i have a 85 shadowknight but I have discovered I really don't want to be a tank. nor do I want to be a healer. with that being said what char would you make that can both solo and is wanted in groups and I mean solo named that might actually drop gear upgrades for you. right now I am considering monk, beast, or mage as possible but have not been groupable since back in pop or ldon. I just don't know now what I want next.
Monk is amazing..... if you still want the melee route... Go mage if you feel like letting someone else do your work for you and you just hit a button to burn every now and then.... the Bst... thats the middle ground..you still sit back and let Pet fight for you but you also are just as good if you rush in to melee right beside the pet unleashing poisions and debuffs and beating the mobs down with fist...
If you want to be able to molo named mobs that drop gear upgrades, a Mage is probably your best bet in the long run. Relative power of different classes wanes and waxes from expansion to expansion, but developers seem to be consistent about Mage pet tanking, so things are less likely to go south on you. That said, there is a great deal of difference between the playstyles of different classes and if you find that you hate the way Mages "feel", the ability to take down named mobs won't help you.
You want to solo-molo and don't want to tank, Magician and Necromancer are probably top choices, each has specific advantages and are extremely powerful. The beastlord is also a choice, but was designed to do melee along with the pet. My mage pet has tanked Shoon in the Tainted West Karana, but within a group and lots of healing. My thinking is that you should play what you enjoy, there are tank folk, and melee DPS and healers, and pet people, where you fit in is really for you to find out. Generally these days everything is get a merc tank and let it carry you past level 60, and it seems to me that getting into the intricacies of, is post 70. Since you choose not tank, and not healer, and by prefer molo also not melee DPS, that reduces the options a lot. A wizard will get summoned by named mobs, and very capable enchanters can use charmed pets against named mobs, but, might be a tad too complex, as I previously mentioned a Beastlord is expected to do some tanking. That leaves Magician and Necromancer, my suggested top choices, the mage pets are superior and the nukes are amazing, while necro pets are adequate and the dots extremely powerful, I would suggest getting a necro to 72 or so (I keep one there for fun) and seeing how you like it, you could also grind a mage to that level for comparison, but lack of snare makes for hectic moments. Once you have worked out what class you would really like to play to high end, the coming heroic character (possibly one free) would allow a boost to 85 and offset the experimentation period.
Monk by a long shot if you are going to solo a lot. The ability to pull singles, along with the ability to reset fights if things go badly is one of the most important things for soloing. Monks are probably the best combination of damage and mitigation in the game to boot. It's kind of a lateral move though...you'll be gaining some DPS and the ability to pull a bit easier, but you'd really be going down a very similar road. Sks are certainly no slouches when it comes to soloing..... Classes that have some control when pulling: 1. Druid (harmony) 2. SK (fd) 3. Necro (fd) 4. Ranger (harmony and harmony arrow) 5. Bard ( great puller but lackluster self DPS) 6. Monk (lots of pulling tools, fd and mez) Necro would be decent for you if you can live through all of the levels the pets are kind of crap....once you reach the last 3 or so pets they get pretty good, but they are pretty lackluster before that. Ultimately, you already have a pretty good solo class....SKs may be a bit slower than a few other choices, but you can really do just about anything with a heal merc on an SK, and can certainly tackle some things that would give other classes more trouble trying to solo. Monk has the next best mitigation in something that's going to give you more DPS. Good luck!
