Tanking Class Comparison

Guide to Tanking: Class Breakdown
Here, I lay out the general conclusions people have made about the different tank classes. This dissertation ignores things that are generally considered ‘common knowledge’, like the fact that Elves have certain self buffs that other classes don’t have. I’ve tried to take a ‘neutral’ stance regarding each class’ advantages and disadvantages, reiterating the comments and general thoughts of the Lineage II message boards here and elsewhere regarding tanks. My own experiences are thrown in as well, so your mileage may vary.

Temple Knights

The Temple Knight (TK) is the most "PVE-iest" of the tank classes. In Player vs. Environment, he is THE best field Area of Effect (AoE) tank, with 360 degree shield blocking, high block and evade rate due to DEX, and high speed to outrun the big nasties. The HP is about in the middle of the Shillien Knights and the Human Knights; not bad, but not exactly great. HP weapons are favored here as well, but many choose swords and focus weapons. The healing cubic keeps him going slightly longer and keeps mana consumption down a tiny bit for his party, but is generally considered not really useful most of the time. The Temple Knight has a toggle that improve his ability to fight/tank undead which consumes very little mana, but is really only help in PvE. Guard Stance, the MP-abusing toggle that provides tons of P. Def, was often described as the main reason behind being a TK. However, with the gift of this skill to SKs, it’s no longer as big of a selling point. In small parties, the ability to self-heal very high level bleeds and poisons comes in handy every now and then.
At first glance, TKs are limited in what they can offer parties in PvP. The Temple Knight finds his high speed and high M. Def useful in chasing down slow, lightly armored classes like nukers, praying his HP and healers hold out while he cuts away at the mage in front of him. Speed is his friend. He can perform quick hits and fade away, and even slowed has a fairly decent run speed. He has two cubics; a healing cubic and a storm cubic. The healing cubic is generally considered ineffective, never healing when you really need it. Reportedly, this has been improved over previous chronicles (such as healing party members) but it’s still fairly weak. The TK’s storm cubic, also, is not considered very powerful, but adds a shot in here or there. The ability to sustain three cubics, while not having the ability to summon three, has been a constant thorn in the sides of all TKs. However, this has been changed now in Chronicle 4 with the ability for Summoners to do a 'mass summoning' of cubics for their party. Normal tanks/players can only carry one cubic, but the TK can carry multiple. A party of different summoners and a few TKs (now armed with THREE nuking cubics or two and a debufing cubic) can now fight even more effectively. Entangle, the bane of all archers and nukers, is in the arsenal of the TK, and one of his most important weapons. A slowed enemy is a dead enemy. TKs who forget this important skill are really reducing their chances in PvP; both their own and their side’s.
High level (76+) TKs get a Shield Bash, a skill that interrupts the player’s current skill and disarms them. Temple Knights get an ultimate healing skill: Touch of Life. By sacrificing 1621 hp, it restores a significant amount of HP, protects against cancellation, debuffs, and improves the power of HP Rejuvenation magic. They also get another Ultimate Defense with effect 3 that causes people to change their target to the TK. Like all other tanks, TKs get passives to resist poison, bleeding, sleep, and holds. Most importantly, they get a toggle that greatly increases their resistance to stun and paralysis. TKs will also get the self buff Magic Mirror, a buff that reflects 100% of magic debuffs back on to the caster, helping high level TKs in the task of ‘mage hunter’ in Chronicle 4.

