Question - Does SK really need CC for group content? (1 Viewer)

[cintile]

The question I'm raising. If your focus is group content and world named mobs and grouping rather then doing missions, do you really need CC help or even slows for that matter as an SK.

Thinking about working my druid in for nostalgia, but would loose Bard. Working up a Mage for 3rd.

SK/Dru/Mage pop mercs when needed. If I must! I could add an enchanter but don't really want too.

 

[Almafa]

Go to Pal'Lomen and pull a few ogres and you will know the answer .
You can still get beaten up in current content if you pull 3-4 mobs. Even in Laurion's inn I got killed when I pulled a good 6 or so mobs and shieldflash did not fire.

So, yes, it can work. However, one bad pull, and you are all dead.

 

[2ndGoat]

If you're only using automation, yes, you need CC. If you're pulling manually, an SK is more than capable of pulling singles if you know what you're doing. It's not particularly hard. DoT the mob you want, yank it toward you (I don't remember the ability name off the top of my head), AA snare, AA FD, wait for any of your target's buddies to go back, stand up and back up toward camp. Repeat FDs (and yanks, as the timer pops) as needed to split.

 

[Almafa]

If you're only using automation, yes, you need CC. If you're pulling manually, an SK is more than capable of pulling singles if you know what you're doing. It's not particularly hard. DoT the mob you want, yank it toward you (I don't remember the ability name off the top of my head), AA snare, AA FD, wait for any of your target's buddies to go back, stand up and back up toward camp. Repeat FDs (and yanks, as the timer pops) as needed to split.

True.

 

[Littch]

If you are 3 boxing try it and see if it works?
But me personally I don’t see how anyone is doing LS content without some kind of CC.
And yes you can FD snare to break camps Butt what’s the trade off? The amount of time your spending not using CC for dps is costing you more time which negates the reason you booted the CC for more dps in the first place.
My 2 cents

 

[durango773]

I do LS (and NoS, TOL, COV, TOV, TBL, ROS and EOK) without CC, and with SK tanks.. however, they are full automated groups (6 pc's, no mercs).

 

[Birdman]

CC is nice when people decide to train you or your mob "warps" across zone and pulls 10+. Rather be 95% safe or 99% safe?

 

[Hanlons Razor]

CC just sets a much higher threshold for survival when you get a bad pull or train, etc. Can also spend less time worrying about how many you pull if you know the extras will get mezzed. Plus you can pull more at a time so you can kill more at a time, and spend less time pulling.

 

[eqsubi15]

CC is a lifesaver at times. Granted though, many LS mobs are unmezzable, but the bard helps with the adps greatly too. As for slows, i've been able to get away with just using Bst slows and that's been perfectly fine for all group stuff.

 

[RobRenfro]

In short YES there is going to be group content that requires Crowd Control. I use the plugins so I use a Chanter but folks swear by their Bards. Roll the toon man whichever you choose because you will need it.

 

[an_image]

The question I'm raising. If your focus is group content and world named mobs and grouping rather then doing missions, do you really need CC help or even slows for that matter as an SK.

Thinking about working my druid in for nostalgia, but would loose Bard. Working up a Mage for 3rd.

SK/Dru/Mage pop mercs when needed. If I must! I could add an enchanter but don't really want too.

@cintile, yes...it's always best to have tank/cc/healer.

 

[InvisigothMT]

You may not need CC or the ability to split camps and pull every time but when you need it there's nothing else that can replace it.

 

[Turaj Steelfist]

CC is a lifesaver at times. Granted though, many LS mobs are unmezzable, but the bard helps with the adps greatly too. As for slows, i've been able to get away with just using Bst slows and that's been perfectly fine for all group stuff.

I went for over two years with a bard ini that I thought was working but found out he wasn't slowing the mobs. I went from learning to tank unslowed mobs to feeling like cheating when a mob is slowed. As for the OP you are trying to decide as to whether or not CC is necessary, I will tell you no class is absolutely necessary not even a tank or a healer, it just depends on how you want to play your group. I know Necros that solo most group content (molo on missions) and mages that use a pet tank in their 6 man group (I have a group like this), so no CC is not a requirement, however, like Hanlons stated, the time wasted trying to split a 2 or 3 pull (or sometimes even more) is time wasted where you can just mez, root, or even use the CC to pull out singles quicker than the SK.

Take for example an Enchanter most of the time can pull way more efficiently than an SK. The Enc just casts AOE mez, DoTs the one he wants to pull and then mem blurs the rest. Sure it has been mentioned that not all mobs can be mezzed but I cannot confirm that about the new expansion because I have been using my bard and I have always found my bard to be subpar compared to an Enc in regards to mezzing. I am not saying bards are subpar for all the hate mail that is now coming my way. I drive My Paladin and he does ALL of my pulling for my group and lull is great, but the problem I have is trying to stay ahead of respawn. Last night I was camping a named and I could not consistently stay ahead of the respawn using the lull method so I just gave up and pulled 2 at a time when needed. There was a 3 pull that I ended up pulling once and nearly wiped but had to pop a lot of discs. I never updated my bard ini from lvl 120 so my bard was not able to even try and mez. I since updated the ini and will see if he mezzes now.

