Str/Dex Dump Vs. Sta Dump >_<

[Bayoyoy]

So I'm pretty new to tanking and made a warrior rather hastily..

I didn't read the wiki, and dumped my attributes into str/dex vs. the wiiki suggestion all 25pts into stamina?

I was wondering.. Should I reroll? add everything to STA?

I know very few items give STA, and I'm lvl 11.. so its not so bad..

Thank you in advanced ~

[Ele]

what race and what do you plan to do with the character end game wise?

[Bayoyoy]

Iks.. end game, i'd hope to be a secondary tank of some sort, I don't have high hopes for that..

Just love iksars.. really interested in warriors right now..

Can my mistakes be played through and my dex/sta salvaged through other means? or am I doomed to be a herp derp D:?

[Deverell]

You're doomed regardless since you insist on being an iksar. It's really a horrible race for tanks. You can't wear fucking plate!

Anyway, at your level I would just reroll to get the extra stamina, it's indisputably better.

[Deverell]

Yeah, but I expect Velious is still at least a year away, and even then, I'd honestly go ogre over iksar.

[Sylexis]

At the end of the day play what you want and what you enjoy. I might go ahead and reroll and do STA as they suggest but if you want to play Iksar then play Iksar.

You're going to want to get as high of AC items in your non armor slots as possible since you cannot wear plate right now. Items such as Targishin's Bone Mask (best AC in a mask slot outside of a god loot) Sarnak earrings of station, 5ac on each ear, Sebilite scale neck etc etc.

You'll need to go the distance working on your non plate slots to stay beefy until Velious but it's possible, just not easy.

[Bayoyoy]

Well thank you everybody for your opinions.. haven't been playing too long.

I'll keep looking out for good ac, sta and dex gear.. cause those are rare right?

[Sylexis]

Arms – Azure Sleeves – Equal to crafted in AC, goes for 50pp
Back - Fine Splinted Cloak – player crafted, costs about 70pp in components
Chest – Tree Weave – 25 AC and 10 str, best AC below plate and only about 700pp
Ear – Sarnak Earrings of Station – Go level in loio and live at that sarnak fort until you get 2
Face - Targishin's Bone Mask – no idea on price, but its droppable, the mob is easy to get to and below level 40 and with your plate problem you pretty much need to compensate with an item like this.
Boots – You’re going to suffer here, my best suggestion is to crawl over to Karnors and ask to loot any rotting pairs of Jarsath Scale Boots. 10 ac but 5 sta and agi.
Rings – Standard Ac5 HP 55 rings, if you cant afford them go live in Unrest and pick up two Jagged Bands 5 ac 3 str rings, they sell for as little as 30pp usually.
Hands – Sebilite Scale Gloves – Same ac as warrior crafted but cheaper, cost about 100pp and gives you a little agility.
Helm – if you can afford it Sebilite Scale Cap for about 250pp
Legs – Expensive option is kylong greaves from HS but they go for 1kpp, same with sebilite scale greaves. If you can swing it just for the AC benefit maybe crawl into KC again and see if any Jarsath scale leggings are rotting that you can loot,
Neck – raw AC Option Necklace of Defiance for about 200pp or a sebilite scale neck for about 250pp
Shoulders – Crested Spaulders from Mistmoore, there’s decent AC and STA which you are short on, definite yes for you.
Waist – Straw Spun Belt – 10 AC and sells for about 25pp Eventually beg your way into a posky raid in your high 40’s and get a belt of contention that’s rotting.
Wrist – Bracer of Scavenging, - This one is expensive, about 1500pp for you, but it gives you everything you want, then a sebilite scale bracer, these will run you about 200 and aren’t lore.

Weapons for agro? Obsidian shards at your level, they are down to 50pp each, for DPS, save up and buy a staff of battle, they go for about 1.5k plat and are the BEST warrior 2 hander dps wise in the game that’s droppable without procs.


Truesilver Mail if its dropping in Kaesora will be your best bet however for filler pieces with raw AC on it. In some cases the AC is equal to warrior “Crafted (quest pieces)” If you can get them, camp them, live in there, it would be perfectly acceptable starting armor for you until you can start to work on other things.

