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Old 04-21-2019, 08:59 PM
Ennewi Ennewi is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 2,202
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It's fair to say that since Warriors are the tank for endgame Velious raid content, knights should at least diversify rather than attempt to compensate for where they are lacking in comparison--no amount of gear will make up for not having defensive discipline. When raiding such content, knights have little choice but to downshift into more supportive roles, sometimes ramp-tanking and sometimes off-tanking adds but mostly just swinging at the current target and serving as speed bumps/spike strips if and when the raid starts wiping and the Clerics are camping, counting down the seconds. But even so, there are exceptions in Velious that extend beyond group content for hybrids--the Ring War, Halls of Testing, and Kael Arena all come to mind.

I will, however, own that my Paladin has incorporated more and more wisdom/mana gear for raids because of those higher level heals. Neither HP or AC are needed as a tertiary healer, so your argument has merit there but, if bag space allows, wisdom items can be mixed in with charisma gear for such times. But outside of raids, having a larger mana pool hasn't really come into play (yet); how quickly that pool is being replenished though has dictated the rate in which I cast and who receives what buffs/heals and whether I will bother to CC. Thankfully, Norrath is currently the equivalent of America in the 80s, having more crack and more access to crack now than ever before. C1/C2, GoB, Cassindra's/Cantata, and PotG, along with Flowing Thoughts.

It's important to remember that hybrids are, or at least were intended to be, two-thirds warrior and one-third priest/purecaster--a distinction that will be more pronounced once their skill tables are adjusted. Granted, casters do have more versatility than melee classes which factors in when examining knights as a whole, but knights don't necessarily have the most mana-efficient spells either.

Imagine if each of the hybrid classes had a second option from the very start to be two-thirds caster instead of two-thirds warrior. Having more capabilities with magic, the argument would then be that players ought to focus on wisdom or intelligence. But being that knights are two-thirds warrior, players are more inclined to place their points into stamina just because. Personally, I also don't think those 20 starting points are terribly important, though they can help even out certain racial deficiencies.

As for AC, it is markedly better than years ago and I would even go so far as to say that it's more important than Stamina or Wisdom, at least in the traditional group role that knights frequently find themselves in.
Last edited by Ennewi; 04-21-2019 at 09:12 PM..