[knottyb0y]

Warrior and Shaman duo has several distinct advantages and disadvantages versus ShadowKnight and Shaman duo.

HP and AC

Warriors and Shadowknights both wear plate armor and have a decent hit point pool. Shaman are not the best healers in the world but they should have no problem keeping either class up and alive.

Warrior Pro: Warriors have a bigger Hitpoint pool than Shadowknights.

Shadowknight Pro: If you lifetap and Vampiric Embrace(self only lifetap proc buff) enough, over time it will offset the damage to hit point ratio.

Conclusion: Name one class that couldn't use a bigger pool of hp? Warriors have the biggest hit point pool, period. Shadowknights can use their mana to soften the smaller hit point pool.

Utility

Shadowknights win hands down in this category. Warriors really do two things, take damage and deal physical damage. Shadowknights can self invis, feign death, invis undead, snare(albeit a dot with a shorter duration than Ensare and fear). The fact that these (particularly snare, fear and invis undead) compliment shaman utility spells so well is another factor to point out.

Conclusion: This is not even a competition.

Damage Output

Warriors hold the edge in this category. The wide selection of weapons and the ability to dual wield helps put their dps out of the shadow knights reach. The higher end Shadowknight weapons are mostly two handed and while dealing decent damage do not compare to many warrior weapon setups.

Warrior Pro: More variety, can dual weild, And double attack.

Shadowknight Pro: Cool 2 handed shadowknight weapons, and Double attack.


Aggro Control

Warriors and Shadowknights have different tools to create aggro. Warriors are forced to use weapons with a high ratio and aggro generating procs. Sometimes the warrior sacrifices dps for aggro weapons. Shadowknights can create aggro with weapons that have procs like warriors, but they also have spells. Many Shadowknight spells can generate aggro on command. A wise warrior fights blue con creatures and keeps taunt ready for when aggro is lost, but snap aggro is better for shadowknights.

Warrior Pro: Large selection of weapons out there (especially since Kunark) that have great ratios and procs. This will only get better when Velious comes out. Pro tip: pull with a bow and tag the npc a couple of times

Shadowknight Pro: Aggro On Command with spells.

Conclusion: A well trained warrior picking out the right creatures can control aggro, but does not have the aggro on command ability of a Shadowknight. Slow gernerates a lot of aggro.

Grouping

Specialist shine in groups. A shaman and warrior can add any class to their group and the Warrior will shine all the brighter. More DPS? Great the warrior loses less HP. Crowd Control? Great can take more difficult spots. Shadowknights are great in groups, but I would argue that in a balanced group I'd prefer a Warrior to a Shadowknight.

In my personal experience I duo'd as lot on Live as a Warrior and Shaman, I never regretted it. With that said I'm sure a Shadowknight would have done just as well in my spot. I did enjoy being able to go anywhere and be the pillar of a group while still being highly effective as just a group of 2.