Best class for tank role?
 

If you HAD to choose one class that fits the role of Tank the best, what would you choose and why?

Class only, but race discussion is welcome also.

I voted Shadowknight for their superior hate acquiring abilities, but that's really my only reason since I'm not very experienced with tanks.

Warrior. No contest. Highest mitigation possible.

The race is debateable, but my vote goes to Ogres, for Slam and immunity to frontal Stun (not to mention the insanely high Str/Sta), with Barbarians a close second.

Warriors dont have hybrid xp penalties either!

Excuse my ignorance, but never have played a tank and being someone who is interested in making one soon, I would assume wearing a shield over dual-wielding /Two- Handing would be the more efficient decision? Stricly for the purpose of Tanking?

Depends on the class. Hybrids get an AC cap without shields, and mostly generate their threat through spells, with taunt as a backup (the Paladin epic also gets around the AC cap). Warriors have no such cap on their AC, shield or not. Warriors HAVE to rely on taunt and their weapons for aggro, and it's limited until their weapons start procing at the higher levels.

So, for Paladins and Shadowknights, 1h/shield works best, until the Pally gets their epic. Warriors should be dual wielding or 2hing at all times.

Deleted my old post and trying again :D

So obviously for a raid target the answer is warrior. For an xp group things are different.

What you have to understand is that the P1999 playerbase is insanely well geared compared to live. An untwinked melee at 55 is still going to have full planar, RBG at worst and probably a Cloak of Flames, epic if rogue or monk, sky gear, Kunark armor pieces etc. And half the melees are twinks and have even better gear than this.

Therefore generally mitigation isn't a problem. The primary issues are threat, dps, and xp penalty. Warriors clearly win at dps (although its not huge) and xp penalty, so the question is whether the (essentially perfect) aggro of a paladin or SK combined with their utility (snaring runners, extra CC, etc) compensates. And this basically depends on the warrior's gear. Because warriors got screwed epic-wise compared to rogues and monks. It's very hard for a warrior dual wielding 9/20+14/28 with 130 dex to keep aggro off a Rogue with 15/25+10/18 or a monk with 9/16+17/28. In that case I think Paladins or SKs are probably better. On the other hand, if the warrior has epic/vp weapons then I think warriors are probably better.

TL;DR: Warriors are the most gear dependent class in everquest.

If you do this you will not be tanking, the rogue or the shaman will.

Paladins with Blind/Stun say hello.

Monk in almost every single non-raid situation.

-Mitigation roughly the same, maybe even higher, than a Paladin or Shadowknight.
-3x as much dps as a paladin or shadow knight
-Pulling ability, mend
-Agro is more than sufficient

You basically get both a tank and a dps.

Warriors are good too.

Also, it's worth mentioning that a Ranger can be a viable compromise between a Pal/SK type tank and a monk. You get a decent amount of DPS and excellent agro management/snap agro. Rangers are incredibly squishy but in some groups that won't be a problem anyway, and it may be worth the extra agro and DPS for quick killing.

Paladin.

Their gear is cheap and easily available, so they tend to be better geared than any given warrior. Spell argo works better than hope and pray for a proc argo. LoH is the ultimate o shit button. Lull pulling. Heals good as druid. O shit rez.