Good duo option with an SK?

[serjordanmormont]

My buddy rolled an Ogre SK and we plan on duoing or grouping most of the way. Any suggestions?

[jolanar]

Ogre or Troll Shaman are pretty much your best choice for the short and long term.

[Swish]

Ogre or Troll Shaman are pretty much your best choice for the short and long term.

Any shaman ^^

[kjs86z]

Shaman, 100%.

[serjordanmormont]

Wouldn't shaman leave us lacking in the dps department? What about bard or necro? Either of those viable or would shaman win out by a landslide?

[Swish]

Shamans are versatile depending on the situation....can add a nuke or a dot, and still be medding for heals.

Necros can patch heal but you need someone that wants to do that for the whole session as soon as it comes off cooldown. Bard you'd be sitting around with heal song on a lot, they don't add much dps but they are quick pullers.

[Spyder73]

Ideally you want a shaman and necro, those two together are a power house. Shaman slows mobs, canni's for mana, gives necro regen, malos charm pet for necro....Necro charms for DPS, heals via shadow pact (with slow this is 100% viable), and adds some additional damage via bond of death and maybe an envenom bolt or two. Shaman can heal necro on bad charm resist/break situations.

but for a duo shaman would be better, the downtime would be about the same, but you would get more out of a shaman tbh due to slows.

but to answer your question...yes...you will be severely lacking DPS with SK/shaman but you will be lacking survivability with SK/Necro

[serjordanmormont]

Sounds like shaman is the winner then. We can probably make up for our lacking dps by grouping when we are finding it slow. Both classes seem to be pretty desirable in groups. Thanks all!

[Swish]

Stick to the "old world" (not Kunark/Velious) and you'll find most mobs have less HP typically compared with the expansions - should help keep the XP flowing a bit better.

[Raev]

SK/Shaman is basically a slightly weaker version of Monk/Shaman. You lose a good bit of DPS (though the SK can somewhat compensate with pet/dots), a bit of tanking (monks are more efficient per swing with Block, and the SK's higher HP pool won't matter without a cleric), and some some splitting ability. In return you gain rock solid threat for quick slows and a bit of utility here and there like IVU, lifetaps, snare, and fear.

You can absolutely duo SK/Sham all the way to 60, and it won't be super slow, but IMO it's less of a duo and more of an incomplete trio. Enchanter as usual is the best third wheel: with the SK's high threat tash/malo/slow go out very fast, and Clarity means the SK doesn't need downtime. Other DPS classes work too, though. You'd do fine with a mage, rogue, necro, or even a ranger.

I don't really think Bard or Necro are viable duos (though they can certainly be the core of a larger group) unless you are heavily twinked. Your survivability will be really low. That being said, there is nothing wrong with either choice, that's what /w all lfg is for.

[serjordanmormont]

Stick to the "old world" (not Kunark/Velious) and you'll find most mobs have less HP typically compared with the expansions - should help keep the XP flowing a bit better.

Is that not offset by increased xp gain for killing expansion mobs?

[serjordanmormont]

SK/Shaman is basically a slightly weaker version of Monk/Shaman. You lose a good bit of DPS (though the SK can somewhat compensate with pet/dots), a bit of tanking (monks are more efficient per swing with Block, and the SK's higher HP pool won't matter without a cleric), and some some splitting ability. In return you gain rock solid threat for quick slows and a bit of utility here and there like IVU, lifetaps, snare, and fear.


The guy I'm duoing with has a 60 monk as his main so he wanted to try something different. Turns out he is re-rolling the SK as an Iksar so I'm just gonna rock an Iksar shaman to keep things easy. FOB + Kurns will give us a solid leveling spot to get started with a boost.

Thanks for the help!

[Trungep99]

As someone who has a 60 SK , I'd like to say sham or Druid can be very helpful. Shaman is probably the best option since they have a ton of buffs and can slow the enemy

[Lojik]

If the SHM worships cazic, u can get undead fear clickie and just fearkite undead all day long. Plenty of places to fearkite undead esp in kunark.

[GuRu]

Shaman, 100%.

[serjordanmormont]

If the SHM worships cazic, u can get undead fear clickie and just fearkite undead all day long. Plenty of places to fearkite undead esp in kunark.

Music to my ears

[Trungep99]

Music to my ears

keep in mind if you are kos with Paineel this p[topm requires faction work to be viable, which can take many hours of killing Kobolts in the Warrens.

