Warriors. Who tanks with a 2h?

[Troxx]

I tank/dps with:

https://wiki.project1999.com/Frostreaver

I’m bored of the “best 4 man all caster/priest group” in green chat.

Anyone else out there who tanks with a 2h? What are your thoughts and feedback? If I had, say, a willsapper and red epic combo or NTOV trident/red-epic combo … I could test it for myself. Being able to slow shit is it’s own side perk. Unfortunately my only alternative is infestation and frostbringer which is objectively worse for both damage and aggro. I buried that combo a long time ago.

Any raid warriors out there with the above (red epic, WS, and/or Trident) … who has also compared it to a Frostreaver willing to weigh in? For now I lub me some big ass axe on my dwarf warrior. Solid dps; bare minimal ripostes; and aggro that (I think) is about as good as the best duel wield combos out there now that final 2h dmg bonuses are in game and procs are limited to 400 threat + dd for aggro (red epic obvious exception).

I miss 3 procs a min at 255 dex but my experience thus far is that with superior white damage, better dmg bonus application, and main hand triple attack … it just wins.

Let us discuss. I need to be edumacated.

My mind is wide open.

(Allyisha et al I am looking at YOU!)

[Troxx]

I main tanked a fair bit of stuff in my time in AG but haven’t main tanked anything like AoW or Vulak. Midnight mallet back then made all aggro trivial.

I want to hear the thoughts of the seasoned raid tanks currently.

[Solist]

To preface the below:

1. Rogues evade has significantly changed since 2019. It is effectively worthless when compared to it's previous operation.
2. Clicks are not a thing aside from a real emergency, as sceptre of the forlorn is a large timesink so using them is retarded unless it saves a raid.
3. As clicks arent a thing, bumps are too valuable to waste on shit warriors who cant manage aggro properly.

That said, your job is to hold aggro and not die. There's not really a situation on the server with how we play the game that your job can be not that.

It cant be pissing about trying to avoid riposts. Rogues die.
It cant be pissing about worried about lifetaps. DPS die, mob flips.
It cant be pissing about trying to minmax some weird shit. DPS die, mob flips.
It cant be trying to make a clerics life somehow easier. Enchanters die from sieving, mob flips, rogues die, mob gates. ETC.

So feverblade/redblade, or any other combo of the top 10 for each hand. It doesnt matter which, any of the top 10 in either hand is fine.

Pick any of the top 10 aggro weapons. Put either in either hand. Press auto attack. Try to land a totem first, or totems through a weaponshield. Keep auto attack on until a second short of enrage. Re attack after. Spend your mental energy hovering wort pots and your reaper, watching the chain landing and being vocal about your DI status, damage shield status etc. A warrior stays alive, if you're fucking about doing anything but holding aggro and not dieing, you're generally doing it wrong*. Edit: Can also add, some stupid fast engage thats unslowable where noone is actually there but you, your worts, and a cleric or paladin? Sword and board. Ikky pops and there's 2 clerics only? same. etc. Then appropriately build aggro once heals are established. You're also intentionally limiting your aggro so a monk can take aggro and bump if need be in these situations.

As for 2h, they're sublime for controlled aggro generation. A set hate value per unit of time on a non aggro proccing 2h weapon is supurb.

Vyemm 2hs, Eashan 2hs, Vulak 2hs, Kriezenn 2hs, rocksmasher, facesmasher, meldjin are all great examples where your hate/second value is identical, as long as auto attack is on. So you can manage exactly how much hate you're making compared to any warrior with aggro weapons, and compensate with totems accordingly (such as 2nd tank for AoW, Tunare). Knowing the main tank with any of the top 10 weapons in either hand is making in the order of 75hate/second, means you can look at your vyemm 2hs at +-68 hate/sec and be fairly confident you will need to hit totems equal to the tanks initial totems plus one every 45+- seconds to match his aggro. The same can be said for something like horn of hsagra and blue blade but it's a bit too little, you'll lose 5 rogues on a swap or burn 2 bumps.

