50's SK Gear Advice

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by Samoht [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Two things to wrap this up:

1) I've said it before in this thread, there is no reason to gear for trivial encounters. They are trivial by definition. You need to gear for the hardest encounter you will be facing. AoW is used as the benchmark. It hits so hard that AC is irrelevant, but it is not the only mob in the game that hits that hard. If a mob is a redcon and flurries, stacking HP is the only way to live. You're wrapping all of these mobs up into the example when you mention AoW. SKs end up tanking such mobs in ToV. What other use would they have for raiding since they don't tank AoW themselves?

2) When leveling, using a fungi trivializes everything. Get a fungi first. You can't complain about the cost of a fungi in this thread when people are throwing suggestions like Narandi's Crown around. Being an Iksar or Troll stacks with fungi, making it even better. You know how you fully take advantage of the fungi and the regen? By stacking HP. Raising your health pool raises the effective healing. If I stack HP on my SK alt to have 2000+ HP at level 50 and yours only has 800hp, that doubles, triples, quadruples, etc the effect of that fungi every single time my health ticks above 800hp.

In group content (OP did mention grouping), spells keep aggro. Disease Cloud is level 9 and costs 10 mana. Vampiric Embrace lasts around 2-7 minutes and costs 30 mana. You don't really need to cast anything else, so mana pool doesn't matter there. You're not going to gear DEX just for that spell, or STR just for DPS, because your fungi will allow you to literally bore mobs to death while your group takes care of healing and DPS. It is your job to tank. Clarity + Narandi's crown makes it so that you never even have to sit or med.

If you're fear kiting into the 50s, I admire you're dedication. I've always hated fear kiting because swing timers don't really sync with your location very well as the mob is running away. I hate standing right on top of the mob just to see the "You cannot see your target from here" or "Your target is too far away" messages.

It's doable. Slow/painful, but doable. And still, it's trivial. I'd focus more on surviving when a fear wears off on higher level mobs rather than dealing 1 or 2 more damage every third swing or stacking gear for a spell that procs for less than 30 damage. You'll be sitting between fights, either way.

And who is going to be able to solo those mobs better? The 800 HP SK who is gear focused on STR/DEX who can only take 4 hits before he's less than half health? Or the SK with 3 times his HP and can stand toe to toe in melee against the mob while recasting fear?

What happens when you get an add? I can just fear them and shrug them off while I finish my primary target where you'll have to FD at the first sign of trouble.

And guess what? Which strategy works best at level 1? Stacking HP or stacking STR/DEX?

In other words, get a fungi and stack HP or get wrecked.

Not trying to be mean here, but you need to read threads before commenting please. Your suggestions aren't relevant to OP. They were asking a very specific question, and already gave us information on the gear they have and what they are doing.

1. The idea about gearing for "trivial" encounters is wrong. Most people on the server are not hardcore raiders, and OP isn't even 60. This means he will not be let in to most raids until 60 (especially ToV raids), and should gear for maximum efficiency when leveling. Gearing a level 50 SK for ToV or AoW is nonsensical. Also, your AoW benchmark is wrong. It is a very specialized encounter, and the majority of raid mobs are not like him, and neither will SK's be tanking anything as difficult as AoW. Not every SK aspires to be a Flurry tank, and I am really not sure why you are forcing that on to everybody, as well as your misinformed AoW benchmark. Please stop suggesting this, you are not correct, and you are just confusing people.

2. If you read OP's posts, you would know he already has a fungi, which is why we aren't suggesting that. You are also wrong about raising max HP is a guaranteed means of keeping fungi ticking. Your playstyle affects this quite a bit. On my Shadowknight I am never at full HP, and I am not blindly stacking HP items either. Fungi has a predictable pattern, it really isn't difficult to keep under 100% HP. I am not saying you should not get +HP on a character, but there is a difference between necessary max HP and unnecessary max HP. For whatever reason you like to stack HP past it's useful point, and that isn't a good strategy in a lot of situations. You are just slowing down your kill speed for no reason.