I guess the key point here is you will hear about the holy trinity of tank, healer, cc but you always need to decide what makes you happy and play what makes you want to log in. Sometimes your makeup will not allow you to beat content and others it will make the content trivial. My advice to you is to add 3 more boxes and run a full group. If you are using MQ to run one toon why not 6? I started out my Redguides journey with a Pally and Enc combo and I wasn't even using any automation I just made a heck of a lot of hotkeys using eqbcs to tell my enchanter what I wanted him to do. ex: /bct enc //target mobs x //cast 1 etc. It didn't take me long to realize I could control 4 more toons that way so I added 4 more FREE accounts. And guess what those 4 free accounts are way better than mercs. Sure I subbed them one month at lvl 115 so they can all get free AAs and now they are 1000% better than a merc. I guess this whole post was bascially to tell you that you dan't have to decide between cc or dps when you can always add both.

 

[ChatWithThisName]

The question I'm raising. If your focus is group content and world named mobs and grouping rather then doing missions, do you really need CC help or even slows for that matter as an SK.

Thinking about working my druid in for nostalgia, but would loose Bard. Working up a Mage for 3rd.

SK/Dru/Mage pop mercs when needed. If I must! I could add an enchanter but don't really want too.

If you only pull singles no group requires mezzing/CC.
With that said, pulling single is slow, tedious, and isn't really a benefit to the long game. Which is to kill things and loot stuff.
You don't "NEED" anything to play the game, group content or not. But what you need and what you should have are two vastly different things.

I would recommend you play the way you want to play to enjoy the game. But if you're interested in dying less often, surviving more situations, and killing more efficiently the suggested retail price of those things are Tank, Healer, CC, DPS, DPS, DPS.

 

[cintile]

I went for over two years with a bard ini that I thought was working but found out he wasn't slowing the mobs. I went from learning to tank unslowed mobs to feeling like cheating when a mob is slowed. As for the OP you are trying to decide as to whether or not CC is necessary, I will tell you no class is absolutely necessary not even a tank or a healer, it just depends on how you want to play your group. I know Necros that solo most group content (molo on missions) and mages that use a pet tank in their 6 man group (I have a group like this), so no CC is not a requirement, however, like Hanlons stated, the time wasted trying to split a 2 or 3 pull (or sometimes even more) is time wasted where you can just mez, root, or even use the CC to pull out singles quicker than the SK.

Take for example an Enchanter most of the time can pull way more efficiently than an SK. The Enc just casts AOE mez, DoTs the one he wants to pull and then mem blurs the rest. Sure it has been mentioned that not all mobs can be mezzed but I cannot confirm that about the new expansion because I have been using my bard and I have always found my bard to be subpar compared to an Enc in regards to mezzing. I am not saying bards are subpar for all the hate mail that is now coming my way. I drive My Paladin and he does ALL of my pulling for my group and lull is great, but the problem I have is trying to stay ahead of respawn. Last night I was camping a named and I could not consistently stay ahead of the respawn using the lull method so I just gave up and pulled 2 at a time when needed. There was a 3 pull that I ended up pulling once and nearly wiped but had to pop a lot of discs. I never updated my bard ini from lvl 120 so my bard was not able to even try and mez. I since updated the ini and will see if he mezzes now.

I guess the key point here is you will hear about the holy trinity of tank, healer, cc but you always need to decide what makes you happy and play what makes you want to log in. Sometimes your makeup will not allow you to beat content and others it will make the content trivial. My advice to you is to add 3 more boxes and run a full group. If you are using MQ to run one toon why not 6? I started out my Redguides journey with a Pally and Enc combo and I wasn't even using any automation I just made a heck of a lot of hotkeys using eqbcs to tell my enchanter what I wanted him to do. ex: /bct enc //target mobs x //cast 1 etc. It didn't take me long to realize I could control 4 more toons that way so I added 4 more FREE accounts. And guess what those 4 free accounts are way better than mercs. Sure I subbed them one month at lvl 115 so they can all get free AAs and now they are 1000% better than a merc. I guess this whole post was bascially to tell you that you dan't have to decide between cc or dps when you can always add both.

That's a very well-thought-out and detailed post. Thank you for that! In a perfect world, I would keep my BST/Brd (got a Mage that's almost leveled up enough to join the group) and then remake my SK or even Pally on a 4th account. I guess I'm dreading having to work up a new SK 0-120, do his epic again, and then pay for expansions on account #3 and #4. The reason I don't want to just remake the BST is because he is my highest character with the most progression and what not already finished. I've also done the epics on him. It's too bad, EverQuest doesn't just allow you to pay to move a character to another account like they use to.

With all that said, I don't really have to have a tank. I've gone all the way to 122 on BST with using pet as a tank. It would just be nice to drive with an SK or Pally while MQ takes care of BST dps/slows and bard CC.

Thanks for your thoughts.