They provide a substantial boost to your primary objective (survival) with a decent uptime/cooldown. They are percent based IE: infinitely scaleable. There really isn't much more to it.
It's not that they actually have them equipped. The stats on epics do not scale to level. Paladins and shadow knights use their epics to improve survivability. The paladin 2.0 increases incoming heals iirc (great for their self heals and whatever other heals they receive while tanking the big bad mobs) while the shadow knight 2.0 gives the group a fairly nice leech buff for a little more than a minute or for 800 strikes. They both have a 3 minute CD iirc, so they might as well get them. I believe that warriors just get better mitigation. There is only one class that I know of that still actually gets their 2.5 (necros to increase focus) so usually when you see epic it refers to the 2.0.
I believe that he was asking about the stats on the weapon (which do not scale). But yes, the clicky will always be useful as long as nothing better is put in the same timer. My monk still uses his 2.0 for tanking and for dueling
One more noob question - so it's a proc, or a clickie effect? If proc'd, is it proc then switch to bigger DPS weapon, or do they just tank with those weapons? Again, I am almost pure caster since 1999, and the only epic I ever had was my necro's duckstick that I clickied for snare.
Okie doke. Now it makes all the sense in the world. Yep, definite must haves for SK or Pally, no doubt, because either clickie effect is pretty sick and indeed scale up in effect. Thanks for the info, excuse my n00bness on tank/weapon stuff. I play casters and am pondering a 3rd account main tank to make my own trinity, so this stuff is new to me.
Another thing to consider, is how much of your play time do you want to focus on your knight. Yes a pal and sk can do more, but at the cost of button smashing. Yes both classes can save themselves very well in the group game, but you need to be on the ball and hit keys to save yourself. Which means you need to spend most of your time on your tank account, vs your caster accounts. A warrior takes less damage than a knight so he does not have as many buttons to use to save himself from a bad strings of hits, but then he will not need to be saved as much as a knight as well. Plus a warrior can grab aggro fast and keep it easier with fewer button smashes, which makes it easier to use him against a name then a knight. It all comes down to how well do you box and how much of your time do you want to be looking at your tanks account when you are bringing down names.
How does a warrior grab agro faster than a knight? This is an honest question by the way. I am just curious, not dounting you or anything.
All aggro is instant cast, plus their biggest aggro ability is like 100000x more aggro then either Knights, they also have way more passive aggro (if boxing)
Faster? What's the range for a Stun? (200) How about most Warrior aggro abilities? (100). And casters get focii that increases range. Knights have an incoming from a distance/scattered mobs aggro advantage. Look up the refresh for Paladin vs. Warrior at will abilities. If you are vaporising mobs the ability to pickup a new mob at any time due to fast at-will aggro refresh matters. Our aggro refreshes slowly enough that Warriors typically hold at least one aggro ability in reserve for its time to change targets or in case the situation changes - Taunt + no follow up aggro = now you have it/now you don't. IMO if you are going to actively play the tank with DPS and healing macroed, through Mercenary automation, or with a partner and in group content, play a knight. Paladin main and actively played with an alt Wizard used like a much more DPS producing merc works. IMO if you are going to cast a couple of aggro abilities and then rely on passive aggro and procs while focusing all of your attention on a Rogue (for example), play a Warrior. IMO First time tank - suggests that you play a DPSer and have graduated past using a merc tank. I'd play a Warrior. In group content either knight played actively is better but in your situation what you really are looking for is a much better merc tank and a Warrior can be played (fairly badly) with a minimum of button pushing.
Original poster here, a lot of great suggestions. To tell you all the truth I've been trying to level all 3 tanks up, it's a slow process but it's fun considering I've never leveled a tank. Though I should of said in my original post I'm not a boxer so the tank would be just me focusing on it 100% of the time. I know some of said about warrior passive agro and boxes but I'm not boxing. I usually run with my brother who has a few characters in my tanks level range. ATM my Sk is 91 and hopefully 92 tomorrow, been doing a mesh of dailies, DH HA's and franklin teek dailies. Warrior is 77 atm and have been doing Teek dailies and DH HA's too. Haven't got around to a Paladin yet but it's on my list. I have been keeping up with this thread and all the answers and I can honestly say I haven't decided on a tank, both the sk and warrior are fun and different in their own way. The warrior just has the smoothness to it though I am looking forward to getting higher level and getting the real meat and potatoes of the warrior class. The sk I feel as if I'm always doing something, spells, disc, combat abilities or such. Haven't got to a Paladin yet but want to try it too. Anyways as I should of said in the original post I'm not looking to box at all, just me and whatever group I can get/put together or if I play with my brother when he's on. So I should of said I was looking for the best tank for the group game that I would focus on fully, no boxing, no 2nd or 3rd account at all. Just the myself and the group I'm in. In any case thanks for all the info, I'm no further from deciding on a class but honestly I might just get all 3 to max level and make a decision or play whatever one tickles me that day.
