I am cutting out the quote of the parts not related to the question you replied to. I have an SK and Pally. And I am maining a Pally, after spending about 5 years with an SK main. I am not looking for recommendations for myself. I am interested in finding out the reasons behind people's arguments/choices? So what class do you play, Dre.? And why do you prefer the SK for "everyone else"? And how would me playing both SK and Pally allow me to find out why *you* would pick an SK for everybody else?
It's my feeling that most folks are on Shd because Shd has a lower barrier to entry, and an ~infinitely higher skill floor. It's very easy to do things that feel stupidly powerful on Shd - like HT any random thing, or, germane to this thread, click epic to become functionally immortal. Even when not clicking any buttons at all, the Mortal Coil, Presence of Fear, Dark Absorption AAs float the character's toughness incredibly. A bad Shd is wildly more powerful than a bad Pal. Nearly all the actual tools for each knight class have their parallels in the other class, with some plusses, some minuses going both ways (this ain't the thread for Crusader's Mantle talk.). There's more variance on aesthetics than numbers in the final analysis. But they all only matter for good players that use them, and that's the rub. There's no freebies for paladin players. Either you use the tools, and are thereby good (potentially you use all the tools, and are very good!), or you don't and you're just a hole in the group/raid line up. There's even, uniquely on the paladin side, bad choices to make. A Shd who only ever chain taps through every battle ever is kinda still Doing The Thing, meeting expectations etc. Could be that there's better ways to play, adapting to encounters, but basically they're fine. Paladins have to choose with their spell casts the Agro things, or the Healing HoTT things, or the Healing Group things, or the Stun things, or the Damage things, and choosing wrong means being notably ineffective. Not meeting expectations. Also there are spells in the book that kinnnnda do none of those? lol one got buffed in the recent patch. You mention swapping from knight to knight after five years of play, and there's something to appreciate in already knowing how to play a knight generally. There are some different tools to take on, adjustments to make from one set to the other. But transitioning like that almost completely obviates risk of flailing about doing nothing, and so feeling bad. Not to put words in Dre.'s mouth, but one possibility for wanting others to play SK is having higher expectations for unknown and possibly bad players.
For me, when I was deciding whether to start over more or less with the Paladin or go back to the (higher Level at the time) Shadowknight, I essentially played both again for a while to get a feel for the differences, see which class had an edge where, what I was looking for regarding what I wanted to do and whether I felt the tradeoffs were worth it. And I have to admit, it was a close thing. Every single friend I had that was raiding said the same thing. Play a Shadowknight. Pallies can't do crap. SKs are just plain better. But a little stubborn side to me said even if SK was better *for them* it did not have to mean that it was better for me. So I did my testing to see which I prefer and see whether I could live with things. And there was a while around Level 115, when I was unable to solo and SKs were, that I was really, really tempted to give up on the Paladin. But I did not and I am quite happy with the choice. The way I personally see things and feel free to disagree with me, I don't mind: SK: 1) Has massively improved passive HP gain over the Paladin 2) Has way better tools at getting and maintaining aggro on multiple mobs 3) Travels better (Invis, Feign Death) 4) Vastly better soloer. 5) Way higher damage output. Pally: 1) Can self heal just as well as the SK in my opinion, possibly even better, but it is *active* healing , means that I need to click things. Constantly. Okay, I can live with that. 2) Yeah, no getting around the fact that my AE Taunts are weaker. But to be fair, most of the time I really, really do not want to Tank multiple raid mobs anyway. ;-) I am fine taking whichever add is the strongest, keeping that one locked down and letting someone else Tank 2 weaker ones. One example, when we were doing older Open Raids about 6 months ago, my Paladin did better MTing Zlandi and having an SK take over Dracoliches at the end than the other way around. 3) Did research, stocked up on immense supplies of Invis potions, found out about Feign Death potions and now carry those. Problem solved. 4) I absolutely hate soloing. I would rather not play than Solo. Problem solved. 5) I am playing a Tank. I do not care about the damage. If I did, I would play a DPSer (and did for years - Druid and Beastlord) I love being able to bring utility to the raid and fulfill more than one role. Advantage Pally. I still maintain that the Pally has parity with the SK all in all. Some things we are weaker at, some things we are better at. But stay in your lane, stick with doing the things you are good at, let SKs do the stuff they are good at and off you go. But you really really need to find out every thing you possibly can from great players about what the Paladin can do. Need to do research. Know how to cover potential weaknesses. Just check how many Paladin related threads I kicked off. It's where I pick up that knowledge. Eke out a little more performance here and there. Check what I missed and can do better. I have never had a situation on Raids where anybody said "It would have been better if you were an SK." and I have had multiple situations where people said "Thank god for the Pally." So (sorry for the wall of text), this is *my* reasoning for playing the Pally over the SK. It is absolutely fine if people disagree with me and it is absolutely fine if people find that they cannot live with the things I can live with, things are dealbreakers and it does not work for *them*. I would still like to hear what *their* reasons were for their decisions. Who knows. I might learn something more. And gain even more of an understanding of the classes.
