Better Hybrid Tank?

A

Aethyr

Dalayan Beginner
After playing a monk up to decent levels, I found that I couldn't tank the higher end stuff (FR named, HHK Royals etc). Aggro was always an issue, and not being able to reliably break mezzes. So I have started a pally.

Am I going to run into the same issue? I know pallies will tank fine for easier XP areas, but am I going to run into a glass ceiling again since all the agro abilities of a pally are MR based?

I picked pally due to the undead crits, and slightly more dps overall (eventually...). So far, there hasn't been any issues, but I am wondering which will make a better high end XP tank, SK or pally? And how big of a difference in DPS is the pally over SK? I know on undead, the Pally will win hands down, but on normal mobs?
 
You will have no problem at all tanking in the group scene as a paladin. Their aggro abilities are second only to Shadowknights and their tanking abilities are pretty good when you factor in the self heals.
 
On normal mobs, afaik the DPS is fairly similar. A SK burning his mana pretty hard will (I'm guessing, haven't parsed it myself) do more DPS than a Pally, while under normal conditions a Pally will do a bit more than an SK. On undead, pallies tear it up.

As for tanking, you won't have any trouble at the high end with a pally. With Galerian, I occasionally run into a mob where I have trouble landing my aggro spells (constructs on tmaps, some of the higher level gargoyles in eld's, etc), but they're few and far between, and all it takes is a single debuff from a groupmate and I'm back in business. My CHA is also only mediocre; if you made it a priority, it would be even less of a problem.

Once you get some AAs under your belt and pick up Divine Stun, you'll be golden. It has an excellent resist modifier, and lands better than 75% of the time even on the mod tmap constructs. The level 55 blind is resisted more often, but it's highly effective when it lands (which is the vast majority of the time on mobs that aren't unusually resistant to magic).

As for tanking in group situations, IMHO pallies are king. They don't mitigate as well as a war or even an SK, but they still mitigate damn well, and their self heals offset any increased damage taken. They are also the kings of AOE aggro, which is useful in almost every single dungeon. Their Wave of Light and Words of Thunder spells are fantastic for grabbing and maintaining aggro on up to either 6 or 8 mobs.

Like any other tank, Paladins are heavily gear dependant... but you'll find the class incredibly effective in the exp arena.

Now raids.... some would argue that that's a whole different ball game.
 
Skill of Hand would've helped a ton for tanking with the monk. Makes Tiger Claw and Dragon Punch a million times better for agro and mez breaks respectively. But I guess you've already moved on.
 
IMO for xp, it depends moreso on the rest of the group then the tank (between pally and sk) as far as which is better. If you have a trigger happy dps crew, SK is prolly better in the majority of situations for snap agro on a single mob.

AA's and gear I think close that gap to the point of it being hardly noticeable though, for xp, I can DPS like a lunatic (one conc) regardless if Gonobn (pally) or Volkov (sk) is tanking in most xp areas...unless they are napping....or I am.

As far as DPS goes, I dont think thats a high priority for either class but I do think (no parsing) that pallly can edge out an SK. Pallys and SK's do their job so the rest of the group can DPS safely.

Def. have to agree that the pally AA stun, just fucking rocks the house for agro.

There isnt an xp zone I can think of off the top of my head that would make me choose between a pally and an sk, both are great at their jobs and either would be more then welcome to tank for me. yes, undead excluded where pally obvo has an edge.

That said, a heavily geared/aa'd pally will decimate most(all?) xp zones with a good group just due to being able to REALLY piss off alot of mobs at once.


so anyway, that was the long way to say, I agree w/ Hasrett........for once.
 
Haha yeah, pretty much.

And I gotta say, there's nothing like pulling 3-5 mobs at a time in places like misery, 4th floor HK (limit 3 mobs), etc. and tanking them all at the same time eezy peezy.

By the same token, it's great with a SK not to have to do that because you can split the buggers.
 
