Definitely possible. And the paladin has the option of doing that higher indoor dungeon zem content. If the ranger had a lull usable indoors I’d be interested to see how it panned out.

Ranger: modestly higher white damage dps, ability to self regen, ability to self damage shield, ability to proc a slow with an actually decent cheap EC weapon (Willsapper notwithstanding).

Paladin: modestly worse damage output (assuming no endgame ToV knight weapon rots), lack of self DS, superior heal potential, free clicky heals ($$$$$), calm/paci.

Ranger is gonna kill faster. Paladin will probably have less down time between kills.

It’s a toss up which will grind faster but yeah as I previously said Paladin is the stronger class when you look at the whole scope. That, and you can fully function just as well indoors as out unlike the Ranger.

Both can quad kite raptors with a woushi bow.

Rangers don't get regen until 55 and paladins can click DS pot. These aren't really noteworthy points.

Sounds awful. Maybe passable on a fat SK that can use Weighted axe?

The raptors die from the aoe proc not the arrows.

Do they?

edit: like even with a weighted axe to glitch proc rate... do they?

Kiting with a skydarkener is some pretty gross napkin math. I regret looting mine.

As for the fabled “bad knight dps” to what degree? Raid buffed on Yeli compared to a ranger? Sure apples to apples gear the ranger will do better. Normal blue con stuff or solo? It’s closer. EC gear to EC gear? The pally is probably as good or better…Narandi or Reaver vs SBoZ/Swiftwind or Woodsman?

With all the toys on casual stuff the gap widens. BFG’s and sky cloaks. In those adventures when you can’t get all the buffs a ranger does a lot more dps. Like 1.5-3x for at least two mins.

This is true, but whether DS potions factor in is going to depend on how wealthy the player is. I always carried around a few charges on my warrior and paladin for situational use but I wasn’t chugging a new one every 8-12 minutes for mundane stuff like xp grinding. The production cost (assuming you had a shaman alt or a buddy willing to sell it to you *at cost* is like 14pp per hit for the low level DS potion and 37pp for the higher level potion. At resale prices in EC, DS potions can be considered a luxury commodity. I’m fortunate enough to have a shaman alt that can make them.

Bear in mind the OP stated fairly modest gearing expectations in his first post. His post doesn’t jump out at me with the implication he’s going to be dropping a ton of money on short duration potions.

Regardless, I don’t think we even disagree. The paladin has the stronger innate toolkit. A cheap deepwater helm at 45 tips the scales even further.

I think my original point still stands. In general the ranger will be getting each mob dead faster. The paladin will have a quicker between-fight recovery and a wider range of safe hunting grounds with a lull line that works indoors.

I took my skydarkner out for a spin. I don't have a super low delay weapon, so just grabbed an unhasted rusty 2 handed scythe to compare with something faster. From a very tiny unscientific sample the long delay on this set up seemed to result in more procs than using hasted epics. The bow barely proced with epic, but with unhasted 2 hander it seemed to proc more often. Perhaps a type 1 error. Could be an interesting avenue for further research. Red players may already have it sussed.

Either way kiting with skydarkener was a terrible experience, (which is how I remember it, and how it napkinmaths out as*).

Perhaps it gets better with practice and knowing all the mechanics/interactions/right kit (I am not familiar with raptors so had to root a bunch of spare mobs and kite in the sea)? Maybe with Earthshaker or weighted axe (lets bring fat SKs into the discussion) and best haste (so main target takes fair bow damage and the quad damage is bonus gravy) it would be almost feasible enough to counteract how annoying it is? With the configurations I was using I ran out of 100 arrows before one raptor ran out of hp. It was terrible.

*

ive had worse