can only be quickly regenerated while sitting. This means that any meditation breaks are periods in which you cannot fight. Because Shadowknights use fear kiting in a lot of situations, mana tends to be the problem, not HP. If you want to use the example of fighting Cliff Golems, racial regeneration is not required to fight those either. Would HP Regeneration be better than Blood Ember when it comes to Cliff Golems? Sure. But if you really just wanted to make your Shadowknight as overpowered as possible for soloing hard mobs, you should have picked a Troll anyway, because they are just better than Iksar.

[Danth]

What pieces of Blood Ember do you expect to be using? Your experience bar is maxxed, you're in a tough area, you aren't pulling forty trash greenies an hour.

--You aren't using the fear click for anything serious because most stuff is outright fear immune (level) or resists too often. It might get used for the oddball trophy solo.

--BP has a direct and much cheaper alternative (Stave of Shielding) so it's totally irrelevant.

--Legs are a mana-saver when you're bottom-feeding greens, but not used for hard stuff. Have fun clicking those things when you're trying to split Bledrek out of the 6-room, or splitting a 4-pull of DN ratmen.

--Gloves are the best of the bunch and get some use, albeit mostly for WW dragons where I feign out the faction hit and Clinging doesn't last long enough. One item does not make or break a character.

Note that I did not mention Greenmist in my previous post. It's an alright item but not all that important in and of itself. AC bonus would be awfully nice when trying to tank an unslowed thing hitting for 400's while slow resists half a dozen times in a row, a damn sight better than anything a human or dark elf is bringing to that fight.

Danth

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

What pieces of Blood Ember do you expect to be using? Your experience bar is maxxed, you're in a tough area, you aren't pulling forty trash greenies an hour.

--You aren't using the fear click for anything serious because most stuff is outright fear immune (level) or resists too often. It might get used for the oddball trophy solo.

--BP has a direct and much cheaper alternative (Stave of Shielding) so it's totally irrelevant.

--Legs are a mana-saver when you're bottom-feeding greens, but not used for hard stuff. Have fun clicking those things when you're trying to split Bledrek out of the 6-room, or splitting a 4-pull of DN ratmen.

--Gloves are the best of the bunch and get some use, albeit mostly for WW dragons where I feign out the faction hit and Clinging doesn't last long enough. One item does not make or break a character.

Note that I did not mention Greenmist in my previous post. It's an alright item but not all that important in and of itself. AC bonus would be awfully nice when trying to tank an unslowed thing hitting for 400's while slow resists half a dozen times in a row, a damn sight better than anything a human or dark elf is bringing to that fight.

Danth

Gloves/Pants are the main mana savers. As you say the Boots are more situational, and BP isn't unique.

Anytime you need to split mobs (regardless of your level), you are saving 120 mana per mob. This isn't including failed attempts. I have split plenty of difficult camps using the clickies, it really isn't that much harder than spells. Obviously if I need to use a faster FD due to screwing up or bad luck, I'll use my spell FD. But if you have practiced a camp, you can use the clickies quite often instead of the spells. If you use the Pants/Gloves 20 times in an hour to split camps, that's 2400 mana saved right there.

As I said before, if you built your character specifically just to fight hard mobs, going Iksar is a bad idea anyway. You might as well go Troll because they are just better than Iksars in every way. The AC bonus is better on Necromancers/Monks who don't get a lot of worn AC from items. Tank classes already have a much easier time hitting soft cap due to their items having much higher AC values.

[Duik]

Danth, are you a lisping dancer?
Is it just me? I hear Imma Dan(th)cer in my head.
Shd/Ogr blah War/Trl double blah etc. You realise OP and anyone else interested at the start of thread are gone and just a few return for the lolocaustic Phorum-Inphection here.
Glad i got the shots.

[Saisu]

Danth, great info man. Thanks for adding your voice.

[Duik]

Just so we know, just cause dsm posts last, dont make him right.
That, i believe is the single best way to give Ripgozko a rest from counting.

[Ripqozko]

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

Just so we know, just cause dsm posts last, dont make him right.
That, i believe is the single best way to give Ripgozko a rest from counting.

hes posting too much for me to even keep up counting

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

Just so we know, just cause dsm posts last, dont make him right.

I 100% agree. It doesn't make me right. Nor does it make anybody else right.

If you want to be right, post evidence to counter mine. Unfortunately people often simply take the "I am right, you are wrong" route.

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

hes posting too much for me to even keep up counting

I see you have shown you cannot actually count down from 1000. I was hoping to see that proven out.

[Ripqozko]

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

I 100% agree. It doesn't make me right. Nor does it make anybody else right.

If you want to be right, post evidence to counter mine. Unfortunately people often simply take the "I am right, you are wrong" route.



I see you have shown you cannot actually count down from 1000. I was hoping to see that proven out.

considering how many different threads you have said the same thing on, we are probably at 1 now anyways. hope that helps.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

considering how many different threads you have said the same thing on, we are probably at 1 now anyways. hope that helps.

You are missing at least 800 numbers. Hopes this helps you learn to count.