How do you afford all of this? Your guess is as good as mine, as an iksar you have a benefit of being a stones throw from Field of Bone, which has spider and spiderling silks you can sell to players, the rest you’ll have to work on as you go. Live in Kaesora, sell truesilver as it drops, live in Loio at the fort while farming your earrings, sell the bracer of the hidden if it drops. Bite the bullet and camp Pyzjn and sell the gebs. ETC. Good luck.

[Bayoyoy]

Thanks a lot Sylexis for this outline.. wow =)

Going to try out everything you listed, as well as do more homework on better ac, sta, dex items.. Awesome.

[Pillow Armadillo]

You don't sound like a min/maxer, long term, you'll be fine.

The hardest part about playing an Iksar warrior is the 45-51 levels. You'll be outclassed on hitpoints by players receiving their planar gear, and your options for gear pre-Velious will be virtually limited to Sebilite Scale or Kylong armor sets, both of which tend to drop above your reasonable grouping range.

If I were you, I'd play your warrior to 13 or do to get a feel for the class. Before the doom and gloom questions start to creep into your thinking.

Regarding your stamina comment, warriors have a 5:1 hp/sta gain at higher levels, which scales as you level. For reference, I'm sitting on 2.2k hitpoints unbuffed at 54, so that 125 hitpoints is a 5% loss with equal levels and gear. Raid buffed, it's even lower than that.

In terms of practicality, strength and dexterity are not terrible stats to increase on an iksar warrior. We're a unique race/class combination, and with warrior aggro being heavily reliant on procs, adding points to dexterity could benefit you.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me in-game on Skullmonkey. I still have a couple of pieces of Trooper Scale in the bank, and would be more than happy to give you a hand getting on your feet here.

[Teddie1056]

STR is useless for a warrior. STA = HP, Dex = Agro. It is as simple as that.

STA>DEX>AGI>STR for Warriors.

Iksar is a roung race for a Warrior, you will struggle til Velious.

Ogre is the only way to go for a min/maxer, otherwise, do what you enjoy. I play a Halfling Warrior! (Though Halfling wars aren't bad, they have a very high dex and decent stamina).

[Sylexis]

STR is useless for a warrior. STA = HP, Dex = Agro. It is as simple as that.

STA>DEX>AGI>STR for Warriors.

Iksar is a roung race for a Warrior, you will struggle til Velious.

Ogre is the only way to go for a min/maxer, otherwise, do what you enjoy. I play a Halfling Warrior! (Though Halfling wars aren't bad, they have a very high dex and decent stamina).

I respectfully disagree, STR has it's place. However as a level 11 iksar warrior he needs to take the best AC slot he can get first and foremost. The stats, if any on the armor will come secondary until he is in velious and can wear plate.

[Teddie1056]

All STR does is dps. Agi gives AC. I am not saying that dps is completely useless, but it should be the last thing considered.

Also, at low levels I think those HP items are more important if you have the plat, if not, I agree, go with AC.

[Bayoyoy]

Thank you both Skullmonkey & Ted for the input, learned a lot from what both of you and everybody has contributed thus far ~

Had another question up in the air for anyone..

I heard from low to mid levels 2handers, specifically 2hs are decent for aggro & dmg..

any opinions or recommendations for that? or just aggro weapons of choice from levels 20-40..

Thank you everybody again ~

[Teddie1056]

You could use an Axe of the Slayers at 30-35 for its Rune proc, but generally I would use 2 Obsidian shards until you can upgrade one of those into a SSoY or better.

[Splorf22]

I agree with Teddee; sure STR gives you a little extra dps but realistically when I parse Sakuragi at 56 with haste, he does maybe 40 dps . . which does not compare favorably with an epic 55+ rogue at 80+. For raids STA > DEX because you will be getting aggro with the midnight mallet anyway, but for XP groups DEX > STA because you need those procs for aggro. IIRC I went 5STR/20STA and if I had to do it over again I'd do 10STA/15DEX.

I don't think Iksars are as bad as people are making them out to be as warriors, but they sure aren't good either. Basically you will be wearing sebilite scale armor at 60, which has roughly the same AC values as crafted. Crafted has 100AC, Indicolite has 155AC, and Cobalt has 220AC. The Iksar bonus is something like 35 at 60, so you're looking at 20 raw AC vs an Indicolite warrior and 80 vs a Cobalt warrior. Sakuragi has 2550HP/940AC unbuffed at 56. At 60 that'll probably be 970AC or so, compared to a full cobalt raid tank at 1080-1100. The more casual guild tanks are probably going to be something like 1040. The takeaway from all these numbers is that you'll be fine in XP groups (although you won't wow anyone) but your raiding role will be poor dps till Velious.

