This is prob. a Question asked time and time again

[Unlawful]

<p>I am in a bind here, i like both the pally and the sk. well i may like the sk a bit more in a way due to..well that was my main in EQ1. but besides that. i was wondering if i could get a little insight on the ups and downs of both class. Thanks</p>

[Aule]

TSO is jokingly referred to as The Shadowknight Odyssey since at the start of the expansion Sk's got massively upgraded. If you liked your Sk in eq1 you'll probably find paladin a bit lackluster in comparison. Both are good classes, but Sk's are a lot more fitting for the gung-ho mentality.

[Kigneer]

<p><cite>Unlawful wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I am in a bind here, i like both the pally and the sk. well i may like the sk a bit more in a way due to..well that was my main in EQ1. but besides that. i was wondering if i could get a little insight on the ups and downs of both class. Thanks</p></blockquote><p>If you want to dps, play a SK. If you want to be more than just dps, play a Pally.</p><p>My advice is for anyone starting to play EQ2 is to roll a Paladin. You'll get a primer not only of a melee tanking class, AoE spell classes, and even healing. From there a player can branch off to a class they like to play better, as now they have a good idea how other classes work. Too many play a Paladin towards the end, and the result is they create a character that isn't a Paladin at all, it's something akin to their main, instead (especially true with speccing a Paladin as an offensive heavy tank, ignoring WIS let alone healing at all).</p>

[Boli32]

<p>Defensive tank = Paladin</p><p>Offensive Tank = Shadowknight</p><p>This doesn't mean that the Paladin is flexible enough not to dps, or the SK defensive enough enough to tank the hardest mobs in the game. Where it counts Pallys are betetr than SKs; tho imho take more skill to play than the button bashing SK.</p><p>Play what takes your fancy the most and play it to the best of your ability; that is the best advice anyone can offer.</p>

[deKoven]

<p><cite>Boli32 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Snippage......<p>Play what takes your fancy the most and play it to the best of your ability; that is the best advice anyone can offer.</p></blockquote><p>Truer words..... I'm continually surprised by how often these questions come up. You (collectively) have more than one slot, use them. Try both up to at least lvl 25 or so. Would take just a day or so if going through Timorous Deep.</p><p>We have, in guild, those who ask much the same sort of question; to wit, "which tradeskill should I take up". I don't know, I'm not you and have no clue which you'd like. If you choose some skill because others say "we need these" and you don't like to play that skill then you'll soon drop off the tradeskill radar and be no help to anyone. Nuff said !</p><p><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Aull]

<p>Both are awesome. With todays endgame tso shard armor and raid gear both the paladin and sk are the elite fighters in the game. I would say that the paladin is the most versitile fighter class and that is what makes them awesome.</p><p>Dps seems to be what every one believes makes a class awesome. Sk's are better dps, but not enough to say the paladin is a looser. In aoe fights these two can lay smack down and with the right group set up it gets crazy. Non mythed zerkers cannot do the aoe damage that the sk and paladin can lay out on a consistant basis.</p><p>Leveling up can be slow, but once at end game both are a sight to behold if geared and played well. Yeah sk's will be better dps but a paladin will not be far behind and the paladin will have better survival.</p><p>Being able to use a sword and shield and do the aoe dps that these two can do is what makes them so attractive. The warriors need to drop the shield and go duel wielding just to have a chance at coming close to the dps the crusaders are capable of.</p><p>Either one is highly sought after for tanking purposes. So finding groups shouldn't be that tough no matter what the lvl is.</p>

[Gungo]

<p>You are not really in any bind. Just make whatever race you want and choose whatever city you want after that make whichever class is there. Shadowknight or paladin. play the class for 20+ levels if you dont like it betray to the other class and play it for at least 10 more levels. Betrayal is a quick process once you are 20+.</p><p>If you dont like either of those classes you will need to roll. A new toon, but betrayal always gives you another chance at a slightly different toon.</p>

[RafaelSmith]

<p>If it were me I would pick Pally.  Just too many FOTM SKs running around these days to compete with for pugs and such and raid slots..</p>

[Aule]

<p>I dunno, whenever I group or raid with pally's I'm always disappointed by them. I still pull aggro off them, even if I'm the one they cast amends on.</p><p>Maybe I'm just spoiled by my usual tank being an Sk who kicked [censorship is un-American] before TSO made him superman. Your experience may vary, but my experience has been that the Sk holds aggro better than Pally while also doing 2-3x the dps.</p>

[Aull]

<p><cite>Aule@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I dunno, whenever I group or raid with pally's I'm always disappointed by them. I still pull aggro off them, even if I'm the one they cast amends on.</p><p>Maybe I'm just spoiled by my usual tank being an Sk who kicked [censorship is un-American] before TSO made him superman. Your experience may vary, but my experience has been that the Sk holds aggro better than Pally while also doing 2-3x the dps.</p></blockquote><p>Yeah and some pallys will put amends on a healer and forsake amending the 19k parsing warlock. In that case it is the player fault and not the class.</p>

[Costa]

<p>I played an SK to 80 and found it a fun class to play. I then switched to Pally as my guild had none at the time and find Pally to also be a fun and verstile class to play. Something i found with Pally over SK is that they are power hungry (at least untill you get gear to help with this) so if you want to burn through areas SK has less down time and will allow faster progression. As alreasdy stated SK is the higher DPS between the 2 but played well i would say Pally is the better tank in the survivability and agro stakes. Through different means both Crusaders are agro beasts and i'm still waiting on a dps to rip agro from me unless they do something a little crazy at the start of a fight.</p><p>IMHO i would say Pally is about where all tank classes need to be in way of agro, dps etc and that although SK's are OP beasts at the moment things will possibly change in the next expansion to either bring the other fighters up to their lvl or drop them back down to the other fighters.</p><p>I agree with the other posts in that create a pally and play it for 20-30 lvl's and then do the same for an sk. You'll soon know which one you like from doing this.</p><p>(My comparisons are based on the time i changed from SK to Pally at lvl 80 with t2 shard armor and jewlery and non mythed toons)</p>