Warrior Weapons on a Budget!

[Deckk]

I'm looking for dual wield weapons and a 2 hander to use on my level 10 gnome.

Here's the thing, I have a budget. Stretching it and waiting a few days to farm some plat, I can get it to about 150pp I think.

For 2H I was thinking Argent Defender, which I can really wait until post 20 to use.

For 1H, I have no desire to use Obsidian Shards. What are some other good weapon combos to dual wield? I know SSoY is a common suggestion, but I'm not sure that fits in my current budget.

Right now I have an 11/27 (I think) 1H blunt weapon and a mino axe. But when I get to 13 I want to have the weapons I'm going to use already.

Looking for experienced melee opinions here. Thanks!

[Kagukuk]

Jarsath trident rock on budget its like 60/70pp and 11/22

[Deckk]

Those are an option, for sure.

What about 1h slash and 1h blunt weapons? Warrior's piercing just seem so... rogue.

[Deckk]

Okay, I have Cane of the Tranquil now (gift from someone). So I'm thinking I save up and get 200pp and get a sword of skyfire and I have two decent DW weapons for awhile. Agro will be decent. Not great. But decent.

Wish I could afford dual lammis :)

[Kutsumo]

Sarnak Battlehammer for 2h, 30 dmg 40 delay and often sells around 100p.

Jarsath Trident is by far the best bang for your buck 1her, and the piercing animation with a trident looks a lot cooler than with a dagger.

Fist of Zek, if your gnome has enough agi to stay over 75 with it equipped, is great bang for buck for a 1hb.

Sword of Skyfire is great until it starts to proc.

[Lorian]

After you have your 1-handers, save some money so that you can afford a Staff of Battle at lv 20-ish. Best damage/aggro wep you can get and everyone swears by it. On my warrior (who is my main) I had enough funds for this at about lv 21 (it was 800pp), but now i have seen them for as little as 600pp.

[Samoht]

If you're a gnome, you can also get Brell's Keg Popper (http://wiki.project1999.com/Brell%27s_Keg_Popper).

[Deckk]

keg popper looks interesting.

[Madbad]

green jade broad sword

[Madbad]

After you have your 1-handers, save some money so that you can afford a Staff of Battle at lv 20-ish. Best damage/aggro wep you can get and everyone swears by it. On my warrior (who is my main) I had enough funds for this at about lv 21 (it was 800pp), but now i have seen them for as little as 600pp.

I love this weapon

[Deckk]

Green Jade Broadsword looks sweet, too. Between that and sword of skyfire (and cane of tranquil) I'd have a good set of weapons.

Awesome. Thanks for all the suggestions.

[Roguejm11]

Fashion Quest with dual Lamies or SSOY!

Don't let them talk you into the Staff of battle. Your warrior will look like he is poking things with a stick.

[kaev]

Fashion Quest with dual Lamies or SSOY!

Don't let them talk you into the Staff of battle. Your warrior will look like he is poking things with a stick.

Nothing wrong with carrying a big stick and smacking things with it. 2HB is animation fine unless you're Iksar, their animation for it blows. And for affordable warrior damage output warrior nothing touches SoB. SSoY is crap until it procs at 37, and even then it's not very good because your budget-geared warrior won't have the dex to proc reliably enough to hold agro after accounting for the SSoY's low melee threat.

Also, SoB is great fun in the hands of a 'zerking warrior in a multi-tank group, or when 'zerk duoing with a shaman, or when you're stuck soloing waiting on a group spot.

[Roguejm11]

Still lame =)

[kaev]

Still lame =)

You're just jealous because SKs can't get any of that sexy warrior eyecandy from big hits with crippling blows. At least a paladin gets to stand around and look good with his flaming epeen, all you got is "play dead". ;)

[ArumTP]

Seek out yak scimitar (kithkor) and a Skean (steamfront). Both no drop and potential rots. Useful weapons for almost ever.

[Madbad]

Fashion Quest with dual Lamies or SSOY!

Don't let them talk you into the Staff of battle. Your warrior will look like he is poking things with a stick.

I love halfling warriors with SoB, the huge stick cracks me up.

[Roguejm11]

You're just jealous because SKs can't get any of that sexy warrior eyecandy from big hits with crippling blows. At least a paladin gets to stand around and look good with his flaming epeen, all you got is "play dead". ;)

That hurts man...

[Spider42]

I am in the exact same situation as you, Deckk. But I have no interest in two-handed, are these still the 1H weapons I should be looking for? What are the price ranges for these weapons? Not trying to hijack your thread but I was going to pose almost the same exact question. I just figured since it was already started here I would just add my own question.

[Deckk]

Feel free. I love seeing the answers people get to these questions.

