I'd really appreciate hearing more about playing an SK without slam. I'm pretty set on making an Iksar SK eventually but the thought of being gimped at all times when using a 2hander seems like a heavy cost. Is slamming with a 2 hander a significant damage boost?

Nope, but slam lets you interrupt some casters, you can always switch to epic or one hander if you don't have slam...

If only bash damage was based on shield AC, with Slam being based on pauldron AC. Both attacks miss too often to be relied on solely, but are still decent at preventing spellcasters from using all of their mana in a fight. Still, additional damage would have given some incentive to wield in place of two-handed weapons.

Bash is nice. It won't kill you if you can't bash, but you'll notice once in awhile. Its effect on damage output is fair at low level when the skill is first learned, but slight at high level because bash damage does not scale anywhere near as fast as melee damage. Bash's larger bonus is for after-the-fact caster interrupts when you want to stop a cast already in progress. Interrupts on a Shadow Knight otherwise largely require the advance planning of snare--fear. As far as racial abilities go slam is a nice one, but if you don't have it you certainly aren't "gimped."

Danth

SK roles:

trash mob tanking

swapping to cleric bot for CH chain while warriors do bosses

With the changes in melee push no longer interrupting spell casting (maybe there’s a 1% chance?) slam has become extremely useful. If you prevent a mob from casting a heal or dropping a big nuke you might as well have increased your damage output substantially. I play an ogre on blue and had a complete different experience leveling in zones like Paw, KC, and the hole where you would regularly have big heals undo all the DPS you’ve done when I played on my monk

I could count on 1 hand the number of times I’ve seen a tank switch from a 2hander/duel wielding (for it warrior it should be even easier) mid combat and get a bash of in time to interrupt a spell. It’s more common to see a smart tank switch when the mob first comes into camp and just live with the lower DPS during the fight.

Slam makes it so you don’t have to pick and always have that tool at the ready to interrupt. Also caveat, there are some awesome pally/SK 1handers and DPS from the tank is not a primary concern (assuming your grouping). If your soloing on an SK keeping a mob feared will keep it from casting.

IMO it’s a big deal, but also not game breaking if you choose a race without.

Biggest downside to Iksars is not being able to use Blood Ember Gauntlets, Boots, and Legs. Having a free, no cooldown Feign Death is very useful in solo and group situations. Same with the gloves. These two items save quite a bit of mana, since you do not need to spend mana on FD and Snare.

Greenmist is a nice weapon, but it will be replaced eventually, whereas Blood Ember Legs and Gloves will always be useful. The boots are great in solo situations, but they do require quite a bit of effort to use, so some people don't like them that much.

The damage from bash is negligible. It's gotta be less than 1 DPS.

Personally, I don't think slam matters all that much. You're not likely to be soloing a bunch of caster mobs, and if you do solo, you're probably fear-kiting anyway. In a group where your DPS is borderline irrelevant, it's better to use a shield anyway for the stats. There's like two or three 2h weapons in the entire game that have better stats than you could get out of a 1h+shield, and by the time you have one of them, your resists are probably high enough that it no longer matters very much whether you can bash. I guess if you really care that much whether you do 40 or 50 DPS while tanking in Sebilis and want to retain the ability to bash caster mobs, it's something; but bash has a seriously shitty chance to hit anyway.

Pre-Kunark it's a bit different because the SK 1h weapons are mostly trash and there aren't any good shields prior to raid drops, so most people will be better served using a mithril 2h or whatever in groups. As soon as Kunark comes out, you get a number of awesome buyable 1h weapons and shields which means even ogre/troll SKs often use sword and board. Then there's the epic which anyone can bash with. Honestly, slam is just not that important. For most people, 1h+shield is better than 2h anyway, and to those with the luxury of owning a Vulak or Tunare 2h, are you still doing content where it matters whether or not you can bash?

Note: The quoted comment only applies to folks who want to hang out in high-end raid guilds. Greenmist is one of the best weapons available to players who aren't particularly interested in the high-end rat race.

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Hit chance on bash feels like it may as well be a 50/50 shot. It's probably more than that but it misses so often it shouldn't be relied upon in must-not-fail situations. It's nice to have for interrupting casters when whatever annoying spell they're casting isn't worth stopping via snare-fear. As an Iksar you might not want to use a 2H weapon regardless. Many players seemingly detest the Iksar 2H attack animation.

Danth

Solid feedback, thank you all for sharing.