Actual tanking with a 2h, they just dont have the aggro generation. On HoT mobs, sure after slow swap in epic 2h or frostreaver if you must and it feels good and for some reason you feel like alt tabbing in. Noone is dieing to a flipped hot mob. VS? max aggro. Draco? max aggro. *Some weird circumstance where the raid isnt dps'ing, sure sword and board.

[Solist]

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

Solid dps; bare minimal ripostes; and aggro that (I think) is about as good as the best duel wield combos out there now that final 2h dmg bonuses are in game

Wrong on all counts, by a large margin.

[Troxx]

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

Wrong on all counts, by a large margin.

Wrong on all accounts? I need you to be a lot more specific.

Count 1: bare minimal ripostes. This is the easiest to tackle.

This isn’t even worthy of a debate. Ripostes are a function of how often you try to hit a thing and get your s chances of hitting you back. Using willsapper/epic as a comparison, with delays of 20 and 24 and the mechanics of double attack and dual wield you will be swinging at least 3-4x as many times as you would with a delay 43 2 hander. This is not up for debate … so yeah 300-400% more riposte damage. How important is this? Meh. Not enough that I would give much of a shit for 99.99% of content. But you said I was “wrong on all counts, by a large margin.

Count 2: threat. This will be the interesting part of the discussion. Threat can be broken down into 2-3 areas (depending on how you want to split them).

A). PROCS: Using willsapper and red epic as example. At 255 dex you’re looking at 2 willsapper and 1 red epic proc per minute. Willsapper proc is hard capped at 400 hate. Red epic is unique at 500 raw hate plus 100 dd. (400x2) + 600 = 1400 proc hate per minute. Compare that to Frostreaver with a 400 threat stun and 125dd x 2 per minute is 1050 threat per minute. From procs. We now establish that Frostreaver is running a 350 threat per minute deficit that has to be made up for. We can later discuss the implications of reducing proc rate from 3 to 2 per minute as I will admit it is significant, but I digress.

B). DAMAGE BONUS: I bet most of us remember the time where damage bonus per swing was a flat 11 per swing regardless of delay or 1h vs 2h. This is no longer the case.
-Using this same combination willsapper still gets that 11 dmg bonus. At a 20 delay but 100% haste (so 1 swing a second) … this generates 780 DB per minute if you only ever single attacked. Since we know warriors double attack AND triple attack you can safely multiply this by 1.8 to see that per minute, willsapper is generating around 1404 threat per minute at 100% haste and a 20 base delay. From DAMAGE BONUS alone.
-Compare now to Frostreaver. It is not a one hander. 2handers now have their own DB tables and at 43 delay it has a damage bonus of 37. This is one of the sweet spots for delay as with a 42 delay DB would have been 34. At 100% haste this 43 delay weapon lands a swing every 2.15 seconds applying this 37 dmg bonus per attempt. This works out to 1032 damage bonus threat per minute if you only single attacked. Multiply this by the same healthy 1.8 to account for double and triple attack and you’re now looking at 1857 threat per minute from DAMAGE BONUS alone.
-Willsapper/epic Dmg bonus threat of 1404 vs 1857 from Frostreaver bumps FR up a 453 advantage in this aspect (453 positive more than offsets the 350 deficit … I trust you see where this is going)

C). POTENTIAL DAMAGE: some like to lump this together with the above. To keep it clean I like to keep it separate. No matter how you slice it the combined ratios of 13/20 and 14/24 are actually inferior to 42/43z. Used to be damage bonus gave faster one handers the advantage but has been shown above this is no longer the case. I don’t have a 13/20 or 14/24 weapon to directly compare it to but it does more than my 9/18 and 12/22 used to do by … a lot. It also beats out my monks superior ratio to willsapper combo (epic fists and 13/21 offhand) by a fair margin. So whatever the non DB component of threat actually is, Frostreaver beats out WS and red epic by some margin.

So we started with a -350 threat deficit due to loss of a proc. We then factor in damage bonus only and Frostreaver is ahead by 103. Factoring in weapon ratio superiority and Frostreaver does actually pull even further ahead.

