Posts by Zyrex

Hello there,

I was asked a bunch of times about how to play a knight or which knight subclass might be the best. Well, I don't think there is one "best" class existing, because the core mechanic of a knight is always the same. The difference is just the utility or support the subclass brings to the knight. But however, I just want to show you the very basics about the Knight class as a tank.

0. Introduction

In this guide you will learn how to play the knight on different ways. I played that class on several servers for quite a lot of years, mostly mid-content but also end-content. Today I'm Knight tank at Pulse in the very endcontent of this game/server.

Since the Chapter5 changes the Knight does not need to collect holy seals by whitehits anymore but by hitting the target with some specific skills like Holy Strike or Holy Seal. I will tell you later how to use them on the best way.

The following guide is my personal opinion, based on a long-term experience of successfully tanking operations. I never needed Physical Attack (Patt) for tanking, but this decision is up to you.

Also I know for the current content you might not need to follow all my mentioned tips, but this guide should be independant of the current content and any instances. I'm talking about the Knight as a tank in general. I also know, everyone plays differently, so I just want to share my playstyle and base this guide on that. If you have another way that works fine for you, this guide isn't helpful for you.

I. Attributes, Stats & Pet

Your main attribute is Stamina. So you need to choose stats which main attibute(s) is stamina. The other attributes might be Defense or HP. Some Patt attributes are also working for an easier way of trash tanking, but shouldn't be required.

1. Stats and Pet

I would recommend 2 different builds: Max-HP and Average.

Max-HP build takes 5 Protector (Sta/Sta/HP/Def) and 1 red Keeper (Sta/HP). If possible, use 6 Protectors. (but at this moment there are only 5 available)

Average build takes 4 Protector and 2 Endurance (Sta/Str/Patt/Def).

There is also the way of a budget build. For this you can use even yellow stats, but only use Protection (Sta/Def) to replace non-existing Protectors, because you need much more Def than HP for the current content as long as you don't go for a full Protector build.

In either way you should choose the highest possible stats you can get and effort. I would also recomment to use a Light elemtal Pet or magical Aurora (for additional wisdom). The more wisdom you have, the more is regenerated by Holy Power Explosion. But also a physical Aurora is possible for some more HP through the strength attribute.

Using a High-Patt-Build is nonsense in my opinion. No tank needs Patt to do its job right. It might be much easier but one day you come to a point to decide if you want to stand bosses or die because of too low defense. I saw tanks working with High-Patt but they always had been on a risk. And as a tank I do not take any risks. I would recommend not to go for a High-Patt build but the Average build with 2 Endurance stats is still okay.

2. Runes

2.1 Weapon Runes

- Wrath

- Fatal

- Raid

- Hatred

2.2 General Runes

- Ferocity

- Block

- Enchantment

- Tyrant

II. Skills & Cooldowns

1. Skills you always need:

1.1 Knight General

- Holy Strike: Your filler skill for main rotation

- Enhanced Armor: You always keep this buff up. If it runs out you probably die or take decent damage. Always take care of this!

- Defense Technique: Increases your parry which is very important. Parrys decrease input damage a lot and this is passive!

- Resilience: Since stamina is your main attribute, this is essential.

- Shield of Discipline: Your main defensive cooldown.

1.2 Knight Primary Only

- Holy Shield: Use this wisly. This blocks some event damage or protects the entire party (not raid!).

- Holy Seal: This stacks instantly 4 Seals on the target which can be used directly.

- Holy Power Explosion: This is used in burst and in combination with Truth Shield Bash.

- Whirlwind Shield: Your priority 1 skill. This is your core skill for main rotation and trash as well!

- Devotion: Inceases your light damage and MP.

- Threaten: Always click this before Whirlwind Shield for gain more aggro by it. You also want to activate this with 4 Seals on the target for the maximum debuff of 54% less Patt on the boss, which decreases his damage on you.

- Shield Mastery: More defense on shield (only white values, no stats/non-stats included!)

- Shield of Valor: Your secondary defensive cooldown which increases your parry by 50%.

- Truth Shield Bash: Only use it with Holy Power Explosion. Without it does not generate any aggro!

- Holy Strength: One of your burst cooldowns. Inceases Light Damage -> Aggro.

