Everquest 2 - Overview Of The Shadowknight Character Class In Everquest 2

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Shadowknights are paladins who treat every day as opposite day.

The shadowknight is the evil flipside of the paladin. They’re a plate wearing death crusader that uses lifetaps, heavy armor, massive weapons and undead pets to cause havoc in the shattered world of Norrath. They’re capable tanks, but they also do lots of damage with their weapons and spells. Some of their abilities give themselves or other tanks improved avoidance abilities, enhancing their group utility. Their intelligence governs their ability to do damage with spells, which makes up more and more of a percentage of the damage that they do as they grow in level. Shadowknights should focus on strength and stamina otherwise, keeping different gear sets depending on their expected role in the group. Although they don’t often main tank in raids, they will often be called upon to serve as offtanks if the situation requires it.

Solo players will be happy to know that shadowknights are quite good at it, using their lifetaps, high damage and high defenses to cut through their enemies. The sword stance line, which increases your damage and intelligence, is generally the best one to use for most situations that a shadowknight finds themselves in, as it gives a massive boost to both physical and spell damage. It’s a tough choice for a shadowknight between a one handed weapon and shield or a two hander - they do more damage with the latter, but they have access to an additional knockdown ability with the former. Shadowknights also bring a delightfully wicked array of group buffs to the table, including many that steal life from the enemy and returns it to the group members and boosts some defensive abilities.

Shadowknights also have a good number of threat-building abilities that they can use on both single targets and groups. These should only be used when the shadowknight is acting as the main tank - otherwise, it could rob the acting tank of threat and make aggro management more challenging. The shadowknight should take care to keep their drains active, especially the draw strength line and mana sieve, which steal strength and mana respectively. They also have a good assortment of single target and area of effect damage over time spells, adding to both their damage capability and their tanking utility. You do have a lot of skills at your disposal, but the difference between a merely good and an amazing shadowknight lies in their ability to keep up all of their buffs, debuffs and drains while still doing good melee damage.

This post is part of the series: Everquest 2 Character Class Guides

A collection of articles detailing the many classes in Everquest 2.

  1. Everquest 2 - Class Overview
  2. Everquest 2 - Berserker
  3. Everquest 2 - Brigand
  4. Everquest 2 - Bruiser
  5. Everquest 2 - Coercer
  6. Everquest 2 - Fury
  7. Everquest 2 - Guardian
  8. Everquest 2 - Illusionist
  9. Everquest 2 - Inquisitor
  10. Everquest 2 - Monk
  11. Everquest 2 - Mystic
  12. Everquest 2 - Necromancer
  13. Everquest 2 - Paladin
  14. Everquest 2 - Ranger
  15. Everquest 2 - Shadowknight
  16. Everquest 2 - Swashbuckler
  17. Everquest 2 - Templar
  18. Everquest 2 - Warlock
  19. Everquest 2 - Wizard