Ogre or Gnome?!

[Faerie]

Yeah, dwarves are always a terrible choice. Since you're decided on either gross, ugly, stupid ogre or intelligent, awesome, unique gnome, your choice is pretty easy imo.

Hard part now is picking deity. Agnostic (boring), Rallos or Bertoxxulous.

[KotBK]

Only problem with Gnome over Ogre (or any large race) in the essence of "effectiveness" going through your levels is that you will most likely hate not being able to interrupt spell casters. On the gnome you will be able to stun/interrupt (which also helps with aggro/hate) at lvl 55 when kick gets that innate ability, but on the way there it may get frustrating to rely on others to help you avoid getting casted on. Yes, there is mob push but lets face it that isn't always utilized in all situations during lower levels. Plus again, another component being lacked to help with aggro kind of sucks as a warrior on this server at this point when there are twinks everywhere aiding the faster more effective hate generating methods of other classes.

The aggro thing can be overcome, just your mention of being stunned causing anger could also yield the same result for you not being able to stop casting.

[Faerie]

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

Only problem with Gnome over Ogre (or any large race) in the essence of "effectiveness" going through your levels is that you will most likely hate not being able to interrupt spell casters. On the gnome you will be able to stun/interrupt (which also helps with aggro/hate) at lvl 55 when kick gets that innate ability, but on the way there it may get frustrating to rely on others to help you avoid getting casted on. Yes, there is mob push but lets face it that isn't always utilized in all situations during lower levels. Plus again, another component being lacked to help with aggro kind of sucks as a warrior on this server at this point when there are twinks everywhere aiding the faster more effective hate generating methods of other classes.

...But, on the other hand, gnomes are ruled by a robot king!

[Tecmos Deception]

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

Only problem with Gnome over Ogre (or any large race) in the essence of "effectiveness" going through your levels is that you will most likely hate not being able to interrupt spell casters. On the gnome you will be able to stun/interrupt (which also helps with aggro/hate) at lvl 55 when kick gets that innate ability, but on the way there it may get frustrating to rely on others to help you avoid getting casted on. Yes, there is mob push but lets face it that isn't always utilized in all situations during lower levels. Plus again, another component being lacked to help with aggro kind of sucks as a warrior on this server at this point when there are twinks everywhere aiding the faster more effective hate generating methods of other classes.

The aggro thing can be overcome, just your mention of being stunned causing anger could also yield the same result for you not being able to stop casting.

It's annoying, but when soloing I'll just be picking on mobs that can't cast mostly anyway, and in groups I've got a group to rely on for stuns.

Can't a warrior who is tanking (and so almost certainly dual-wielding) just swap in a shield in offhand to hit bash (assuming he hasn't been putting it on cooldown by kicking regularly) and then put the wep back in?

[Tecmos Deception]

Hmm. The deciding factor might be attack animations... lol.

[Faerie]

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

Can't a warrior who is tanking (and so almost certainly dual-wielding) just swap in a shield in offhand to hit bash (assuming he hasn't been putting it on cooldown by kicking regularly) and then put the wep back in?

Only if they want to. Most warriors don't seem to consider this option, because they never played as bards I think.

[Splorf22]

Math for the min/maxing: let's say a mob gets its secondary attack every 8 seconds, bashes 3/4 of the time instead of kicking, hits 2/3 of the time, and gets a 2 second stun 1/2 of the time. That means 2 seconds of stun out of every 32. Now let's say that you are using two weapons with 20 delay and 100% haste. In this case bash will cost you 1.5 seconds of attacking on average (if you are bashed 0.1 after your swing, you'll only miss 1 attack round, if 0.1 before your swing you'll miss two, on average 1.5). 1.5/32 = 0.047 so bashing costs you approximately 5% of your damage/aggro while tanking.

To put that in perspective, according to my sperglord warrior aggro calculator (at 60/100% haste/255 dex, units are hate/second):

Iksar with Howling Cutlass/Veridix: 65
Ogre with Black Blade/Ringed Mace: 64
Iksar with Black Blade/Ringed Mace: 61
Ogre with Sarnak Warhammer/Silken Whip: 58
Iksar with Sarnak Warhammer/Silken Whip: 55

So it definitely makes a difference, although I don't think its as important as for a hybrid (god I wish I could roll Ogre Bard). That being said, for main tanking bosses in Kunark aggro is completely irrelevant as you can just mallet, and HP is borderline irrelevant because the fights are so short cleric mana is not an issue. After Nilbog removes dragons wielding weapons (no more quadding Hosh, thank god) and nerfs the Bee/Eye 5khp/1100AC buffed (i.e. relatively easy stats for any warrior), 2 clerics, and a fully charged mallet should be enough to tank anything in Kunark.

In Velious with 5-10 minute fights warrior mitigation and cleric mana will be much more important. Iksar are going to have +35AC over all other races, which is the equivalent of maybe 250HP, so about 5% defensively. Personally I'd rather have that; in my experience Sakuragi can hold aggro pretty well with his VP weapons. But maybe the 2k Wizard nukes will be crazy threat, I don't know.

That being said, I'd go gnome. Gnomes are just awesome!

[kaev]

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

Only problem with Gnome over Ogre (or any large race) in the essence of "effectiveness" going through your levels is that you will most likely hate not being able to interrupt spell casters. On the gnome you will be able to stun/interrupt (which also helps with aggro/hate) at lvl 55 when kick gets that innate ability, but on the way there it may get frustrating to rely on others to help you avoid getting casted on. Yes, there is mob push but lets face it that isn't always utilized in all situations during lower levels. Plus again, another component being lacked to help with aggro kind of sucks as a warrior on this server at this point when there are twinks everywhere aiding the faster more effective hate generating methods of other classes.

The aggro thing can be overcome, just your mention of being stunned causing anger could also yield the same result for you not being able to stop casting.

Ghetto bash isn't actually hard to do when dual wielding. Shield on cursor, off-hand slot in one spot of command window (whatever it's called, the 10-slot window that is hotkeyed to the number keys), click to swap shield in / press bash hotkey / click to swap shield out, takes maybe half-a-second with a little practice. It can get somewhat :BennyHill: with unsnared feared mobs until you've learned good "don't left click shit with an item on your cursor" discipline, but otherwise not tough to manage at all.

(BTW, I learned about ghetto bash back in the early days reading commentary & advice written by a gnome warrior, heh.)

[KotBK]

yeah it is doable to execute that, not saying it wasn't but just adds another tedious thing to do that isn't necessary from one race to the other is all. Given that swapping can also effect dps and hate generation over time. Regardless playing what you want is always the overall deciding factor, whichever has more pro's than con's to the individual for whichever reasoning they decide should win out.

[Asap]

A bit off-topic, but It's quite hilarious that you roll characters that are best utilized in group settings and end up soloing with them. To each his own [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]