| mickmoranis |
05-01-2017 06:11 PM |
Warriors are something of an endgame class. Let's compare to their cousin, the Paladin. In most group/small raid scenarios, especially when fighting mobs that can be slowed and mezzed (99% of them) the snap aggro of the Paladin will be more important than their tiny disadvantage in pure numerical hitpoints and AC. Plus, their stuns, roots, buffs, heals, and rezzes give them options to help keep their groupmates alive that we warriors simply do not have. In contrast, Warriors shine when facing the toughest of the tough, the monsters so nasty they make the raid encounters page, where our disciplines allow us to survive when any other class would die.Warriors are also more gear dependent. Both Warriors and Paladins need good armor for hitpoints, AC, and resists. But while Paladins can generate hate by using their spells, Warriors, as you shall see, need elite weapons to do so. And unlike Paladins whose damage is unimportant in the grand scheme of things, warriors can do quite a bit - again, with the right weapons. Since there are many more Warriors, our gear is substantially more expensive, and our epic and sky haste belts are both much harder.So as a warrior, you are both at your best in and most dependent on a raiding environment. Unfortunately, I don't think much of the raid scene on Project 1999 Blue. Because of the overcrowding at the endgame, Rogean and Nilbog implemented (extremely not-classic) variance: rather than spawning exactly 7 days (or whatever) after being slain, mobs will spawn randomly between 5 and 9 days later. This forces raiding guilds to go to a huge amount of extra work: someone basically gets to sit at the computer for two days on average watching the screen to check if the mob has decided to spawn. At that point, they send out text messages to everyone. Because these spawns can occur at any point in the day, a raiding guild on P1999 is basically a Euro guild and a North American guild welded together for 24 hour responsiveness.If this sounds like fun to you - and there is absolutely a certain thrill to racing against another guild to kill something first, although for me that thrill is more than counterbalanced by the tracking time and all hours batphoning - then you will have a great time with your warrior. If it does not, realize that if you join a casual guild you will have a much more difficult time acquiring your gear, and you simply won't be as needed. I don't want to discourage new players from rolling on the server - it can be a lot of fun. But the endgame can be frustrating, especially when you are playing an endgame-specialized class. As much as I love my Iksar Warrior, there are definitely times when I wish I'd rolled something else. Talk to a few people, and if you aren't sure about it I would suggest Monk, Paladin, or Shadowknight. All three of those classes can be effective out of the gate, aren't quite so gear dependent, and have more nuanced gameplay than warriors.From a min-max perspective, Ogres are clearly the best. Aside from having the best stats, a quick back-of-the-envelope estimate shows the value of stun immunity: mobs get their secondary attack every 8 seconds, bash instead instead of kick 75% of the time, hit 50% of the time, and stun 50% of their hits. So if the mob isn't hasted you'll be spending roughly 2 seconds out of 40 (5%) of your time stunned. Depending on how fast your weapons are, that's some 2-3% of your threat and damage (your weapons will be ready as soon as you aren't stunned, so you don't lose all of the time) which isn't gamebreaking but is certainly nice.Second best are Dwarves, Trolls, Halflings, and to some extent Barbarians which all have nice stats and special abilities (Halflings: hide and sneak for splitting, Trolls: regeneration, Dwarves: sick jump animation). There is no min-max reason to play the other races (especially Dark Elves with their brutal 75 starting stamina AND dexterity), but of course min-max isn't everything and with some effort you'll be able to cap your stats in the endgame anyway. In the long term the lack of Slam is not that important as you'll get stunning Kick at 55. Last but not least are the Iksar. In Velious their AC and regen bonuses will make them competitors with Ogres, but currently we have been mired in Kunark for the past three years and Iksar Warriors are still wearing ranger armor. Really they are only 5-10% worse than comparably geared Ogres in Kunark (Hakata has tanked just about every mob in Kunark, and Sakuragi has tanked most of them) but people will expect you to be horrible. To these people I have only one thing to say: hiss! hiss!If you are being healed by a shaman or druid (or a paladin), AC is all that matters. More AC = greater efficiency. If you are being healed by a cleric, especially on raid encounters, HP is going to be more important. Raid mobs have very high ATK and AC is not as effective. In addition, you don't care about the average case: it doesn't matter whether you average 25% or 30% when the complete heal hits. What matters is the worst case, i.e. death, and avoiding it. I feel like HP compensates for that a bit better than AC.So I feel that 1AC is worth about 3HP for raid tanking but more like 5HP while leveling, when mobs have lower ATK scores and it is more likely you'll be healed by a druid or shaman.Also, slowed mobs are better than any amount of AC. If stuff is slowable, the best defense is a good offense so that your enchanter and shaman can get to work earlier.
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