Count 3: solid dps. We already more or less covered this in B and C above. It will out dps WS and red along with quite a few other raid-use threat combinations. There are definitely better 2 handers out there for dps, but none with the threat proc to round it out.

———————

Discussion:

I know the words math, logic, evidence etc are all dirty words on this forum thanks to DSM but you will need to bring more to the table than “Wrong on all counts, by a large margin” if you actually want to have a meaningful discussion.

My mind is wide open. Please feel free to poke holes in anything I have said above.

I will state I am capable of abstract thought. The above, though accurate, remains napkin math. My experiences do support it. Actual gameplay and napkin math frequently do not line and I will address this further below.

But what would I do if I had a willsapper and red epic? Heck I’d use them most all the time. But wait, didn’t Troxx just say Frostreaver is better? What gives?! We’ll … the ability to slow? Very nice. Red epic stats and proc additionally are awesome. Trident instead of willsapper? Even better. Slow is non magic and has superior ratio. Beyond that, though the napkin math does have Frostreaver on top, I am a realist. Anyone who mains a warrior knows that the first proc is the most critical. Once they start landing you should never be losing aggro unless your group or raid is being stupid. Using FR you lose 50% procs making those dry spells or late first procs super frustrating. Over time though FR will pull ahead, remain ahead, and pull further ahead. I have (very stupidly) tried to raid assist with my FR twice in the past vs WS + red (and a few early mallet dumps by the MT. What happened both times was that despite the jump with the mallet clicks I eventually ripped aggro before the tanks defensive wore off … to bad outcomes both times lol.

Anywho. I’m happy to discuss but please keep the chest thumping, snide patriarchal preaching, and snark out of future replies Solist.

It isn’t productive.

I asked for some feedback and real life experiences from raid warriors who had FR and some good raid 1 handers. I know the napkin math. I want the anecdotes at this point.

[Toxigen]

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

I asked for some feedback and real life experiences from raid warriors who had FR and some good raid 1 handers. I know the napkin math. I want the anecdotes at this point.

While all decent in a theoretical vacuum, realistically the most important part of tanking any encounter is generating as much threat as possible, with the most critical time being on the pull / first 30 seconds (especially on slowable mobs). Do you really want to run the risk of that slow 2 hander stringing together a bunch of shitty ass misses at the start of a fight?

The quicker you can get that first and second snap procs and some near guaranteed solid white damage, the sooner you get that tash in for slows and/or allow the rogues to start DPSing.

Its the rogues fault if they over dps and rip aggro. Sure, an enchanter can have a TL box up and tash-bomb on a pull...sometimes that is missed though.

Even on long, non-slowable mobs like AoW: I have never seen a war swap to a 2 hander or sword n board after their disc fades...but most of the time I was clenching my ass ready for my trooper (or korakaz / bvellos) pet to break so I could be wrong here.

Is Frostreaver so far behind that you'd be completely useless as tank if you didn't have your red blade + something godly? No, but if you're in vanq or riot you may be laughed at a little til you get a real tanking setup. There's a reason the best wars on the server aren't using it. I think as soon as you have 2 of the top choices (red blade, trident, willsapper, feverblade, shissar, etc) Dain's prized possession gets tucked away forever.

If you want to make big crip blow numbers via zerk dps you get Vulak, Eashen, or Vyemm 2 hander (primal avatar proc luxury here too).

Sidenote: in single group content Frostreaver is a lovely blend of aggro and big dick crippling blows.

[Tunabros]

nerd alert

[Toxigen]

Yeah Frostreaver just isn't good enough for raids. As soon as you get willsapper + whatever else its its shelved for eternity.

Feverblade is so damn good.

[Allishia]

I'll use epic 2hander when my disc fades if its a real hard hitting target and we low numbers, or vindi if low clrs Ill use it sometimes..

The only mobs I most of the time start out with 2hand are VS / Draco and that sk epic in city of mist. +evasive. On raid version of VS I'll click scepter a few times if I notice someone attacked before I called assist..

But if you have them, 1handers are way better for getting agro fast, unless lucky chain of procs on the 2hand.

[Naethyn]

If you have a better haste than your group you can hold aggro with a 2h.