Ogre still best sk?

[Jimjam]

Following the bad SK thread I restarted my original character, a troll SK. Only mid 30s but I gotta say I'm really noticing the stun interrupts on him. It's way more frustrating having spells interrupted on a SK than a ranger!

[fash]

Iksar. regen, better mana pool, stone of morid.

If you're solely focused on pve, I suppose fsi may become more important.

[Samoht]

It doesn't, though. The only spell that an SK ever absolutely has to cast and get it off the first time is FD. Any other circumstance, it's just a convenience and not a necessity. Yes, bash stun is annoying, but it's minor, and it's not like it puts your spells on cooldown or anything. Once the stun is over, you can immediately start recasting. It's seriously no big deal.

Regen on the other hand is a pretty big deal. Iksar extra AC is a pretty big deal.

LOL @ being concerned about SK DPS and thinking FSI means extra DPS.

[Samoht]

Having innate regen 100% of the time is exponentially more OP than needing to channel an FD through a bash less than 0.1% of the time.

[Samoht]

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

meaningless regen.

Yeah, you're done here.

[jolanar]

Oh look it's the same argument that we see over and over and over. Regen vs FSI.

[Vexenu]

Regen difference is 8 HP standing at 60. 80 hp per minute. An extra 4800 HP healed per hour. That's not bad.

But it's also not that good. 4800 HP over the course of an hour at level 60 is not going to drastically enhance your power or efficiency. In a 55+ group setting where you're likely to have some combination of a Fungi Tunic, Slow, Torpor, Regrowth and CH, it will barely even be noticeable. It's a very minimal advantage that is active 100% of the time.

FSI, in contrast, is a very large advantage that will noticeably increase your survival rate in bad situations (having to channel a FD through multiple mobs, or chain-spam lifetaps to stay alive in a close fight). Given that death and CRs are the worst punishment EQ can inflict, any ability that gives you a very real increase in your ability to avoid those outcomes is very powerful.

It's basically a question of a minimal increase in self-healing efficiency versus enhanced survivability in SHTF scenarios. If you go for Troll/Iksar you will likely never notice the increased efficiency gained from regen, but every time you get bashed and interrupted in combat, and certainly every time you have your FD bash interrupted by 2-3 mobs, you will definitely wonder "what if" you had been an Ogre.

[Samoht]

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

Regen difference is 8 HP standing at 60. 80 hp per minute. An extra 4800 HP healed per hour. That's not bad.

That's only the minimal gain. You completely ignore the huge bonus you get to regen while sitting/FD. You also ignore how below 50, your innate regen is double every other race. That means much less downtime for the life of the character.

That's so much better than channeling FD through a bash once every week or so.

[Troxx]

If a fungi tunic with 15 regen a tick represents THE best bp in the game on 99.9% of content, I'm not sure how anyone could make the case that 8 standing regen per tick is insignificant. 4800 less health needing to be healed for say a Druid or a non torpor shaman over the course of an hour translates to 1920 less mana used in an hour. That's 9.6 minutes of meditating for a Druid - 16% of their time over an hour absent clarity that's not specifically dedicated to healing the difference in damage. For a cleric that's conservatively 2 less complete heals for 800 mana (4 minutes of meditating).

EQ is a slower game of attrition. That's what makes fungi so powerful even at level 60 hunting anything but raid content. For time spent soloing or duo? That regen is going to lower down time by a large amount.

FSI is nice but think about this: no paladin in game can play ogre and the lack of FSI doesn't make them puny tanks or incapable of casting spells. Need to fd with multiple mobs on you? Shouldn't be a problem unless you stupidly wait until critically low health to try to cast. Such scenarios are also frankly avoidable with smart play.

Ogre is a solid race. With velious out I'd put iksar (regen/AC) as the min/max with raid gear. Without raid gear troll for regen, better stats, and slam.

[Troxx]

PS: this FSI debate comes up stupidly often for shamans. I cannot think of a single instance in 60 full levels and beyond where getting bashed got me killed or resulted in a bad outcome. I can think of times where it was annoying but not nearly as annoying as having 8/11 less hp/tick would regen would be. Prior to torpor the extra regen was even more clutch.

I chose Troll and wouldn't swap races even at 60 with torpor if such a thing were even possible.