SK = easy life?!

[Gorblimey]

Sad, but true:

I've been considering switching to my SK as my "Main"!

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It was a long time ago that my Druid got relegated into second place by my Pally and the Pally absorbed most of my effort and focus - this worked well as within our little group of friends I had the only viable tanking toon.

The Druid still got played occasionally and I had fun with the bard as puller and crowd control (he got to mid 50s).

But my mates had some lower level toons so I started a Troll SK - this was back in the day of racial penalties but I fancied the troll and there were some 'roleplaying possibilities' for added fun.

He got around a bit and ended up in his mid 30s before I took a break from EQ. I returned a couple of times and with a little bit of twinking was having great fun with the SK soloing places my Pally had done in groups 'back in the day' or going to places that for one reason or another I'd not seen much of. Now the SK always seemed to have an easier life than the pally - back in the day of limited transport options, even when faction was an issue, the SK got around a lot more easily (with FD and Invis)

During these short return visits to EQ I wasn't playing the Pally much as I'd burned out a little on raiding and group and guild invites were difficult to come by - as a result the SK quickly moved up past 60.

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And I've returned now to EQ and got the Pally rolling again but been using the SK if I'm finding I'm stuck in a rut with the Pally, not getting groups and becoming bored or frustrated and it appears to me that life's a lot easier for the SK.

Ok so the pally still has a horsey and IVU but the added invis and more importantly FD means sometimes I have to use the SK to go scouting for the Pally!

But beyond that the SK (if I compare to the pally) seems to tank "well above his weight" - the extra DPS (pet, dots, dds and taps) and the ability to 'heal' (taps) gives me the impression that he can manage with fewer aas and levels against the same content than the Pally. A friend of mine who plays both said much the same thing of his 2 toons.

The SK discs are also much more useful and gives him the option of burning through discs and mana to keep himself on his feet and take down the mob faster.

Added to this he gets more group invites as peeps will take him as a Puller, a Tank or they'll even accept him as DPS! Ok so he can't do much to heal others, cant res and cant buff - to most groups that's no biggie and whilst people are often reluctant to have more than the one pally in a group an extra SK seems to be much more welcome!

And if they don't invite him he can still solo effectively or at least have a go and FD if all goes Pete Tong

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With the changes over recent years life is looking a lot rosier for the SK than the Pally right now!

I love my pally but on occasion recently have felt that I might be flogging a dead horse.

[knytul]

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Gorblimey Kindheart
Paladin and Proud!!
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[Normy]

Well, part of the issue is that there are more paladins than pretty much any other class, at least thats how it seems. SK's are dwindling more in population.

Yes, they have more DPS and can probably solo a single mob more effectively than a paladin.

All depends on what you want to be doing. In raids, sk's have their place, but I definately prefer my paladin because of my support role. I'll gladly let the SK's tank if they can handle it, and will step in if they fall. I like that. If you find yourself having more fun with the SK, I say go for it. Its only a game afterall.

That said, I don't think they are on easy street. I think melee DPS like zerkers or monks are on easy street right now. They are always valued, and geared well can theoretically tank like a knight of similar gear. They pretty much have one main focus for AA's (while hybrids have at least 2) and are always welcomed in groups because you can never really have too much DPS.

[Gorblimey]

[Zorbee]

I have no idea about current content, but in years past (IE LDoN/GoD era) I duo'd with an SK a lot. We both had about 500AA but I had easily 300more ac, similar hp, both in pretty much Time and VT quality loots. But even though he had less ac, if I tanked we had a lot more downtime, whereas if he tanked, the only downtime we'd have is once in a blue moon. Now, you can attribute one of the factors that I could throw him a HoT once in a while but for the most part he self healed and I just DPS'd. If I was tanking the same mobs, my healing was not nearly as efficient.

I am a superhero though, and superheros are paladins not shadowknights. Thus my class envy ends at their cool discs. I'd much rather focus on the everquest gods (warriors).

