Class comparison questions

[Majestic42]

<p><span ><span style="color: #ffffff;"> </span><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 SK (and Paladin) 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></span></p>

[Enoe]

<p><cite>Majestic42 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span><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><span style="color: #ff0000;">hard to say depend on personal view</span></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><span style="color: #ff0000;">plaing sk on 53 lvl soloed MoM in SM so i guess sk are ok for soloing </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">on 80 lvl daily farmed SoF in Feerrott solo too</span></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><span style="color: #ff0000;">both are great - sk more dps paly more survivlibity</span></p><p>B: Small group dungeon crawling</p></span><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span>both are great - sk more dps paly more survivlibity</span></span><span><p>C: Casual raiding</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">since Tso both can do tanking on raids - paly is slightly better on solo targets, sk is great on aoe encounters - above it sk can fill dps spot in raid too</span></p><p>4. Describe in one or two sentence which knight is your personal favorite ( to play or group with ) and why.</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">I love dps so my choice would be sk</span></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></span></p></blockquote><p>btw im not guardian anymore but sk <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Boruden]

<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><span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">At all level ranges you can take on multiple encounters without ANY trouble.  At level 80 I routinely take 3-4 level 81 heroic encounters in Jarsath.  Notice I am not talking about a single heroic encounter with 3-4 mobs in it.  I am talking about 3-4 serperate encounters.  There is no balance between killing power and survivability with the SK.  There is only killing power AND survivablity.  It wasn't until recently that the dps classes in my regular group started out dpsing me.  SOE keeps threatening to nerf the SK, which they should, but even with a nerf they will still rock.  You can easily solo, and are just sick in groups too.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">I guess SKs are "spammy". /shrug   They have a lot of skills to use, but pretty much all the classes have stuff you need to do throughout the encounter.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Give it a try I doubt you'll be disappointed.</span></p>

[Sadaro]

<p><cite>Majestic42 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span><span style="color: #ffffff;"> </span><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></span></p></blockquote><p>I play a raid Illusionist and I'm levelling an SK alt.  Both are fairly spammy, but the Illusionist is spammier.</p><p>Ranking the spamminess of various classes, I'd say:</p><p>- Illusionists/coercers are the spammiest.  Their casting times are equivalent to melee classes (or even a little longer), but they get huge DPS bonuses for continuous casting</p><p>- Scout classes with combos (stun, move to back, 2 CA's), since their CA's have low casting times and they have a limited time to pull of their combos.</p><p>- Tank classes come in third since CA's don't have a huge casting time, but it's ok to slow down on the keypressing while you look around, target a new mob, etc.  Tank classes I'm familiar with don't have the same types of time-critical combos you see with most scout classes.</p><p>- Other spell-casters, since their spells have longer casting times</p><p>- Healers, since several of their spells have the longest casting times.</p><p>Sadari</p><p>80 Illusionist</p>