Tips for a new Warrior

[serjordanmormont]

Hello all,

I've decided I want to try my hand at a warrior and am looking for guidance on a few things.

1. Race: Really only looking at Dwarf, Barbarian, and Iksar. Any issues with these races or is one a significantly better warrior than the others?

2. Taunt: I've heard that holding aggro is tough for warriors until later. Is there anything I can do about that? If I plan to tank am I better off with a paladin or SK?

3. Tank or damage: Am I limited to tanking or can warriors do decent damage?

4. Gear: Any tips on a good place to gear up? I'm told that warriors are very gear dependant so I'd like to tackle this early if possible.

Any help is much appreciated. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[jcr4990]

1: As far as I know besides Ogre being heavily favored there isn't much racial preference for warriors beyond that.

2: Warrior aggro sucks in the early levels. Even later levels you'll never have aggro on par with SK/Pal but they can't tank raid mobs like you can. Aggro starts to get better at 37? Whenever Ykesha weapons start proccing. At 60 as long as people aren't dumb about going too hard on dmg/debuffs too early you'll hold aggro fine.

3: Warriors do moderate damage. Not on a Rogue/Monk level but not bad.

4: Can't help you much there. Like any class starting out my advice is to save up for HP rings and (if melee) a decent weapon before anything else. As far as places to go to camp warrior gear while you're leveling I really don't know. Will this be your main char or do you have higher lvl chars to farm with and fund some basic EC tunnel purchases?

[Diogene]

1. All those races are fine really. Dwarf best stats for small races plus they can wear enchanted dwarven armor, which is crazy good for the price. Barb get slam which also very handy to time stunts, and Iksar regen. Enough said.

2. You will have a hard time with taunt, its not reliable. Best bet before 40 to sort of keep aggro is to get dual jade mace and a fbss, but thats expensive.

3. Warrior dps is fine with the right weapons !

4. Save every bit you can to gear up

[Arclyte]

only play a warrior if you intend to raid

or if you want to rp a warrior

[serjordanmormont]

Originally Posted by Arclyte [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

only play a warrior if you intend to raid

or if you want to rp a warrior

Oh really? I mostly want to group with people. I have no idea if I want to raid. Am I better off going paladin in that case?

[khanable]

Originally Posted by serjordanmormont [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Oh really? I mostly want to group with people. I have no idea if I want to raid. Am I better off going paladin in that case?

yes

[Raev]

Originally Posted by serjordanmormont [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Oh really? I mostly want to group with people. I have no idea if I want to raid. Am I better off going paladin in that case?

Cucumbers gave you the short answer; let me give you the detailed answer.

I have a 60 warrior (Sakuragi) and he's quite solid in small groups. His biggest weakness is that Raev is better! The Feverblade/Sword of the Shissar combination is very solid threat with 255 dex, and with 5400 HP/1300 AC it's not even necessary to slow most low 50s mobs. And for tougher stuff he has evasive and defensive discs; asking Team Debuff to wait 10-12 seconds before firing the tash/slow cannon on a 1-2 minute fight isn't that much of a sacrifice.

This will not be your experience leveling an untwinked warrior XP groups! You can't afford good weapons and haste, and even if you could there are no good high ratio proccing weapons until Frostbringer at 40, and if there were you'd still need dex to make them proc, which you won't have without L60 shaman buffs, and even if you had the dex the fights are so short (<30s vs 20s average to proc with max dex) that your threat would still be very inconsistent. Expect to be tanking about 50% of the time vs a Paladin's 95% of the time. Plus you don't get discs until L52!

But even more than that, if your groupmates do something stupid there is very little you can do on a warrior. Enchanter having trouble on charm breaks? The Paladin can heal him and stun his charmed pet. Monk having trouble splitting? The Paladin can calm. Too many mobs in camp? Paladins get root! Caster mobs wrecking your day? Nothing a few Paladin stuns can't handle. Shadow knights don't have quite the same toolbox, but you at least have rock solid aggro and can split reasonably well with Darkness/Eye of Zomm + FD. Now in a good group this won't be as much of a problem, but you'll be in more bad/mediocre groups than good ones on the way to 60.

