New Player - Starting Class Advice

[Splorf22]

Fuark has it exactly right. By 51 no one is twinked, the mobs take forever to kill, and the levels are so long that people start to min/max hard. If you join a lot of mediocre groups, it's easy to spend 50 hours per level in the dreaded Kunark levels. If you have a full group humming perfectly, swapping the warrior for a paladin will probably reduce your xp by 10% or so (40/6 + lower dps).

The problem with a hybrid is that your greater versatility is the most important in the worst groups. For example, I saw Harmon (ranger) CC'ing KC LCY. He was doing a fine job . . . except their group sucked without an enchanter for charm/clarity/haste.

I really want to like hybrids. Ignoring the XP penalty, I just think that being able to melee and cast spells at the same time is pretty cool and makes for interesting game play. My problem is the endgame: evasive and defensive are just so huge, to the point that SKs and Paladins aren't used much in Kunark and probably won't be used at all in Velious. I would be totally down to have Sakuragi converted to a L1 shadowknight if I could keep the disciplines.