Is warrior aggro greatly exaggerated?

[Wakanda]

I’ve never been in a group where the people in the group don’t root the mobs.

As someone who has duo’d with a lot of melees I would take a warrior over an sk or paladin any day out of the week because mobs die so much more dramatically faster with a warrior.

The concept of warriors being bad in group parties just doesn’t compute for me.

If I don’t root the mob, I can’t sit down. I need to be able to sit down, so I root mobs. Often times or preemptively, especially if I plan to malo/slow them.

Even when I’m playing my enchanter I notice the clerics in my group frequently casting root on mobs I’m in the process of mezzing. It’s hard for me to believe that warriors are tremendously suffering from aggro. I think it’s more likely that warriors are suffering from bad groups where rogues stand too close to mobs, magicians over nuke, and support classes simply don’t root mobs??

[loramin]

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

As someone who has duo’d with a lot of melees I would take a warrior over an sk or paladin any day out of the week because mobs die so much more dramatically faster with a warrior.

I think it might depend a lot on the warrior and their gear. I was duoing my cleric with a Warrior yesterday, and it was slow. It was so slow we started doing the whole berserker thing, and I nearly got him killed several times trying to only heal with HoT [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I've also duoed with a Shadow Knight, and while I certainly didn't do any objective comparison, the SK felt like he killed significantly faster. But again, I think it might have a lot to do with gear, and a heavily raid-geared warrior might just DPS a lot faster than one with crappier weapons.

[zelld52]

If the warrior doesn't have good gear - their burst damage potential will be low. Low burst damage potential = low aggro.

Here's something that p99 players don't do that players in 99-2001 did do.

Wait before you debuff, start backstabbing, etc.

As a rogue main on Live from 2000-2002, that was the marching order. Wait for the tank to build aggro through white damage (typically wait until mob is 95-98% HP) before you start auto attacking. It was standard procedure in groups.

Same goes with debuffs. If you cast a slow while the mob is at 99% HP, you're going to pull more threat than the warrior can make up for in a short time.

Having played a warrior recently in groups, going from 1-50 - I have never had a problem with aggro. Granted, I'm using a Swiftblade of Zek in mainhand - but it's enough white damage to generate enough to out-threat the shaman.

[Snaggles]

It doesn’t matter in grind groups. Starting at level 39 a shaman can slow almost 50% with Togors. Enchanters get a similar slow at 44 with Tepid. By the low 50’s it’s about 70%. True though, on live I always waited for about 95-97% depending on the tank.

More classes can cast root than ones who can’t. If something is slowed, regrowth or bard regen can easily keep people healed from splash damage.

All that matters is that a raid tank can keep aggro. If a DPS pulls aggro they will die quickly and that’s a “them problem”.

[WarpathEQ]

Personally not a fan of rooting mobs in combat, root is a high agro spell so by doing that you're starting a vicious cycle of everytime root breaks the mob comes after you because you put so much agro into it. Then you have to root it again adding even more threat.

As Zell mentioned a much better approach is learning to manage agro, especially helpful for Shaman is that they can solo with a pet. This environment is perfect for managing threat so you can understand when to go in for slow/debuffs, when to add dmg, and how to do it without ever (or rarily ever) pulling agro on the mob. And the shaman is beafy enough that even if you slow to soon and the mob comes after you, you can absorb a few hits while your pet puts in more threat to take the mob back.

[Naethyn]

Warriors having higher dps means they are better in groups than knights, unless you need the hybrid spells as a crutch.

[Nickelback8469]

It really just depends on the gear of the party's melees

Root is a good bandage to fix a tank's aggro problems but isn't perfect for every situation. Root gives a lot of aggro to the caster, and if your cleric for example is having to constantly root that's probably going to significantly affect their ability to med.

An warrior equally geared to a SK/Paladin will probably edge out in damage, but it isn't very noticeable until triple attack at 60.

A poorly geared Paladin can still hold aggro just fine by spamming Flash of Light while Ragebringer rogues go ham on a target's back, meanwhile a poorly geared warrior will have no chance at doing his job as a tank without outside roots.

While I was leveling my moderately twinked warrior (Less than 20k in armor/weapons) there were very few times when aggro was an issue during normal play. The problems arose however when things when south. A knight has tools for snap aggro to get control of mobs rampaging on the casters, as a warrior I have to pray for taunt or a few lucky procs.

Warriors are fine tanks for xping, but in most cases I'd rather have the safety net that a knight's snap aggro brings if I'm a caster or DPS in a group.

[Drueric]

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

I think it might depend a lot on the warrior and their gear. I was duoing my cleric with a Warrior yesterday, and it was slow. It was so slow we started doing the whole berserker thing, and I nearly got him killed several times trying to only heal with HoT [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I've also duoed with a Shadow Knight, and while I certainly didn't do any objective comparison, the SK felt like he killed significantly faster. But again, I think it might have a lot to do with gear, and a heavily raid-geared warrior might just DPS a lot faster than one with crappier weapons.

Sk probably had a nice haste item and the warrior didnt. So many low to mid characters have high end gear. Just recently I met a cleric who had their epic at lvl 1 and several skyshrine armor pieces. Crazy.

[Drueric]

Originally Posted by zelld52 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If the warrior doesn't have good gear - their burst damage potential will be low. Low burst damage potential = low aggro.

Here's something that p99 players don't do that players in 99-2001 did do.

Wait before you debuff, start backstabbing, etc.

As a rogue main on Live from 2000-2002, that was the marching order. Wait for the tank to build aggro through white damage (typically wait until mob is 95-98% HP) before you start auto attacking. It was standard procedure in groups.

Same goes with debuffs. If you cast a slow while the mob is at 99% HP, you're going to pull more threat than the warrior can make up for in a short time.

Having played a warrior recently in groups, going from 1-50 - I have never had a problem with aggro. Granted, I'm using a Swiftblade of Zek in mainhand - but it's enough white damage to generate enough to out-threat the shaman.

Agro isnt that big of a deal from 1-50. maybe starting 40ish-50 it becomes necessary for the tank to build agro, but til then its not really an issue.

[zelld52]

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

But again, I think it might have a lot to do with gear, and a heavily raid-geared warrior might just DPS a lot faster than one with crappier weapons.

Generally, Knight weapons have better 1h ratios than weapons available to dual-wielding classes. Combined with a little sustained DPS from pet, and the occasional lifetap proc from SK - and it adds up. Especially if you compare SK using an Ebon Mace, for instance, to a warrior dual wielding a Green Jade Broadsword and a Sword of Skyfire.

But - I always always always parse DPS in every exp group, raid, etc. Warriors will almost always do more DPS than knights, averaged out over every fight, even with sub-optimal gear.

Exception: Knight using the Great Spear of Dawn on undead do almost as much DPS as monks / rogues.