It’s all about the total number of tanks on a raid team. All the tanks can fill the MTO, with very little down side on any of them. Warriors may mitigate a slight bit more (ever so slight) but the self healing of knights surpasses that by a large margin, even on raids. Knights (both of them) have greater utility to a raid than Warriors. Warriors bring dps, I guess if needed, but that is better suited to add another dps class to the raid. The real question is why do raid teams still carry warriors? The biggest problem with SKs is there are a lot that play them, but there are VERY few who play them amazing. An amazingly played SK can show you how powerful the class really is. Sadly most of the EQ community rarely sees it.
There are more warriors because of disc tanking, and warriors quit less. There are more paladins because it takes an act of god to get a paladin to quit. SKs burn out all the time.
Those who burn the brightest burn the shortest, and then you have the greatest, we just turn into black holes!
Alot of times comparisons(not yours) miss the mark because AAs and Gear are overlooked. Both of those things matter with any tank class. A well AA'd and geared tank is a thing of beauty. Subpar in either category means you get swatted a bit...... of the two AAs or gear, I think AAs are more important. My SK is max AA. I got bored made another SK. One has 40% of the AAs of the one at max AA.....it's a whole different ballgame with the SK that is not max AA. Abilities are shorter in duration, proc less, have lower self heal amounts, longer cast times vs. the max AA SK.
Lmao... SKs need love in the nerf area maybe. However, they get so much already, stop being greedy. You honestly think SKs need more love than necros? For limit slots, no dot revamp. Etc....
Of the only 10 raid guilds to defeat all TBL, there is a tie on active Paladins/Shadowknights: 35 each. With the next 10 guilds that are currently stuck on the final raid: 32 active Paladins and 44 Shadowknights If you go below the top 20 raid guilds, the amount of Shadowknights to Paladins becomes laughable. Just to reiterate as I have for many years now, SK is the favorite group game and raid knight currently for obvious reasons. This has been the case since CoTF/TBM. If Paladins were the blatant flavor of the month Knight/tank for multiple expansions, numbers would look quite a bit different.
Funny, I see the opposite. Pallies are all but extinct. The absence of significant undead in EOK/ROS/TBL certainly helped that.
One package with at (or near) best tank, aggro, dps, self healing, and pulling. No other class comes close in total power. I watched a group geared SK solo the final boss of TBL Trial of Ashes/Cliff whatev for 3+ minutes, with two monster AOE, and adds. We won. He could have gone longer. No other class could come anywhere close to that IMO.
From healing these knights for nearly 20 years... SKs need <much> less healing in general! More importantly they seem less likely to die due to spikey damage. Pallys just seem to go splat much more quickly. Both group and raid situations!
Pally Splash, the greatest Paladin death invention there ever was. "Why didn't you heal yourself Paladin1?" "I was busy casting Splash...."