SKs are excellent. I was in a chef group and the tank left 'oh lets get a warrior so we don't have the hybrid xp penalty'. Meanwhile I had been chain rooting because the warrior's aggro was so shitty and we had a bunch of mage pets with rune swords breaking root constantly. SKs are:
1) best pullers in the game, especially with the new FD
2) best aggro in the game
3) defensively identical to warriors when they use shields except for disciplines
4) have snare to stop runners
5) can heal themselves to some extent with lifetaps
6) decent dps between the taps/dots/pets/melee, although still worse than warriors and far from a monk/rogue obviously
No question in my mind that our group would have been better with an SK, hybrid penalty or no.
However in my opinion SKs will get worse in Velious. Right now the fights are so fast I would argue that if it wasn't for mallets warriors wouldn't be tanking shit in Kunark. I'd much rather have the snap aggro of an SK so my wizards and rogues can burn down Trakanon in 45 seconds. Kunark is fundamentally an offensive expansion; the goal is to blow stuff up before you die to the aoe. I would say that except for the broken quadding bosses like Hoshkar or Bazzt SKs can tank anything in Kunark.
Velious on the other hand is a defensive expansion, the goal is to keep your MT(s) alive for 5+ minutes. If you can do that, you win. And for that you really need a defensive warrior. So SKs will be pulling and offtanking.
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