Warrior or SK?

Started a SK and Shaman Iksar combo on Mangler. I think this will be a good combo but before I invest too much time was wondering which is better Warrior or SK with Shammy? I most likely will just be grouping probably not raiding, but could change later.

Thanks for any advice

SK, especially if you dont plan on raiding. they have more tools than a warrior, and the difference in tanking group content is minimal

I hear to go SK/Shaman a lot, my major hesitations about SK is that I'm worried that you would run into Mana issues without a bard or enchanter regen that warrior doesnt have to deal. It also just seems like warrior is a lot better dps, but maybe thats just at low lvl's.

I'm going back on forth right now on Selo's too as whether to create a SK or a Warrior.

My war is 37 on Mangler and had no issues holding aggro at all with the provoke tome.

At level 25, your shaman can make Clarity potions and Elixirs of Greater Concentration potions. These can give lots of mana to the SK. At level 52, the SK gets a proc spell that generates mana. This gives enormous amounts of mana. At level 58, the SK gets a lich spell effect trading health for mana.

Add all of these things up and your SK should have buckets of mana to use.

A warrior has terrible aggro for a long time. They simply need more low level options in my opinion. Regardless, your shaman is going to steal aggro using their poison DOT spells from both the warrior and the SK. However, the SK has better and more snape aggro and aggro holding tools for a long time (Cling Darkness, terrors, lifetaps, etc.)

In the end, either will work, have no fear. Assume the warrior and SK hold aggro the same. Assume the warrior tanks group content slightly better (ignore SK lifetap potentials). The SK shear amount of toys (snare, FD split, invis, self healing, FAST mount AA, etc.) just makes for a nicer Quality of Life for the duo.

I'm all for SK > War in group content. But Mangler SKs wont see that manatap proc for another 6 months and likely the same amount of time for the first Lich spell unless they get lucky and win the one off Yelinak in Velious.

That is true, but in the Kunark only era, the Greater Concentration potion and the available Clarity potions that the shaman can make are plenty of mana regen.

Additional Info:

Velious adds a +1 mana regen shoulders (shawl quest, can duo this).

Luclin adds a +3 mana regen shoulders (shawl quest, need full group), +1 mana regen earring (solo), +4 mana regen from AAs, and fast mount AA.

POP adds a major lich spell upgrade and ornate boots (bazaar/expensive quest).

The mana regen growth potential is nice and not something to worry about very much.

SK viable raid off tank if I decide to raid later on, or only warriors?

Yes an sk(or pally) is fine for off tanking. Probably more common than a warrior on raids. Trash, adds, mini bosses, that kind of stuff the knights will typically do. Just don't expect to to main tank any of the boss mobs on a raid as knight. It's just not a very efficient way to raid. Pretty much what has already been said, if you want to tank in groups pick a knight if you want to tank bosses on raids pick a warrior.

On current live raid content, knights are perfect viable raid boss main tanks. A warrior will be less spiky, but if you don't have warriors in your raid, you can still use knights to MT Raid Bosses. Also, raid trash and mini in some raids are also hard hitters, way more than some earlier expansions, and knights can tank them well too.
The gap between warrior and knight in live content is small really in term of mitigation.

Nothing knights can do compares with defensive discipline. If you want to MT on raids, you need to be a Warrior. This is pretty much the case on all in-era content (nobody cares about who tanks old trivial content) from Velious through PoP on Coirnav so far (where raiding was actually more than just bum rushing a dragon). Even the encounters supposedly tailored to knights tanking like CT in PoTime (due to fearless) are still better off using 2 Warriors sharing agro if/when the other gets feared. Towards the end of an expansion my SK was able to tank things like ST dragons and Seru, but Warriors were the choice when it mattered.

SKs are fun on raids because you get good snap agro on adds, which can be fast paced play during clears if the pulls are coming fast and furious (they should be). Getting agro on mobs before they even get to the raid is useful in places like PoTime P3 when clearing trash is the main part of the encounter.

SKs also get great burst DPS every 36 minutes when Unholy Aura is up, which allows them to make appearances on the DPS parses when properly geared (no focuses on Mangler may affect that a bit). Early in expansions that 36 minute cool down is pretty close to the time between raid targets, so you can use it almost every encounter. It's fun watching the DPS classes get butt hurt when they see the SK beat them at the only thing they bring to the table (good luck getting raid leaders to acknowledge this and give the SKs a Bard group though).

