How to choose best weapons for the situation

[Grizzler]

I am currently running a barb war at lvl 26. I have been lucky enough that during lvling my first char (cleric), I was able to get some gear to twink my war out a bit. So for the most part I haven't been worrying about armor but I am unsure about what weapons to use when.

Currently my bags consist of the following weapons:
Sword of Skyfire
Jade Mace
Gnoll Hide Lariat
Staff of Battle
2-handed axe that can proc fear (forget name)
1-handed piercer that can proc 30dmg DD (forget name)

My main question is what weapons or combination of weapons should I be using for tanking and in what situations should I be switching out to other weapons that I have? I know for dual wielding I should be using a fast weapon in my main hand and then a slow high dmg weapon in my off hand.

However I still notice that my threat isn't amazing. Even if I put 2 procing weapons on, I still have threat issues because of either low base dmg of the weapons and the procs not going off a ton. Now, I've mainly been carrying these around with me to keep my weapon skills high but what should I be using to keep aggro as high as possible?

(I do know that war shines at high end raids while Sk/paly is better as a group tank but still interested in playing the war even though I plan to make a sk and possibly a paly later on cause I like to tank)

[Grizzler]

Update:

Names for axe and piercer
Obsidian Shard
Polished Obsidian Great Axe

[Samoht]

What is your haste item?

[Itap]

Your staff of battle will be your highest aggro generator in your lineup. I would honestly use that until 40 when Frostbringer starts to proc. If you can afford it, pick up a WESS or an infestation.

[Grizzler]

What is your haste item?

Silver Chitin Hand Wraps

[Samoht]

Okay, so you already have haste, but you're not keeping aggro. Honestly, it sounds like you're over complicating things. I would ditch everything in your load-out except the Jade Mace, the Sword of Skyfire, and the Staff of Battle. Skyfire + Jade Mace would be a decent DPS combo if you were ever in a situation where you didn't want to use a 2hander, but Staff of Battle should do well enough the rest of the time. Fist of Zek would be a good upgrade to Skyfire (use Jade Mace mainhand) as long as it doesn't take you below 75 AGI. Or you could even get a second Jade Mace.

Obsidian shard is just terrible. It's a perfect example of an ideal proc on a weapon with a bad ratio. The damage is too low and the delay is too high. There aren't too many other aggro weapons that will proc at your level, but WESS can, and if you can afford it, it will answer all your woes after just one proc. Use that mainhand and Jade Mace offhand and use Staff of Battle if you need to DPS. At level 40, upgrade to Frostbringer for sure, even if you already have the WESS. Use them both!

Also remember to use kick or slam on cooldown.

[skarlorn]

Your staff of battle will be your highest aggro generator in your lineup. I would honestly use that until 40 when Frostbringer starts to proc. If you can afford it, pick up a WESS or an infestation.

This and George Clooney post are all you need for now.

Get casters in your party to root the mob you wanna tank then get proximity aggro

[Lhancelot]

This and George Clooney post are all you need for now.

Get casters in your party to root the mob you wanna tank then get proximity aggro

Just had to explain this to a 19 warrior while playing my lowbie chanter. I tashed and rooted mob, but the warrior wouldn't stand close to the mobs. She thought no matter what, the rogue would take aggro. After I explained proximity aggro, she hugged the rooted mob and had no more aggro issues. Root is a warriors best friend in groups.

[Jimjam]

The obsidian shard is a weapon that drops from a level 30 vanilla dungeon. As nice as the proc is, it will basically never compete with a kunark+ dps weapon for aggro. The exception is in the off hand at the very lowest dw/db skills, but by 26 you are far past this point.

Really, the key to success is for someone to root early, you stand on the mobs toes for proximity aggro, and then taunt after any tash/slow that lands so that when root breaks you have a huge lead.

There should always be someone who can root mobs in the group for you. Make them your best friend, and the healer's best friend by proxy.

[Grizzler]

Yea, I have learned about the proximity aggro side of things. I always make sure that I am humping the mob as much as I can as long as I can see them.

[Jimjam]

Another trick is to anticipate who will draw aggro. It's less of a disaster if the mob turns on the shaman if it is already fairly close to the shaman.

As a warrior one of the most frustrating things is running around after mobs trying to land a successful taunt!

[Grizzler]

Another trick is to anticipate who will draw aggro. It's less of a disaster if the mob turns on the shaman if it is already fairly close to the shaman.

As a warrior one of the most frustrating things is running around after mobs trying to land a successful taunt!

This is definitely true. Also trying to keep the mob on me and not the monk, ranger or other DPS is a problem but after playing awhile last night, I did see that the Staff of Battle seemed to hold aggro much better than trying to dual weild with the other weapons I was using. So I guess I will use that for now and worry about other weapons later on.

