Another redundant/meaningless SK question

[ScottBerta]

So as I attain pp through my daily toils and have a pp sink to blow it on (my 60 Iksar SK)... I’ve been struggling to decide how best to waste my pp. He currently uses will of innoruk bp, ralgyn’s promise quest (head). I guess my question is would it be more beneficial to try and attain a Vindi bp or Crown of Narandi?

As a secondary question is Cloak of Confusion that much better than Hierophant cloak?

And is ring 9 really worth trying to get?

Any input is appreciated. Thanks.

Atreo 60 SK

[Danth]

Cloak of Confusion looks like a side-grade from Heiro cloak--more health for less mana. I'd call them roughly equivalent in overall quality depending on which stat you want more of. The resists on the Confusion cloak are nice if you're doing a lot of stuff where resists matter.

If I had to pick between a Narandi Crown and a Breastplate of the Vindicator, all I can say is I wish I had more mana regeneration more often than I wish I had more health regeneration and if you want health regen you probably have a fungus tunic bagged. Otherwise they're both nice items.

Ring 9 is kind of luck-based due to the Ring 8 roll-off. It's a nice item and you're not likely going to find a better ring. On the other hand "worth" is a question of opinion and it isn't going to make you able to do any content you can't do without it.

In general I advise folks to try to gear themselves for the content they're doing or want to do, and with their usual additional players in mind.

Danth

[Crede]

Crown, Fungi & Haste are the 3 most important items for an SK imo. Vindi bp is nice if have a crew you hunt with but if you're soloing then can't beat that static mana regen.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Crown of Narandi for mana regen for sure. Eyepatch of plunder is a good money sink for better soloing. Vindi BP is also good, great resistances piece to help tank spells. 41% haste item is also good if you want to buy an MQ of the Sky Belt.

Ring 9 is not going to give an SK huge gains. It saves some mana on casting a damage shield, and it acts as a global cooldown refresh. But SKs have quite a few options for that already, and I honestly don't use one on my SK. It gives more HP than other rings, but not a ton more.

[ScottBerta]

I do have 41% haste belt and eye patch of plunder but don’t have bagged fungi.
So it sounds like Crown is the smart choice.

[Crede]

I do have 41% haste belt and eye patch of plunder but don’t have bagged fungi.
So it sounds like Crown is the smart choice.

What do you want crown for? If it's to improve your soloing longevity, then fungi will be far more effective for 1/2 the cost.

[ScottBerta]

Idk, never considered using fungi after I got 60. Not sure why. I mostly duo with this char though

[Danth]

I duo with a shaman a lot and I don't feel like I need a fungus tunic. Once in awhile if I'm feigned someplace at low health I might wish I had one but not so much I've ever actually bothered to pick one up.

Danth

[Crede]

Fungi recommendation was for solo play. If you're duoing frequently then yes opt for crown especially with a shaman.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

What do you want crown for? If it's to improve your soloing longevity, then fungi will be far more effective for 1/2 the cost.

Crown is great because an SKs main bottleneck is mana. I have a Crown and Shawl 7, and the extra mana regeneration is pretty noticeable. 300 mana every 10 minutes means you are getting Banshee Aura, Shroud of Death, Shroud of Pain, Shroud of Hate, and Siphon Strength buffs for free. That means all of your mana pool is used elsewhere. When you get Blood Ember Greaves and Blood Ember Gloves to remove the mana costs on your two most commonly used spells, you can keep your mana at safe levels most of the time, unless you need to spam spells in an emergency.

Shadowknights don't get a lot of time to med between tanking, pulling, fear kiting, spamming healing breastplate, or being FD, so any mana regen you can get is nice. The low mana pool on an SK makes the regeneration more noticeable, which is fun psychologically:)

[Snaggles]

I always value effects over stats for content you have less players for. A 8pt ds, 15hps/tick, etc mean very little tanking 2-3 group content but for 2-3 players it makes a noticeable difference.

I assume you have an epic or greenmist since those are class making items. Hp recovery via procs is definitely your bread and butter.

Diminishing effects hits hard in EQ. A Vindi bp is great but a Thurgadin quest bp is solid for just over 20k. Same logic for the cloak or ring 8 vs 9. Is either BP better than a fungi for low-person stuff? Probably not.

No experience with the crown. On paper 20 mana a minute will keep up with bare minimum tank spell use. Two disease clouds a minute. Probably perfect for a sham duo.

