Yeah Keerarae is awesome. It's possible that a full BiS SK with all the toys pulls ahead of a Paladin in the end. There is no Soul Defiler equivalent that Paladins get, for example. I would imagine Soul Defiler edges out SoulFire over time for solo artist tactics, simply because it is much harder to keep a charged SoulFire around.

I guess it would depend on Vivitron's question. Are there any worthwhile solo artist fights that actually need SoulFire + Reaper?

Thinking a mob like khelkar icepaw in velks might require soulfires. Willsapper will likely not land. But I don’t know though, sk would still be able to land plenty of taps. And as I mentioned, you could just stock more wort pots to make up the difference if needed. Not too many knight solo artists out there so if such a list of mobs exists it’s probably pretty small. Most people are probably using more powerful solo classes at that point.

I have only tried to slow him tashed, my rough estimate from experience is about 1 in 3 slows land. That would be an impressive knight solo. He puts out a lot of damage.

Well raid dps matters because most 6-man kills don’t matter. The game isn’t tough: I’ve been a +1 with rogues, warriors, and clerics. A durable backup tank that does 60dps is sometimes better than a paper bag that does 100.

Melees are all good. A class, B class, C class. I’d rather take an extra 6 self sufficient knights or rangers with decent weapons to an extra 6 shamans or druids.

At this stage bank your dkp and get your hybrid out of the D class dps world ASAP. It’s easy to bump to that next level so don’t buy a shiny mask or pair of gloves if you have any understanding how math works. Weapon, haste, avatar, etc. Then worry about dex or something.

As for solo challenges its not crazy that a SK would pull ahead for tank and spanks. Again...its math. Drain Soul IF it goes the full 6.1 second cast is 55hps/sec plus a DD for 338. I understand it's not quite a 6.1 second cast so the healing per second is even higher. Celestial Cleansing is 1.5 sec cast on a 30 second CD, it heals for 750-875hps...it's basically 30hp/sec. Better mana efficiency, slower rate of return. Plus you can keep a rogue alive on a raid with it...so it's a better spell in many ways.

The subject of this thread is Paladin vs. Shadowknight DPS. Any discussion thereof is relevant

I'm terrible at this game and know jack shit about the deeper mechanics. Would it be fair to say that a Paladin that's constantly Yaulping, gaining that virtually nonstop attack increase, would make a difference? Or is Yaulp total bullshit?

I wouldn’t cut yourself short. Most of us don’t know half what we think or a quarter of what we pretend, lol.

Y1-3 are pretty meh. The forth iteration is only 1 mana and gives raw attack along with the standard AC and strength. It’s about the same as a SK with Shroud of Hate and the ranger SoN stacked. Really most non-dwarves in tanking gear even with Focus will barely cap STR with Yaulp4. It gives me like 80 attack at 60 and doesn’t cost you a melee round so it’s good to keep loaded. If only it stacked with the shielding line (Dain hammer or Stave of Shielding), but that’s a minor complaint.

Paladins and SK’s are very equal across the board. Maybe a bit more raid optimized as a pally and more grind group or solo optimized for the SK. Both pretty great at high levels of gear and player skill. They even hold up well these days with Ec gear.

I solo'd eejag on my paladin for a monk alt and it only took loh but my gear is pretty good. I havnt solo'd chardok but I've solo'd all of crypt including the emp and just running between hiero and duke spawn is trivial and decent depending on cloak/bracer rng. I've also solo crawled to the various frog camps for fun but it's not worth it from a farming/pp perspective. Chardok names would be pretty trivial to kill as a paladin but keeping up faction would be a hassle I imagine. Struggling to think of much else that is cool, I solo'd reavers and killed the shm epic mob in com for the sk in shield but again fairly trivial and no real pp in it. Never tried a cliff golem but I imagine a soulfire would make it trivial as well.

I watched Sudz destroy some shit when he first got his Palladius.

All this thread to circle back to what I said, they are about equal dps. Sure few things can swing it, but generally they are about the same and both fun.

Except they aren’t equal, unless you’re only talking about raids in which case who cares about knight dps on raids.

Final pet/pets will be 25+ dps edge alone, not even including other dots, multiple taps, etc. if there was a wep you knew would do 25 more dps then Tuna sword people would bust a nut over it. There’s a reason why people say SK are better dps. It’s because they are. No myth or exaggeration about it.