Thinking to Grind a Knight

[Tamui]

Title says it all. For some reason the class struck me and I wish to have one.
Now I've searched the forums, read old threads and this is what I have on summary for grinding;

• Skills Knock-Downs as high as you can

• Taunt is useful as it has range, -%Protection and Low Mana usage

• Skill the Weapon tree damage spell and passive(except Dexterity/ Athletic) as high as you can.

Ok, I know that this class takes slow to grind, I'll take a shot at it.
Now I have some questions regarding grinding,war and spells themselves.

Is there a specific tree(Slash/Piercing/Blunt) which is best for grinding?
Should I aim for a fast, medium or slow weapon? Or it doesn't matter?
Which are the primary trees to focus on while leveling?
Should I focus a lot on Stone Temple whilst grinding? How about at war?

Troll Skin. When should I use it? Grinding, war or both? Versus a DoT or just cast it like any normal spell?

I've read somewhere that long time ago, a lot used level 1 spells such as Charge(1) or Gutting(1). I think it was mentioned for war, to have a little attack as a tanker/support. My question is;
Are they still viable? Do level 1 spells do more than your normals. Do you think the difference is huge in damage for a knight to have a damaging spell level 1 or 5?

Apart these questions, any tips/hints you might want to add?


Thanks!

[Awrath]

Originally Posted by Tamui

Is there a specific tree(Slash/Piercing/Blunt) which is best for grinding?

Go for which ever weapon you have with the most damage.

Originally Posted by Tamui

Should I aim for a fast, medium or slow weapon? Or it doesn't matter?

Again, go for whichever has the most damage. The difference in DPS isn't that great when grinding.

Originally Posted by Tamui

Which are the primary trees to focus on while leveling?

Max damage as much as possible, max knocks, max caution.

Originally Posted by Tamui

Should I focus a lot on Stone Temple whilst grinding? How about at war?

Stone temple can be useful, extra health means extra time spent grinding without resting and it also means faster health regen when resting.

Originally Posted by Tamui

Troll Skin. When should I use it? Grinding, war or both? Versus a DoT or just cast it like any normal spell?

I personally don't find troll skin very useful in war due to the number of MS and the incredibly long cool down. I've never used it in my grind set up.

Originally Posted by Tamui

I've read somewhere that long time ago, a lot used level 1 spells such as Charge(1) or Gutting(1). I think it was mentioned for war, to have a little attack as a tanker/support. My question is;
Are they still viable? Do level 1 spells do more than your normals. Do you think the difference is huge in damage for a knight to have a damaging spell level 1 or 5?

Level 1 spells do a teeny bit more than normals, but IMO, if you throw in GCD and the fact that they can't be piggy backed, you're probably better off having them higher than level 1 or sticking to normals.

Originally Posted by Tamui

Apart these questions, any tips/hints you might want to add?

I'm glad you chose to try a knight, I would say that a support knight is far more useful to a group than a knarb though both are quite fun, I prefer support myself.

WIth regards to grinding, yes, make use of taunt. I find you get more DPS with RoL than DS rings, so use them if you can. If you get any offers of help from conjus ask them to skill material wall 5, level 5 heals as well as bless weapon 5 and bear strength 5, then you can grind comfortably and fairly quick with offensive stance.

Try to find items with +STR bonuses (vespy pauldrons for example for when you reach 50) for grinding and make use of the passive +STR in the blunt and pierce trees. In the early stages grinding sucks :| but it does improve as you get more points for skills and higher damage (but still sucks).

Good luck!

[Evangeline]

Originally Posted by Tamui

• Skills Knock-Downs as high as you can

You know Skit? he uses kick lvl 1 and it never failed, at least never failed on me always worked, bug or not its true ^.^

[71175]

Another useful note: if you only going to use normals for slow weapons ( assuming you have no RoLs) you need knocks lvl1/3/5 and for medium one lvl2/4.

[Tamui]

Originally Posted by nohan

You know Skit? he uses kick lvl 1 and it never failed, at least never failed on me always worked, bug or not its true ^.^

I do. Those three points where for grinding though. I don't think it's viable to have them on 1 while grinding. Or am I wrong?