It'll help me too! I don't have the plat for the good stuff yet haha

[Samoht]

Jarsath trident rock on budget its like 60/70pp and 11/22

Really love the stats I get with this plus Fist of Zek. Good to use when not tanking or before Yak procs.

[Deckk]

Really love the stats I get with this plus Fist of Zek. Good to use when not tanking or before Yak procs.

Trident + Cane of Tranquil a good starter dual wield set up?

[Samoht]

CoT has a decent ratio for a starting weapon, and it is magic, but it has no proc or stats. I would recommend upgrading it, but haste is probably the most important thing you can obtain for your hate generation at this point. If you don't have haste yet, start saving.

Priority should be finding first magic weapons with about a .5 ratio (you've done that), 5/55 rings and banded (how are you on this?), and then haste. There aren't many haste choices for a non-twink warrior. Until Velious, it's basically FBSS or nothing, so start saving your 7k. 10k is the market for Sash of the Dragonborn (little faster and at least it has a negligible amount of AC while FBSS has no stats).

Back to weapons, finding decent upgrades can be slow, but there are a lot of options available. Fist of Zek and Jarsath Trident are probably the best non-proccing weapons for under 500p total. Sword of Skyfire is a close third, but you'll need to get rid of that before level 45. After that, it jumps to Wurmslayer and Lamentation for a few K each, and then beyond that Seb Croaking Dirk, Jagged Blade of Mourning, and Edge of the Nightwalker will break your bank.

A pair of Acid Etched Short Swords at 37 would be unstoppable, and cost less than 1k total. Replace one with an Ykeshan War Club at 40. These drop like candy for people camping the Hierophant's cloak in Seb, so they'll be even cheaper. Sure the ratios suck, but you should have haste by then, and the stun proc is an aggro magnet.

[Deckk]

Priority should be finding first magic weapons with about a .5 ratio (you've done that), 5/55 rings and banded (how are you on this?), and then haste. There aren't many haste choices for a non-twink warrior. Until Velious, it's basically FBSS or nothing, so start saving your 7k. 10k is the market for Sash of the Dragonborn (little faster and at least it has a negligible amount of AC while FBSS has no stats).

Full banded and bronze combo. No rings.

A pair of Acid Etched Short Swords at 37 would be unstoppable, and cost less than 1k total. Replace one with an Ykeshan War Club at 40. These drop like candy for people camping the Hierophant's cloak in Seb, so they'll be even cheaper. Sure the ratios suck, but you should have haste by then, and the stun proc is an aggro magnet.

This is good info. Now I just need some darn plat :)

[Samoht]

Full banded and bronze combo. No rings.

Get those next.

Now I just need some darn plat :)

This is why it's hard to start as a warrior. Warriors are fun, and can be effective when played well, but need serious amounts of gear to achieve their full potential. For that reason, you'd probably be better served making a plat making character (druid, enchanter, shaman, necro) first and farming. A lot. And then twinking a warrior with haste/weapons.

[Spider42]

This is good info. Now I just need some darn plat :)

Like i said....same boat as you. ;)

[kaev]

A pair of Acid Etched Short Swords at 37 would be unstoppable, and cost less than 1k total. Replace one with an Ykeshan War Club at 40. These drop like candy for people camping the Hierophant's cloak in Seb, so they'll be even cheaper. Sure the ratios suck, but you should have haste by then, and the stun proc is an aggro magnet.

These (and the mechanicly identical SSoY) will be worse agro than fast .5 ratio weapons until you can get your dex up enough to proc them with decent frequency. For reference, a 105 dex gives 1 proc/min main-hand and 0.5 proc/min off-hand, scaling to double that frequency at 210 dex (keeps getting better up to the dex cap of 255.) If your dex is 105 and your group is killing a mob every 30 seconds you won't even average one proc per mob when dual wielding proc'ing weapons and you'll give up a lot of threat and a fair bit of damage output for that occasional proc.

I found with my warrior that proc'ing weapons available before L46 were very weak, you're way better off working with casters who aren't afraid to root and rogues/monks/rangers who have enough sense to back off to max melee range. Root plus better damaging weapons and using Taunt when you have to works so much better than relying on procs.

At L46+ there are significantly better proc'ing weapons available. My warrior gets excellent mileage out of the "noob combo" of Sarnak Warhammer (8/20 procs stun) and Trochilic's Skean (10/25 and proc's a v high agro stun poison but is off-hand only.) Any time I can group with a slower, especially a shaman who can also buff my dex, I'll swap out some hp/ac gear for dex gear and ride the procs. So long as the slower is alert enough to wait for a proc or a couple rounds of my attacks before pissing the mob off it works well. The Sarnak Warhammer sells for around 3k these days, not a huge sum at L46. The Skean is a nodrop dropped 100% of the time by Renux who is killed as part of the Rogue epic, so make friends with somebody who farms Rogue epic or a Rogue actually doing it for himself (or try to buy loot rights I guess.)