[Crede]

Crown is great because an SKs main bottleneck is mana. I have a Crown and Shawl 7, and the extra mana regeneration is pretty noticeable. 300 mana every 10 minutes means you are getting Banshee Aura, Shroud of Death, Shroud of Pain, Shroud of Hate, and Siphon Strength buffs for free. That means all of your mana pool is used elsewhere. When you get Blood Ember Greaves and Blood Ember Gloves to remove the mana costs on your two most commonly used spells, you can keep your mana at safe levels most of the time, unless you need to spam spells in an emergency.

Shadowknights don't get a lot of time to med between tanking, pulling, fear kiting, spamming healing breastplate, or being FD, so any mana regen you can get is nice. The low mana pool on an SK makes the regeneration more noticeable, which is fun psychologically:)

Are you glad you did Shawl 7? Recently acquired a crown, and now find myself wanting even more mana regen.

[Danth]

Is either BP better than a fungi for low-person stuff? Probably not.

I wonder. I'm not interested in doing the extensive log parsing it would require to answer, but I wonder. Consider the following from a duo perspective:

A fungus tunic is undoubtedly better for the easy stuff. Take Sebilis as an example. The wife (60 SHM) and I (60 SK) were in Chef area last night and she had to heal me only two or three times an hour on average, mostly when some Wizard blasted me. A fungus tunic might've erased the need for outside healing entirely. On the other hand, an occasional Torpor here and there can hardly be called a strain on the healer and that stuff wasn't going to kill us regardless.

On the opposite side, look at something like Bledrek in Velketor's Labrynth, another common target of ours. He hits for double 420's. Here's where I wonder about the fungus tunic: I would lose over 20 worn (30 displayed) AC with a fungus tunic vs. Thurgadin chestplate. If that AC is sufficient to reduce even a single average DI roll per minute by half, then the fungus tunic would in fact be a net loser even ignoring its -16 net change in DEX reducing lifetap proc rate slightly and other stat reductions. While it would take a lot of log parsing to answer this one conclusively, instinct tells me the higher AC is probably preferred over the regen in this type of case.

The fungus tunic is a great item for solo, but in my situation where I mostly duo with a Shaman I'd leave it bagged most the time for regen while feigned or similar niche uses. Admittedly vanity factors in somewhat as well: Fungus tunic looks really bad on a human.

Danth

[Snaggles]

I wonder. I'm not interested in doing the extensive log parsing it would require to answer, but I wonder. Consider the following from a duo perspective:

A fungus tunic is undoubtedly better for the easy stuff. Take Sebilis as an example. The wife (60 SHM) and I (60 SK) were in Chef area last night and she had to heal me only two or three times an hour on average, mostly when some Wizard blasted me. A fungus tunic might've erased the need for outside healing entirely. On the other hand, an occasional Torpor here and there can hardly be called a strain on the healer and that stuff wasn't going to kill us regardless.

On the opposite side, look at something like Bledrek in Velketor's Labrynth, another common target of ours. He hits for double 420's. Here's where I wonder about the fungus tunic: I would lose over 20 worn (30 displayed) AC with a fungus tunic vs. Thurgadin chestplate. If that AC is sufficient to reduce even a single average DI roll per minute by half, then the fungus tunic would in fact be a net loser even ignoring its -16 net change in DEX reducing lifetap proc rate slightly and other stat reductions. While it would take a lot of log parsing to answer this one conclusively, instinct tells me the higher AC is probably preferred over the regen in this type of case.

The fungus tunic is a great item for solo, but in my situation where I mostly duo with a Shaman I'd leave it bagged most the time for regen while feigned or similar niche uses. Admittedly vanity factors in somewhat as well: Fungus tunic looks really bad on a human.

Danth

In the most basic terms it's a game of dps in vs hps regen. Normal blue cons dont hit very hard and their dps drops like a rock with a slow. That said, shaman's rarely have mana issues so maybe a moot point.

AC and hps are great, I'm a huge fan. If I was tanking stuff that hits for 200+ I'd prob wear an AC bp over the fungi; especially if it was one-off kills vs a steady stream of xp. If it's a matter of efficient grinding though, especially running around looking for pulls, 9000 extra hps an hour is really nice. Not consequential to a shaman but for like a druid or cleric w/o clarity maybe.

Yea fungi fashion is a real thing. Human's look respectable at least compared to erudite males, lol. Ultimately my biggest hurdle with a fungi is not keeping it on a different class, usually an alt or the ranger who needs every advantage not dying.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Are you glad you did Shawl 7? Recently acquired a crown, and now find myself wanting even more mana regen.

