Class comparison questions

[Majestic42]

<p>I'm returning to EQ2 after playing Vanguard for a while and I'm looking for some specific knowledge / feedback / opinion / advice on a few things that search has not been instrumental in answering.</p><p>Background: Played EQ1 as a raiding ranger 5+ years. Moved to Vanguard for the last few years, did some raiding with a 50 Dread Knight, 50 Paladin and 50 bear shaman.</p><p>My playstyle "likes" are as follows: Hybrid design to the class; I like some magic with my melee, I like some utility with my DPS; I like a balance of killing power and survivability, that allows me to tackle the occasional "reasonable" heroic encounter solo (i.e. green / blue, and maybe more rarely an even more challenging encounter).</p><p>My playstyle "dislikes" are as follows: "spammy" gaming - i.e. I have a 54 Brig who has a lot of buttons to press; I find I watch my action bars for refresh instead of watching the action on my screen (this is a big downer for me); I don't want to be so survivable that I can't die, but I can't complete some of the tougher content either. While I don't mind a glass cannon that can take down tougher content (read: Illusionist), I prefer the balance and something with melee, if such a creature exists.</p><p>My challenge: finding the right balance of likes and dislikes</p><p>Why I am asking on the Paladin (and SK) forums: I enjoyed the tanking hybrids in Vanguard, a lot -  I'm not sure how high-level eq2 classes compare / contrast, so I though I'd investigate. Before I focus too much of my limited gaming time to playing one up, I thought I'd get a baseline of knowledge from those experts who have tread the path before me.</p><p>So, my questions:</p><p>1. Are EQ2 knights "spammy"? For comparison, how do they compare to a chronomancer Illy or Brig for keypresses-per-encounter? Lots of short-term buffs/debuffs that have to be constantly reapplied? that sort of thing</p><p>2. How do the knights stack up for soloing the slightly tougher content? For example, my 40 illy is a beast, my brig does very well, my 31 mystic has some challengs - how do knights stack up? and, are there "sweet spots" in level brackets / aa totals that provide a big delta in the gaming experience around solo / heroic tackling capability?</p><p>3. How do the knights stack up to each other in the following categories:</p><p>A: Solo w/ occasional heroic encounter</p><p>B: Small group dungeon crawling</p><p>C: Casual raiding</p><p>4. Describe in one or two sentence which knight is your personal favorite ( to play or group with ) and why.</p><p>Thanks everyone! Having a BLAST since coming back; now I want to focus this energy and get into some of the higher end content.</p><p>-MJ42</p>

[Kigneer]

<p>Biggest issue with Paladins is it low dps. You won't burn off a mob or even a single target. The reason often given is the Pally has heals and amends so it'll be an "inbalance". But in truth not being able to burn down even a single target means a Pally even with heals is going to die regardless in rougher dungeons, as he runs out of power for those heals before he can kill the target. A Guardian has better chances without heals to kill off target(s), than a Paladin with heals and even massive AoEs (Consecration @ Master II and Smite Evil).</p><p>The game "inbalance" is cloth casters now can tank instances, and CoA is an example of this in practice. If they can tank a zone because they can kill target(s) faster than the targets can kill them (e.g., having an Illy around to mez the target(s)) the Paladin's usefulness is pretty lame. <em>Folks who have been following these dps changes can point a finger at a certain game mechanics developer that has a crush on his raiding class for this mess.</em></p><p>A Pally does has it's usefulness as a utility tank, but yet again end-game utility isn't needed. Some raiding guilds has zero Paladins on their roster, for example.</p><p>For grouping and casual dungeon crawls, yes, a Paladin can even save the day. But if you're looking for more than heroic content (raiding), forget it until SOE removes the gimpness (e.g., lack of any dps; Divine Favor being a handicap than useful [allowing you to be revived stun and stifled for 10 long seconds right in a danger zone]; Stonewall allowing even a 1hp hit to ruin that shield; a ward that can be interrupted and with a very long casting time, making it almost useless to use on yourself while tanking) of this class.</p><p>You will "spam" your hotbars in a fight (this is a thing with all fighters, especially with reduced casting time). The mob/boss have incredible HPs, and even 5k melee hits often isn't enough to bring them down. Tanks are built to take hits, not give them. They're there to keep the squishes from being monster food.</p><p>Now there are builds for Paladins for max survivability, where there's a balance between fighting/healing, and they're superb setups for soloing and duoing (end game in groups it's like 70% fighting / 30% healing [especially on the MT to keep his health bar green -- often you won't be the MT, so your role is OT/Utility which IS the hardest role to master as you're doing 3 things at a time]). With in combat rez, you can revive whoever right in combat, and a Pally gets good at going over to revive while still fighting. The other night when we were going after my fabled, it was the most rezs I did in one round -- 5 -- keeping the MT and healer up after a botched pull, and then trying to keep the boss entertained while they're stunned and stifled (way to go SOE - NOT!!).</p><p>Don't get me wrong, being a Paladin has it's perks and I prefer this class over all others, but you also have to know the quirks of this class, too. If you're running with a consistent group of friends and/or guildies, if you want to tank 80+ content as the MT of your group, make sure to have a healer and a power transfer class (e.g., Dirge) in it, too. This way you can use your heals to backup the healers and Consecration and not run out of power due to it (plus giving up stats for power regen to fast run dungeons).</p>