[Lorian]

If you dont mind solo green ice goblins for a week or two you *could* get a fbss before 30, even as a warrior. But it will be boring. Someone said in the forum that a thick banded belt (massive STR) would increase damage output just as much as a fbss, and those go for 3k rather than 7k.

[Jimjam]

Have someone root the mob. Stand on it's toes and spam taunt after slow lands.

Root will keep aggro on you to start with and taunting after slow should be equivalent to having a stun proc go off early in the game.

Not all groups will have someone happy to root because the '[30] mana would be better used healing'.

[Deckk]

Honestly starting to really believe in the whole "start another character to make money to twink your warrior" thing. Haven't been able to get a group in 3 or 4 days with my limited play time. Debating necro, shaman, cleric (sticking to undead zones) or bard. I want my warrior as my main but I'm going to need to be able to solo a little with him to make progress *sigh*

[Jimjam]

Firstly, do whatever you think will make you enjoy the war more.


If you want to put in lots of work and build yourself up stick with the warrior. If you want something more casual and come back to the warrior later and twink/faceroll content maybe do your necro first.

If sticking with the warrior I suggest this:

Find a druid in steamfont. Get a Port to Dreadlands, a lev/invis/sow into karnors. The druid can then evac you to emerald jungle. From there you run to Field of Bone. The druid can bind your affinity outside the ruins of kaesora. Spend the next 5 or so levels there, being sure to pick up an iksar berserker club. The skeletons are easy enough to solo and there is a strong pick up group scene. Fill your inventory with stacks of bone chips. Once you have your IBC and xp starts to slow grab a return port to butcherblock (and remember to bind affinity in kaladim or greater faydark!)

In kaladim hand in all your bone chips. Or, if you don't fancy RSI instead port to WC, get a bind in Freeport and sell the chips in ECmart.

You can then spend a couple of levels killing crocs in oasis, which are easy enough to solo as a warrior and has a strong pick up group scene. This will get you to 20 (where bind wound sadly doesn't improve for 30 levels, lol).

[Deckk]

This isn't a bad idea. I DO want to play the warrior. But not finding groups is such a pita especially because when I play its from like 8-10 pm est, so it's not long.

[wormed]

Someone said in the forum that a thick banded belt (massive STR) would increase damage output just as much as a fbss, and those go for 3k rather than 7k.

Whoever said that is a liar.

[Lorian]

Whoever said that is a liar.

Have you compared yourself? Hard hits vs lots of hits, I'd be interested to see it parsed!

[Samoht]

Have you compared yourself? Hard hits vs lots of hits, I'd be interested to see it parsed!

That's not how aggro works. You get hate off of misses, too.

[Jimjam]

That's not how aggro works. You get hate off of misses, too.

I believe the comment was on damage, not aggro.

Edit: +15 Str being a 20% boost in damage I find hard to believe though. I recall it was suggested +10 ATK was roughly equivalent to +1%dps during velious.

I don't think +15STR is going to match 200 ATK.

[Samoht]

You don't bring a warrior for damage.

[Jimjam]

I think you're perhaps being a little hyperbolic there. I don't think most warriors completely ignore their damage from 1-60. The question is about FBSSs and Thick banded belts, so 'only bring a warrior for defensive' (or similar) attitudes are even relevant to the discussion.

At fbss and TBB levels damage is a concern as a warrior will be at minimum a 6th of the group, and often one or two group members will be focused on healing/utility so the warrior will be doing a decent amount of the groups dps.

For context Dekk is level 10. Damage is relevant. He says he struggles to find groups, aggro is barely relevant.

[Samoht]

I think you're perhaps being a little hyperbolic there. I don't think most warriors completely ignore their damage from 1-60. The question is about FBSSs and Thick banded belts, so 'only bring a warrior for defensive' (or similar) attitudes are even relevant to the discussion.

The question is actually about Warrior weapons on a budge. The FBSS was an aside, and the TBB > FBSS argument is a derail, and it is inherently wrong on top of that.

At fbss and TBB levels damage is a concern as a warrior will be at minimum a 6th of the group, and often one or two group members will be focused on healing/utility so the warrior will be doing a decent amount of the groups dps.

The Warrior is in the group to be an aggro magnet. That should be the number one focus. Bringing up that the warrior is 1/4 of the damage dealers makes it sound more important than it is because even though he is 1 member out of 4 that is dealing damage to every enemy, his damage contribution is not going to be that high proportionately (unless he's got some really bad DPS).

For context Dekk is level 10. Damage is relevant. He says he struggles to find groups, aggro is barely relevant.

