Most effective self healing AOE fighter class ?

Hello again!

I would like to get the Heroic Character bonus they are offering now, and make a class that does a lot of AOE and is able to either self heal or sustain heal whilst doing massive AOE damage.

I heard either Shadowknight and Paladins are good bets, but I was wondering the pros and cons of each.

Thanks!

SK's have lifetaps vs Pali's having direct heals.

SK's do more dps(questionable?) vs Pali's holding better aggro(also questionable?)

I believe SK's have a few more AE damage abilities than Pali's.

Pali's can resurrect group members.

This is me trying not to be biased. I love my SK.

I kind of love both my SK and my Pally equally. I think Whitetide summed them up really well for you.

The only advantage I see in my pally may not matter to you at all, since you mention soloing, but I do find I like that I can group with my pally and provide both big-badda-boom AOEs and backup heals. I prefer tanking over healing for sure, but that wee bit of flexibility is fun to have during the rare moments when I do group.

I think you'll love either one you pick though. They are both really fun classes.

Either way, I will recommend you make a Ratonga, because one can never have too many Ratonga (and they are a neutral race now, so even more reason! Woo hoo!) I am definitely biased about this.

Oops. I was trying to edit and messed something up >.>

Personally, I find the Berserker self heals to be very sustainable while dishing out very good aoe damage.

Bah. The forums hate me today. Ha! My -first- post was supposed to say, "since you don't mention just soloing". The way I read your questions it sounds like you might be interested in durability while soloing, even though you didn't state it specifically. Both solo well, both group well. I just think pally has that eensy weensy advantage of extra flexibility in a group. Its minor though.

paladins can be difficult to keep agro on while you are gearing up but once you get good gear and stack hate gain mods and learn the best classes to put amends on it gets pretty easy unless your group happens to be way better geared then you.

paladins have four AE attacks, crusaders can spec in the crusader tree for 40% ae autoattack for better damage and hategain

paladins with the elixir focus can revive group members without giving them revive sickness which can come in handy.

All valid points. I was hoping a Pali would chime in with some first hand knowledge.

Pallies have a hate transfer....

hate transfer or not if you've got decent group gear and most of the group is raid geared you can expect to have to work to keep aggro amends cant change the gap between the tank's gear and gear the group has.

But that is true for any tank. For tanks 'geared like their group' pallies (should) have less difficulty with aggro because they have a hate transfer.

definitely a pally in my opinion

My SK rarely loses health - the more mobs, the healthier he is too (for your massive AOE damage requirement).

Zerker isn't quite so solid in the self-heal category..it can get dicey from time to time, but AOE'ing with a zerker is really fun. I don't have a pally, so can't speak to that.

I have both....I prefer the Pally.

For small groups the ability of the paladin to ressurect the group healer is really often usefull.
Cast divine aura, or wall of mana and ressurect your priest.....

The sk can cast feign death on the healer but it does not work so well.

Both have a lot of open aoe and can spec for high ZE auto attack.