Keep in mind as well that Verant played a cruel joke on warriors - not only are they the most gear dependent class in EQ, they have the least ability to farm cash! That being said, most of the sebilite scale gear is cheap-ish (500-1k per piece) and there are some good suggestions in the thread so far. The #1 item to get imo is a Staff of Battle 31/37 which will do pretty solid dps (and therefore hold aggro pretty well) until L40-45 or so.

[Deverell]

You lose a shitload of stats as iksar, on top of what you've sacrificed simply by being an iksar. You lose the 50 hp on planar gloves, the awesome stats on cobalt bp/legs, even some incarnadine pieces have good stats. It's a lot worse than any other race, and probably also rather boring to know that the best gear you can get is what others would throw away. With poor natural stats and virtually no stats from armor, you're gonna have a bad time.

[Splorf22]

I just posted numbers on exactly how much worse an Iksar warrior is. Obviously it's not the min/max choice, but it's not like they are rangers either. Sakuragi tanked Emperor Chottal successfully at 53, and tanks chef/bar just fine at 56.

Plus Ogres are ugly as hell. :)

[bizzum]

You lose a shitload of stats as iksar, on top of what you've sacrificed simply by being an iksar. You lose the 50 hp on planar gloves, the awesome stats on cobalt bp/legs, even some incarnadine pieces have good stats. It's a lot worse than any other race, and probably also rather boring to know that the best gear you can get is what others would throw away. With poor natural stats and virtually no stats from armor, you're gonna have a bad time.

My iksar warrior reaches 255 sta/agi/dex buffed without cobalt, so getting the stats up there isn't really dependent on having that cobalt or Indocolite. It certainly might make it easier though.

The AC loss is not as game breaking as people are saying it is, if I compared myself to a tank in cobalt that isn't stacking AC with a shield/dagas and maybe a few other pieces, I end up being about 80 ac less (1070ish vs 1150ish), and I can close that margin if necessary without sacrificing HP. My hitpoints are quite similar to non-iksar tanks as well. The 50HP on the hands are nice, but its pretty much one of the only items that other warriors can wear that gives such a bonus for HP, and in being an Iksar you can end up using a few items that other warriors wouldn't use to close that 50 gap. Tank everything that has come my way just fine, including bosses.

Iksars do not make bad tanks now, and they only get better. Right now the worst thing you might lose is being able to click the invisibility on the cobalt legs =p

To answer the original question, stack STA if you are going Iksar. Even without epics you can get 215+ dex buffed no problem.

[Bayoyoy]

My iksar warrior reaches 255 sta/agi/dex buffed without cobalt, so getting the stats up there isn't really dependent on having that cobalt or Indocolite. It certainly might make it easier though.

The AC loss is not as game breaking as people are saying it is, if I compared myself to a tank in cobalt that isn't stacking AC with a shield/dagas and maybe a few other pieces, I end up being about 80 ac less (1070ish vs 1150ish), and I can close that margin if necessary without sacrificing HP. My hitpoints are quite similar to non-iksar tanks as well. The 50HP on the hands are nice, but its pretty much one of the only items that other warriors can wear that gives such a bonus for HP, and in being an Iksar you can end up using a few items that other warriors wouldn't use to close that 50 gap. Tank everything that has come my way just fine, including bosses.

Iksars do not make bad tanks now, and they only get better. Right now the worst thing you might lose is being able to click the invisibility on the cobalt legs =p

To answer the original question, stack STA if you are going Iksar. Even without epics you can get 215+ dex buffed no problem.

So there is hope, Lol.. Jk

I'm lvl 40 now, and younger warrior hatchlings are asking me for advice.. I've just told them what you all have told me.

What to Prioritize such as hp,ac,sta,dex .. always search for good proccing/aggro weapons and dps weapons.

Lately I've been coming across many twinked out large (ogre/troll/barb) tanks, I usually compare ac/hp and if they surpass me I switch to Staff of Battle or some other dual wield dps combination.

I've had so much fun so far on this journey, albeit I've died countless times.. It is one of the best times I'm having :) truthfully ~