The Plight of the Shadow Knight

[LevinJ]

I played an SK in classic through the opening of velious, so I will speak mostly to the Kunark era. SK's in Kunark are pretty similar to how a lvl50 SK is now. Not the ideal raid tank, but not completely incapable. Sufficient for groups, but not a "pure" tank like a Warrior. SKs are much more versatile and arguably bring more to the table in groups than warriors though. SKs hold aggro better, can feign pull, can snare to stop runners, etc. SKs are also capable of soloing efficiently enough. At lvl58, they get the lvl44 Necro pet which isn't too shabby. I was able to fear kite in Skyfire or burning woods pretty effectively which is a nice alternative when no groups are available.

[arblis]

Tanking- warriors should always win. They do, and Discs are how they do.

Groups, burst dmg dealers love hybrid tanks. The added healing from lifetaps and self heals helps enough that shm / druids are fine healing them through almost all of velious. Hybrids typically are better in XP grinding groups, and Warriors in slow camps with a big boss. Xp past 50 might not matter now, but AAs change that forever.

Raids- Warriors will always be center stage. As should be, imho. Remember though, that encounters with adds, pull teams and (for a short while) big HT's matter a ton. Hybrid tanks SHINE on fights that require a rez team, as the expected burn rate of tanks is higher.

Also, gear is what defines classes at this point, in the coming expansions you see much more gear that is diversified in who can use it.

Keep in mind, their are also a few raid encounters and group situations where any tank with a good set of resist gear is the best MT.

[Kainzo]

In classic / kunark and veilous.....

I was in raiding guilds in both expansions (in the guild that awoke the sleeper first world wide - drow.org)
We used Paladins and Shadow Knights as off tanks, nothing more. PoP was the first expansion that we actually started using the hybrid tanks as MT's for fights that used fearless (Inny - PoTime)
However, there is a ton of clearing and a few bosses with multiple adds that need off tanking during the fight. So center stage won't happen in Kunark/Veilous but is a definite in later expansions.

[Reubin]

Originally Posted by Tajin898 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The word on the street is that SK's have it very well right now, great aggro-holders and what not. But that Warriors begin to take the lead in Kunark and hold it throughout Velious. So, what becomes of SK's (and ultimately Paladins as well, though I'm only concerned about SK's in this thread)?

That's pretty much what I remember. In the year after Kunark was released ALL hybrids were whining constantly about how much their classes sucked. Rangers complained they didn't have enough hp/ac to tank or enough DPS to get a DPS slot over a Rogue or a Warrior with higher weapons skills. Shadow Knights complained that they didn't have the defensive skills, HPS, or DPS of a Warrior (and complained Paladins had heals so they would be 2nd most sought after tank). Paladins complained they didn't have the defensive skills, HPS, or DPS of a Warrior (and complained that Shadow Knights had FD and snare so they were great pullers and could hold agro better than any other class so they would be the 2nd most sought after tank). Most of the Bard complaints I heard were more about issues with their songs not working correctly and crappy DPS.

At first, knowing that P99 was only going to go into Velious, I couldn't believe how many Paladins (widely considered a little more worse off than SKs because they couldn't be big races with extra HPs) and Shadow Knights there were on P99. If you went to EQ message boards in 2000 & 2001 you'd remember CONSTANT complaining and whining from the 3 main hybrid classes (no diss to Bards but their mechanics are just way different). There was even a melee rebalancing that went into effect at some point to "fix" some of these issues. I think a lot of this was mis-representation...but the vocal minority who bitched constantly to try to get whatever changes they wanted made had everyone thinking Hybrids were just completely useless for a while (until AAs in Luclin I believe). As a Cleric and a Ranger in classic EQ I can say that, from my point of view, these were almost always false perceptions.

That said, it is different on P99 than it was on live from what I can see. Sure there are lots of "Rangers Suck" comments, but it seems to mostly be jokes (and Rangers most certainly never sucked...though they do get weaker in Kunark). I've never had anyone in a group I'm in say that xxxx class can't join. I'm a Cleric and I'm happy to heal anyone. It may be a little less mana efficient at times...but I did it on live without too much problem and I can certainly do it here where everyone has much better knowledge of the game. I also played a Ranger on live through Velious, so I know that even if your class isn't considered the "best" it's more about 1) how well you KNOW the class, and 2) what kind of person/groupmate you are. If you are cool and know you're class I'll always have room for you.

Try not to be too concerned with whether or not your class is going to be as needed as xxxx class. Obviously people talk about the "holy trinity" of Cleric/Warrior/Enchanter for a reason. Some classes are just a little less interchangeable than others. But if you love playing your Shadow Knight and the Warrior class isn't what you want, then you will always make a better SK than a Warrior. And I'd rather have a hybrid who knows his class than a non-hybrid who sucks at his (or is a jerk for that matter) in my groups any day.

[Tallenn]

Velious quest armors seem to be about 18-26% more AC for warriors. Ok, I'll buy that. Of course, that's Velious, so a ways off.

Is there a soft cap for AC that is easily reached by raid-geared tanks in Classic, Kunark, or Velious? Honestly, I don't know, that's why I'm asking. I swear I remember hearing folks talking about something like that (well seeing actually- in chat [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.])

As for the other stuff: more HPs from stamina, higher defensive skill caps, passive damage reduction- there MUST be somewhere that spells all of these things out, with parses to back them up, right? Steel Warrior maybe? I've honestly not played a melee very much at all, so I never really got into all those discussions back in the day. I was more interested in discussions about reducing mana use, and figuring mana pools and meditation regen rates, and so forth. Surely there must be folks on this server that have played the melee meta-game in live that can point us to all of that data?

[girth]

I wonder if that sites info about ac applies fully on here.

I had never heard that stuff about shield AC or over the soft cap AC, as I played a monk on live.

Good stuff

[hrafn]

I'd like to know if AC is working as intended as well.