Paladins

The Paladin is a hybrid healer-tank class. Mostly tank, partly healer, the Paladin can heal friendlies (or mobs...) in a burst for almost as much or more as a Bishop can. They cannot, however, sustain this; four or five HP blasts with mana and they’re out. They have the Sacrifice skill, a unique skill that lets them sacrifice their HP in exchange for healing another player a somewhat smaller amount. The human tank’s Shield Stun is the only non-force stun in the game, and has the highest land rate of all stuns in the game. In PvE, the stun will sustain about 5 hits (by anyone) on average before breaking, but in PvP, you can rely on it to only survive about 1 to 3 hits. Majesty, the human tank’s unique self buff, increases P. Def again at the same rate as Shield 3, but at the cost of 8 Evasion. Even little level 52 daggers will be able to hit you, so get ready.
In PvE, Paladins are considered some of the best at tanking undead mobs. Their high CON and affinity for HP weapons tends to make them excellent at soaking hits from most things. Unlike the TK, the Paladin is slow. He has a 360 degree blocking toggle (which consumes no mana) that sacrifices blocking power in exchange for all around blocking. For fighting undead and dark-magic casting mobs, there are none better: High HP and low-MP consuming toggles that add extra resistance to dark attacks and damage to undead give the Paladin the decided advantage as the tank of choice against these foes. The Paladin has several other undead skills, including an undead-damage attack and area of effect P. Atk debuff on undead, further helping them in their fight. Be warned though: the landing chance of the debuff is reported to be low, making it most effective when fighting more than a few undead monsters at once.
Because of the extreme defensive nature of the Paladin, some refer to them as “Combat Medics”. With the introduction of CP, a Paladin can spam away all his mana and his HP and still have about 3000 CP for enemies to cut through at the highest levels. Final Fortress, the tank passive that increases P. Def when HP becomes low (under 30%) especially helps protect the Paladin CP after he’s consumed all his HP. Fortunately, their place as a tank leaves them as one of the last targets in PvP, allowing them to throw in an annoying stun or last heal, possibly swinging the balance of the PvP in your party’s favor. Most PvP Paladins that take up the role of combat medic tend to go –STR +CON, -STR +DEX, -INT +WIT, enabling the most blocks, HP, and casting speed they can get.
There’s a new trend recently of Paladins giving up the life of the healer, and going the route of the damage dealer. These Paladins sacrifice their CON for extra DEX and strength, acquire Focus weapons, and get armor that enhances their damage dealing ability (Blue Wolf, Tallum or Majestic Heavy). Bows are also favored weapons of the Damage Dealer (DD) Paladin. With these builds, the Paladin expects their enemies to become confused; generally, tank classes do not do exceptional damage. A few critical hits with a Focus Damascus or bow tends to change their mind, allowing your weaker DD’s to get in and really let loose.
High level Paladins get skills to help them in fighting melee DD's: Shield Slam, which interrupts physical skills, and for everyone, disarms them. They also get Physical Mirror, a buff that reflects Melee debuffs back on the caster. Like the TK, the Paladin gets an ultimate healing skill: Touch of Life. By sacrificing 1621 HP, it restores a significant amount of HP, protects against cancellation, debuffs, and improves the power of HP Rejuvenation magic. They also get another Ultimate Defense with effect 3 that causes people to change their target to the Paladin. Like all other tanks, Paladins get passives to resist poison, bleeding, sleep, and holds. Most importantly, they get a toggle that greatly increases their resistance to stun and paralysis. Also, Paladins get a self buff, Physical Mirror, which acts like Magic Mirror, except reflecting debuffs caused by physical attacks. These together will give human tanks a distinct advantage against classes that rely on physical attacks.