It's even more important to have decent aggro generation at level 10 because other DPS has not yet learned to play their classes.

I'm also not going to let you provide the guy with misinformation because he might believe you at level 10. Do now downplay the importance of haste. Do not tell the guy to save up half the cost of a FBSS only to waste it on a DPS item that goes in the same slot. You cannot wear FBSS at the same time as TBB.

[Deckk]

To be fair, I'm not some fresh newbie to the game. I played a high level wizard in Prexus' top guild. But I have forgotten much of the gearing. The importance of agro and damage is not lost on me.

[Jimjam]

Fair enough Sam, the belt discussion is a little off topic, but haste is an obvious tangent to weapon discussion, one that I think may even have been you or the op bought up to begin with?

Lorian has been the only one in thread to suggest the +str belt, everyone else seems to have shot down that idea with arguments based on logic, reason and experience, which should be enough for Deckk to make his decisions.

[Danth]

Thick banded belt adds greater damage output than a haste belt if you already have better haste in some other slot, such as if you're using a Mithril 2H sword (or Rogues with their epic, etc). Other than that it's also a nice item for Clerics who don't want to be encumbered all the time.

I don't know that Warriors should focus overmuch on their aggro generation at low levels. Warriors suck for experience group tanking. Anything you try to do at low levels for aggro generation won't work very well, and if groups want a tank who'll hold aggro, they'll invite a hybrid. A lot of casters (particularly those who don't want to die) will end up habitually rooting everything whenever they have a Warrior tank, at which point aggro generation becomes moot. Running around wielding a couple crummy weapons like Obsidian Shards means you won't hold aggro anyway over epic rogues and twinked Monks, and you'll do crap for damage too. That doesn't seem a great plan to me; might as well try to deal what damage you can. Heck, even high-level Warriors using staple weapons like Sarnak Warhammer and Silken Whip, with haste, have a horrid time with aggro in XP groups. It's a weakness of the class. Just grin and bear it knowing that you'll do fine on raid bosses when using mallet charges.

Discussion of haste belts, as noted by others, isn't an immediate concern for a player for whom a few hundred platinum is expensive. That being said, haste is the single most important stat for both damage and hate generation, so any Warrior definitely wants it eventually.

Danth

[Thiefboy777]

Ya, dont even worry about agro as a warrior in xp groups you'll drive yourself crazy.

If rogues and monks dont want to get hit they'll evade or fd, casters can root. Honestly don't even worry about it....just relax, hit taunt when you don't have agro and have fun.

And ya go for the best ratio weapons you have unless you have 200+ dex like mentioned above, every one knows warriors lack agro abilities so if someone's complaining they are obviously new.

[williestargell]

Smoldering Brand!

[Samoht]

Smoldering Brand!

Good suggestion. I cannot believe I forgot about that.

[Deckk]

To those who suggested Skean http://wiki.project1999.com/Renux_Herkanor this is the mob it drops from, but zone says North Qeynos, not Steamfont.

[Samoht]

To those who suggested Skean http://wiki.project1999.com/Renux_Herkanor this is the mob it drops from, but zone says North Qeynos, not Steamfont.

The zone location is not incorrect, but I do not know that the Renux in Qeynos drops anything. The one in Steamfont is spawned from a quest turn-in.

[Deckk]

So getting a Skean is pretty much a lucky occurrence rather than something that I should pursue

[Jimjam]

To those who suggested Skean http://wiki.project1999.com/Renux_Herkanor this is the mob it drops from, but zone says North Qeynos, not Steamfont.

Renus is a Rogue GM in Qeynos.

She goes on an adventure to steamfont. It's part of the fluff behind the epic quest if you are into that stuff. I know most people don't care and just bypass/MQ most of it.

[Samoht]

So getting a Skean is pretty much a lucky occurrence rather than something that I should pursue

She dies all the time. Just gotta find someone killing her. It doesn't proc til 46 so you've got lots of opportunity.

[Jimjam]

Samoht is right. Consider hooking up with some of the rogue epic sellers in the EC forum. If you ask them their character names for the steamfont fight you can check if they are online/if you can get a skean.

Likewise try XPing in steamfont and keeping an eye on /who and asking high levels if they are working on rogue epic.

[Steelshankz]

How about a Journeyman's Walking stick? Those seem to be fairly cheap, and Tashani is a nasty debuff.

[Invalid_Bard]

Bypass vuying anything dude. Regularly check Rogue epic sellers in Eac and loot a rotting skean and do the same in Kith for the yak sword. One procs at37, the other at 45. Save your money for some decent haste item. Dont buy any of the shit gear in EC unless its incarnadine boots for dat dex. Get into a guild and get yourself some indicolite shit and call it a fucking day.