I think Warriors are the best tanks in the game at 60, with the best HP, best AC, best DPS, and the best disciplines of any melee. But even then they need good gear and good support. The other 99% of the time, Paladins and Shadowknights are much less frustrating.

[serjordanmormont]

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Cucumbers gave you the short answer; let me give you the detailed answer.

I have a 60 warrior (Sakuragi) and he's quite solid in small groups. His biggest weakness is that Raev is better! The Feverblade/Sword of the Shissar combination is very solid threat with 255 dex, and with 5400 HP/1300 AC it's not even necessary to slow most low 50s mobs. And for tougher stuff he has evasive and defensive discs; asking Team Debuff to wait 10-12 seconds before firing the tash/slow cannon on a 1-2 minute fight isn't that much of a sacrifice.

This will not be your experience leveling an untwinked warrior XP groups! You can't afford good weapons and haste, and even if you could there are no good high ratio proccing weapons until Frostbringer at 40, and if there were you'd still need dex to make them proc, which you won't have without L60 shaman buffs, and even if you had the dex the fights are so short (<30s vs 20s average to proc with max dex) that your threat would still be very inconsistent. Expect to be tanking about 50% of the time vs a Paladin's 95% of the time. Plus you don't get discs until L52!

But even more than that, if your groupmates do something stupid there is very little you can do on a warrior. Enchanter having trouble on charm breaks? The Paladin can heal him and stun his charmed pet. Monk having trouble splitting? The Paladin can calm. Too many mobs in camp? Paladins get root! Caster mobs wrecking your day? Nothing a few Paladin stuns can't handle. Shadow knights don't have quite the same toolbox, but you at least have rock solid aggro and can split reasonably well with Darkness/Eye of Zomm + FD. Now in a good group this won't be as much of a problem, but you'll be in more bad/mediocre groups than good ones on the way to 60.

I think Warriors are the best tanks in the game at 60, with the best HP, best AC, best DPS, and the best disciplines of any melee. But even then they need good gear and good support. The other 99% of the time, Paladins and Shadowknights are much less frustrating.

Very thorough, thank you for that. I am far from a twink so perhaps I will avoid warrior after all. Paladin & SK sound like they may be more my speed. I wouldn't call myself an experienced player either. Just used to play back in the day and am enjoying getting back into it. If warrior is so gear dependent perhaps they aren't for me. I like the idea of hitting stuff because my main is a cleric and I want something to offset the heal/sit/med repeat routine from time to time.

[Thurgrim]

Originally Posted by serjordanmormont [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Very thorough, thank you for that. I am far from a twink so perhaps I will avoid warrior after all. Paladin & SK sound like they may be more my speed. I wouldn't call myself an experienced player either. Just used to play back in the day and am enjoying getting back into it. If warrior is so gear dependent perhaps they aren't for me. I like the idea of hitting stuff because my main is a cleric and I want something to offset the heal/sit/med repeat routine from time to time.

I had a 60 warrior alt during RoK/SoV so I knew of the dependency on gear.

Details behind the good and bad have been covered already, but my advice if you choose to main this class.: Levels = gear, being an ogre helps.

The items I got along the way were won in groups, generosity, camping items and raiding... not a whole lot of tunnel questing. A proper haste item and resists will be your obsessions.. Raiding will get you geared up pretty quickly.

I have a lot of clickable items to help with utility, and a range of weapons to use depending on situation. You will be hot swapping weapons often.

Just put up a Maeglo profile, its not complete and obviously isnt BiS, but its pretty typical:
http://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Odumok

[mgellan]

Originally Posted by serjordanmormont [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Oh really? I mostly want to group with people. I have no idea if I want to raid. Am I better off going paladin in that case?

If you think you might want to raid go warrior, else you'll end up with a 50s toon no one will want tanking once warriors get disciplines and have to start again. But definitely not as a first character, it's painful trying to level an untwinked warrior... my 36 warrior has just really started to get fun to play!

As far as aggro goes on low levels my experience is a 2H seems to hold aggro better than dual wielding proccing weapons (dps?) ... PGT seemed to generate a lot of hate when it proc'd tho due to self buff. But anecdote != data [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Regards,
Mg