As a long time SK i will give my 2cp... no experience with pallies so i wont mention them. If all you are ever going to do is group content the SK is IMO the better option. We simply bring more to a group than warriors. Im not sure what battleaxe is trying to say about warriors holding aggro abilities in reserve... Our main aggro spell line is instant, long range and nearly non existent recast. We are always ready to grab aggro, warriors hold no real advantage here. That said if you want to raid shelve the SK and level that warrior. You may have a slightly more difficult time grouping but youll make up for it come raid time.
The only reason to choose an SK in their current state is if you need a puller and never plan to do anything other than group content. SKs currently bring nothing to a raid that the other tank classes don't bring equally or better, hence the nickname 'Shadow Kite'. On the group side, if you have CC or a puller already, the other choices are clearly better there as well. Aggro is better for other tank classes. Stuns like FoDS do more hate base than SK terrors (8263 vs 7827) plus there is the fact that stuns do more hate than their override value, something I've proven to the devs long ago but also proves too risky to fix. Warrior aggro abilities are instant like SKs, generate more hate (10379 / 11106 per lucy), cannot be silenced last I checked, and auto hate over time is tremendous. For an SK to compete, they have to maintain a maxed Voice of Thule AA buff on themselves and use AE aggro AAs / spells as well, which on challenging content is a death sentence. DPS, mitigation, and discs are better on the Warrior. In stunnable content, Pallies rule the day as they should, plus heals, cures, and undead dps. The SK epic click is nice but certainly no contest for group heals and SK group mana taps are minute to begin with (plus with ooc regen, who cares?) Quite seriously, there is nothing the SK offers you better other than pulling. SKs should do more dps - but they do not. The highlight of the SK class was mass pulling light blue mobs, ie trivial content, and even that has been pulled back.
Basically I was saying that knights continue to have a long range, fast, low recast time, etc. aggro advantage over Warriors. Add combat self-healing and in experience groups, yardtrash clearing/off tanking in raids, vs. non-melee damage sources, etc. both knight classes have a decided tanking edge. (And in fairness Warriors have an edge vs. the hardest hitting boss mob tank and spank situations). Beyond tanking there is utility. To say what you said, " You may have a slightly more difficult time grouping [BA: as a Warrior] but youll make up for it come raid time." with the opposite stress - As an SK grouping will be "party time". You'll have ALL of the tools. There are two caveats however: 1. The content makes those tools either invaluable or nearly useless. Know where your class excells and play your whole class. Play an SK like a weak Warrior and you'll be playing a weak Warrior. 2. In raids SK utility value trails off. Aggro advantage and combat self-healing still matters but you'll be a tank among three tanks (instead of being the best tank as you are in group content) with Warriors having more of a big mob role (and Paladins often having a curing/healing as well as a tanking role). You'll have plenty of tanking I assure you. With many guilds only raiding 1-2 days a week and so much time spent doing group exp, progression and achievements IMO roll the best group tank- SK, enjoy group content superiority and being a valued (but not the most visible) tank when you do raid.
If someone held a gun to my head and forced me to make a tank, I would rock a Paladin. They are far and away the most underrated tank class. There are very few situations outside of raids where a Warrior's superior mitigation and health cannot be offset by a Paladin's superior self healing. I've been in many groups where we didn't even use a healer at all as the Paladin could handle all the healing needed. The class has a few shortcomings but on the whole it is very well rounded and a great deal better off that it's original design from the first few expansions.
I started a heroic shadowknight and warrior and have been playing both for maybe a week now. Admittedly it's all been easy content, so hard to say how it goes when things are actually challenging. As such, I am sure all three tanks can do as well when things are "easy". People keep pointing out that warriors are only useful on raids, with boss encounters. As pointed out on another thread here, that kinda means they'll be better against any difficult encounter where you're pushing the limits of your healer/s. If you never push those limits, than any tank will do. I box. I have a shaman and a druid following me around. The Sk does bring more utility to the table for a small "group", but I am sure I can deal with it between the two other classes. What I am not sure about are taking on hard hitting encounters as the gear my tank will have will not be over-powering and I am not going to have 10,000+aa's anytime soon. The nameds my little group takes on might just be stressing my healer as if it were a raid encounter. Just saying I can make up for all the utilities (or just deal with it) an SK or Palli brings, but I can't make up for what the warrior brings. Concerning DPS, I just want my tank to tank and hold agro and not die. I'll let the DPS classes do DPS. Plus I like duel wielding. Sure, I'll go sword and board when I think I have to, but duel wielding 1 handers that have anger procs + enrage augs really seems to help with keeping agro without me doing much button pushing, which is nice for my set-up.