- Hall of Dead Heroes: Decreases input damage and speeds up the party.

2. Skills you can use:

- Disarmament: Debuffs the target, but Sapping Arrows of Scout/Rogue (Lv30 Elite) will overwrite this just as Druid's Seeds.

- Shackles of Light: This roots some trash for 6 seconds. Can be used tactically for CC issues.

- Resolution: Inceases your maximum HP and restores some health. It's a good defensive cooldown but not a must-have.

- Charge: This stacks directly 2 Seals on the target and stunns it for some seconds. Do not use it to charge on mobs/bosses because you loose one global cooldown if you do.

3. Skills you never need:

- Punishment: Does some damage but you are tank, you don't deal damage. Also it consumes all sigils which is just bad. As Knight/Warrior with its Lv70 Elite, this skill becomes important for debuffing reasons.

- Shock: Same issue as Punishment. Only stunns target (no bosses) and consumes all Seals. Maybe it can be used to stun a single target in trash or interrupt it. Otherwise you can use this for pulling mobs away from healers, because its damage is mostly higher than heal aggro.

(End of Part 1)

Yeah I tested this some weeks ago, but there was a bug that displayed the default buff labels at the location of the default icons next to the minimap (which were removed), so it looked a bit messy.

Quote from Patchnotes 10.4.0.2014

Changed cenedril buffs to be passive effects

The buff is removed on class change, is this behavior intended?

Quote from melodic

...but not the 21% (210%) -> 20% issue

Well it gives 10 stacks, each 2% --> 20% might be correct

Quote from melodic

The localization of the skill "Offensive Sacrifice" [1501182] is wrong in english and german language, the buff says 210% and 105% per stack, which obviously have wrong decimal digits, I guess.

The stackable buff [1501146] however has the correct decimal digits, but provides only 20% def with 10 stacks, which should be 21% if the 210% in the skills description only have the decimal digits wrong.

Please check this and adjust the tooltips.

Cheers!

Already reported in Localizations (see this)

Quote from melodic

Quote from Zyrex

In our runs our healers sometimes wait for several minutes to get combat end for rezzing our dead ones

This usually is because of pets, nowadays warden pets and fairys seem to cause this issue, too. This might be worth to look into as well.

Cheers!

Yes, but a simple recall seems not to work properly. It feels like combat is passed between them and they all need to be called back at the same time not to be able to pass the combat to another already resummoned one again.

Quote from Magarock

I just want to have a pleasent gameplay(makes more fun to play) then a class which tilts me because i had 6 psi and loose combat and can't use a skill.....

I have no idea about warlock itself, but I think the entire combat start/end system needs an update. In our runs our healers sometimes wait for several minutes to get combat end for rezzing our dead ones. So sometimes they need to use their battle rez because they don't get any end of combat at all. Sometimes we get combat end for like half a second right in between a huge pull, that feels also strange and might break a warlock's entire rota... maybe that's why nobody of us plays warlock as dps

Hi there,

I'm looking for a SmartBuffBar (or similar) Addon that displays more than only 40 buffs in bars. Do you have an updated version or know simething equal? Thanks in advance!

I'm speaking of an addon looking like this...

Quote from Patchnotes

increase damage dealt by XYZ% instead of physical and magical damage

So this means only the type of damage that is calculated differently will change, or does it mean that those skills only increase the damage dealt by oneself, no more any others anymore?

Quote from Patchnotes

Changed Venomous Snipe to lose its effect when Snipe is used.

After a bunch of test runs, dummy parses and a huge commit into my rota, I realized that Venomous Snipe is (imho) best using it after the first snipe, so the next snipe will come out 15 seconds later, which I was delaying to 2-3 seconds left of the buff. So then the second snipe comes out, gets boosted by the Venomous Snipe and cancels it at the very last tick.

Only problem for this: Venomous Snipe triggers gcd, which feels a bit messy in between my burst. So my suggestion is to remove the gcd from this single skill.

Quote from Cruvor

• Added aura for several class buff to Baltons in Atlantis, also some of your spell cooldowns will tick faster while around these Baltons.

Greetings

Well okay nevermind then Thanks guys, that was it.