[Victorio]

keep in mind if you are kos with Paineel this p[topm requires faction work to be viable, which can take many hours of killing Kobolts in the Warrens.
Paineel faction is done fast by killing guards in Erudin palace. Have the 60 monk kill them and tag with other character.

[Lojik]

keep in mind if you are kos with Paineel this p[topm requires faction work to be viable, which can take many hours of killing Kobolts in the Warrens.

This is easy, if someone wants paineel faction pm me i can just ae the whole zone

[serjordanmormont]

This is easy, if someone wants paineel faction pm me i can just ae the whole zone

Awesome! Thank you. I will likely take you up on this. Just have to get to a high enough level I'm comfortable making the journey.

[Trungep99]

This is easy, if someone wants paineel faction pm me i can just ae the whole zone

i dont need the faction, but this activity sounds like fun! i love killing paladins

[thufir]

Is that not offset by increased xp gain for killing expansion mobs?

Short answer is "no" in the case of Velious. Velious mobs have high HPs and there are no good ZEMs anywhere on the continent. The dungeons are pretty but they are meant for loot, not for xping up.
Kunark is fine though, in fact even more desirable in a lot of cases. Some of the best ZEMs in the game for the level of the dungeon can be found there - Kurn's Tower and Kaesora are two good examples. I'm more or less convinced that Dalnir's is higher than the baseline, too. XP there has been really good when I've broken through to the second and third levels.

Paineel faction is done fast by killing guards in Erudin palace. Have the 60 monk kill them and tag with other character.

Yeah, my SK did this when I was 45 or so. Didn't take long to get amiable with the Heretics, even solo, as an ogre SK. A few hours, around there.

Also, I see you have already chosen a shaman as your duo partner, which I think is a wise choice. Someone else earlier in the thread summed up the tradeoffs for monk/shm vs. sk/shm quite well. My experiences duoing with shamans have been very positive. I would say they are a shadowknight's best duo option.

[Lojik]

i dont need the faction, but this activity sounds like fun! i love killing paladins

I mean aoeing the warrens not erudin haha

[serjordanmormont]

Would it be more efficient faction to kill Erudin guards than the warrens? Or about the same?

[serjordanmormont]

Short answer is "no" in the case of Velious. Velious mobs have high HPs and there are no good ZEMs anywhere on the continent. The dungeons are pretty but they are meant for loot, not for xping up.
Kunark is fine though, in fact even more desirable in a lot of cases. Some of the best ZEMs in the game for the level of the dungeon can be found there - Kurn's Tower and Kaesora are two good examples. I'm more or less convinced that Dalnir's is higher than the baseline, too. XP there has been really good when I've broken through to the second and third levels.



Yeah, my SK did this when I was 45 or so. Didn't take long to get amiable with the Heretics, even solo, as an ogre SK. A few hours, around there.

Also, I see you have already chosen a shaman as your duo partner, which I think is a wise choice. Someone else earlier in the thread summed up the tradeoffs for monk/shm vs. sk/shm quite well. My experiences duoing with shamans have been very positive. I would say they are a shadowknight's best duo option.

Alright that's fine. I'm good with mostly sticking to Kunark to XP anyway. I plan on exploring Velious too of course but for i'll go in with the gear mind set over xp.

Yes we started the SK/Shaman the other day. Pretty vicious team. The SK is super geared too which doesn't hurt. I'm sure it will start slowing down later but we're leveling pretty quick right now.

[Lojik]

Would it be more efficient faction to kill Erudin guards than the warrens? Or about the same?

I'm not sure if you're soloing tbh, but aoeing i can kill i dunno, 50 mobs every couple of minutes? The respawn time in warrens seems really fast.

[Trungep99]

I mean aoeing the warrens not erudin haha

awe, boo! not nearly as much fun now

[serjordanmormont]

awe, boo! not nearly as much fun now

When I'm high enough level I'll slay some paladins with you!

[Xynta]

I duo'd my necro with an SK for years with a lot of success.

[Morningbreath]

A shaman? Tanking at any level makes no sense at all in a duo. Bard snare scales to 90% run speed decrease at level 60. By the 30s a feared mob is practically standing still with that on.

[Trelaboon]

I don't have an SK, but on my Monk, I actually love Necros as my primary leveling partner. We aren't as effective probably when it comes to much harder fights, but we kill ssoooo much faster and they heal me just fine. I don't know how it would be if I didn't have a fungi on though, and Monks with epics have 40% Haste, which is something you'd really miss without a Shaman as an SK