I am a fan of Knight classes. I have a Dark Avenger and a Palus Knight. What I've noticed that almost all of our combat skills are useless. Let's take them skill by skill.
1. Poison: I don't find the damage/mp and most importantly the casting time is really worth it. With top D Grade weapon and DSSing this is far more effective than the wasted casting time and mp.
2. Sting: Same as poison, but less uglier for its instant cast time. I could use this, but I don't see any effectivity in it. Unless I'm mistaken, correct me if am wrong. The damage it does compared to the top Dgrade weapon + DSS is trivial. I'm talking about a level 24-32 PalusKnight with best D Dual weapon.
3. Drain Life: Oh boy, the life it drains doesn't save your [censored] when you're in trouble. The damage it does is so-so but when you factor the casting time its not worth it in my grind session. It probably reduces my DPS. Same applies to Poison. So, I'm basically losing MP+time to dish out less damage and gain little hp? no thanks.
4. DA Divine Heal: For 1/3 of my Mana I get healed for 10-20% of my HP? come on... I could just stand there and regenerate this HP or use a Healing Potion and get better results. Not to mention that long casting time. In combat, you would probably get beaten more than the damage heald during the casting time which renders the skill useless.
I haven't tried Freezing Strike yet. I'm hoping its VERY good.
Conclusion: is it only knight classes that get stupid skills? Shield Stun is the only skill that is worth while. Am I missing something here? do these skills get better? or am I using it the wrong way? are we suppose to carry spirit shots with us when we cast? are our more specialized skills get better in the end? (lightening strike, cubics, ...etc)
I am a fan of Knight classes. I have a Dark Avenger and a Palus Knight. What I've noticed that almost all of our combat skills are useless. Let's take them skill by skill.
1. Poison: I don't find the damage/mp and most importantly the casting time is really worth it. With top D Grade weapon and DSSing this is far more effective than the wasted casting time and mp.
2. Sting: Same as poison, but less uglier for its instant cast time. I could use this, but I don't see any effectivity in it. Unless I'm mistaken, correct me if am wrong. The damage it does compared to the top Dgrade weapon + DSS is trivial. I'm talking about a level 24-32 PalusKnight with best D Dual weapon.
3. Drain Life: Oh boy, the life it drains doesn't save your [censored] when you're in trouble. The damage it does is so-so but when you factor the casting time its not worth it in my grind session. It probably reduces my DPS. Same applies to Poison. So, I'm basically losing MP+time to dish out less damage and gain little hp? no thanks.
4. DA Divine Heal: For 1/3 of my Mana I get healed for 10-20% of my HP? come on... I could just stand there and regenerate this HP or use a Healing Potion and get better results. Not to mention that long casting time. In combat, you would probably get beaten more than the damage heald during the casting time which renders the skill useless.
I haven't tried Freezing Strike yet. I'm hoping its VERY good.
Conclusion: is it only knight classes that get stupid skills? Shield Stun is the only skill that is worth while. Am I missing something here? do these skills get better? or am I using it the wrong way? are we suppose to carry spirit shots with us when we cast? are our more specialized skills get better in the end? (lightening strike, cubics, ...etc)
SK and DA are both Tanks they are meant to take damage not dish it out. You do get skills much later that make you a little more deadly and at end game in PVP 1 on 1 they are a force to be reckon with.
Your still low level not even 2nd class. You won't even start 2 see what they can really do till 55+ ;)
As stated hang in there. At higher levels both those classes get better and better but a DD you will never be. You are the meat shield taking all the damage while your party mates lay waste to the mobs. Both classes got some love with CT1.
While none of your skill are uber the use of spiritshot does help as well as accumen and empower. This is of course unless that was changed sometime after C3 when I retired my DA. Somewhere I have a video of my DA getting two kills in a seige by using drainlife with spiritshot and the above mentioned buffs. They were both last second shots as the players were running away and I knew I would not be able to catch them. Since they were in range at the start of casting even if they ran out of the skills range it still lands. Was shocked both times that it worked. Cubics are helpfule as well as the panther which will do more damage than you will but not so good in PVP as anyone that has played this game more than a week knows to take out the panther first then switch to you but in PvE the panther helps a lot in with the grind.
Lastly you mentioned your PK had duals. Good for low level grinding but switch to sword and shield after D grade. You will want the shield masteries and you do not have masteries for duals if you plan to go the SK route.
I can see hope in your posts guys. Thanks for reassuring me. But I just want to note something. I never wanted a "damage" skill rather than a "useful" skill. My compliant was that the skills are useless and I end up just auto-attacking + DSS!!! yes thats what I do!! I never use any skill except Shield Stun with my Human Knight. So, all what I do is AutoAttack + DSS.
I was really worried that I will only be doing AutoAttacks till the end of time. I do want to use more than autoattack while grinding, at least to make the process less painful. But from what I've read there is hope in the level 40+ probably 55+
Accument and Empower are buff-spells right?
