Shadowknight as main tank

[AK7]

Hi fellas, just a quick one, need your opinion on Shadowknight with/without donors as main tank and how far it can progress compared to a Warrior main tank in a group of 6 toons. Your thoughts are much appreciated.

[Enrikk]

With donors I got up to T7 with an sk, and have had tons of fun.

Still having fun, but some fights work best with a warrior, imho, but would still be workable for an sk with the right strat.

Enrikk

[Dred]

I run a SK with my group. She has some donors(BP, weapon, shield, sune arms) but she can tank most things without too much issue up to and including T9. Main problem is need for spells to hold aggro and many mobs silence and buff wipe. Also they don't have that many defensive discs and the decent ones have a long cooldown period(45 minutes to an hour). I find her pretty fun to play. The tanks here are fairly well balanced

[Noren]

(Hopefully) Unbiased assessment of strengths/weaknesses, as I've played all of these classes here for several years. They're all quite good and interchangeable in 99% of the situations you'll encounter, so I'd just pick which one looks most fun to you:

Warrior - Strengths
o High dps
o Low maintenance
o Many defensive discs
o Mana independent

Warrior - Weaknesses
o Poor aoe aggro unless you have bountiful rune/heal procs
o Zero survival tricks / self healing
o Little boring
o Zero channeling skill, so all clickies are interrupted without a rune buff to take hits

Shadow Knight - Strengths
o Excellent self-healing via lifetap spell/procs and epic clicky
o Feign Death
o Interesting and interactive class
o Decent aoe aggro with spells
o Boosts group dps with Death March
o Good channeling skill, so most clickies go uninterrupted

Shadow Knight - Weaknesses
o Low dps
o High maintenance
o Few defensive discs
o Mana dependent

Paladin - Strengths
o Good (but not excellent) self healing via spell/procs
o Decent group healing via spells
o Rez & Lay Hands
o Interesting and interactive class
o Excellent aoe aggro from heals and aoe nukes
o Good channeling skill, so most clickies go uninterrupted

Paladin - Weaknesses
o Low dps
o High maintenance
o Few defensive discs
o Mana dependent

[Rude]

What they said SK can tank the majority of encounters, but they have to do a lot more work for aggro at the higher tiers than warriors do. They also really can't tank very well against bosses that silence/dispell, which a good number of bosses do.

The DPS boost to groups from Death March is AMAZING though, so even if you're not the main tank you're adding a LOT of DPS if you have a few melee in your group. I rarely ever cast the lifetap spell because I was usually spending every waking moment casting spells/clickies to try and hold aggro.

As far as donors are concerned, warrior weapon is more important than SK weapon. At lower tiers the SK weapon is way OP, not quite as much once you get T7+ (though still good). I never bought the BP, but from what I heard while I still played, it makes you pretty much unkillable while it's up. Warrior BP is pretty good for snap-AE aggro, but not totally required. The DI shield is almost essential for all tanks, but it's easier to cast mid-combat for SK than it is for Warrior.

In the end warriors mitigate better and are far better at aggro, two things which put it ahead. SK's are more utilitarian and are slightly better at aggro in earlier tiers, if that's your game. If you go into a fight knowing the mechanics, an SK can tank almost anything. A warrior can tank everything