Dark Avengers

The Dark Avenger (DA) is a hybrid summoner-tank. Mostly tank, partly summoner, the Dark Avenger has a drain of the same power as other magic skills. Of course, having no M. Atk passive skills leaves his drain relatively weak, but useful nonetheless. They retain their level 35 self heal, but even with Blessed Spiritshots, it tends to just make you an arrow/nuke magnet. The Dark Avenger’s main draw point is its summon: the Dark Panther. Once feared universally, in the current age of archers and nukers with soulshots, spiritshots, outrageous casting speed, the Dark Panther has fallen by the wayside. Thanks to Chronicle 4’s improvements to the summoning system, summons once again pose a significant threat. The human tank’s Shield Stun is the only non-force stun in the game, and has the highest land rate of all stuns in the game. In PvE, the stun will sustain about 5 hits (by anyone) on average before breaking, but in PvP, you can rely on it to only survive about 1 to 3. Majesty, the human tank’s unique self buf, increases our P. Def again at the same rate as Shield 3, but at the cost of 8 Evasion. Even little level 52 daggers will be able to hit you, so get ready.
The DA has other skills of importance, including Hamstring and his life drain. To M. Def-resist people your level, expect your drain to do no more than a few hundred damage. You might be able to do double to low M. Def or badly jeweled enemies, and much more to lower level enemies. Hamstring, the bane of all archers and nukers, is in the arsenal of the DA, and one of his most important weapons. A slowed enemy is a dead enemy. DAs who forget this important skill are really reducing their chances in PVP; both their own and their side’s.
In PVE, you can’t really go wrong picking a DA to tank for your group. They’re the only pure tank that doesn’t get 360 degree shield blocking of any kind, so the DA must either rely on his skill or luck to keep his shield between him and the gobs of mobs. They generally have tons of HP, like Paladins, but they do not have any undead passive skills. Instead, they have Corpse Plague and Corpse Drain, which if managed properly can add a some extra uptime to your party. The Corpse Drain returns about 100 HP + 10* skill level per corpse for a light amount of mana…not enough to solo on, but enough to help in a small group. Corpse Plague is really just a novelty at higher levels; the DA’s low M. Atk and infrequent levels of the Corpse Plague skill make it unlikely to land on mobs your level.
In PvP, the DA was once king of the hill. The DA as of now still packs a decent punch, but not what it used to. Being a hybrid summoner-tank, expect to play that way in most PvP’s: as support for your panther. A Dark Avenger’s most conventional attack strategy is to stun their opponent, Hamstring (slow) them, and drain them while their panther does most of the damage. HP weapons are common and some say most preferred. The PvP style of a Dark Avenger relies heavily upon his panther, and his ranged slow, Hamstring. The Dark Panther is extremely annoying to anyone not attacking it, deadly to those who ignore it. The second the panther is targeted though, it’s just another mob: dropped in three to six hits from ranged DD ’s, about double from melee DD’s. He’s got high P. Atk, HP, and base run speed, but it has low P. Def, M. Def and critical rate, even buffed. Even with those disabilities, the panther can really do some serious damage to an enemy (especially with pet soulshots). Some DAs have foregone their HP heritage and set themselves up similar to the Paladin Damage Dealer, but this trend doesn’t seem as common among DAs as it is Paladins.
High level Dark Avengers get skills to help them in fighting melee DD's: Shield Slam, which interrupts physical skills, and for everyone, disarms them. They also get Physical Mirror, a buff that reflects Melee debuffs back on the caster. Unlike the Paladin and the TK, the Dark Avenger’s dark nature lets him learn an ultimate curse: Touch of Death. By sacrificing 1338 HP, it significantly decreases a target’s maximum CP for a brief time period and decreases resistance to debuff attack, and the effect of HP regeneration magic. However, it's limited in that it can only be used at less than 75% HP. They also get another Ultimate Defense with effect 3 that causes people to change their target to the Dark Avenger. Like all other tanks, DAs get passives to resist poison, bleeding, sleep, and holds. Most importantly, they get a toggle that greatly increases their resistance to stun and paralysis. Also, Paladins get a self buff, Physical Mirror, which acts like Magic Mirror, except reflecting debuffs caused by physical attacks. These together will give human tanks a distinct advantage against classes that rely on physical attacks.

