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.]

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]

Regen is good for raiding though, esp. if you pull. Many times I've gotten smacked to 10% hp or so and had to lay there FD for a while. Racial regen speeds up recovery time significantly. Not to mention there's a ton of AE fights (esp. ones w/ dots), where the regen is worth something.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

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

Of course, if you care about fashion then you may not like a certain race for w/e reason. And yes, if you were leveling back when Troll SK's had like a 68% xp penalty from Race + Class, the regen would probably not overcome the penalty. When the penalty is only 20% on the timeline, the regen is probably better if you are mostly soloing for XP. You'll get similar XP levels, and more money/loot since you are killing more things per hour.

And yes, equipment plays a big role too. A Troll with a Rusty 2h sword and leather armor is probably not going to do better than a Dark Elf with like 5K worth of EC gear, if that money was focused into a good weapon.

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

Regen is good for raiding though, esp. if you pull. Many times I've gotten smacked to 10% hp or so and had to lay there FD for a while. Racial regen speeds up recovery time significantly. Not to mention there's a ton of AE fights (esp. ones w/ dots), where the regen is worth something.

Yup, that is true. Regen helps reducing pull times for sure. In terms of AoE fights it doesn't help too much, since most raid fights are only a few minutes long. But yes, it has a small chance to save you in AoE fights too, depending on the duration of the fight and number of AoE's proced.

Unfortunately SK's don't pull too much in raids outside of like VP and Sky Island 3. Generally speaking you are swapping to another character as an SK main when raiding, so reduced pulling time and AoE tankiness isn't being used anyway[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Snaggles]

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

Regen is good for raiding though, esp. if you pull. Many times I've gotten smacked to 10% hp or so and had to lay there FD for a while. Racial regen speeds up recovery time significantly. Not to mention there's a ton of AE fights (esp. ones w/ dots), where the regen is worth something.

8hps/tick extra isnt going to do anything against an AoE. It's 80hps a minute.
It is a notable benefit while FD though as you pointed out. Get in over your head, successfully FD, go eat dinner and come back almost full health again.

[Keebz]

It's like a free spot heal on an AoE fight where healing is often tight. As for pulling, people may frown on it in ToV (though honestly anyone with TL box can do 90% of the pulls there), but everywhere else is fair game, esp. places like Fear. Pulling and AoE fights are like the only things an SK is arguably desirable for on raids, and regen is good in those situations is what I'm saying.

Not the end of the world without it though by any means.

[Crede]

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

Of course, if you care about fashion then you may not like a certain race for w/e reason. And yes, if you were leveling back when Troll SK's had like a 68% xp penalty from Race + Class, the regen would probably not overcome the penalty. When the penalty is only 20% on the timeline, the regen is probably better if you are mostly soloing for XP. You'll get similar XP levels, and more money/loot since you are killing more things per hour.

And yes, equipment plays a big role too. A Troll with a Rusty 2h sword and leather armor is probably not going to do better than a Dark Elf with like 5K worth of EC gear, if that money was focused into a good weapon.



Yup, that is true. Regen helps reducing pull times for sure. In terms of AoE fights it doesn't help too much, since most raid fights are only a few minutes long. But yes, it has a small chance to save you in AoE fights too, depending on the duration of the fight and number of AoE's proced.

Unfortunately SK's don't pull too much in raids outside of like VP and Sky Island 3. Generally speaking you are swapping to another character as an SK main when raiding, so reduced pulling time and AoE tankiness isn't being used anyway[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

There’s no data to suggest regen outweighs the penalty. I have a 60 troll sk as well and have done many builds. In most cases you are limited by other things like mob availability. An sk relying on hp regen for efficient soloing 50+ isn’t ideal. You want to be fear kiting and focusing on mana regen primarily. My trolls fungi/epic was more than enough and eventually you hit a point where you are prob better off medding for the next round than having extra regen which is why a bigger mana pool is nice for keeping a long fear kiting session grinding. I also don’t believe any iksar could have out leveled my human Necro because eventually you just tap everything to death. 20% is a hell of a lot more kills from 1-60. I saw you mention that double the regen equates to double the leveling speed, this is completely inaccurate if you actually know to effectively utilize your toolset and pick the appropriate mobs to kill.

I think Most would agree regen is more about the benefit at 60, not for the speed of leveling.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

There’s no data to suggest regen outweighs the penalty. I have a 60 troll sk as well and have done many builds. In most cases you are limited by other things like mob availability. An sk relying on hp regen for efficient soloing 50+ isn’t ideal. You want to be fear kiting and focusing on mana regen primarily. My trolls fungi/epic was more than enough and eventually you hit a point where you are prob better off medding for the next round than having extra regen which is why a bigger mana pool is nice for keeping a long fear kiting session grinding. I also don’t believe any iksar could have out leveled my human Necro because eventually you just tap everything to death. 20% is a hell of a lot more kills from 1-60.

I think Most would agree regen is more about the benefit at 60, not for the speed of leveling.

I agree what camps you do are a big factor. If you just AFK kill 1 mob every 30 minutes, HP regen basically does nothing for you in terms of kills per hour. In that case not having an XP penalty is better for the speed of leveling.

When fear kiting on my level 58 Troll SK I still need to heal, so the regeneration is still reducing downtime. From my experience with fear kiting, I am usually not at full mana, unless I AFK or am camping less mobs. So in an optimal scenario, the max mana does nothing for me, since I am never at max mana. The nice thing about Troll regen is you can wear a Chest item like Vindi BP. With the 8 + 2 you are getting 2/3rds of a Fungi Tunic in terms of Regeneration, plus all the nice stats.

Edit: Obviously you wouldn't be sitting the entire hour while soloing, I brain farted on that. You would probably be sitting half the time while soloing. At level 49 you would be getting like 1200 HP an hour while sitting as a Troll/Iksar over other races, due to getting an extra +4 HP regen sitting from 20-49. When meditating at 16 mana per tick as a level 49, that is saving like 7 minutes per hour (10% more kills). This is because life taps from levels 9-50 have horrible ratios for SK's. They are around a 1 to 1 HP/Mana ratio. Gaining 1200 HP per hour could be equated to saving 1200 mana per hour, depending on how you are using your spells.

At lower levels you would have a bigger increase in kills based on your meditate skill level. I forget what the numbers would be at lower levels, I would need to hop on a lower level caster and check. Since meditate gives you 1 mana per 15 points, I want to say a level 20 would only get 8 mana per tick, but I am not 100% sure on that. If that is the case, you would get 20% more kills per hour. So I would imagine the average from 20-50 would be more like a 15% increase in kill speed. This is again assuming you are killing the entire hour, and not AFKing.

[Encroaching Death]

I chose Human, because I liked the Bloodsabers

[Danth]

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

...

What is it you grind on, by the way? Would give me an idea what you're doing for the sake of comparison. Feel free to PM if you don't want to hi-jack the main purpose of the thread.