[Jimjam]

If the monk / ranger (especially monk) is doing the 'omg look I take aggro so easy, and even take hits great LOL' thing, just let them. Maybe stand next to them so the rogue doesn't need to move about on aggro switches.

[Samoht]

Yeah, if the DPS starts too early and refuses to use their own tools to drop aggro, just let them do it. Don't let it get to you. It's not your fault if they die. If things are rooted, I normally ask them to stop rooting because taunt works better for me, but if things are rooted, and someone is standing closer than me, they usually get a few pointers before I stop trying. Some mobs have awful hit-boxes that make it hard to tell when you're the closest. Everybody else just back up or else you're tanking it.

[Naethyn]

Bash, Slam, and lv55+ Kick can stun stunnable targets. Taunt works better the closer you are to a mob. The 0,0 location of a mob is directly in front of it, not the center of it.

If someone out aggros you, try swapping in a shield (or slam) for a single bash, if it lands position yourself in front of the target and hit taunt. During this stunned state the other person will usually move out of the way and your taunt will have the best chance to be successful. Distance also matters for aggro so when that person backs up it gives you a much better chance of first aggro after the bash goes through. This is all much easier with slam or 55+ kick. Realize all of this has to occur in less than 2 seconds, but I use it all the time for things stunnable.

[skarlorn]

Interesting strat Naethyn. I tend to favor taunt followed by a kick stun or bash because it will give you an added buffer of hate to the successful taunt (which should just surpass other highest hate by one point)

[Samoht]

Interesting strat Naethyn. I tend to favor taunt followed by a kick stun or bash because it will give you an added buffer of hate to the successful taunt (which should just surpass other highest hate by one point)

Yeah, this is the way to do it.

[Naethyn]

I was taught to do the same thing - taunt and then kick for a little bit more aggro on the top. What I've found is taunt is far more successful if you are in the correct position, as close to the front of the mob as possible. A stun lets you get to that position for maximum success rate. Also, white damage is required to hold aggro after a taunt anyways with or without a kick. For anything not stunnable I still kick after a taunt.

[Troxx]

kick (stun or otherwise), bash, and slam provide VERY minimal threat. Anything is better than nothing, but kick-stun does not really generate much hate and shouldn't be assumed to do so.

Not counting consumables or charged items, as a warrior you basically rely on haste, weapon ratio, and weapon proc. The first two are directly under your control while the last is a matter of choosing your weapons (and dexterity on gear) wisely, and straight up luck.

The only skill boils down to plain ol' situational awareness and not doing stupid shit like mashing taunt when you're already on top of the aggro list.

Your position relative to the mob is meaningless for taunt other making sure you're close enough to physically taunt.

[Yuuvy The Destroyer]

Taunt works better the closer you are to a mob.

I would like to see some parses to back this up.

[Lhancelot]

Bash, Slam, and lv55+ Kick can stun stunnable targets. Taunt works better the closer you are to a mob. The 0,0 location of a mob is directly in front of it, not the center of it.

If someone out aggros you, try swapping in a shield (or slam) for a single bash, if it lands position yourself in front of the target and hit taunt. During this stunned state the other person will usually move out of the way and your taunt will have the best chance to be successful. Distance also matters for aggro so when that person backs up it gives you a much better chance of first aggro after the bash goes through. This is all much easier with slam or 55+ kick. Realize all of this has to occur in less than 2 seconds, but I use it all the time for things stunnable.

Naethyn is a true god of warriors. ^^^

[Jmcwrestling]

Not sure if it actually makes any kind of difference but I weave disarms in there too lol.

[Jimjam]

kick (stun or otherwise), bash, and slam provide VERY minimal threat. Anything is better than nothing, but kick-stun does not really generate much hate and shouldn't be assumed to do so.

Not counting consumables or charged items, as a warrior you basically rely on haste, weapon ratio, and weapon proc. The first two are directly under your control while the last is a matter of choosing your weapons (and dexterity on gear) wisely, and straight up luck.

The only skill boils down to plain ol' situational awareness and not doing stupid shit like mashing taunt when you're already on top of the aggro list.

Your position relative to the mob is meaningless for taunt other making sure you're close enough to physically taunt.

I recall an interesting snippet, around Dragons of Norrath time, during the era shield usefulness was being reviewed, particularly for warriors.

Apparently melee stuns were initially intended to generate similar aggro to spell stuns, but due to a bug this effect never actually worked. The mistake was never realised until the shield review. It would have made sword and board an effective method of tanking from vanilla release, but by 15 years of EQ and the game evolving around the broken mechanic, it was a bit too late to fix.