Lol I felt the same way when I got my crown. I enjoy doing the Shawl quests, so it wasn't a chore for me. But I do notice and appreciate the extra mana regen from both. Having 40 mana per minute (including the natural 1 you get per tick) helps me maintain my mana pool when soloing and grouping. 40 mana per minute means you can disease cloud 8 times per minute for free when grouping. Very nice when you don't have an enchanter. In solo situations, My kill speed is usually 1-2 minutes per low blue mob, so a camp of 4 or 5 mobs takes roughly 10 minutes. That 400 mana regenerated in 10 minutes means 2 less minutes of meditation per camp cycle. This is usually enough extra time for me to refresh all of my buffs, heal myself with thurg BP, and med back to full before the first repop in a zone with 20ish minute timers. Before I would sometimes need to let the first mob stay up for a little bit while I finished recovering. Mana is always the worst part of a hybrid, because they have no way to siphon it back, and their playstyle does not allow a lot of sitting.

[enjchanter]

the shawl is never worth it considering how fast you can get 100 dkp in any guild that does ring wars and get narandi crown @ 200% effectiveness of the shawl

[DeathsSilkyMist]

the shawl is never worth it considering how fast you can get 100 dkp in any guild that does ring wars and get narandi crown @ 200% effectiveness of the shawl

You can wear both:) So yes it is worth considering. Wearing Flowing Thought II and Flowing Thought I gives you +3 mana regen total per tick.

[enjchanter]

i feel like you could get a CT brain easier than that shawl

[DeathsSilkyMist]

i feel like you could get a CT brain easier than that shawl

Not at all. Brain is one of the higher DKP items to buy. Everyone wants it, CT is a 7 day spawn, and the drop rate is low. Shawl is much easier to get.

[Ennewi]

Not at all. Brain is one of the higher DKP items to buy. Everyone wants it, CT is a 7 day spawn, and the drop rate is low. Shawl is much easier to get.

And then there's always the slight possibility that shawl 8-10 are added, as was originally intended in Velious.

[bricke75]

And then there's always the slight possibility that shawl 8-10 are added, as was originally intended in Velious.

That would be pretty sweet if they did add those.

[kjs86zskidoo]

Fungi ----> Crown

If no torpor, then Fungi over Crown no matter what.

If torpor, could make an argument for Crown...but my guess is still Fungi > Crown. Let's face it, your shaman is doing the bulk of the work in this duo. Save him some mana and just get the Fungi.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Fungi ----> Crown

If no torpor, then Fungi over Crown no matter what.

If torpor, could make an argument for Crown...but my guess is still Fungi > Crown. Let's face it, your shaman is doing the bulk of the work in this duo. Save him some mana and just get the Fungi.

If you are duoing with a Torpor Shaman, Crown is way better. The Shaman is healing, slowing, and replenishing their own mana. The only thing a Torpor Shaman cannot do is heal your mana. Mana is a big bottleneck on hybrids, so more mana regen means less med breaks and more killing. Unless you both have pocket enchanters for Clarity or pocket Druids for POTG.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Just to put a bit of math on it, if you are doing a 10 minute fight, Fungi Tunic is giving you 1500 HP in that 10 minutes. 1500 HP is one Torpor, which costs a Shaman 200 mana. If your fight is win or lose because of 200 mana on your Shaman, the fight was super risky already.

The Crown gives the Shadowknight 200 mana in that 10 minutes, which means 1 less minute of med time. It only takes 30 seconds for a Torpor Shaman to get their 200 mana back, so you are increasing recovery time by 30 seconds, and your Shadowknight can cast more spells in that 10 minutes. Also, if your Shadowknight is wearing a nice BP, it will have quite a bit more AC than Fungi, so you are getting some hits reduced with that extra AC. You would theoretically proc a bit more as well without the -10 Dex, which is good if you are healing via epic or another lifesteal proc weapon.

[Crede]

Just get a fungi, vindi bp, and crown IMO. Should have no problem getting all 3 if you have the means of getting a crown.

[strongNpretty]

True Blue's in the house!

[ScottBerta]

Hey StrongNpretty, you bumped into my sk before? Or possibly one of mine or my brothers chars?

[wagorf]

is choker of wretched a good buy for knights?

[Crede]

is choker of wretched a good buy for knights?

They can’t wear it, so that’d be the worst possible buy.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

They can’t wear it, so that’d be the worst possible buy.

Exactly. That is why I did Shawl 7 on my SK. That is the easiest Flowing Thought I item you can get. SK's can buy Flowing Thought II with Crown, but not Flowng Thought I.

[mattydef]

I’d only buy a crown on a race that has a bad velious helmet graphic, because fashion is more important than anything.

[strongNpretty]

Hey StrongNpretty, you bumped into my sk before? Or possibly one of mine or my brothers chars?

What if I told you I was IN True Blue's!?!? You and your bro are good people, miss hangin with ya'll!