Necromancer vs Shadowknight

First off, let me state that I'm talking about Everquest 2, rather than anything in real life. Anyone that thinks otherwise needs to have their head examined long before I do. :P

For years, I've played a necromancer. First in EQ1, now in EQ2. The combination of having a tanking pet and DoTs (Damage over time spells) were the perfect combination for me. When I went to World of Warcraft for awhile, I played a hunter simply for the fact that the play-style was that of an EQ necro.

Having come back to EQ2 again with a temporary free "Come back to us" trial, I've noticed that they have completely revamped the combat abilities and spells of all classes. So far, this is proving to be a good thing.

The classes now begin to feel like themselves much sooner than before. For example, my old 38th level necro in EQ2 didn't begin to feel like a necromancer (as I had played one in EQ1 for years), until I hit level 35. At that point, I finally had a couple of DoTs and undead spells. That's 35 levels to go through before you can even begin to judge whether you like any particular class. Far too excessive in my opinion.

They have done a much better job this time around. As soon as you hit level 10 (not hard), you begin to branch from the archetype of your choice (fighter, mage, priest, scout) and get closer to your chosen class. My level 10 mage chose to go the Summoner route (which leads to necro at 20) and actually gets some summoning based spells early on. Same thing with my fighter that chose Crusader on the path to Shadowknight.

You can't imagine how happy this makes me. Well... maybe you can if you're as big a geek as my wife tells me I am all the time, haha. :)

Anyway...

This now brings me to a bit of a conundrum. The Shadowknight now gets disease, hate, and despair based spells much earlier than they did before. They also make good fighters as well, so now I'm having a bit of a complex.

I've played necromancers for years because of their roleplaying capabilties and diversity of spells/roles within the game they can fill. They are very self sufficient, but fit well within groups as well. We can be emergency mezzer, DPS, minor healing, etc. And of course, we have the power of Death itself... pretty impressive :)

The Shadowknight also has some good things going for it as well. To those of us that are old-school DnD'ers, it's essentially the anti-paladin. A very fun class to play. I get to be holy knight that rules with an iron glove. Holy? Did I say holy? Yes. Unholy, if you want to pick at it, but you are a warrior for your chosen deity, sent to uphold the word of your god. The roleplaying possiblities for this character also abound. Plus you get the abiltity of Harm Touch - essentially the reverse of the Paladin's "Lay On Hands". Rather than healing a player for a large amount of health once every day (in game time - believe the timer is 45 minutes in RL), you get to have an instant attack that causes mass amounts of damage. Gives new meaning to the old telephone ads, "Reach out and touch someone", haha.

In EQ1, I tried playing an SK a few times, but they were too boring back then. They weren't good fighters, and their spell casting ability sucked. In EQ2, they still aren't the best at either one, but they are much more effective than they were. Now with the combination of each set of abilities, the shadowknight is a power unto himself.

For now, I'm still playing around with both. My 38th level necromancer is still there, but I'm not bringing her out until I learn how to play the class with these new abilities. It's lot easier to learn with a low level character than trying with her - the mobs don't hit anywhere near as hard. :)