FearTheGriff wrote:This might of been discussed earlier on in the thread, but I'm starting to play a dps kotbs for the first time. Would anyone be able to give some tips please?
Well here is my experience playing a 2h Knight and also playing around with SnB....
As a 2H Knight, even maxing out damage and losing armor via Focused Offense you wont deal amazing damage, so if you are expecting fatty crits with a decently tanky character, youll be let down a little.
I typically run Resist/Toughness/STR auras with:
waronlinebuilder.org - Knight of the Blazing Sun build
I dont bother with Blazing Blade, just use Precision.
Stack Parry % (renown + 3% ring) to proc Runefang.
Taunt is your best friend, I put this on "1" and use it EVERYTIME its up. 30% damage boost.
5/5 Duelist set is huge as its a 10% chance for a free taunt. Its a HUGE boost to damage.
My rotation usually consists of something like:
Crippling Blow -> Stagger Impact -> Shatter (if available) -> taunt -> Vicious/Precision/Shining -> Shatter -> Crippling. (all situational of course).
What I have noticed is that everyone ignores the Knight. If everyone realized that a 2H Knight isnt actually all that tanky my guess is people would focus us more and the class would be pathetic. I literally had a game against a premade where they pretended I was invisible, frankly because I dont deal great damage thus solo cant kill anything in a real game.
Which brings me back to the fact that IMO I think it would be FUN and add more options if the class could open up its damage ability a bit at the cost of tankiness (like Focused Offense giving more like 30% damage bonus instead of 15%).
The "best" guys in the game (like Hurgon) have the Brigand's weapon, I use the PVP 2h. You will see games where Knights top the damage charts but frankly its more illusion than anything. Most times this happens its a knight running the "all out assault" aura that ticks everyone in range for ~100. Its not focused damage at all and really doesnt do all that much in real games. Then because people ignore the tank since they dont have good control nor any way to reduce heals nor any amazing burst, its easy to HoT out heal our damage so noone cares to DPS us when they can focus on squishy targets that actually do damage.
Thats how I feel. As for tanking, you can make them BEASTS of a tank and feel like you can take on 10 guys at once and not die however your damage is complete crap and you basically are valuable just to "show up" and have auras + crit buffs up and the occasional taunt/disrupt casters but mainly just be a MDPS slave and stay in 30 feet of them (something you should do anyways, just as DPS you actually do damage too).
TenTonHammer wrote:Heres how my old guild back on livedid dps kotbs in parties, we had 2 kotbs, 1 was your standard SnB defensive kotbs the other one was a dps kotbs but they primiarly focused on defensive stats to mitigate guard damage What running 2 allowed us to do was break up that 20% grp crit and 15% grp heal and auras between our 2 tanks which let them slot more more/diffrent tactics and auras
our dps tank carried STR , Tough aura and resist and ran EA, slice through, rugged/banish darkness and rune fang and our def tank ran DT and FM, then depending on their mood the picked from a variety of tactic like Slice through, runefang, gilded shield, rugged, banish darkness
Basically the dps tank ( for us ) existed to allow our kotbs more freedom in auras and tactic options and to cast staggering impact
Solid setup forsure. We were running a 2 Knight party this morning basically doing a similar thing today with a WP, 2 Knight, Slayer, AM(heals) and BW. Only 1 group but was a great time stacking auras + buffs.
Overall I again just wish 2H was a little more viable. A little more "DPS-y" and id even be willing to give up tankiness - although already feel like Focused Offense is enough of a loss giving up 33% armor and w.e benefit you would get from that tactic slot (most likely toughness)....
Even just giving us access to Arcing Swing now would make a HUGE difference in viability of the 2H Knight. Id also love Staggering to be a 10 sec CD rather than 30 which makes it really lack luster IMO, but there is nothing else to pick...