3. Mana regen does matter when soloing and grouping. If you have played an SK, you would know SK's use a lot of mana in groups because there are more mobs, which means you are casting a lot more spells, including FD for pulling. Even though they are low cost spells, it adds up pretty quickly in any group that is pulling mobs at a good pace. Remember, when you are standing/FD without mana regen items/spells, you only get 1 per tick. Not all groups have an Enchanter or PoTG druid either for extra mana regen, which means having mana saving items is critical to keeping the mobs coming at a consistent pace. With the extra mana regen from my items and mana saving clickies, I usually never have to med in groups without clarity/potg, and it is the other group members asking for a break.

4. Your entire point about fear kiting is very strange. Since you don't like doing it, it is understandable you don't fully understand how it works. For one, unless you are like level 30 or something, you are going to have way more than 800HP just from your baseline HP pool. When you are that low level, mobs hit much less hard. I am not sure why you think OP's level 50ish SK is going to have 800 HP without gear. Secondly, when you are doing fear kiting, you need to know the layout of the area you are fear kiting in. That is the way to prevent adds, not by stacking HP. Once you know the area well, you should rarely if ever get adds. So your scenario about stacking HP for the odd chance of an add would basically never come into play. And yes, since SK's get FD, they almost always have a great shot at landing FD if something screws up. In terms of the points where fear wears off, you can learn to back off of the mob before the fear timer runs off. Then when it is running back at you, you can re-fear before you get hit. With fungi and lifetap, your HP will usually stay pretty high. That has been my experience.

The problem here is you seem to be really afraid of dying, which is why you stack HP in all cases. If you are good at the game, you can prevent death from skill and game knowledge rather than stacking HP. Once you get to the point where you can consistently fight in an area without dying, you should focus on killing efficiency, rather than survival. Again, we are not talking about a Warrior tanking AoW, we are talking about a level 50ish SK trying to level. Context matters when giving suggestions.

Finally, you don't understand the simple context of when stacking HP matters. Of course stacking HP from level 1-40 or so is the best strategy. This is NOT because HP is the best stat in all scenarios, it is because Everquest is a game where stats and equipment are scaled for the endgame, not the beginning. STR, DEX, ATK, etc. don't matter that much levels 1-40, because mobs are really weak anyway, most good weapons don't proc, you miss more due to low skill caps, etc. Stacking HP gives you great survivability then, as the game isn't balanced for a level 20 having +500HP from gear. But we are NOT talking about that level range lol, OP is in his 50s. Once you get into your 50s, where mobs hit for 140 regularly, that HP really doesn't help much. This is because if a fight was determined by 140 HP, you were fighting an encounter that was too risky, it isn't a problem with your max HP.

EDIT: Also, to your point about DEX, DEX doesn't affect the proc rate of Vampric Embrace. You get DEX for your weapons. OP has Kyldorn, the Blood Drinker, so more Dex means more life tap procs from his weapon. My SK only has proc weapons now, so DEX matters for more procs on those weapons. Procs help kill speed, and they help maintain agro in groups. Disease Cloud is obviously the main way to maintain agro, but some group members (such as well geared Monks), are good at stealing agro, even when spamming Disease Cloud. Also, sometimes you don't want to use Disease Cloud in a group if you have an Enchanter. This is so they can Mez mobs without the damage tick breaking it. In that case you need to use your higher mana agro spells such as Shroud of Hate/Pain.

Originally Posted by Ripqozko [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The SK should be logging on a cleric bot I don’t care what gear they have, hope that helps.

This is 100% true sadly, as I have said repeatedly in this thread. I am not sure why Samoht has such a strong desire for raiding with an SK. It is the worst class in the game for raiding. If you want to raid as a hybrid, Ranger or Paladin are much more useful.