Everquest Beginner Class Guide – Shadowknight

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Shadowknights are a tanking class with additional unholy spells and are able to benefit their groups in a number of ways from pulling to tanking. Humans, Frogloks, Gnomes, Erudites, Iksar, Ogres, Dark Elves and Trolls are all able to choose the Shadowknight class.

Description

Shadowknights are a hybrid class. They have a mixture of Necromancer spells and the tanking abilities of Warriors. They employ their unholy spells to drain health and stats from their enemies to benefit the Shadowknight and their group. Shadowknights are tied with Paladins as second best tanks in Everquest.

Strengths

Shadowknights have a wide range of Necromancer spells, plus a large amount of Shadowknight only spells, with slight Necromancer influence. They have a line of AC (Armor Class) draining spells that increase their defense. Perhaps the most powerful Shadowknight tanking ability is a threat multiplier. This dramatically increases the threat generated by the Shadowknight. This spell is very versatile, as it can be cast on other players, particularly other tanks to help them hold their agro, if the Shadowknight is not selected to tank.

They also have a series of fear spells, snare spells and many DoT (Damage over Time) spells. Another very useful Shadowknight spell is Feign Death. This spell allows them to appear dead, causing the enemy to forget about the Shadowknight. This spell allows Shadowknights to pull as well as Monks.

Roles

Shadowknights are tanks through and through, yet they are able to fill a number roles in groups and are also quite adept at soloing. Shadowknights, with their array of DoT spells and powerful melee attacks, are a viable source of DPS (Damage per Second).

Shadowknights have several different ways to successfully solo. The most straightforward is the general tank option. Shadowknights are able to heal themselves with a line of health drain spells that heals the Shadowknight for the amount of damage done to the enemy. This is a great boon when soloing. Coupled with their strength taps they can outlive and defeat most enemies.

The second, more difficult and active way to solo as a Shadowknight is to fear kite. With their powerful snare spells and fear, they can follow very closely behind an enemy and get in many swings before the fear spell wears off. At this point the Shadowknight can tank and battle as normal or re-fear and continue the fear kiting.

This post is part of the series: Everquest 2 Beginner Class Guide

A collection of guides to the many classes of Everquest Classic for beginners.

  1. Everquest Beginner Class Guide – Bard
  2. Everquest Beginner Class Guide – Beastlords
  3. Everquest Beginner Class Guide – Druid
  4. Everquest Beginner Class Guide – Enchanter
  5. Everquest Beginner Class Guide – Magician
  6. Everquest Beginner Class Guide – Monks
  7. Everquest Beginner Class Guide – Necromancers
  8. Everquest Beginner Class Guide – Paladin
  9. Everquest Beginner Class Guide – Rogue
  10. Everquest Beginner Class Guide – Shadowknight
  11. Everquest Beginner Class Guide – Shamans
  12. Everquest Beginner Class Guide – Warrior
  13. Everquest Beginner Class Guide – Wizard