Diff between Pally and SK Tanking? - Page 3

pallius · #1 07-25-2010, 10:50 AM

I played 3 uber SKs. 1 on Brell Kunark > GoD. One on Sleeper (Combine) through Anguish. 1 on my own eqemu server through PoP (I don't really like the stuff after that [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]). I used to pull NToV dragons to the zone in, etc. Relatively pro. I definitely have perspective on a good SK (and monk for what its worth regarding pulls).

Instead of making yet another SK, I decided to go with a paladin here to have a new experience. Here is the honest comparison:

1. In a regular fight, SKs do hold aggro better. It does take more work for a paladin to hold aggro. Anyone who says otherwise takes this issue to personally. That said, as long as a paladin has clarity, they should have no trouble holding aggro off the rest of the group indefinitely. They just have to cast a few extra times.

2. When mez breaks or someone hits the mob prematurely on a raid, I LOVE being able to nail the mob with stun, root, or blind to save the enc. I never could do that as an SK.

3. I really like using lull for pulls. In most situations, I prefer it over SK pulling. You just angle your camera around and lull all the mobs you don't want to pull. It is especially great in a chain pull situation because once you lull a set of mobs you have about 2 minutes to chain singles without any additional work. This is great in camps like executioner where every room is a train waiting to happen. Unless you get a resist, you won't miss fd splitting. A good paladin can out pull and SK in most situations if speed is a factor being measured.

4. Heals - fantastic. I don't play healer classes because I like to be in the action. But I love being able to heal a caster during a fight on a raid. In exp groups I can often heal myself in between fights for several rounds if a healer is afk or oom. Cleric is like "OOM DONT PULL" im like "Ok, healing self... pulling". Having a 270 heal is awesome. I can't wait for sup heal. Also, I love being able to root a mob, step back, and heal myself. This is super useful in dungeons. There are situations where as an SK I would have had to fd and call it a failure, but as a paladin I can root the mob and heal myself, or root the mob and med and heal myself. Even though I can't FD, I have gone as far as rooting 4 mobs in lguk and camping out.

5. Rooting for pulls: Great tactic that I honestly don't see paladins doing. Maybe they don't know how. Lets say for example I am pulling GIBS or bats in lguk or pulling BNB/LDCs/Efreeti area in an exp group. Sometimes you are going to get more than one even with lull. What I do is lull what I can, then pull by rooting one of them. The remaining come and I hit F8 and root while I walk backwards to the group. Now they are all spread out and easy for the enc to mes. Even if we have no enc, that is fine too. They will break root in a staggered fashion and come to the group on a delay. I can re-root for CC or just kill them. I call it "auto pull". Root 2-3 mobs during the pull and as you kill the first one, here comes the second. The group is like "whoa, cool". Encs love it. SKs can't do it. It is also great when you're in a hurry and don't want to take the time to lull, like if you're chain pulling for exp.

6. Root CC - invaluable for a tank class. I never knew what I was missing as an SK. It really allows a good paladin to truly protect the group.

7. Lulling a wanderer - I always keep an eye out for pathing mobs, like the nox ph in BNB group. Once you see it out of the corner of your eye during a fight, hit it with lull. Now its much less likely to add.

There are many other points. But the main one is this: Being a good paladin is all about control. They have more tools to control a situation than an SK. If the player is skilled, you will be able to control the situation and protect your group better as a paladin. The paladin will have less dps. They won't be as cool. They are going to die sometimes because they dont have FD. They have to work harder for aggro. But at the end of the day, they have other skills that SKs simply do not have, and as long as the player knows how to use them, Paladins are awesome.

As far as racial stats, that won't matter in kunark. Even right now in classic, I am hitting 235 str buffed and like 210 sta and am not done gearing still.

And there is a ton of misinfo in this thread. For example, Mad Jacq is wrong when he says a rooted mob hits randomly and reveals he does not know how to play a paladin. Rooted mobs hit whatever is closest to them. So paladins can root a mob and then stand on its toes to be the one who gets hit. When all else fails, you can root it and stand on it to be the one it hits. But when root breaks, if you don't have aggro, its going to chase after whoever it wants to. It just buys you time to build more aggro.

Don't have time to address all the other false points. That one just really stood out.

darkblade717 · #2 07-25-2010, 04:00 PM

Quote:

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

I played 3 uber SKs. 1 on Brell Kunark > GoD. One on Sleeper (Combine) through Anguish. 1 on my own eqemu server through PoP (I don't really like the stuff after that [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]). I used to pull NToV dragons to the zone in, etc. Relatively pro. I definitely have perspective on a good SK (and monk for what its worth regarding pulls).

Instead of making yet another SK, I decided to go with a paladin here to have a new experience. Here is the honest comparison:

1. In a regular fight, SKs do hold aggro better. It does take more work for a paladin to hold aggro. Anyone who says otherwise takes this issue to personally. That said, as long as a paladin has clarity, they should have no trouble holding aggro off the rest of the group indefinitely. They just have to cast a few extra times.

