The ever-favored class

Could easily make a spreadsheet comparing the two knights side by side and we'll see that one is easily favored over the other by DBG.

But do you have the guts?

So do it

So subjective your conclusions would be. Judging one roles' utility over another classes' utility.

Challenge Accepted. Here's a start of the 2 Knight classes and how one is obviously out of balance from the other.

Veil of Darkness isn't an AE.

Don't forget that It's important that paladins aren't as powerful at tanking as war or sk, because of your heal-other utility, or else paladins would be mega OP. The same way that druids, enchanters and mages shouldn't be top DPS classes. That's the price of playing a class that has dual roles.

I apologize. You are correct, Veil isn't AE, it's a single target debuff and 30k hate.

Show me a guild using paladin's as target player healers and I'll show you a guild that isn't utilizing them correctly.

Also...are you suggesting that SKs are not hybrids? I was comparing apples to apples...not Paladins and SKs to Warriors.

You didn't say thank you for the 15% agro mod they gave us. Im sure they were having a good laugh when they attached it to the preservation like. You know a buff that maxes out at 5 min 14 sec but also has counters so can fade early.

Good job daybreak

I immediately thought of Dilbert:



Not relating directly to the spreadsheet posted in this thread, just spreadsheets in general.

So splash & group heals are to be forgotten?

what raid utility does an sk have? tank adds, bosses, kite.
what raid utility does a war have? tank adds, bosses, kite.
what raid utility does a paladin have? tank adds, bosses, curing, healing

what keeps war or sk desirable if they fulfill the same roles? war have an edge on sustaining heavy damage bosses, sk have an edge when less healing is available. sk have an edge on aggro. There's some pluses on both sides.

if paladin were equal at ae aggro generation to an sk, and survivability as well, then there would be basically no reason to raid as an SK, other than 'we were short of paladins'. The health of the SK raid role relies on them being ahead of paladins. The health of warrior and shadowknight raid roles, rely on neither being better at all 3 of their roles in all situations. I would like some more lethal raid bosses to make warriors shine a bit more right now (flex that mitigation and disc uptime).

Paladins can and do fill in as a groups main healer when there's a lack of healers online one night. Some teams have that issue occuring more than others.

Someone is jelly and as with most arguments downplays their tool kits and upside to garbage to make their argument look stronger. Look at that there sk AE aggro and dps! Where is meh jibbs. Ignore my cures, healing, buff, splashing and augmented group survival tools.

News flash. Dps has to scale with mob hp pools. Heals and cures scale with player hp pools and counters encountered.

SK's and pallies were never supposed to be equivalents except in the end result of getting the tanking job done. Are you going to argue that paladins are hurting in the tanking department? Tanking current raid bosses from start to finish, ganking and locking aggro at will with skill. Curing, healing, splashing, augmented group healing all still working just fine. I have yet to see an issue outside of doing more work in some situations to get a similar outcome.

Splash is weak on raids when casters sit @ 250k hp. Weakened more by anti-splash mechanics in raids, think...End of Empire and Sathir Line.

But what I got out of your post is that you agree SKs are out of balance with paladins. Both knights....both hybrids, both can tank, one is just better at survivability and aggro...AE or otherwise. I like how you keep trying to bring warriors into this though.

Also noticed that you haven't mentioned how the difference in those abilities drastically change the group game.

You're putting a very narrow definition on "balance" here and missing what Drogba's saying. Both classes have different abilities and you're trying to draw parallels between them. It's like saying necromancers are better than clerics. Also that massive confirmation bias by leaving out things that paladins are better at.

Perhaps the two classes are not as analogous as you think they are. Why not just switch to a shadowknight?

Yes, in the AE aggro department particularly, but i would argue that this helps bring balance, rather than throws it out of whack.

It's pretty much a similar story, paladins can play as the groups healer in the group game. SK do have more utility in the group game than they bring to raids for sure, though. FD is very useful. I know paladins that tank piles of things in sathirs tomb, more limited at it than sk & war though, certainly.

In the AE aggro department? You're joking right? If you want a mob over a paladin, it's yours, #harmonious.

yeah, AE aggro is a selling point for SK's on raids, something that wars have been encroaching on (But not surpassing) over recent years, fortunately not paladins as well. It's basically our main justification for existing on raids.

Paladin ability to group and ae heal is a boon to raid game but not a huge one depending on the actual healers. however to say that we can main heal in group game is very misleading. Yes it is possible, but rare in the extreme that it would ever happen. not only is there a fair balance of healer to tanks on most servers healer mercs do an admirable job. i cant think of any past situation where i was ever asked to heal for the group. Perhaps if our heals had faster cast/recast times and bigger numbers overall we would be looked at more as healers. Paladins as Tank/Healers is not the perception that most ppl of other classes have of us. we are the low dps knights that have to heal because we cant fd. help us to change that perception by giving us better tools. come up with something better than act of valor.

I main a SHD but want to learn how to play a PAL well.

When I saw that AA, I just

Totally different from a SHD. Different tools, different focus, different role and character (as in personality).

But Act of Valor...

Maybe I have only grouped with amazing Paladins over the years but the ones I know could fill a full group without a healer. They could pull just fine, tank, and provide heals in the event that someone in the group took agro. Sure a good sk can run without a healer in a full group but in the event that someone needs an emergency heal the sk has to rely on their agro abilities otherwise that person is dead or running for their life. This is the tradeoff between the two classes. One holds agro better to prevent the group from needing a heal while the other has the ability to heal in the event that someone pulls agro from them. Balancing agro between the two classes will cause a huge unbalance between the classes considering sk's have very little group utility outside of tanking and pulling.

Probably the more powerful effect of Veil of Darkness, wrt knight balancing topics, is the SPA 184 debuff. Since paladins are required to mitigate more hits, we can assume their mitigation or self healing should be that much stronger then SK to match.

For spell AE aggro, I would add paladin heals (Wave heals and Valiant Defense primarily) to that row. Heal (beneficial spell) aggro is unreliable (subject to NPC witness check) but still very real. Also Brell's falls in this category to a minor degree (and then /MGB that gets some more notice) if cast during combat.

For group utility, I would add Calm line, Stuns, Push stuns, Mark (rev DS) line. Brell's and maybe Bulwark of Piety (lvl 69 AC buff sometimes requested) counts here while healer mercs make other mini-cleric buffs obsolete. Both knights get a lurch/fling ability. Even neglected Flash of Light isn't level capped (and do SK use Presence of Fear AA much?).