War agro weapon question

[beargryllz]

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

Depends how you look at it. I agree infestation is the better overall weapon as it has much better melee threat and dps which makes it more consistent when you don't get a proc. Additionally, it doesn't have the whole blind issue which can rarely cause problems. Overall, yep I'd say it's better and will likely always be in my primary slot. If you only cared about raw aggro over time though, WESS will run circles around infestation. The extra poison counter, blind, and debuff on the proc are that potent. In every day routine use where you don't always get an early proc, however, infestation will be more consistently good.

WESS also comes with very nice AC plus resists. Even though it has a paltry 11/23 ratio, it makes an excellent offhander.

Having said that, I generally use infestation + FB unless the group needs snare ... in which case I'll use infestation and the 14/28 silken whip of ensnaring.



Infestation generates a lot more aggro than red epic. 900 threat per proc vs ~500 more than makes up for red epic's ratio. Blue epic is great for dps but has no proc. Velious tradeable weapons made epics obsolete/optional. For tanking threat, FB + WESS (or WESS + FB) will generate a lot more aggro than dual epics. Toss infestation (not tradeable) into the equation and epics are a functional trophy at best. Blue will always have a niche for the attack boost.

You'll understand this after you've been tanking for a while, but the added aggro on WESS is honestly irrelevant in that it's excessive. It's also unreliable. It's also not an issue because the other people generating aggro either have evade, FD, or are swinging a 2H for damage. On fights that matter, you're going to dump a net or some mallet charges into the boss. On fights that don't matter, nobody cares if a rogue fails to play properly and ends up eating a few too many melee hits and needs to get rezzed

Red might proc for slightly less +hate than Infestation or WESS, but it's still a superior tanking weapon because it has 50 HP and the alternatives have 0 HP. Once you've tanked for a while, you'll see what I mean.

Swinging FB + infestation might generate more aggro, but nobody cares about a dead tank that had lots of aggro. You want a living tank that still has a crazy amount of aggro generated.

[ScruffMacBuff]

Yeah WESS is a ton of aggro but honestly unnecessary for group exp. You don't need to generate butt loads of aggro every fight, you just need to out pace the next guy and there's only one or two items better at that than Infestation, but none so easy to get as Infestation.

I've said this in other threads, but I'll primarily keep Infestation in my mainhand for aggro and offhand will depend on who I'm grouped with. If I'm having trouble keeping aggro I'll use Frostbringer. If it's easy enough I'll use Dagas. If I need MR it's Jagged Blade of Mourning. If I wanna have some fun I'll use Club if the Ice Ocean as well. For raiding I recently tried out WESS in primary and Dagas in off hand for Vindi. If it's something you're gonna dump a midnight mallet on then you're probably gonna get Torpored as well as using defensive discipline at which point your dps doesn't matter. But with those weapons I had an extra 32 AC, 100HP, and 5 MR, which was great because I'd never lose aggro with 5 mallet charges + a few procs of the whip.

I think I got off topic a bit.

[Troxx]

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

Red might proc for slightly less +hate than Infestation or WESS, but it's still a superior tanking weapon because it has 50 HP and the alternatives have 0 HP. Once you've tanked for a while, you'll see what I mean.

Half the aggro per proc is not *slightly less*. Red's proc is around 500 threat. Infestation is ~900 threat. WESS? That one is simply nuts. 4 poison counters (1200 hate) + debuff + blind which bring it close to or just above 2000 threat - close to 4x stronger that red proc. The ratio is disappointing but it does have 12ac and 5sv magic. I agree with you that the hate on WESS is overkill - hence why I don't use it most of the time now that I have infestation, but don't downplay the difference in proc strength.