So it sounds to me, like the Pally and SK in the end game, with appropriate gear and AAs are roughly equal as tanks, all things considered. The SK can more easily pull agro on a single target, though it is also possible for a Pally to do so, and Pally is far better at pulling AE agro.

In addition to this, Pallies have better base DPS than an SK, and far superior DPS vs undead, hands down. And in a group situation the DPS is more useful than splitting.

So, Pallies were given DPS buffage... SKs were given........

Sounds to me like SK's might be lacking being thrown a bone?
 
Rouhbius said:
And in a group situation the DPS is more useful than splitting.
Click to expand...

That is HUGELY dependent on the group makeup, where you're hunting, and how the pallie is geared. There are certainly LOTS of cases where AE aggro and multi-tanking is not realistic depending on gear, healers, and DPS, and splitting is a much better way to go.
 
Monks are amazing xp tanks. If your enchanter just mez's himself, or memblurs, or roots before you break it -- everything is smooth.
 
Rangers have pretty awesome aggro for tanking. I've never had a problem doing 3-4 pulls in EC/HHK/FR/FG before all the new zones came out. You'd need better gear / AAs than if you were a pally/sk though. :tinfoil:
 
Rouhbius said:
So it sounds to me, like the Pally and SK in the end game, with appropriate gear and AAs are roughly equal as tanks, all things considered. The SK can more easily pull agro on a single target, though it is also possible for a Pally to do so, and Pally is far better at pulling AE agro.

In addition to this, Pallies have better base DPS than an SK, and far superior DPS vs undead, hands down. And in a group situation the DPS is more useful than splitting.

So, Pallies were given DPS buffage... SKs were given........

Sounds to me like SK's might be lacking being thrown a bone?
Click to expand...


SK's (should) have the singlebest aggro on mobs ever. It's almost impossible to peel a mob off an SK if everything is going right. I (with Luas) got aggro off both Balthor and Grimar with just dots a couple of times - but I never ever saw Cvetkaa losing aggro to me - just an example.

Equally geared and AA'd pallies and SK's are about equally good as tanks with SK's being a bit ahead. Pallies do a bit more DPS, way more DPS on undeads, offer some utility in the group department while SK's can split and offer random combat utility as well as the best singletarget aggro currently ingame (even though lucky and clever warrior taunt can come close to it).
 
NOTHING really can compete with Sk's single aggro. Same can be said with Pallys on AE aggro. SK's split Pallys heal, Sk's can tank better, Pallys can dps better (by better i mean an higher output so there is no confusion). Imo and most knights opinions its a fair trade.

Resists on mob must be savagely high in order to resist blind. I can only think of a hand full of raid mobs that can resist blinds consistantly.

I think me and volk need to do some prasing on some raids to get actual numbers. Also Kaloft and Finster would be a good compairison.
 
I like the pally for its ae aggro and vs undead..oh and heals


Rouhbius said:
So, Pallies were given DPS buffage... SKs were given........

Sounds to me like SK's might be lacking being thrown a bone?
Click to expand...

sk has FD a very uber tool
 
Ltdan said:
I like the pally for its ae aggro and vs undead..oh and heals


sk has FD a very uber tool
Click to expand...

Yeah, SKs are fine. Good pullers and if you actually put in some effort, SK AE aggro is also good.
 
you're all missing the big picture here, bst is clearly the best tank out of all these classes :hmph:
 
tinkaa said:
SK AE aggro is also good.
Click to expand...
LOL!


Sorry, just because we get a once every 10 minutes (to do any good) Wave of Enfeeblement, a highly resistable 100 damage AE and a rare 20 minute recast AE stun spell does not mean we have 'good' AE agro. The only time I have good AE agro is with the Thaz BP, PoAir Katana and luck.
 
SK AE aggro if you put some effort in it. I can keep 4-5 mobs on Cvet with careful switching.
My record was 6 or7 on an ED tmap, but I will blame low hp aggro for that.
 
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