Which tank is best?

I think that statement is way too subjective, and depends on the specific mob and the gear/AAs (and even skill) of the toon and player. If you are boxing and only autoattacking and hoping for the best, then yeah, a warrior will be less spikey.

But SK's can solo a lot of the named in EoK and RoS, and I'm not sure if warriors can?

This was the old assumption. It no longer holds, because of two changes:

• The change to defensive proficiency, which increased damage taken by all tanks.
• The change to knight disciplines, which decreased the time of knight disciplines relative to warriors.

In the past, tank defensive ability was such that, any tank with level appropriate equipment could laugh at group content while under discipline. In such a situation, knights were considered better than warriors because they brought more utility and also, especially in the shadow knight case, had better aggro.

However, new content is punishing enough in the damage department, that in group equipment, knights have a considerably harder time surviving compared to warriors without intensive ability use. You're not going to be able to do that in a box group. With a box tank, you want to minimize ability use while still surviving against content. Warriors fit that purpose better than knights.

A shadow knight is generally going to want to chain spells in today's content, which requires almost full attention from the player. A warrior by contrast doesn't need to be doing nearly as much.

That actually sounds very much like what I said. If your tank is inadequately geared and AA'd, then a warrior might be better off. But if your tank is adequately geared and AA'd, then I don't think there is any comparison. Warriors are easier to play, and I think they have like 11k fewer AAs to earn.

But every class should be using all their abilities all the time. If you are not able to use an SKs abilities while boxing, then you aren't ready to be using that toon in your box group. And while SK's disc rotations did get nerfed, that is VERY unlikely to be an issue in any group content because the mobs will still be dead long before you run out of discs.

Like I said, if you only want to autoattack, then a warrior is a better choice. But if you are actually playing your toon (in a box group or solo), then the SK is more than adequate for any EoK or RoS group content.

Full disclosure: my SK is raid geared (and can molo some RoS named). I am absolutely certain that an SK is fine in EoK wearing TBM group gear. But RoS in only EoK group gear, I can't speak from experience on that. But if you are trying RoS without at least full EoK t2 gear, you're overreaching.

The transition to Ring of Scale is actually not that big of a deal. The transition from TDS to the Empires of Kunark, however, is quite difficult. This is because of the missions, heroic adventures, etc. required. However, none of this is relevant. It doesn't change the fact that warriors are better tanks than knights in the sense of requiring less abilities used and less equipment to survive more content. This is what makes them the best choice for box groups. It's simple math unless you go beyond group equipment, so I'm not sure what you're trying to argue.

The exception is when you need the utility of a knight, for example when you run a group without crowd control and therefore need your tank to pull. Then you can't use a warrior.

Warriors are the easiest to play, but I don't think you are correct in saying they are the best. You are forgetting factors like self-healing. With an SK, you can go without a healer and sometimes not even notice. That means you can use a druid that only uses remote heals (DPS heals) and focuses on DPS instead of dedicating an entire spot (merc or cleric) to group heals. Where's your number argument there?

And if we're talking about "best", then you can't overlook utility. Because if your goal is to finish progression quickly, then taking advantage of utility (like IVU and pulling) is far faster than needing to kill everything in your way all the time.

EDIT: I'd like to take a step back and let some other tanks voice their opinions...it's pretty clear where the 3 of us stand

I'm a raid gear warrior in a mix of EoK and RoS raid gear.
I can solo most EoK named that I was not able to do at lvl 105.
I cannot solo any RoS named.
By solo I mean using only a healer merc.

Knights are way better than warriors in group content, this idea that knight take more dmg than warriors is dated, people need to play in current content. All tanks take the same dmg baseline now. Defensive proficiency is same %.
You have to push a few more buttons as a knight to obtain the same result than warriors when you need to use some mitigation disc and going over this dmg baseline, but the self healing of knight just destroy warrior tools.
This is self healing that allow knight to solo some RoS named, where the warrior won't be able to.
Knight self healing plays a huge role in group content.
I spoke to a guildie SK friend similarly geared like me, and he said he was able to solo some RoS named, something I'm not able to do at all.

Since when? Warriors achieve the highest effective health in the game. Had that not been the case, warriors would not be the preferred tanks on raids.

The only argument worth entertaining is that knights can make up for warrior mitigation with self heal. But this requires full attention on the side of the player. It is a reactive benefit, not like a warrior's main defensive abilities.

There hasn't been much data collected on the subject since the armor return changes a year back, but based on what guilds are doing, I don't think any of this has changed.

So no, knights are not the best choice for groups. It depends on what you need and how much you can play the character.

In my experience, knights today have a harder time making the transition between expansions, than warriors, given the last expansion's group equipment.

You can have all the HP you want, if you are unable to replenish it you are more useless than someone who has less HP but can refill it at will.
Requires for knight to cast spells and not auto attack ? Seems right. Game should not be balanced around people auto attack and going afk. Even warriors can cast stuff to mitigate better, and aren't an auto attack class and nothing else to do.
I have some knights guildies that have np to fill a MT spot on raid bosses, when warriors splated.
Requires to cast spells, but you know, warriors that MT raid bosses and cast nothing will wipe very fast too.
The OP doesn't ask which tank is best in group. He ask which tank is best for solo. Knight is the best.

To Brogh,
If you mean the player only versus content, then warriors solo nothing.
And knights cannot solo RoS named if we keep your version of "soloing".

Who just does autoattack? Really? Even in a boxed situation you have got to activate a requisite set of abilities to maintain tank\aggro stability on the SK\Warrior whilst tending to healing\CC\DPS needs. And then you just rinse and repeat with your attention cycling through the various areas of an encounter.

A good boxer has everything that they can on on macro\socials, etc. Certainly all caster dps, even a rogue dps box can be on macro\social so that it doesn't require attention for nearly a minute while spells run their course(necros).

I still maintain what I have experienced as max AA and max geared SK AND warrior in EOK...ie, that with my experiences and sharing with other top SKs on the server, in EOK...the damage taken was streaky and spike laden. On my warrior, if I manage my tanking discs as I should and think ahead in a longer fight, the damage take is much much more "normalized" and far less streaky.

Warriors MT raid bosses out of nostalgia. There isnt a top 10 guild in the game that wouldnt be a top 10 guild if you took away the warriors and replaced them with knights.

You guys need to look at more tanking parses with raid knights and raid warriors doing the same roles. I know what it says on paper but that is not the case in execusion

As a warrior, I sadly have to agree.

Fire pet.. more aggro

Knights can solo named in RoS without a merc.

I uploaded this back in feb. I remember someone had asked me if I could do that, and me thinking 'of course!' but I realized I had not actually tried that properly because I had been hunting with other players a lot.

As you can see in the vid I don't even bother with a defensive to start with, because I wanted to get a feel for the spikes undisc'd (sk epic providing some lube though). I went in half-cocked (as evidenced by my lack of proper solo spellset and me turning on tribute during, rather than before the fight).

I used to be fast, now im only half fast ...

Please nerf the knights!

Nerf Drogba imo, the rest is ok .

Drogbaa quietly drops a vid of him soloing a named in VP and nobody bats an eye.

Where is the outrage! I demand rageposts that result in mage pet nerfs.

Hes got a dev in his corner. Drogbaa gives exactly zero facks