[olts]

id say play whatever suits ya. a well played paladin will stay up longer against a relativ hard mob than a sk. i tested that with a similar sk geared friend soloing in hos. we both were able to bring life mobs down, i had, using burst and hots, a lot easier time though. sks may have it easier against relativly easy mobs though. and, of course, sooner or later the pally runs oom. but with todays regen rate... who cares?

a paladin can also do cc while tanking (shackles ftw), buff, do huge dps to undead (thats always fun imo. even after all these years). and, as it already has been said, has a strong support role on raids. of course sks have other advantages, ya mentioned some of them. to me its the ae aggro i really envy, even if a good pally can cycle stuns through targets and can keep aggro on definitly more than 1 mob, assuming the group behaves. and if they dont... blame the cleric!

to me in the end, all tanks are - in groups - more or less equal, question is how well they are played. id say playin the pally to the max is just the hardest (if playing a comp game can be described as hard after all), ya have to mash more hotkeys than the other classes and have to cycle more between targets and yourself and target. warrior, id say, is easiest. of course, ppl will disagree with that

c.

[dindaur]

there are things solo a shadowknight can do we cant, such as weird camps for old content clicks or other useful items, that're perhaps surrounded by mobs or otherwise difficult to get to. a shadowknight cna keep a ph clear awhile, while we'll have to deal with more mobs and not be able to finish them off as quickly. most of this hinges on their ability to feign death as well as being able to dish out the dps when needed.

[olts]

heh no doubt, a sk solos better and more efficently than a pally due to fd / snare / procs / generally higher dps. my point is though, that a pally tanks better if its against really hard mobs - assuming the pally uses heals. also, id say, pallys that selfheal will tank better in a group in hard content, where the superior sk dps is subpar. this though is possibly only true for high aaed paladins, before that i can imagine, that a sk is the better group tank.

i have - in general - a prob though with ppl telling paladins they cant do this or that. paladins can do amazing things, if they are played right. this though requires more effort than hitting autoattack, taunt and mash disc

c.

[Normy]

Hence why I believe most melee DPS have it made right now. Caster DPS is screwed by resist rates on mobs, but physical damage is very very very rarely taken out of the equation on any content. True, it takes a bit of knowledge of discs to do things well and not end up a corpse, but it still isn't that hard, and most of the time it'll be blamed on the tank NOT doing something first.

If they put a good endurance regen buff into the game (and naturally a good version of it in potion form) I think most everyone would just play those classes than anything else. /shrug

As for solo efficency, that is always a debate. There is some content I can go hog wild on and terrorize for a long time and keep things going better than an SK. Others know this to be true as well, see how many SK's were pulling 12-16AA's a lesson burn solo in the RoI for that stint. But that put us in our strongest element. Againt live mobs that can be life-tapped healed through, SK's are undoubtly more efficient that us. Meh.

Want to see us more desired in groups and raids? They need to give us some form of spell or AA that allows us to transfer our huge and mostly useless pools of endurance to others. It feels in line with our nature really, hell they gave us the ability to commit suicide over a heal. Make it use the same timer as our LoH so we can only use one or the other. Freshly rezzed warriors in raids would love us, melee DPS in groups would love us, and it'd give us a utility that makes sense given our healing nature. Let the SK's have FD pulling, ae agro, and their various abilities over us, I'd gladly take that in trade.

Wow, way off topic now, lol. Anyways, no hybrid really has it that easy right now. Its all just an opinion of playstyle.

[Opfor]

Short answer yes, we have easy after about 1500AA , 4.3k+ ac and 21khps+ unbuffed. At this point every time you zone a small pop up will appear allowing you to choose which loot you want from in zone named, you then select the loot and choose option a) HT then FD, or b) Sick pet on named and FD. I suggest you sick pet unless you want to save time.

Oh wait,

NO, being a SK doesn't put EQ in to easy mode, seriously where do people get these ideas? To play a SK to their potential takes a HUGE amount of time and gear. Those lifetaps you all are so jealous of, yeah not so hot all the time, I still die ALOT when I have a bad healer, from Beza to MMM raids, bad/slow heals = dead SK. My pet, yup does add a fair amount of dps between, also costs me about 1k a day to get gear for goner and his 3-4 brothers cuz he dies alot too. Or if I die he comes with me. Snare, yup super handy. All my cool discs? I assume you mean UA, and Leachcurse, leachcurse is once every 72 min, and UA I have to plan for because if I just pop it good chance I wont have the mana to really make use of it to potential.