I just found a bug that halfed the cooldown time of several buffs on my S/Wl (no idea if the class mattered), such as Essence Arrow, Venomous Snipe, Ironblood and many more. It seemed that this happened when I had a specific buff running. Unfortunately I didn't realize what buff that was. First, I thought it was a general S/Wl bug, but after my buffs from yesterday ran out, the bug disappered.

I gonna do some more tests, but just wanted to let you know, that there is something out there breaking the game.

At this screenshot you see my buffs I used all at the same time, but only the ancient water spirit potion had its original 3min cd, all the others finished their cooldown much earlier (Ironblood as well, not on this screen visible).

So dwarven beer and Poisonous Surge were doing as intended, but the others didn't.

Edit: nevermind, I'm blind...

After a lot of runs with different healers I experienced that only the priest/scout seems to break my fps on some way. Unfortunately I can't really say what skill exactly is responsable for this issue. At least I guess it's something about the regeneration after the Curing Shot or such. This brought me down to 5-10 fps which was awful.

Hey there,

I would like to suggest adding a new buff tower to the guild castle inventory, which increases the movementspeed of characters by 10% on Level 10. This could make the castle way more interesting again, resources would be required more again and movementspeed is a pretty good utility for instances, but 10% is quite enough not to be too fast in my opinion.

Cheers

Hi there,

the magical wardrobe is one of the features I'm using a lot, maybe most every day. Some friends aready agreed, we need more slots in it and just like in the inventory and bank a search function. If you have more than like five or six tabs full of skins, you need a search to find anything imo. Would appreciate the search even more than more slots btw.

Quote from Marcellos

Hmm. I completely disagree with this . This is how this ability (Venomous Snipe) becomes completely useless, because it will only work on Snipe (which has a cooldown of 15 seconds).

I don't think it's useless, because your next snipe will be empowered, so even if it doesn't crit, it still is more powerful and if you don't get the crit, you can snipe once again. Also the buff just applies the damage increase to your next snipe, not any in the full 20 seconds.

Hey there,

some time ago we got the new bagpack pages 7-12, which is really useful. But could you maybe add an option to show all the 12 bags on one single window? Sorting and ordering stuff between the first and last 6 pages is pretty annoying, since you always need to swtich the tab to the other six bags. So the result would be one view with all 12 bags shown at the same time.

S/Wl:

• Changed Venomous Snipe to do not provide poison damage anymore, increased Snipe damage increment to 24% from 8%.
• Reduced Poisonous Will poison damage gain to 118% from 125%.
• Increased Elemental Discipline focus recovery chance to 35% from 30%.

This looks pretty good imo. The burst dps was bit too much before and focus sustain bit too less, so this will fix both I guess. I could imagine the 15% less poison damage will matter in trash by using 3min cooldowns, but we will see.

Other stuff:

Quote from Patchnotes

(...) Every creature killed will inflict 2% damage to tactic object.

I also appreciate the changes to Jerath event, finally killing mobs is relevant now (if I get this right). So ppl now kill mobs constantly to damage the boss as well? This could bring some more dynamics to the fight and require some positioning skills I guess. Sounds good.

The cooldown could also make the whole thing much more teamwork related as well, hope it works as intended.

Quote from Patchnotes

Added physical attack, attack speed and bad luck aura to Nayat, Siddartha and Krishna in Realm of Forgotten Legends Hard Mode.

What is this aura? Something that happens if someone missclicked a debuff that makes the specific boss stronger to force the party to communicate better and coordinate the clicks? Appreciate this if I get it right.

Quote from Patchnotes

Changed Balton to re-apply poison every 3 seconds instead of 5 in Realm of Forgotten Legends Hard Mode

So this should implement a dps and heal check I guess. It already was ok to me, but we will see how this evolves.

In our latest runs I realized that Balton had a quite long immune phase after respawning the first time. Can you somehow reduce this, since it's annoying not to be able to aggro him asap as a tank and in some cases he runs straight to a supporter and onehits him. Thats kinda rng and shouldn't happen imo.

Quote from Rakot_Hades

This is all fine but we are talking about end game

That's the point. Are we only talking about endgame and one meta for everything, based on only our endgame experience?