One question thoug. Does anyone here, SK, uses Poison and Sting and LifeDrain as his grinding skills?(not PvP or some PvE events, just plain grinding). I can see that Sting to be useful in PvP extra damage is always welcome, specially if it comes instantly.
What are the skills that you use, as an SK, exclusively at level 55+?
I have a lvl 65 SK, and the skills/spells I use for pve are : auto attack, sting, hex, cubics, lightning strike, arrest, judgement, banish seraphim, Ultimate Defense, Aggression/Aura of hate, etc.
Sting fails alot, but it's great to use to finish a mob off for the over-hit (you get more xp when mob dies to over-hit). Plus, when it does land, the DOT tick is always helpful.
Once you learn Hex, its MUCH easier to kill mobs, as their pdef goes down greatly. Hex made a huge difference in my leveling time. Also, hex is a great aggro generator. I use it quite often in groups and dont have to use aggression at all.
Lightning strike is one of the coolest skills in the game. Great animation, and the ability to paralyze a mob/player is awesome. Helpful when you are about to attack a group of mobs.
Viper/Phantom cubics are great to help debuff/poison the mobs and Vamp cubic not only drains the mob of HP, but heals you to boot.
As for drain health/life leech/freezing strike - i use these primarily for PVP (drain health and life leech are awesome for when your rooted). You may want to try carrying some Blessed Soul Shots also, and use Greater Magic Haste potions and/or Gr Empower/Acumen scrolls. Your casting time for hex/life leech/drain life will greatly speed up, and the dmg done by these skills will double. You are, after all, the "mage" tank ^^
Personally I didn't carry any blessed spiritshots until B grade, as I preferred to carry as many soul shots as possible (and DE's have crap for weight capacity), but it's something to consider if your bored of just auto attacking mobs.
Another suggestion you might want to consider is using Dual weapons until B grade. They cost more, so it's not a good idea if you have a small budget, and you also wont be able to use a couple skills, but your overall patack and attack speed will greatly increase. I used OE C grade duals till B grade and flew through those lvls.
yeah those skill are crap at hat lvl til u get to lvl 40 then it get cool with ur cubies ur drain life u us on mob to do damge but heal u little does good heals when its on a angel type mob
Yeah stick with it. I have a lvl 49 SK and the cubics (phantom/viper), pwr break/hex work pretty well for me. I usually tag along with a lvl 50 SO and we get quite a bit of xp together.
Sting - I use to get overhits.
Freeze Strike - use seldomly to slow down a Treant even more while i finish a Unicorn or or Satyr. In some cases it will give you a little more time to finish off whats in front of you before other mobs join in.
Poison - Havent used once. Read on forums it was useless.
Confusion - same as poison.
Aggression - I use when partying.
Aura of Hate - I use when my MP is enough that I feel like im not using it up too much.
Viper Cubic - havent used yet. waiting on lvl 55 to use all 3.
I have a question, do I have to do the Trial of Duty, Testimony of Fate, and Test of witch craft to be a SK? If this is true, do I have to do them at their respective levels? 35, 37, 39?
Yes Bluefrost you need to do all those quests in order to become an SK. Duty is lvl 35(36 to finish it), Fate is 37, and Witch is 39. Check the Stratics website, they have many good guides for the class change quests.
You don't have to do them at 35, 37 and 39.
If you wait until 40 you can do them all at once and with CG gear although they seem to be very easy for quests.
I actually found them entertaining, specially the last one. But doing the three of them in one session took my whole day. I LOVED the last one Test of Witchcraft the story line was fun.
Now its time to look for a good place to hunt. Are Catacombs and Necropolises good for solo or group grinding?
DoT are indeed increased in CT1. Damage by posion and sting can end a CP pretty fast while u run to gain time to use Drain Health/LS/Freezing Strike.
I use a Sword of Miracles for PVP on my ST. I can hit for like 700-1000 each Drain Health on daggers/archers/tanks. On mages its a different story: shield slam, judment, sting, hex and start over (if ur luck Arrest land).
Y like chaos i manage to have some experience whit tanks...,SK its by far the most fun tank..., and some of your skillz have no use depending of the mobs your fighting...or the char your pvping of ..., use mage skillz against mage classes are the most stupid think to do..., while using them on fighters are a smarter choise!
And using cubics...they are you right arm they boost all your strengh, if sting and poison lands and youll get a decent damage output in 3x hp mobs and hex course...!
Drain skillz are usefull to if ou have no vr you can heal 700 hp +- in higher lvl 66+ depending of buffs you have...whit dots eaven better;)
Resuming SK its the class i play nevertheless i hope to get 3rd class so i get my char final skillz to handle better in pvp cause Sk have no interrupt skillz(LS but not physical and have % to land), i manage to win lots of classes now and grind alone to pretty well, but to pvp ST open other doors hehe :)