Your class needs some help no one is denying that, just dont assume that the rest of us have it easy.

[Normy]

I'm jealous of the SK epic click. Always have been. I'd be happy with ours if it were group target rather than self, since that would really help our group healing spells for a minute.

[Zorbee]

Our click really should be group, aren't almost all of the others?

[dindaur]

problem is it's got that whole proc deal which'd kinda clash with us being the whole defensive knight type deal, being able to buff people offensively that is

[Gorblimey]

[Normy]

[Datzyoazz]

[olts]

[Opfor]

I have always found that if you are a good player people don't really care what class you are,, problem being you need to make it know that you are a good player. How you do that is up to you, but once you do = you will be turning down groups.

PS Get 3 more Flameshield stones, and 5 Shard of the Guardian. Your AC needs some work, also you can solo the HAnd aug (really doesn't take THAT much time), HoS aug (Bert version) is good exp and 1 group start to finish.

[Normy]

Soloing the hand aug does indeed take that long. Takes me 4-6 minutes to kill a mob in TBS. No, they can't really kill me as long as I'm paying attention and single pull whenever I can, but it takes FOREVER. And I can't always single pull. I gave up on that quest because of my lack of ability to solo it. The xp really isn't there to get many groups interested.

So 5 minutes a mob, times 30 mobs that have to be dropped for ONE of the tasks = 150 minutes minus time for looking, running around, and pulling. And thats only one task, and as I understand it sometimes you have to repeat a few of the tasks for the actual piece you want. I've not tried in a little while now, so maybe it might be less painful after some upgrades and a new weapon better than my 2.0, but still, its an investment to solo that thing.

And yea, the good players are recognized. There are some I simply avoid and some that I'm always happy to join, I'm sure I'm rated the same by others.

[Gorblimey]

I'm pretty much in agreement with most that's been said:

We've rambled around a little offtopic at time but just to set things straight:

I love Pallies

I love SKs

I remember the old old days when Pallies may have been a joke amongst the Warrior community especially (I remember the "pixel-healer" comments!) but I also remember the days when squishies were scared to go anywhere without one because of the Pally's superlative aggro generation skills.
On my return I was shocked to find that my aggro generating capabillities have degraded since I left the game - and I think may have gone a little too far down "the list". Yes I know we have some workarounds, to be honest I've always made use of heal aggro - single target and group - but I'm still feeling a little nerfed.

I agree that it's about getting out there and grouping with folks, making friends and proving yourself - thats how it was before, it's just a bit harder for the returning player when most of the old friends have disappeared and whilst I'm catching up I'm also running through content that's less than popular - even as XP Hotzone RSS is often empty. I've probably got an extra handicap being Euro based on a mostly US server - wasn't a big problem back in the day, more noticeable today however. My biggest problem may well be self inflicted though, I've been away too long and need to re-establish myself.

I still maintain that for some people/groups that if it's a player they don't know and they believe they've got Tanking and Healing bases covered they are more likely to take an SK rather than a Pally if given the choice because if the Pally ain't needed for healing what else will he do with his mana? As someone who has always striven to be flexible and find ways to add value to a group I think they may be missing the point but I can understand the thought processes. From my personal experience just now the SK gets more pug invites than the Pally.

I am in a Guild (thankyou ootad) now and hoping to get into more guild groups and raids (although 4am finishes tend to rule out raids during the working week unfortunately).

I've duo'd some of the hand aug stuff with a druid guildie but barely scratched the surface so far - seemed that it wouldve been far more awkward and much slower without her harmony, healing, dps and snaring.

I do keep popping into RSS and trying to get/form groups for Riftseeker Camp, not getting very lucky on drop rates just now, but hopefully in the next couple of weeks may get another couple of augs. AC improvements are what I'm chasing at the mo.

[Zyba]

SK's only have two advantages over paladins imo. Before I say what I think they are, let me say that I consistantly bot a friend's SK with slightly better gear than me and max AA (not much change there though as I'm max too).

