SK vs Warrior in Velious?

[Danth]

Originally Posted by webrunner5 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You made my point very well. Both a Paladin and a Cleric are pretty sucky Tanks. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If I take the joke literally, I don't necessarily disagree. I'll go one farther and say all the tank classes in this game sort of suck. Warriors have good durability but inadequate tools and can't properly do their job without outside help. Paladins and Shadow Knights have the necessary tools but lack a sufficient durability advantage over non-tank classes. Melee classes in this game just aren't balanced very well and this is one area where newer games (even newer versions of EQ) simply did a better job. P1999 is what it is, so I play the classes I like and accept their downsides.

Although I didn't like Planes of Power as a whole, I did very much enjoy watching Warriors scream bloody murder and throw temper tantrums in respect to their inadequacy and near-uselessness during that era. In hindsight it wasn't any more fair to them than the kunark era was to hybrids; I actually consider the EQ Warrior among the worst-designed classes in any online role-playing game ever. P1999 will stop with Velious, which is still better than Kunark for hybrids....Kunark is pretty much the worst period for the hybrid classes and every expansion (at least through Planes) made them a bit better proportionally.

Danth

[pasi]

Outside of pulling, SKs don't really bring anything unique to the PvE table until PoP. You can argue SoL gave them something unique, but near useless in the original voice and torrent line. The class doesn't come into its own until Omens of War.

On raids, Paladins completely outclassed them as knights as paladins were
1) Better raid trash tanks due to having more HP (AotC)
2) Superior Rampage Tanks (DA Hammer)
3) Having a desirable HP buff (DS/Brells)
4) Having passable group heals.

Two of those apply in Velious (group heals and HP buff).

SKs are a very enjoyable class to play, but this is not the ideal era to min/max as one. On the other hand, warriors are never worse than the 3rd strongest class throughout EQ.

[kaev]

Originally Posted by webrunner5 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If you really think a Cleric is more squishy than a Ranger as a Tank you need to go back to playing WoW. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Take the insults back to RnF.

Also, you're flat out wrong. Clerics have less base HP and get less protection from AC. My 49 Cleric in cultural plate with maxed defensive skills and self-buffed to a higher displayed AC and several hundred more HP than my 46 Ranger can manage self-buffed will die faster to a melee mob. Take away the buff disparity and my Ranger can easily out-tank a 3-levels higher Cleric in stronger gear. A decently geared 46 Ranger can easily sustain tanking level-appropriate content in a group with a competent Cleric or Shaman for a healer. Rangers are gimped tanks, but they are still tanks. Clerics are not tanks. Gear and buff a Ranger as a tank and he will tank, try the same with a Cleric and you'll learn a new meaning for the word manasponge.

[Aaramis]

Originally Posted by kaev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Take the insults back to RnF.

Also, you're flat out wrong. Clerics have less base HP and get less protection from AC. My 49 Cleric in cultural plate with maxed defensive skills and self-buffed to a higher displayed AC and several hundred more HP than my 46 Ranger can manage self-buffed will die faster to a melee mob. Take away the buff disparity and my Ranger can easily out-tank a 3-levels higher Cleric in stronger gear. A decently geared 46 Ranger can easily sustain tanking level-appropriate content in a group with a competent Cleric or Shaman for a healer. Rangers are gimped tanks, but they are still tanks. Clerics are not tanks. Gear and buff a Ranger as a tank and he will tank, try the same with a Cleric and you'll learn a new meaning for the word manasponge.

Coming from someone who used to raid Kunark, Velious, and Luclin on live as a Ranger, they are *not* tanks.
The ONLY time I'd step in and tank was if the MT fell, and the mob was ping-ponging throughout the raid. Then I'd spam aggro spells to position the mob, hit Weaponshield, and pray that the next tank in line could peel off me in time, because if not, I'd go splat in about 3 seconds.

Rangers can *maybe* tank some group-oriented stuff, but that's about it. And even then, it's generally painful. They're nowhere in the same category as the real tanks.

[webrunner5]

I play mostly healer classes on here. And I KNOW how much HP and durability different classes have. A Ranger just plain sucks ass as a Tank. If you had to heal the Bastards you would never play one again in a Tanking role. They are a total mana sinkhole healing one.

A Paladin is the least played class on P1999 for a reason, and a Ranger is the next least played. The Rangers will be a lot better in Velious solo wise. They will even suck more ass as a Tank in that expansion because of how hard the mobs will hit.

You live is some sort of dream world if you really think a Ranger is a good tank at any level, let alone high up. They are paper tanks just like Bards are.

[Noselacri]

Paladins are pretty much shit in raids. Their utility doesn't really stack, and 90% of it is rendered obsolete by the presence of a cleric which is guaranteed. They have Brell's and really weak heals, neither of which make a serious difference. An SK can offtank just as well while also taking on the role of FD puller, and do okayish DPS when not tanking, both of which are vastly superior to whatever a paladin can do.