Quote from espar91

Quote from Zyrex

Totally agree to this, but still you need to accept even those player who might not understand how mechanics and stuff works, who have higher pings than skyscrapers and these who play on their own built pc system for like 30 years now.

wait, what? why would i accept that people apparently have no idea about "how mechanics and stuff works" should get a boost just because some other people know how to play? i mean, instead of learning how to play -

if they have ping or old computer, thats their own issue, not related with class balance. it is like adding auto aim to players who have low fps in an first person shooter game.

Don't get me wrong, I don't talk about those leechers that don't do anything in ROFL and let others die for their core. I'm talking about players who might not have that much knowledge of the game yet or need some help but are willed to evolve and to do progress. I saw many ppl that were very lost in the CoA-Universe, but after helping them with rota or such, they were able to come to terms with it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Quote from melodic

Quote from Zyrex

Strength is strongest

Wisdom is wisest

Intelligence is intelligest

Stamina is Stanning

What about dex then?

I haven't dextected this yet

Quote from espar91

Quote from Zyrex

On the other hand we got guilds that still struggle on Inferno, Tikal, maybe Gorge.

don't take it personally, if people are struggling with running tikal/inferno/gorge with current overboosted classes, then they should not call themselves a properly playing dps. even in 2018 these instances were possible to run with 1-2 dps with classes alot weaker than current class combinations.

Not taken as such, as it doesn't relate to me or my guild Totally agree to this, but still you need to accept even those player who might not understand how mechanics and stuff works, who have higher pings than skyscrapers and these who play on their own built pc system for like 30 years now. I mean, we all play the same game and want to have fun altogether, so noone should get disadvantages of behavior of others. I don't blaim anyone not to play endgame or not to use a combat engine or whatever.

Quote from melodic

Actually we too have those dummies since a few patches, however they seem to not work correctly, receiving different amounts of dmg that not fit their debuffs....

Yeah, maybe we need some more, maybe also some "trash"-simulation with separated fields of 5, 10, 15, 20 dummys with trashmob values

Strength is strongest

Wisdom is wisest

Intelligence is intelligest

Stamina is Stanning

I think plate is missing, also rating strength for gear types is not the way I guess...

Quote from Snickers0815

Quote from deszcz2

In my opinion balance should be first done in one class and it's different combos(so every combo of this call will be viable), and then level all classes to same/similar dmg(so everything will be playable). (but this is how i would do balance)

That is probably a question of how one would like to carry out the balancing. In my opinion it is difficult to balance all classes in their combinations first and then to other classes because there is no real component that can be adjusted to make all secondary classes better or worse with one change. So I prefer to set a benchmark and then adjust all classes to the value. You would then have to decide whether you want to divide the classes into categories (aoe, support, single target damage, burst damage...) and how much you weight which category. (By that I mean how much damage can you "take away" from a class if it has good support skills.)

Well but that is probably an independent topic and is decided by the devs.

I think we are circling around for some days/weeks. Only a few classes get balanced atm, most is about warden and champ, sometimes a rogue appears in patchnotes (as I feel it). Imho balancing is not possible in the current content, since we have a too massive gap in the playerbase in terms of gear.

On one hand we got the (more or less) golden player raids which just destroy all inis and bosses in a leap. On the other hand we got guilds that still struggle on Inferno, Tikal, maybe Gorge. BUT we need a balancing that matches them all, or at least most of them.

The way how it's done currently is not the way I think it's effective nor efficient. Most players complaining about their very own favorite classes and are not objective, that's a problem. Also all our raids are completely different, in our guild runs the wardens are absolute overpowered, on others the mages, and so on. It all depends on so many factors, such as available support, gear, rota engine (custom lua, kitty, diyce, slayer, whatever). So that all makes no sense at all to me.

What we need is a unite environment to test stuff. On other games I saw dummy parses where you burst on a dummy to reach a specific amount of damage and check the time after that. Same could be done for AoE with multiple dummys. But ROFL is imho the worst example to compare classes/raids or to balance classes at all.

Hey there,

I just found some old Destiny Rings in my chest and would like to see them added to the itemshop in some way. Maybe on a promo or sale, but I think, there are many players without having the speed buff and would like to be faster. Maybe this could be used for the starter gear as a 7 days one.