Shillien Knights

Ah, the Shillien Knight (SK). Once considered the worst tank, the SK has come far, and now understood for the true power that they can bring forth onto the battlefield. Sometimes described as a “mage tank”, the SK is definitely the most offensive tank of all the tank classes. Unlike other tanks, SKs almost universally use sword weapons, and many use mage swords. Special abilities of choice are Focus and occasionally Haste for melee weapons, and Acumen or Magic Power for mage weapons. Mage power is one that really helps the SK out: normally, the small set amounts of bonuses weapons give are not useful for mages, but for tanks without M. Atk boosting passives, the small amount makes a big difference, greatly increasing the chance of landing debuffs and damage dealt with magic. The main weakness of the SK is their low CON and HP; they stun almost as easily as mages, and unlike all other tanks, the SK has no self-mdef buff.
In PvE, and PvP the SK has many options available to them. With the highest strength of all tanks and an affinity for damage, the SK can solo efficiently. While it’s true that a Dark Avenger with a panther, or a Paladin fighting undead mobs can kill well, both are limited. The SK at highest levels has four ranged nukes. The first is the the Dark Elf racial drain nuke, which returns 20% HP of the damage done. Second is the Dark Elf racial Ice Bolt nuke which has a chance of slowing, effect 2 (effectively a force slow attack). Third, they have the SK-only special nuke, which has half-power of the racial dain but returns 100% damage done as HP, and is fairly mana efficient. Fourth, and perhaps most feared, is the SK’s Lightning Strike, which does damage and has a chance to land a 2 minute paralyze. The SK also has the racial poison, Bleed, Hex, and Power Break skills at his disposal for improving his damage output. Needless to say, the choice to use a high M. Atk weapon by many SKs should be clear by now. Of course, we must not forget to mention the recent Chronicle 3 addition of the TK’s Guard Stance to the repertoire of the SK, as well as 360 degree shield blocking. Both of these things have greatly helped the SK.
The SK also has three cubics. The first is a draining cubic, which does direct damage, returning some of the damage done back as HP to the SK. The second is a debuff cubic, which has a chance at landing Hex, Power Break, or Wind Shackle against your opponent. For those counting, this means an SK can at the absolute best land seven debuffs on an enemy. Against tanks and archers or any other highly buffed class, even if the debuffs did nothing else, rolling off some of their buffs is nearly guaranteed. The third is a cubic that poisons enemies.
Of course, there are downsides for being an SK. As mentioned before, your low CON makes you a stun-magnet. Your low HP presents some issues in PvE; Bishops heal you the least effectively of all tanks. You’re not as fast as TKs, and you’re the only tank without a self-M. Def buff. Many people still have the perception that, even with all the offensive capability of the SK, they still cannot tank, and you may be relegated as a ‘backup’ tank. In these situations, SKs can have a lot of fun; instead of worrying about managing hate, you get to sit back and use your debuffs, drains, nukes, bleeds, poisons; everything else you wouldn’t normally get to do when all your MP is used on hate. Just hope you don’t pull aggro, and the healer forgets about you! Another pain for being an SK is the mana drain. Shield Fortress, Guard Stance, debuffs, nukes, cubics…it adds up. Some see this as a boon, others, a curse. Opinions vary widely on this. Cubics only last 15 minutes, and if you die, they disappear too. They can become quite expensive.
In Chronicle 4, the SK has been confirmed to get a few weak skills, and another Ultimate Defense like the TK’s, Paladin’s, and DAs. However, they also get some very interesting skills. Like the DA, the SK gets a new, very powerful dark attack that "launches a dark curse at the expense of player's HP. Cancel's enemy's buffs and decreases their max CP, resistance against debuffs and decreases heals received by the enemy. Can be used only when player's HP is less than 75%". The SK also gets a very mana efficient shield stun at high levels. Also, SKs get a self buff of Magic Mirror, a buff that reflects 100% of magic debuffs back on to the caster. This should help at high level SKs in fighting all magic using classes.
High level (76+) SKs get a Shield Bash, a skill that interrupts the player’s current skill and disarms them. The SKs dark nature also lets him learn an ultimate curse: Touch of Death. By sacrificing 1338 HP, it significantly decreases a target’s maximum CP for a brief time period and decreases resistance to debuff attack, and the effect of HP regeneration magic. However, it's limited in that it can only be used at less than 75% HP. They also get another Ultimate Defense with effect 3 that causes people to change their target to the SK. Like all other tanks, TKs get passives to resist poison, bleeding, sleep, and holds. Most importantly, they get a toggle that greatly increases their resistance to stun and paralysis.