Knights: Decent or Garbage?

[Daldaen]

Not a troll.

Excellent Knights are very rare. They make guilds great. They aren't reliant on any clickies to preform their major role. They can fufill many roles on raids.

They became stupidly OP later on once they get real defensive discs. Even in Velious they will be extremely important. As kiters, off tanks, rampage tanks. Sure they won't be main tanking AoW, hell most every warrior won't be. Nor will they tank Vulak or Vyemm, but they can hold their own against a decent amount. End game bosses not so much.

Plane of Sky, Knights are champions for basically every boss (probably not bee queen)
Plane of Hate/Growth + E/WToV armor clears, Knights are champions
Grouping, Knights are champions
Smaller trio style groups Knights are the superior tank option

Every raid mob with Rampage will be tagged by Knights and using jousting tactics you can determine which knight is taking rampage damage and prevent DPS and Clerics from taking it. Many mobs they can take it outright. Depending on the mob they can self sustain this behavior with no healer or just a torpor shaman. Or you can devote some defensive warriors and CH clerics to Rampage I guess?

Once almost every important raid mob is indoors, and bards lose their primary competitive edge in kiting, who do you think is going to kite trains or adds? You're gonna sacrifice Bards out to kite instead of their mana feeding clerics and wizards or providing resists on AEs... Yea no. Knights of course. And get ready for some epic ones on this server. Can't wait to see Kael when Statue or Tormax spawn.

If I had a pick between a baller knight, warrior, cleric, enchanter, bard or monk to join my guild, I'd pick the knight every time hands down. Monks here are all pretty bad because they've been crippled by broken sneak. Enchanters are babied with Cycle Target hotkey and most are pretty bad due to this (plus raids don't use CC much in Verrious), and warrior/cleric... Loooool (press 1-2 buttons, nice). Bard would be a good pick if knight weren't available.

Knights rule the world. People just haven't figured it out yet.

[Erati]

Eratou is Takens best kept secret.

Just wait.




Keep waiting.


Itll happen.

[Danth]

Knights aren't garbage, at least not in my eyes, but I don't think anything that changes with Velious will make a player like them if he doesn't already. The class improvements are nice, but don't seriously upset existing class balancing, so the dominant classes remain dominant. Note that the best changes for the hybrids don't even arrive until some months after Velious opens.

If you already have a 54 Ranger and don't have a strong preference for something else, leveling the Ranger seems like an obvious first choice. Nothing stops you from working up another hybrid later on.

Hybrids do fine in duos, and fine in groups. Much of the bias against them will disappear once their experience penalties are removed. Their jobs and roles in raids depend mostly on the whims of their guilds.

Danth

[Wabic]

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

Once almost every important raid mob is indoors, and bards lose their primary competitive edge in kiting, who do you think is going to kite trains or adds? You're gonna sacrifice Bards out to kite instead of their mana feeding clerics and wizards or providing resists on AEs... Yea no. Knights of course. And get ready for some epic ones on this server. Can't wait to see Kael when Statue or Tormax spawn.

That seems like an argument against Knights. They're useful because they're expendable?

[Daldaen]

They're useful because they are the class who can take the most hits and hold aggro while kiting indefinitely. Bards are also able to do this but in long Velious fights they are required to extend CH Chain life or increase resists/DPS.

[Wabic]

So in that case, if the knight was another bard instead... see what I'm saying?

I love knights, just being picky about your example.

[Daldaen]

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

So in that case, if the knight was another bard instead... see what I'm saying?

If the knight was another bard instead you'd want them in a group singing songs. If you had groups full with bards, a knight can perform the same role as the bard except the knight can take more hits and survive more random mob aggros. Paladins can heal themselves faster than a bard can regen.

Knights can also off tank adds, Paladins can serve as backup healers, SKs as pullers. Both serve well as ramp tanks. Solid speed bumps in between tank switches if you don't have weapon shield or tons of warriors.

Like a bard, they're a utility class that can morph to fit whatever raid makeup/situation you are faced with. Which is what makes them invaluable.

In the vaccuum of MathQuest, I'm sure some power gamers have a tough time justifying them when they're calculating DI/DBs and figuring out the exact /pause on their clerics CH chain and how many epic'd 60 Rogues you need to kill the mob in 2 minutes. But actual EQ that we play calls for these utility classes to be used on raids all the time. If you got a single pull of a non rampaging mob to a corner, yea, they're rather useless. So is basically everyone but the MT, Clerics and pure DPS though.

[Wabic]

That makes sense; Knights are tougher than bards. Thanks for the clarification.

[Raev]

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

Grouping, Knights are champions
Smaller trio style groups Knights are the superior tank option

The only case when Knights really shine is when your group sucks. If the monk is terrible and the SK splits, then great. If the Enchanter can't CC and the paladin is rooting and stunning, then great. But otherwise, Warriors and Monks are just better. If the group is humming, then the extra dps of the warrior means more XP, and if the group is taking on tough stuff (= seb protector, EToV) then the superior HP/AC/discs of the warrior will give far better worst case performance than the knight's aggro spells.

Originally Posted by Daldaen

Every raid mob with Rampage will be tagged by Knights

Warriors are obviously superior for rampage tanking because their lack of aggro spells is unimportant. Knights will only be used there if there are insufficient warriors.

Originally Posted by Daldaen

who do you think is going to kite trains or adds?

Anyone with a sow potion and a bladestopper? But I kinda hope training won't be as important in Velious; it's hard for me to imagine anyone seriously training around NTOV without either a) getting vaporized by quads for 400 or b) getting petitioned after annihilating someone else's raid with 4-5 trash mobs.

[Pint]

knights are the best classes in norrath, anyone who disagrees is prob crazy irl. you can trust me bc i would not lie.