SK Tomes and Pets

Nodnal

Nodnal

Dalayan Elder
Hopefully this thread will open up some discussion on shadowknight tomes and their pets. Unfortunately, the current SK tomes are either not working, or are hardly functional/relevant compared to other class tomes. SK pets are awful so the ‘pet tome’ becomes almost irrelevant. If SK pets got changed, I could maybe see these tomes staying around, but currently they just aren’t worth doing at all. Focused Hate isn’t working right now, but even if it did, I do not believe that this tome really feels like a class tome either. Adding damage to Improved Harm Touch and Leech Touch is narrow and unexciting.

I will throw out a few ideas for tomes and maybe if enough discussion comes from this thread, then we may have some ideas for the third SK tome. After that, I will address the pet situation that has been brought up before, but nothing has come of it.
(tome names are irrelevant, but serve as a quick reference to what the tome might do, also these numbers are just rough numbers)

Focused Hate-Increase the group’s damage to humanoids by 2% per rank

Tears of Marlow-The SK procs a small lifetap that heals the group, 50 damage per rank

Decrepit Touch-The SK procs an attack/ac debuff, 20attk/ac per rank

Draining Touch-The SK absorbs mana that it drains via Touch of the Void(?), 15% mana per rank (only on mobs that have mana)

Vampiric Mastery-Increase lifetap criticals by 1% per rank, increase healing of lifetaps by 10% per rank

Aura of Marlow-Decrease spell damage to the SK by 3% per rank

I will add more when I come up with others. Again, these are very rough and are just brainstorming ideas. It is more about the ideas and not the numbers I posted.

So SK pets…they don’t really do anything. Shadowknights get pet AAs, but the best pet they get is a level 44 green con that dies to basically everything and anything. I am proposing that instead of sharing a line of pets with necros, that SKs have their own line. Basically they would get pets with large amounts of AC/HP, but do little to no DPS. This would be good in groups or for duoing so that you could have an extra auxiliary tank to help mitigate damage, but it wouldn’t be adding much dps to the SK. Also making the pets higher level (so the highest level pet could be affected by level 65 buffs) would be a step in the right direction. I think it would be nice to have SK pets play some sort of role in SoD, even if it is best in groups or for soloing/duoing. Right now they just take up spells that SK get and AAs that SK get. If they need to be removed, then so be it, but I think some of the spells and AAs should change if they do, or if the pets stay the same.
 
I'm only here to call out slaariel for giving false hope on shadowknight pets.
 
I agree on the whole, but I have to disagree with the Focused Hate criticism.

Obviously the fact that it is broken and does nothing is a problem, but it being "narrow and unexciting" isn't really a great reason to change it. It should be fixed and maybe the numbers should be looked at, but having extra burst dps and a stronger leach touch (or s7 and all 3 touches) is nothing to scoff at.

Also i like the idea of stealing mana a lot although that might be really strong. Maybe have it be a proc or something so that where it caps off is more known? 10% proc rate per 1 min to steal 100/200/300/400 mana
 
Nodnal said:
So SK pets…they don’t really do anything. Shadowknights get pet AAs, but the best pet they get is a level 44 green con that dies to basically everything and anything. I am proposing that instead of sharing a line of pets with necros, that SKs have their own line. Basically they would get pets with large amounts of AC/HP, but do little to no DPS. This would be good in groups or for duoing so that you could have an extra auxiliary tank to help mitigate damage, but it wouldn’t be adding much dps to the SK. Also making the pets higher level (so the highest level pet could be affected by level 65 buffs) would be a step in the right direction. I think it would be nice to have SK pets play some sort of role in SoD, even if it is best in groups or for soloing/duoing. Right now they just take up spells that SK get and AAs that SK get. If they need to be removed, then so be it, but I think some of the spells and AAs should change if they do, or if the pets stay the same.
Click to expand...

I have thought about SK pets a lot and how useless they are and here is my revamp idea:

SK pet Levels
level 15 Lesser Bone Armor
level 22 ???
level 30 Minor Wall of Bone
level 39 ???
level 49 Bone Armor
level 52 ???
level 58 Wall of Bone
level 64 Greater Bone Armor

Bone Armor
This spell summons a non-combative pet which provides the Shadowknight with X amount of passive damage reduction as long as the pet remains alive. This pet can be dismissed to grant the Shadowknight a rune based off a % of the pet's hitpoints, this amount scales with the bonus granted from the Companion Health focus effect.

Wall of Bone
This spell also summons a non-combative pet which provides damage reduction to the entire group albeit an amount smaller than the self-version of the pet. This pet can be dismissed to grant a groupwide rune, the amount is based of a % of pet HP (factoring in comp health) and split equally amongst group members.

I envision these pets as having a fair amount of hitpoints and a recast/cast long enough that the rune associated with dismissing them can not be abused.
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I cut out the level 9 pet in favor of leaving 3 slots for 3 unique pet ideas instead of 4 but that is just preference. As far as what could be placed in the level 22/29/and 52 slots I'm not sure but I think it would be neat for each to do something rather unique and scaling if possible so they could be used later into the game. To go along with this idea I'd also consider giving the non-combative pets a larger level range when summoned so that their HP pools level up along with the shadowknight leaving them useful as rampage soaks in a secondary capacity.

A tome idea I had to go along with this assuming the pets were good enough to warrant even bothering was Tome of the Last Caress (or some other awful name)a tome that heals your pets by a modified amount of whatever value you lifetap for ie: healing your pet for 2x the amount of whatever you regain from Deflux as well as healing yourself. Anyways these are just some ideas but it's a cool thing to brainstorm about and I hate seeing how useless SK pets are currently.
 