[VandaMan]

Awrath's pretty much got it right. I didn't find knight hard to grind at all, actually. Slower to kill stuff than a barbarian, but with the right armor plus knocks I was able to grind nearly nonstop, with no resting.

About the level 1 skills, the main reason they were used a long time ago is because level 1 skills used to cost no power points, if you had the tree leveled up to that skill. They do more than your normal hits (although not by much) and more importantly, you can't "phantom swing" on them. I'm not sure phantom swings are as huge of a problem now as they used to be, and you no longer get the first level of powers free... so if you're going to use charge or forceful blow or whatever, you may as well level it as high as you can.

[Hollow-Ichigo]

A good way to grind is to use lvl 5 knocks and offensive stance. That way you get the mob kill without losing hp unless its resisted, i preferred to use spear because some mobs cant attack from range 2, balestra usually helps with this.

[Enitharmon]

It's quite useless with knockdowns on level 1 while grinding, I don't even understand why it's mentioned in a thread with this title...

In some older thread DkySven mentioned this technique:
1) Taunt a mob
2) Cast Block
3) Wait until mob reaches you and does first hit - tap movement key to cancel Block, and then Kick/Feint. (personal addendum: if you time it right you may get a "free" hit in before you piggyback knockdown)

Then you normal hit the mob until it dies. If it will save you a hit, use Forceful/Charge/Gutting to finish it off. (After killing a few mobs of the same type you'll soon be able to estimate if you need normal or spell by watching its HP bar)
Since I don't like waiting for cooldowns while grinding, I knock a nearby mob with my second knockdown (the highest level, in case they differ) and kill it, while Taunt is on CD.
This way you can grind forever without resting, only getting hit the few times you get resist/mass evades.

I keep only lvl2/3 Taunt and Block, since they need less mana than higher levels. If I used a faster weapon, higher level Taunt would probably be better.

Since you have another char, get 2 x Ring of Lightning.

I never bother with the Str passives since the damage they add is neglible, and if you'll be grinding in the WZ you'll want the powerpoints for war/anti-ganker defense spells. Though if you have 1 spare power point, put it in Lethal Anatomy, at least you can carry more loot then.

With the technique described above you could theoretically be able to grind in Offensive Stance and/or without armour, however in my own experience this just adds more stress while not being much faster. If you get a knockdown resist you easily lose 1k+ HP, and your knockdown CD's limit your pace anyway.


All that said, the fastest way by far is to find a big party and leech off them with auras. I find solo grinding using the above method to be very relaxing, so I don't mind it being slower. Though if you care about racing to 60 as fast as you can, get a party.

[Imago-Thunderfist]

I love to grind knights (got 2 60 1 50 from Horus), and what helps enormously is the resists on your armor. That is the difference between grinding very fast and with pleasure and hell.

Since I barely know Syrtian grindspots and mobs for most levels I can't really help with that but there's 1 thing that is very very very important to know, when you get 35-6, get your hands on shop-bought Full Plate armor (at 36 you can get 1 of the most beautiful shields in RO, Protector I thought, Very Good to piercing as well), caution isn't that necessary in this case, and go to wherever Green Worker Wasps are. Even without caution these will hit 9-11 on you (crits are higher without caution) and you'll get from 35 to 38 without resting.

And when grinding a knight: Resists over Bonuses any time! Don't be afraid to buy shop armor, since it can make grinding fun and easy. Another plus about grinding knight: if you're doing it the right way and have the right resists your HP will be rarely below 70%, this makes you at 45+ hard to gank for hunters, just make sure you have Def Stance. I once even managed to kill a level 60 hunter when I was level 38, combination of the right resists and a tree.

Good luck!

[Tamui]

Thanks guys. Helps me understand better. Ok since Awrath answered most of my questions; I'm going to repeat one question.

About Troll skin. I see alot of people casting it. Those green fluff everytime they cast. Anyway, does anyone really use it? Or just crap who wants big hp number?

Another one; speaking of resists. I've seen a thread listing the known/think the mob damage is. I can't seem to find it. Anyone can help me out?

Thanks again guys. Feel free to post more