I generally taunt then kick. I find if the kick misses then the taunt is likely to fail too (out of range or whatever). I don't bother with disarm / beg / etc. As far as I can tell, disarm and (crit fail) beg will add you to the hate list, but don't actually add any points of hatred.

[Troxx]

Naethyn is a true god of warriors. ^^^

Most of what you quoted was bullshit.

[khanable]

kick (stun or otherwise), bash, and slam provide VERY minimal threat. Anything is better than nothing, but kick-stun does not really generate much hate and shouldn't be assumed to do so.

Not counting consumables or charged items, as a warrior you basically rely on haste, weapon ratio, and weapon proc. The first two are directly under your control while the last is a matter of choosing your weapons (and dexterity on gear) wisely, and straight up luck.

The only skill boils down to plain ol' situational awareness and not doing stupid shit like mashing taunt when you're already on top of the aggro list.

Your position relative to the mob is meaningless for taunt other making sure you're close enough to physically taunt.

This is more or less what we've found in some tests we've done.

To add to it, kick, regardless of stun or not, generates 10 hate. Not much to write home about. I suspect slam and bash are similar, though briefs and I didn't check.

Some other things we found: 150 cap on initial threat (getting added to hate list), and riposte doesn't seem to generate threat (iirc)

Distance doesn't play any role in threat generation or taunt (other than being within range) from what I've seen in our testing though we never specifically controlled for it. Wouldn't mind running a few parses if someone wanted to check out the distance claims and finalize bash/slam.

[Jimjam]

I second that point on ripostes, the number of times there's been an over pull, I hit riposte disc thinking I'll save the day by dropping a bunch of hits to build a chunk of aggro on all the mobs, only to have them all run off after receiving a small heal. It makes me also believe riposte hits don't add aggro (at least through the disc, if not generally).

[khanable]

I hit riposte disc thinking I'll save the day by dropping a bunch of hits to build a chunk of aggro on all the mobs, only to have them all run off after receiving a small heal.

coldain beard!

[Troxx]

There's no need for further tests Cucumbers :p

This game is 18 years old and these aren't exactly complicated topics. I'm always amazed that raid geared tanks on this server (one within this thread) still believe stuff like "bloodpoints are good aggro" and "standing closer makes taunt work better".

Game mechanics are quite simple for eq ... but there's beauty in that simplicity :)

[Naethyn]

The closer you are the better chance you have to have aggro.

Blood points are 200 aggro not 160 or less.

There are advantages to not being an ogre.

Archery is useful.

[Jimjam]

coldain beard!

Jim is a follower of RZ and giantpal, so that is actually a pretty sweet suggestion, thanks!! thanks!

[khanable]

The closer you are the better chance you have to have aggro

Any parses on this?

I'm calling fake news on you pal! :p

[Freakish]

Any parses on this?

I'm calling fake news on you pal! :p

Tunare fist monks.

[khanable]

lol I'm honestly half expecting that to be the answer (that or "if someone drops a root")

which is, of course, technically correct :)

[Troxx]

Yeah outside of root, proximity (from an aggro standpoint) is meaningless for those within the range of the mob. For the purpose of using the taunt skill, it matters only in the sense that you have to be close enough to the mob for it to fire. Your position relative to the mob (front/back/side) is also irrelevant.

Theory-craft suggests that a lifetap should give both dd and heal aggro, but this is false. A necromancer casting a ~330hp lifetap that heals 330 does not generate 660 hate. Point is - bloodpoint, though a very worthwhile weapon to use situationally, is a terrible aggro weapon.

Various lifetaps for the purpose of aggro were parsed extensively on thesteelwarrior with the advent of LDON and augments you could add to weapons. They were tested ad nauseum and consistently found to be terrible aggro and only really useful for other melee classes with the exception of niche utility combat setups to be used under similar circumstances that bloodpoints are useful on p99.

I loved the warrior class and main'd one on live for the better part of a decade. One day I'll get around to making one on p99 - but I'll likely wait until I have more money than I know what to do with for the characters I'm already playing.

[Naethyn]

"During this stunned state the other person will usually move out of the way and your taunt will have the best chance to be successful." I did not mean that as taunt formula having a range success check. What I am talking about is the how player range interacts with the aggro list. If a player is standing in melee range right under the mob it will be more likely to hit that person over someone who is say standing at max melee range or out of melee range. By using a stunning kick (or slam/bash) to allow yourself to get to the very front of a mob for while Taunt places you at the top of the list will give you the greatest chance at holding aggro.

[skarlorn]

Hi cucumbers u nerd

[khanable]

ur a nerd

nerd

[skarlorn]

love u :)