Paladin has the stronger overall spell package on paper, but it tends to be less awesome in reality than it is on paper due to stacking issues with clerics, and the fact that you just can't really use your heals much if you're tanking for a proper exp group that pulls often enough that you don't get to meditate for real. The buffs are alright if the group's healer is a druid or shaman, I suppose. Root has its uses, but so many classes have root that the tank is the last person who should be handling that.
I always felt that shadowknight has a spell suite that's more universally useful than the paladin. FD is such an incredibly convenient ability to have, and snare+fear allows for reasonably efficient soloing. Having both types of invis is sweet. If P99 cared to correctly implement mob low-health running speed so that snare was actually necessary in dungeons, shadowknight would have a distinct advantage in groups. The SK's aggro spells are also a little better as FoL is awkward to use from range and the stuns have high mana costs and long cooldowns, and you get one at 30 and another at 49, so that's a bit long to wait. If the Cease/Desist ones were in this timeline, that'd be another matter.
Lay on Hands is definitely better than Harm Touch, but I think the SK's access to large races pretty much balances this out. During Kunark, tradeable gear is vastly superior for SK than paladin (Atramentous Shield, Ebon Mace, FD legs, Incarnadine) whereas the paladin epic is so much easier to obtain, so I'd say that balances out as well. SKs also get CoS which is fantastic forever. Paladins get a 90% rez, but not until level 59 where it barely matters anymore. It's more of a service you can offer for pocket change.
Neither class shines in raids. Paladins do bring a 200 HP buff that stacks with pretty much everything, but it's not exactly a high-impact spell. SKs get to participate in pulling, and while monks are generally favored, there are cases where it's useful to have a puller with three FDs (two spells, only clicky) and the ability to summon a pet. From my days on Sullon Zek where only one of the three teams had access to SKs, we learned that this occasionally matters. Using a pet to help split pulls is rarely done here for some reason (I guess because monks can still do the job), but there are places where it's legit and make SK the better pulling class in those cases. A 200 HP buff is probably better overall, but not miles ahead.
If you boil it all down to sheer numbers and theorycrafting, paladin probably comes out ahead because their abilities are easier to measure mathematically. Personally, I think that the sheer QoL of FD and respectable soloability counts for more than some okay buffs and heals that you can't even use in many cases, so I consider shadowknight the more attractive class; but if you ask someone who cares mainly about raid desirability, they might say paladin just because of the 200 HP buff.
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