Red is a fine weapon. It'd be absolutely stellar if you could use it offhand. It's got a great ratio, 5 sv all, 50hp, and 15 stamina. I'd use it if I had it, but my point still stands: Velious tradeable weapons made epics completely optional in a functional sense and obsolete from a pure threat standpoint. They're worth having, but unlike in kunark you can not only function without them - you can outperform them. Prior to velious tanks were stuck with sarnak warhammer + silken whip of ensnaring (or troch's skean if you scored one for offhand) until you had epics or the VP blade.

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

Swinging FB + infestation might generate more aggro, but nobody cares about a dead tank that had lots of aggro. You want a living tank that still has a crazy amount of aggro generated.

If 50hp makes the difference between a living tank and a dead tank, you've got cleric problems, not warrior gear problems.

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

Once you've tanked for a while, you'll see what I mean.

I've got a decade of raid leading/tanking with a warrior under my belt, thanks.

Edit: I do need to state that it wasn't until my time here on p99 that I observed the practice of dumping clickies into a raid target on engage being commonplace. During the classic timeline the approach was to give the warrior ample time to establish aggro prior to raid dps engage ... and on tough targets to suicide a ranger to weaponshield to help the tank establish a lead on aggro. Mallet/strings/net dumping makes warrior weapon choices less important unfortunately. Procs mattered then - a lot. This is also the reason why Aten Ha Ra's gloves were so coveted from luclin onward. PoP introduced that range item that gave you a spell buff imbued stun proc also - now 2 invaluable items that gave warriors 2 extra procs per minute.

[Jauna]

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

Wurm gets worse as your increase in level right? Since your main hand bonus goes up weapon speed becomes more and more of a factor?

I do not know, my war is still using a wurmslayer at 51 because of its reliability on agro. Now that I think about it I am not 100% sure if the MH bonus effects agro.

[Troxx]

Wurmslayer is competitive for dps up until the low 50s. From then on a faster weapon with a ratio of 0.5 or greater will generally win out, especially something like a jade mace that's fast.

[Goodest]

Tserrina Whip (procs at level 35) + Infestation

unless a war has ToV drops like deep sea's or a few VP drops even with epics is hard for them to out aggro me with these things on. White dmg not so good but with seahorse belt + eye patch im getting after them really good self buffed i'm always pulling mobs off SK's and pally with these things that snare + counter, mobs hate is very high.

SO
WESS proc at level 1
Infestation proc at level 1
Venom Axe of the brood procs at level 1
Frosty at level 40
everything else of use not till 50...(you cant even zone in till level 46)

any combo of the above works very well through the level's

[demokatt]

What about using a frostbringer + Club of the ice ocean from 51 when club procs?

[Troxx]

Club of the ice ocean has an alright ratio but the proc is only ~150 threat (about half of a poison counter's worth of aggro). Silken whip of ensnaring proc is about twice as strong.

[Newt]

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

WESS is fantastic aggro weapon and I think FB/WESS is one of the best possible combos a warrior can outright purchase for a small fee in EC tunnel

Infestation is superior to either, and it isn't very hard to get at all. Plenty of them rot and Vilefang is only a 24h spawn requiring 1 solid group to kill.

Infestation + Frostbringer is probably the best possible tanking combination until you get epics

For a "Small fee"... Speak for yourself!

[fastboy21]

The goal is to hold aggro with white damage. Relying on procs for aggro is rolling the dice...white damage is 100% consistent.

Until you have a kit that lets you do that you need to rely on proc weapons. Most of the usual suspects have already been listed here in this thread. If you are a super twink and can afford to drop a ton of plat there are some high end weapons you can proc at lvl 1.

Personally, my fav aggro weps at low lvl are Infestation and Wavecrasher. Both proc from lvl 1 and are strong aggro weps you can use from lvl 1 all the way until raid gear/epic.

Trochilik's Skean is somewhat easy to get (folks let them rot) and decent too but doesn't proc until 46. Only putting it here because you prob find one for free if you are just starting out on the server.

The Tserinna whip is very good....but hella rare. Unless you get lucky and happen to get one I wouldn't invest the time doing this, but I agree its a very nice proc.