I'm wanting to pick up a tank class. My first choice is an SK, but I heard in early EQ they aren't great. When do they start getting good? I'm playing on Ragefire atm.
I'm pretty good. I don't get to play EQ as much as I'd like because work. But still OK. Thanks for asking!
Speaking as a Shadow Knight, I think we are pretty awesome. But when it comes to raids, SKs don't really stack very well. You will always need a warrior to tank raid bosses, obviously. SKs offtank just fine. We can help pull as well, but most guilds have monks and bards to handle that stuff. I think SKs do more damage than paladins right now unless the mob is undead, so I guess we have that going for us as well. But there are only so many things you need to offtank and our DPS isn't so great that we can take the spot of a DPS in a raid. Paladins, on the other hand, have a lot going for them that isn't tanking. They have great aoe heals and they have cures and stuff as well. Paladins just stack better in raids than SKs do and they tank just as well. But iksar can't be paladins, so SKs are automatically better.
It’s generally one of the strongest and most diverse classes in the game. The only real negative is the lack of a unique raid role or function, but a lot of classes are in the same boat there, and we sub as Warrior stand ins pretty well these days (almost too well, really).
SKs regularly are in the top 5 parse in Velious atm. Best group and off tank currently as well, and can tank at least 3/4 of ST. Paladins get some love in Luclin and PoP.
Lockjaw here (PoP until January). Our best geared SK in Time drops end up tanking Cazic in P5. They could probably tank more if we asked them too, but we have plenty of warriors so there’s no real need. On nights our Paladins don’t show they also get to position most raid mobs and that also means they are ramp tanks. Still no DA stick for SK as of PoP, but that’s a minor thing that would make ramp tanking easier (but doesn’t stop them from doing it well anyways). On nights where they don’t ramp tank they are handling the various adds in the Time encounters be that off tanking while we DPS them down or in some cases pulling the trash away to be rooted until we finish off the named. I cannot really speak for their DPS (they shined in Velious with an extended double lifetap disc); our best SK are all focused of tanking effectively over a pure DPS role. Can’t say what’s in store for our SK in GoD+, but I expect more of the same.