Oh, and thank you very much Szilent for posting your take on the differences between Pally and SK. I really appreciate it.
Funny you mention that, most games penalize being naughty as it is the easier choice, it's harder to do the right thing.
I think Szilent is on to something. Its much easier to be an ok SK than an ok Paladin. One way to balance things I suppose would be give Paladin a much higher skill ceiling. A perfectly played pal always does more damage and tanks better, but its really hard to do. So you have the easy tank and the hard tank.
Anyone selling you on "SKs are OP, Paladins are vastly under powered" 1. is wrong 2. has been crusading to nerf SKs and OP Pallies since EQ launched, no matter what the relationship between the classes was at the time. Truth is, both hold aggro exceptionally well, single target or AE, and both tank well. Paladins heal much better (they just have to push a button *gasp*) and truth be told, do way too much dps than they should (though not as out of line as Warriors, of course). Some people though insist on RPing an "us vs them" role and won't be happy until Paladins are the only tanks, dps, and healers in the game, having SKs just FD in a corner waiting for the SK only loot.
Pallies are in the same hole as rangers. As long as slay is around they won't get any real progress on getting any other kind of bonus/balance/parity with SK.
I don't think slay matters. Its a nice bonus against 1 mob type for damage. However, ignoring the vast dps gulf between the 2 classes, there are many other ways that SKs are superior (easy and better agro, op epic click, ect).
Rangers are in no way, shape or form in a hole due to the nature of any specific thing. I assume you're referring to headshot, multiple DPS classes and 1 tank class can beat rangers with headshots and have been for multiple expansions now. Headshot itself is not even scaled appropriately, it does less than it should have scaled to by now and is a multi-year gap that continues to worsen. Rangers are in a hole because those in charge are uninterested in doing anything about it. Every portion of this class has seen nothing but degradation vs content with the exception of /autofire DPS in the last 8 years. The gap was less noticeable as we peeled away from TBM but much like Berserkers saw at the same exact time; once crit maxes and you receive nothing for upgrades year over year matters get worse. Berserkers flattened first because of our hybrid side, once spells started to flatten so did we.
I wasn't saying it's a good deal at all, just that I think the devs think along the lines of "oh they can go solo at that one camp with bonus dps" and as a result aren't tuning anything positively.
Paladin dps is awful (except on undead), and generally paladin DPS will be even worse with a sword/board while tanking on raids, while SK can top DPS parses. SK can also self heal better than paladins can while holding aggro (lifetap builds aggro and due to dmg/heal focuses stacking, is huge for heals, and then there's the epic 2.0). Paladins can only build aggro while healing with 1 spell (valiant). SK can even out-dps paladins on undead in certain circumstances Anyone saying SK aren't OP is 100% wrong and trying to avoid admitting the truth
thats true, but most paladins that you speak of just need guidance on how to play their class instead of mindlessly hitting buttons. i think daybreak gave the impression that a paladin need only show up to an event and instantly become the hero, however it wasnt the case. they actually need to use that thing on their shoulders occasionally.
This is why DPS groups are made up of SKs+adps, right? SK dps just as dependent on not using shield and they only top the parse when everyone else died or was slacking AND they had optimal adps, which is atypical. That's raid ofc, group dps is ridiculous for war and sk both with adps.
I am kinda curious, why do you think there are more people playing Shadowknights than there are Warriors and Paladins combined?
