Another bonus for paladins is they blossom early and maintain a steady growth. You get lull at 15 to split camps, LOH at level 1, offhealing by 9 (15 really), and root at 22, etc...
SK's camp splitting ability doesnt come till 30 with feign death, and they get their fear/kite line until 15 (22, really for their decent snare). Obviously they get their aggro-causing dots and lifetaps early on to compensate.
You can argue the paladin is more useful for utility earlier, and the SK comes into its own a bit later. Both are solid tanks, solid aggro generators, and have many tricks up their sleeves.
Really the only negative thing i could say to someone rolling either a SK or Paladin is : "Be aware you will spend most of your EQ career being group dependent". Which most are anticipating, anyways, if you are rolling a melee in the first place.
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