Three or four Clinging Darkness will hold aggro from pretty much any other class. Mana is definitely rough in the first 50 levels. After 58, you'll really never worry about mana again.

Second the SK over Warrior for group content, snares, FD splitting, passive healing etc make it a better choice for boxing as a duo.

Is it really that big of a deal to roll warrior and mostly group tank but maybe sometimes off tank raid maybe just maybe… raiding is hard with my schedule my buddy is clr/ench and my other buddy is a bard. I like warrior weapons and dual wielding ; not totally against sk I played one back in the day

Speaking from experience with both - Knights on Phinny and currently a Warrior main on Aradune.

Warrior all day long, if you have the support from a dedicated group (Cleric, Bard, Monk etc.) and will have access to raid gear. If these 2 boxes are checked there is no comparison - not even up until live. Knights can get the job done, but Warriors are still way out ahead with proper support.

If you do not have the support from a dedicated group or will not have raid gear than the choice will favor the Knight, but imo Warriors will still feel stronger in most situations.

In groups? I've mained a warrior for 20+ years and I have no issue stating SKs are simply better gorup tanks. 2.0 and mortal coil are basically cheat codes to invincibility. This isn't to say warriors are super strong in group settings, but SKs are undoubtedly stronger. They just have the irreplaceable ability of being able to put hp back onto themselves that warriors simply don't have. Have you ever been in a group as a warrior with an SK hitting 2.0? You basically become a demi-god and that's a gimped down version of the buff that SKs get.

There's a reason you see SKs swarming dozens of mobs in current content for large periods of this game and you don't see the warriors doing the same. Warriors simply don't have the self healing power to sustain that kind of swarming the deeper into the game. Things like 2.0 only get more powerful as SK melee dps increases. Warriors cannot hold a candle to it.

Before I can rebut, what eras are you referring? Live?

Does it matter? There's basically no era in which a warrior would be considered better group tank. The only one I can think of in recent memory would be CoTF (of old, not even today) when NTTB and stances were first released in their stupid broken OP state. NTTB was 100% uptime and Def prof not only was an insane DI mitigation number but, if I recall correctly, was found to stack with defensive disc giving warriors close to 100% DI mitigation lmao. We were basically immortal. That has since changed and nobody in the game will ever experience that "era" again.

That was what, closing in on 10 years ago? SKs have ruled the territory of superior group tanks basically forever. A warrior and sk of equal skill and you'll have the SK winning out in almost all group situations.

So, crash n'burn, which did you pick? Or have you still been trying to decide, these 3+ years?

The era absolutely matters as abilities are gained for the Warrior that push them further from Knight tanks and therefore I wholeheartedly disagree with you.

On Aradune and up until TSS so far my consistently just about BiS Warrior has outperformed my equally geared just about BiS Shadow Knight from Phinigel - my static group agrees as well. There are things that I can do in the group + raid game that my Shadow Knight wouldn't have survived through given equal gear [Epic 2.0, Maxed AAs, Tank clickies, etc,] and similar box composition (3 players, playing 2 boxes each).

2.0 + Mortal Coil + Other support AAs for the Shadow Knight makes them insane for that short time. However, I'm thinking of the overall time spent tanking continuously. In my opinion, they are just not on par with a Warrior (up until this point, TSS) that doesn't need all the tricks to feel like a God, much less a 'Demi-God'.

A group geared Warrior vs Shadow Knight, well I don't really see either of them surviving in the harshest conditions as the leap from group gear to raid is significant until it's tiered 4 levels and even then it's still noticeably inferior. This is the only area where I would give the SLIGHT edge to the Shadow Knight, but only just. The scale is ever so swayed because it's far easier to max out a Warrior at this stage than a Shadow Knight (less AAs are needed and such).

(If you'd ever like to do some tests on Aradune, please PM me and we'll get together in Frostcrypt or Ashengate and use my Warrior versus an equally geared Shadow Knight (I have a few in mind) and see where limits are met.)

- Edit, we should do this every expansion from here on to see the results. -