SK Soloing. Debuffing mobs, worth it?
 

When soloing, if you steal STR from mob, plus ATK and debuff their STR, does it have an impact at all? I would like to know if someone has tested this before.

Yes it has an impact. As to whether it’s worth it - that’s up to you.

If you're just trading hits with a blue con, you won't get your mana's worth out of debuffing. In this case, the most mana efficient thing is to fear kite which also costs mana. Though I generally try to keep STR + ATK buffs up (across multiple fights, not casting each fight), as it helps in aggregate.

If you're fighting one big baddie, you might get your mana's worth. The question is Is -10 STR -18AC and -20 ATK worth ~165 mana worth of life tap (I think casting time is more or less a wash).

All you really need 1-50 is a pet and lifetaps. Use your pet to tank the mobs initial hits and lifetap between swings (if you have a high delay 2h) or wait until they're fleeing. You should only ever have to worry about mana, which is far faster to regen than hp and will decrease your downtime

I habitually would make sure most mobs while I was leveling from 1-40ish I stole str from at least. Once I was past like 40 I stopped doing that. Get yourself a Dark Reaver from Cavalier in Lguk. Then once you get Shadow Vortex I would make sure that buff was always on me, so if it meant stealing AC from every 3rd mob, then that's what I went for

Generally speaking, when soloing typical blue mobs, you'd get more value out of spending that same mana on a lifetap or two. The debuffs have practically no impact and you should be fear-kiting anyway. With a choice between spending x mana to debuff a mob or x mana lifetapping it, it's unlikely that the debuff option would actually result in a faster kill or less damage taken throughout the fight.

Siphon STR only costs like 5 mana, so you get good value out of that in terms of mana spent vs. DPS gained. You don't need to cast it on every mob, just cast it when you need to get the buff again.

In terms of the effect you will see from debuffing the mob, it is very minimal sadly. Debuffs are only really noticeable on raid mobs who hit very hard and have nasty procs. Just use your mana on Lifetap/Snare/Fear/Buffs/Pet.

I just us Siphon Strength to pull. The cheap cost, plus the added benefit of not messing with enchanter mezzes. I spam clinging darkness onto mobs if I'm having trouble keeping aggro, but Siphon strength for the initial pull is pretty nice.

In a solo situation though I'd just save your mana for more casts of Darkness & Fear and occasional lifetaps. Any difference in dmg taken or dps put out will be too small to outweigh the mana cost of casting those spells on every mob. Except maybe siphon strength because it only cost 5 mana to cast.

Siphon is cheap to pull with. Not a bad opener either if tanking for a group since the first cast is aggro-locked quite low.

Shroud of hate for your own dps while it lasts. I haven’t done aggro tests with this vs the AC taps but always assumed it was worse. Some say it holds up and might even be equal.