What's better tank, SK or Paladin?

Starting in classic assuming you'll be grouping the entire way to 50... What is more sought after and why? Shadow knight or Paladin?

I say paladin, roots, look great with a guise. Stuns, cleric buffs, and who doesn't want to settle for a 50% res in classic when the clerics won't return your calls?

Really? I think I remember seeing like 2 paladins on all of Phinigel

It's harder to paladin super well, and they dont work as well in a duo since they lack dps for most content. I feel like 95% of SK mains on the server exist with a box shaman. Paladin has a ton of tools, awesome class.
For OP: paladin will be more sought by guilds since there's 10 SKs for every Paladin.

Thanks for your insight into this. Truth be told I have an autistic brother that wants nothing more than to be the hero tank. It consumes his thoughts, being the hero saving his group etc. I worry about his ability to play something too complex which might wipe both his hopes and dreams as well as the rest of his group in the process.

I'm still trying to decide between sk and pally. I would like to hear what others think.

For those purposes, Warrior may honestly be the better choice. There are less "options" on what to do in a given scenario until much, much later in the TLP unlocks - taunt, aggro disc, keep trucking. And pulling is understood to be an "all or none" kind of thing when they do it.

If his choice is down to SK or Paly only though - in terms of tanking strength, they're pretty equal. SK has more utility tools and better aggro generation early in a TLP's lifecycle. Paly has rez.

Personally, I'd go with SK. Given the usual player content of the SK community on TLPs, expectations of talent will be low and he'll be more likely to receive positive feedback on things that would be considered basic competency from other classes.

It really all comes down to how you like to play.

If you like being in groups, buffing, light healing duties, occasionally insta-save with LoH, ability to Rez when things go south, then Pally may be right for you. You'll miss snare, high aggro dots, and superior pulling with FD, and when it comes to DPS you can forget about it. But the Pally has some neat tricks, like during raids, being a solid Ramp tank with yalp, DA, and heals (even better with the DA hammer).

In the end, both are good for different purposes, I would roll one of each, play to lvl 20 or so, and then make a decision on how you like to play....

Speaking as the best Paladin that played on Phinigel, I would say until Luclin, Shadowknights are better tanks. Clinging darkness spam is much better aggro than anything a Paladin can do. The reason Sk's out number Paladins 10:1 is because they are much better in the early expansions. If the game Started in Planes of Power, I think it would be different.

Paladins desperately need a re-work early on. They need the fast heals, fast roots, fast stuns from lvl 1 during Classic.

Paladin Vs SK.

Classic to Velious:

Shadowknights are superior.

Paladin, everything is too slow, too mana intensive, and aggro is weak. Your heals are like 3 seconds, your root is 2 sec cast, and your stuns come too late (lvl 28 and 42).


Luclin:.

Paladins get their first real low level aggro line of stuns, Cease and Desist. Aggro-wise they are pretty close to SK's now, doesn't matter if you have SK or Paladin tanking.


Planes of Power:

Rise of the Healing / CC Paladin.
Paladins get their first Paladin only fast cast heals (1 sec) that you can use while tanking. You get the first fast cast Root spell (0.75 sec).

Combine stuns with self heal, your AE aggro is insane and well played you'll out-aggro any SK. Combine that with some fast cast root CC and you can pull 20 mobs and CC 19 of them.

You get some half decent Group Heals now too, cast time is long so hard to use while tanking.

You also get the first self mana regen buff (3 per tick... meh).

Paladin are far superior to SK's now. It's not even close.

Paladins stay basically the same until PoR expansion.



Omens of War

The rise of the Swarmadin.

If you manage to raid and grab a Dawnseeker's Chestpiece of the Defender, one of the most powerful click effects you'll get as a Paladin. Gives you a change to be healed for X amount every time you take damage. You can now solo kill mass amounts of mobs. This gets better when Prophecy of Ro is here.


Prophecy of Ro:

You get the first line of the "Ward of xx" defensive buff. This replaces Yaulp, gives ATK, AC and most importantly heals you when you take damage. It's an instant heal + heal over time. This is where swarm killing really gets super powerful as a Paladin.


From here on it's pretty much more of the same.

This is pretty on point. Every class is pretty fleshed out and interesting to play if you enjoy the class, once you get past PoP.