2. When mez breaks or someone hits the mob prematurely on a raid, I LOVE being able to nail the mob with stun, root, or blind to save the enc. I never could do that as an SK.

3. I really like using lull for pulls. In most situations, I prefer it over SK pulling. You just angle your camera around and lull all the mobs you don't want to pull. It is especially great in a chain pull situation because once you lull a set of mobs you have about 2 minutes to chain singles without any additional work. This is great in camps like executioner where every room is a train waiting to happen. Unless you get a resist, you won't miss fd splitting. A good paladin can out pull and SK in most situations if speed is a factor being measured.

4. Heals - fantastic. I don't play healer classes because I like to be in the action. But I love being able to heal a caster during a fight on a raid. In exp groups I can often heal myself in between fights for several rounds if a healer is afk or oom. Cleric is like "OOM DONT PULL" im like "Ok, healing self... pulling". Having a 270 heal is awesome. I can't wait for sup heal. Also, I love being able to root a mob, step back, and heal myself. This is super useful in dungeons. There are situations where as an SK I would have had to fd and call it a failure, but as a paladin I can root the mob and heal myself, or root the mob and med and heal myself. Even though I can't FD, I have gone as far as rooting 4 mobs in lguk and camping out.

5. Rooting for pulls: Great tactic that I honestly don't see paladins doing. Maybe they don't know how. Lets say for example I am pulling GIBS or bats in lguk or pulling BNB/LDCs/Efreeti area in an exp group. Sometimes you are going to get more than one even with lull. What I do is lull what I can, then pull by rooting one of them. The remaining come and I hit F8 and root while I walk backwards to the group. Now they are all spread out and easy for the enc to mes. Even if we have no enc, that is fine too. They will break root in a staggered fashion and come to the group on a delay. I can re-root for CC or just kill them. I call it "auto pull". Root 2-3 mobs during the pull and as you kill the first one, here comes the second. The group is like "whoa, cool". Encs love it. SKs can't do it. It is also great when you're in a hurry and don't want to take the time to lull, like if you're chain pulling for exp.

6. Root CC - invaluable for a tank class. I never knew what I was missing as an SK. It really allows a good paladin to truly protect the group.

7. Lulling a wanderer - I always keep an eye out for pathing mobs, like the nox ph in BNB group. Once you see it out of the corner of your eye during a fight, hit it with lull. Now its much less likely to add.

There are many other points. But the main one is this: Being a good paladin is all about control. They have more tools to control a situation than an SK. If the player is skilled, you will be able to control the situation and protect your group better as a paladin. The paladin will have less dps. They won't be as cool. They are going to die sometimes because they dont have FD. They have to work harder for aggro. But at the end of the day, they have other skills that SKs simply do not have, and as long as the player knows how to use them, Paladins are awesome.

As far as racial stats, that won't matter in kunark. Even right now in classic, I am hitting 235 str buffed and like 210 sta and am not done gearing still.

And there is a ton of misinfo in this thread. For example, Mad Jacq is wrong when he says a rooted mob hits randomly and reveals he does not know how to play a paladin. Rooted mobs hit whatever is closest to them. So paladins can root a mob and then stand on its toes to be the one who gets hit. When all else fails, you can root it and stand on it to be the one it hits. But when root breaks, if you don't have aggro, its going to chase after whoever it wants to. It just buys you time to build more aggro.

Don't have time to address all the other false points. That one just really stood out.

Who were you on Brell?!

Quote:

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

Fixed your post [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Lawl

Quote:

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

Pally here.

Played one back in the day and play one now.

Both SK's and Paladins are great fun to play. And both are excellent tanks, perhaps the best for exp groups.

Two observations on this thread:

DON'T ROOT A MOB unless it is to park. You don't use root to get aggro. If you root then the mob will hit randomly and could swat your rogue, etc. Early on you use flash of light and later stuns. Also root is expensive manawise relatively speaking...

The other thought I had on this thread was that back when POP came out and I was like level 65 or something I never met a SK that could out taunt me. I can't remember exactly, but think it was like 3 hard core stuns I had. I used to pull with a stun, which really pissed the mobs off, and by the time the mob would get back to the group I would be chain stunning it. Then, and I experienced this more than once, a SK could have talked about the mob's mother and stacked every dot he had on it. Heck, he could have stacked the whole necro line on the mob if he had that too and the mob wouldn't even so much as glance at him.

Of course that might have been during the time when paladins were actually unbalanced. That period was fun. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You were playing with some really shitty SKs then.

pallius · #3 07-25-2010, 07:57 PM

On Brell, was Shadex (gnome mag), Dange Rous (iksar sk), Twinkered (human monk)

Kevris · #4 07-26-2010, 12:21 AM

Having played both a Paladin and Shadowknight back in the Kunark era, I'll say I found the SK to be far more destructive, but the Paladin to be far more useful.

You can also get away with less of a healer using a Paladin tank than you can with an SK, in a group situation that is.