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I can only agree on the tome Focused Hate being somewhat lacking, especially considering how much exp is required to finish the tome. It increases dps of touches and adds a manadrain to them.... Only problem there is that sk's already have aa's that makes touches (amongst other things) manadrain, so it doesn't really add anything new. I would like to suggest that these tomes are changed or maybe just that a manatap is added to them actually giving the sk some proportional mana back (wether mob has mana or not) once every 30 minutes.

As for the pet tome, the text of it still states that it affects the now removed sk runic pet. It doesn't really let players know that it also affects their old crappy pets that they don't use much at 65 since they are green by then.

For pets, I think that making the sk pets a completely separate line of pets would be a cool idea. My thought however would be to maybe have a few different utility like pets. For example: how about a pet: spell: Summon Ritual Sacrifice. This would call up a pet with fat HP, but a pet that wouldn't be able to attack mobs at all (kind of like familiars in that way). Instead it's hitpoints would slowly drain away from it as it heals the shadowknight over time. Finally the sacrifice pet dies and the SK has gotten healed for an equivalent of all of its hitpoints. This would be a nice touch fitting with the Shadowknight and it would also allow the SK to perform some sort of heals on self when not allowed to cause dmg to the mob.
 
Focus hate does need improved, maybe take the mana drain off and switch it to sublimate soul since it has a decent recast already. a small stun and a bit better lifetap for the amount of exp you need to finish it doesnt seem op to me.
 
I dont know what the numbers are currently. Felyn said that at least the 2nd rank didnt work. Maybe none of them work, but I think with the right numbers this would be a really nice tome. 7-10k near instantaneous damage + a big heal is very nice for certain encounters. If that were to double or maybe a bit more, ending in teh 20-25k pre crit range it would seem really nice to me. Sure its not great for exp, but many raid encounters have major burn phases where that kind of damage is really nice. I know of at least one 6 man where a SK is a vastly superior tank not only because of agro, but because they can add nice burst dps durking key phases.

That said, adding a small manatap and maybe stun wouldn't hurt anything IMO.
 
For reference...my numbers are as follows with 4.3 sword, 5 tomes done and 20% spec (but no magic focus).

HT: 2025
IHT: 3406
LT: 4167

So they are pretty tiny (those are all non crit). The tomes would have to increase the damage substantially for it to be worthwhile.
 
say the tomes did 30% per rank.

That would give you
4455
7493
9167 (and ~12k heal)

So thats a ~21-42k range depending on crits, plus a complete heal for the SK. For exp its nothing amazing. For the slow consistent millions of hp raid bosses its meh, but there are lots of fights with burn phases, and especially in 6man, having a tank able to provide that kind of instantaneous damage can be very powerful. Could also add in like 300manatap/rank on each ability. Gaining 3600 mana with rank 4 complete would be nice on longer bosses and exp groups, to make it more rounded and useful all around.
 
it takes about 80 aa's to finish(?). magic mastery takes about 40 and adds 2% to all taps and touches. x2 that's 4%. In that light it doesn't compare very well, although it could be situationally useful. When a tome affects something that only works once every 30 minutes it needs to deliver.
 
How do those numbers show it doesn't deliver? (assuming it were to change to actually do what it says, and then we don't even know what #s it will use)

Lets say a SK casts 5 litetaps per minute, 150 in 30min.

Say your SK did magic1/2 and focused hate1 (for similar exp)

deflux will gain ~13 damage from mm1/2, if you do that 150 times, thats 1950 extra damage and ~2200 healing? The extra tap damage is ~400, and ~200 heal.

lets just assume my 30% numbers were used with one rank complete:
2025 becomes 2633
3406 becomes 4428
4167 becomes 5417 (~7k heal?)

So for similar exp amounts, and assuming my lifetap numbers are right (sometimes it would be higher and other times lower), magic mastery adds 2350 damage (~2400heal) and focused hate adds 2880 damage and (~1800heal, or far more with s7).

If you are tapping 8 or more times per minute the magic mastery becomes more damage, but focused hate has some distinct advantages. Taps are free and almost instantaneous. Sometimes a SK doesn't have the time or mana to tap. Most importantly taps are a huge amount of burst dps whereas taps are more for healing/sustained dps. Burst dps is infinitely more valuable than sustained dps in certain situations, and in sustained dps situations a SK can help, but isn't really necessary. In burn situations, the more dps you have the better, and providing good burn dps on a tank can be huge.

Of course many of these numbers are being estimated or just as examples. Focused Hate doesn't sound like it will be omg amazing ever, but it seems like a solid and worthwhile upgrade to me (assuming its made to work and given a decent modifier).
 
The numbers the tome is supposed to increase their dmg isn't mentioned in the tome, but it used to be mentioned in yellow text when talking to logistician about buying the tome. (I think it was 20%?)

For reference, at nighttime with 20% spec, 4% magic focus, 5 tomes of power, 2 tomes of magic, 2 tomes of lifetap and focused hate I finished my numbers are as follows (without songs or cunning on):

Improved Harm Touch - 2654 dmg
Leech Touch - 3038 dmg

(deflux: 624, sublimate soul: 891)

edit: Note: Increases damage of all types of Harm Touch by 20-40-60-85%. Also adds a large mana drain at 300-600-900-1200.
Looking at numbers above it doesn't look as if it is actually working or doing anything atm. And there should be a manadrain from the dmg from aa's already before this tome.
 
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