To OP I would say if you're planning to reroll again next spring, play sk because it will perform better than Paladin for 3 of the 5 expacs and equal for the other 2.

If you are going to stay on the server roll the one you like most. Just know Paladin doesn't start to bloom until later. The Exp rate of both servers will make leveling both manageable if you are still undecided.

Go with warrior. He can use DW or 2h and it is pretty simple to play. Warriors are also the best mitigation tanks.

considering no death penalty in mangler would a paladin zero exp rezz not be super useful?

There will still be a death penalty, Daybreak has just walked back the enhanced penalty that they had originally announced for Mangler. That's my understanding of the situation anyway.

Paladin gets 90% rez during classic.

True Original Classic was different then what you describe. I'm curious about the differences.

Paladin was tops in aggro with Flash of Light. Shadowknights competed for aggro with Disease Cloud. This was before aggro nerfs to debuffs, especially those with poison and disease counters. Mana was in short supply for all hybrids because of the original mana pool penalties. Knights spammed these two low mana spells to maintain solid aggro. Warriors were a distant fourth in aggro (behind Rangers) and had nothing but taunt, dual wield swing, and weapon procs.

Paladins main healing spells were the AC/HP buffs Center and Daring because they were the most mana efficient and had faster casting times. Even when we had Valor, at level 49, a slower cast, we still used Daring for these reasons (plus Kunark helm click for free heals). It was a trade off. Actual healing spells were not as potent as they are now and were used out of combat more often then not.

Paladins curing disease was a big deal since those lasted a long time and curing poisons was often critical. Folks used to shout out "cure disease please".

Paladins splitting camps with Lull spells and CC with Root (and Flash of Light) made groups hum.

A classic mid level paladin with Ghoulbane and shield was a force in Original. Not to mention SoulFire.

Shadowknight is hands down superior to paladin the group game tanking..

Raid utility, giveme a pally.

I never found Flash of Light that great for aggro. It will generally cause a wipe once every couple of hours in my experience. Clinging Darkness is safer and better aggro I think.

I remember back in real classic yes, casting Buffs used to be better HP per Mana than actual heals. I have fond memories of my level 30 beastlord spamming Inner Fire for 10 HP a cast.

Without checking the numbers I think they must have increased healing spells a lot, they are around 3:1 HP per Mana now. Buffs are around 2:1.

With experience from Classic and up till Seeds of Destruction on Phinigel and past Live server experiences.

As another class, I've been playing with a lot of Good Pal/Sk's and a lot of Horrible as well. Playing a Paladin or SK to their fully potential, requires you to have focus at all times playing your character to the max + have abilities to lead a group or a raid forward + act on your own initiative to solve unexpected problems. On top of that, you always strive to have the best equipment, which involves taking on a lot of quests - and camps for your best augments.

This can be said about every other class in game, but nowhere is it more obvious when you don't play to your potential, than it is with a Paladin - Or Shadowknight.

There's a lesser gap between a bad Enchanter and Godly Enchanter, than there is with a SK/PAL.

I feel a lot of people on TLP's especially, make Paladins or Shadowknights as their main to have a strong tank for their casual box-group/duo without knowing what class - and role they actually are going into on Raids.

Really Think about what role you are going into when creating a character - and reflect about how you are going to play EverQuest.

Legendary Knights such as Neldarion - or Drogba, are fully comitted to their roles - and their wisdom about their respective classes are endless - but their guides and knowledge are useless if you don't set in on the path and dedication that these classes requires.

Another thing to consider, at least around late luclin/early PoP, against a slowed MoB an SK requires almost zero healing (in groups). It gets more insane as the game progresses. Their 2 lifetap procs alongside the occasional tap/bond keep them topped off.

I just rolled a paladin on Phinny to test and can verify that FoL still has snap aggro but not as solid as it was originally. It was funny to have a level 3 paladin with 80 mana go OOM just holding aggro on 3 or 4 Gloomingdeep kobolds against his healer merc's heal aggro. At level 6, he had 170 mana. It's always been a dangerous spell that required mastery, more so since its aggro was nerfed. Cease and Desist were introduced partly for that reason (and the debuff nerf mentioned before).

Yes this was done in the 2004-05 time frame.