1, epic. Obviously, it's frikkin amazing. Combine it with the lesser version of their ToB BP and it's just sick. I know the two dont stack but their timers don't overlap either so you have 90 seconds of immortality pretty much against anything an expansion or two behind if you're soloing.

2, their melee drain procs. I forget the actual numbers but given the right AAs these can be a 3k+ nuke and a 6k+ heal. And since it's random you 'can' proc 3 or 4 times in a row and CH yourself from 5%. I admit that's about as rare as getting 2 triple slays back to back, but still it's possible. I've been in some dire situations before and gone from 10% to 60% before I realized what happened and I was the only one in the zone.

That being said, we still have slay undead. And we used to have WoT so it was a no brainer imo, even knowing what all they can do I never thought about switching til we lost WoT. In a group we seem to tank about even. If we're fighting somewhere hard enough for there to be a possibility of not being able to handle it, we came with enough healing and dps in the group so the difference between a pally and SK tanking is almost non existant. Unless it's vs undead. Being able to look at a mob, see that it's undead and know that I can /pwn it is still enough for me to not even think about switching. I still believe pallies are fine. If you're losing agro, don't worry about your dps and just throw stuns and challenge constantly. The dps lost from you not swinging as much will more than be balanced out by whoever's burning discs so hard to snag it from you. Unless they're being an ass and taking it on purpose, in which case I say let them die.

[olts]

[Opfor]

[Zorbee]

What does the TSS bp do?


I've almost finished the hand aug now. About 70% of it solo'd, 30% with usually one or two others although for Deadbone Reef I had a full group.

It has taken me the better part of 3 weeks working on it a few hours every night. It is not a quick task by any means. But I started at 75 and now am almost 79, so there is some XP there solo. (Of those levels I'd guesstimate that 80% of that xp was in TBS doing that task, or burning lesson on the undeads on the siren island.)

25 tasks done, Makings of a Disguise and Pirate Recipe left. The only part I wasn't able to solo I think would be the Fire in the Hold, although I believe you could if you had skills and could get some of those dockworkers single by lots of rooting and running around to lose aggro.

Several of the named (and the aviaks) took most of my skills to kill solo (and I did die a few times to those stupid aviaks) but overall I'd say it isn't worth the trouble if you aren't motivated to start it and not do anything else until you finish it. (Mostly because having 27 bones is a huge pita.) I did some pre-combines when I finished a finger to save room (and since you have to buy a bunch of the bone compound containers) but I had to be careful that I didn't accidentally get a bone as a reward that I had already combined. Keeping the bones grouped together in the same finger group helped with that.

[Opfor]

Making a disguise is super easy you will finish it pretty quick, the rum recipe on the other hand is a PITA (kill named in side the fort).

TSS bps and all SK bps since cast painskin (or some version thereof) its a defensive proc, when it goes off the TSS group version hits the mob with a DoT lifetap, 3 ticks, 400hps/tick. Its a horrible horrible(ly fun) thing to do when swarming mobs.

[Zorbee]

Yeah I only have one pair of pants left on the disguise farming the three named on the outside of the fort.

[thurvok]

Both knight classes have there role.. just depends on what role you enjoy playing..

Our guild is doing AG these days.. on both Sogarth(west) and Armies (north) SK's are MUCH better kiters than pallies ( well at least this one ).. My role has been "fireman" .. I look for trouble and try to fix it.. I sometimes am spot healer for kite team.. sometimes I am RT.. I am always emergency rezzer. I am usually placed in a group with some key classes/players due to my group heals/cures.. When we do Dyn in AG north I am always on the artificers to stun them and keep them from healing statues.. I love how my role changes from raid target to raid target OR due to the make up of that nigths raid force.. My SK buddy used to complain how pallies are more useful on raids.. hehe AG has changed his opinion of that.

[Normy]

Hrm, on Sothgar I usually prefer the pallies handling it. they can stun kite and don't have to run around all that much. But then, we are knight heavy.

Armies is where SK's show the pallies how to kite. Their AE ability makes them perfect for this... until they get FD by one of the mobs. I usually throw a bunch of heals on the SK's so when it happens, I get rushed and can start kiting. As far as Artificers go, I stun them, but I've not seen any distinct change in how much they can heal for. Usually just DPS wins on those.