I am thinking about adding a tank to my mage druid chanter box team. It seems like SK's are everywhere like rabbits. So I was leaning warrior or paladin. Warrior seems the easiest to box, but paladin seems cool and unique. But maybe there is a reason you don't see paladins anymore? Am I handicapping myself by choosing pally? Should I just forget adding a 4th and keep using mage pet to tank? What say you, forum?
I'd probably go with warrior, for the reason you mentioned: it's way easier to box. You can box a warrior at a pretty effective level without a ton of work. Pallys...not so much.
I run a mag-mag-dru-pal. The paladin does okay. He does not tank as well as mage earth pets unless under all possible discs and AA buffs. His main contribution is AOE heals and undead slows/dps. I think a warrior or sk is probably preferable if you already have a healer. Paladin can be a lot of fun, but won't be the most powerful tank in that slot imo.
Warrior is probably your best choice due to it being easier to box. SK isn't a bad choice but you'll probably want to improve your setup to properly integrate it.
SK The three toons you have already multi-bind very well into just a few keys each and they don't need to worry about positioning at all. Nothing keeps AE aggro like an SK, and that's what you'll want most with those casters. Warriors lose a lot of DPS without melee support (like a shaman, bard, beast, etc.). I think SK's really synergize the best with pure caster groups like yours.
PAL main here, and I box ENC/MAG/WIZ. If you want to box the tank, play a WAR. If you want to play the tank, then any will work. The tank will need more armor than you think to be able to tank. You will not notice a big improvement while tanking trash and simple quest stuff. The player character tank will help against nameds and in tougher tasks, but will require some effort to manage discs and such.
I’m just not sure how this is even close to true. I tank 6 Sarnaks at a time in FM just fine on my level 106, under-geared, significantly under-AA’ed (auto grant only) Paladin. Are you telling me a mage earth pet can tank 7+ sarnaks at a time in FM all while holding agro on all of them? I’m honestly curious on the answer to this.
How many people are healing you? Because this doesn't seem very plausible. What is your group makeup?
I think tanks have two primary purposes: aggro management and survivability. I believe all 3 tanks (when equally geared) are roughly equal in terms of survivability, and all are superior to pets & mercs. For me, the key differences are: Warriors have the edge in pure durability, but require a healer (not really an issue, since all three need a healer in order to be efficient). With the right support, warriors also seem to have the highest melee DPS potential, but without support the opposite may be true. I believe a lot of a warrior's power is lost on the group game (and is more raid-focused). Pallies can heal and rez themselves (and even their group). Compared to warriors (who may be inherently tougher), pallies rely on their own heals and stuns to increase their tankiness. They have particularly strong DPS against undead. SKs (my favorite), have the best aggro management abilities - especially AE aggro. They also seem to have the best utility and they do wonderful DPS. Similar to pallies and their self-heals, SKs rely on their lifetaps to increase their tankiness, and magic-immune mobs can pose more of a problem (usually overcome by the healer). While I am a vocal proponent of SK's in the group game (for their aggro management, utility, and DPS), I know that all three are great tanks and all three are needed on raids.
Normally it’s just me and my necro and 2 healer mercs. The pal is obviously self-padding himself while the necro sphere does ludicrous AE damage to everything. I am on your server so you’re welcome to come watch I’m there every night Last night I actually accidentally pulled 3 + named and was pleasantly surprised to live to tell the tale! I also tanked 8 last night..but the dmg was way too spiky to do it on purpose. 4-6 feels the best atm.
Just wanted to update on how my pal is doing incase you're still considering adding a real tank. Tonight I tanked HS basement T2 ROS. My pal is 109, still only auto grant AA and conflag non vis and EOK t1 vis with a wurmslayer. I never once died on a trash mob and I tanked all 4 named mobs in basement. The great sentinel, the goo, the 2 ghosts. I only had a healer merc on reactive. Group was my pal, my 109 nec, and a group geared ranger, mage, and enchantments. Of course for the namers I spammed all burns/discs possible on the pal but actually the namers felt on par to the trash mobs without discs/Aa burns. I can only imagine how I will do with proper AA and ros t2 gear. I have never played the other 2 tanks, and I am VERY active spamming things on the pal, but overall am very happy with him as I've played mage back when TBM was max expansion..pal feels much more tanky than pet even undergeared/AAed...as it should be!