The way to look at it is this: in what situation will any raid ever miss a paladin? When would they ever feel hindered by the absence of a paladin? You might bring one for Brell's, that's it, and that doesn't really make the whole class any good. You could just bring a buff bitch alt if it came to that, the actual presence of the paladin is largely pointless as they do nothing well. However, the SK fills one of the most crucial roles in the game, and the value of having a tank doing the FD pulling is not to be underestimated.

The only situation where I would ever even consider picking a paladin if I had other options is if I was taking a group to a place where CRing is a bitch and the healer is a druid or shaman. The ability to rez people is useful when your group is parked at the bottom of Sebilis. In terms of actual performance, paladin is basically the worst class in the game alongside ranger, one is just slightly more of a tank while the other leans towards DPS. They're like two sides of the same shitty coin, the two worst classes in this era by some distance.

[username17]

The usefulness and effectiveness of Warriors, Paladins, Shadowknights, or Rangers really depends on the setting.

You can generalize but it's going to be depend on if we're talking about Raiding or Grouping.
And to even further dig down you can break Raiding down between Casual and Hardcore.

On Hardcore raiding only (Ogre) Warriors will do. They will almost never take any other tank class.
On Casual raiding it's more based on whoever best fills the role. I can say as a low 50s paladin I have tanked Fear trash, shissar, all of the golems, and many epic kills with no problems at all. The benefit of a hybrid in this setting is the snap aggro and better mob control. Warriors fill the role fine but are often not needed. In my personal experience most of the warriors I raid with fill the role of DPS and not tank.
Also on the casual front most guilds seem to have a 'the more the merrier' attitude as there is no limit on the amount of players you can bring to a raid.

In either raid setting if you have a hybrid class who isn't tanking then it's all about filling a sub role such as DPS, Heals, support, etc. In the DPS role Shadowknights and Rangers will exceed a paladin. No doubt about it. Paladins can assist the enchanters with their 0 damage stuns and offtank mobs when needed. But as a Paladin I know my DPS is abysmal. It's not even something I try to improve. My focus is on HP/AC and Aggro.

On Grouping, this is where Knight shine the brightest.I don't really need to go into to much depth here. The only downside to knights here is the XP Penalty. But that's going away in Velious.

[Colgate]

paladins and shadowknights can tank p much every single raid mob in kunark except for maybe bee boss in sky and overseer of air

warriors will be the only class tanking a majority of raid mobs in velious

the idea of a cleric being as good at tanking as a paladin is just retarded

[webrunner5]

Originally Posted by Colgate [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

paladins and shadowknights can tank p much every single raid mob in kunark except for maybe bee boss in sky and overseer of air

warriors will be the only class tanking a majority of raid mobs in velious

the idea of a cleric being as good at tanking as a paladin is just retarded

I was just pulling peoples leg on the Cleric being better at DPS than a Pally. But as long as you have enough mana they can with their spells. But that does not last very long. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] But other than weapon skill gimped on them you hardly see much difference DPS wise because a Pally just plain sucks DPS wise. And a Cleric can wear plate just like a Pally and have probably as much AC or More. I am sure they have less damage mitigation as a Pally has, but, that is not saying much.

I do remember using a Pally in our Guild to pull in Kael a lot. They are good at splitting mobs with the lull line of spells, and living to get back while being hit in the ass. And was good at spot healing, some CC and Stuns. They did tank normal mobs in Velious well, but if you had a Warrior in there the Pally was going to be Main Assist to it.

The trouble with them, like has been said in here and other threads, is you are not going to lose much or any sleep if you do not have one in your group.

Now a Ranger I will give credit to IF they do not Tank, but if you have no other tank you will use one, Hell you have to have someone do it, is they are DAMN good pullers in outdoor zones, and damn good at CC in both outdoor and indoor. And they have better DPS than a Pally, and with Weaponshield you want 10 of them on a raid for first engagement. And they are great at standing up on a hill shooting a mob in the ass with arrows. With good dex they crit a lot. And well with their Tracking they are a god send.

But a Warrior is hands down the best Tank when Velious comes out. Meat Puppet for a reason.

[SCB]

Warriors are the second-worst melee for tanking in a leveling group. Their aggro management is terrible and literally nothing you can 1-group requires warrior durability over a knight, and almost nothing requires a knight over a monk/ranger.


In Kunark, 95%+ of the game is 1-grouping. For grouping in Kunark, top 3 group tanks (in order) are:
1: Paladin
2: SK
3: Ranger/Monk tied assuming the monk isnt a fungi/epic twink, in which case monk is 1st

In Velious, 90%+ of the game is 1-grouping. In Velious, top 3 group tanks (in order) are:
1: Monk
2: Paladin
3: SK

If you can't keep up even a moderately geared ranger/monk against some random KC mob, you're a terrible healer.

People bitch and moan about hybrids this and min/max that but it's all a bunch of crap. Just play a class you like. You'll be playing it for 100+ days of your life easily.