Level 60 warrior piercing vs. Slashing
 

Hi, I am just wondering if anyone has data / info on how much the lower skill cap on piercing weapons (240) at level 60 effects DPS / threat production. I currently use 2 piercing weapons that have good ratios and agro procs, but I am wondering if it's worth looking for slashing or 1hb weapons if the 250 skill cap makes a big difference. Thanks

It makes about a 5% dps difference at 60. It makes zero difference on aggro as skill cap does not affect aggro at all.

I'm assuming one of your piecers is an infestation? If you're tanking and not in a raid guild, this and a frostbringer are going to be your best aggro combo.

Substitute Willsapper for the infestation in your primary for better aggro and more dps if that is your other piercer.

Frostbringer is more aggro and more dps than an infestation in the offhand.

On a side note, short of ToV/VP weapons and without the epic, the Frostreaver will be your best aggro. (If you're in either Riot or AG, the only two guilds on the server currently capable of killing dain)

As an additional explanation, the non-damage component of procs are now limited to 400 aggro per proc with the exception of the epic.

The white damage aggro is damage bonus+weapon damage.

The 9/18 infestation does 9+11 aggro per swing in the primary. In the offhand, it does 9 aggro per swing since the offhand does not get a damage bonus.

Now, with the 2hnder revamp, 2hnders get a massive increase in damage bonus which makes their swing aggro large enough to overcome having only 2 procs per minute vs the 3 procs per minute that you would get with duel wield.

Mind you, if you are using a 20% haste belt and getting VoG, then you're going to do more aggro with the infestation/frostbringer. Also, if you have torpor on you, (which slows you) duel wielding will give you much more aggro.

You'll need something like a CoF or seahorse hide belt (or similar 40% haste) to make the 2hder work for you as an aggro weapon.

This is perfect, the exact kind of information I was looking for, thanks so much!

Actually, my main hand piercer is already the Willsapper, and in my offhand I have Nevederia' Horn - 10/15 with proc of suffocate (65dd + DoT + str / agi debuff component). The slightly lower skill cap effects agro in the sense of having less white damage to create agro, but with it only being 5% less with piercing weapons it sounds like it doesn't pay to spend big DKP on something like silver whip of rage / kreizenn's flame / jaelens katana / braid of golden hair for more raw dps from a better ratio and high skill cap, but then having less agro on the procs. As an aside, how do you think some of the VP weapons stack up against the ones I have?

I do have a 41% haste item, so do you think Frostreaver or Gaudralek are better agro items than my current set up? Lastly, do you think the epic is worth going for as a significant upgrade to what I have now? I still have quite a bit incomplete and would have to spend big dkp or plat on green scales on top of the effort to acquire the rest of the pieces. Thanks again for all the help and info in your responses!

Damage doesn't create aggro, *melee swings* create aggro. If you miss every single swing you create exactly the same aggro as if you connect every swing.

Also, after the 400pt melee proc hate cap patch last year, Willsapper is worse than Infestation for hate over time in main hand, assuming capped Dex.

First part was right.

Second part was wrong. Willsapper puts out more threat than infestation. 13/20 generates more threat than 9/18 and their procs are now similar.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...dZM/edit#gid=0

This is about as accurate as it gets.

Really? So does that make https://wiki.project1999.com/Feverbl...of_the_Shissar or infestation BiS for main hand agro? Since those have the lowest delay of any 400 agro procs I can find. It seems that all of the main tanks I see use either Trident, willsapper, or epic main hand. And I've never seen any using Frostreaver or 2h epic or anything like that while tanking raid mobs

Oh wow, tyvm for that link, that's perfect! Awesome someone took the time to put that together. My main hand options based on what I have are: Feverblade, Willsapper, and Infestation - so the feverblade + nev's horn is actually my best agro combo then? Since I don't have epic it looks like the nev horn is pretty much BiS offhand, especially with 20ac (not gonna ever get SoD obviously lol). I wonder if it's still worth using willsapper main hand though since the difference in't that big, and the willsapper has some AC and HP. Also do you guys think its worth going for a trident? Less agro but slightly more HP but obviously has the slow that can land on a couple unslowable mobs

It also seems like epic is definitely worth going for, I wasn't planning on it because of the ratios, but I didn't know it had such high agro proc over the others. Especially with the 50hp and resists it looks like it is the BiS offhand weap.

Yeah top setups on the list:

1. SoD/SoD (or combinations including 1)
2. Feverblade + red epic
3. Epic 2h
4. Frostreaver tied with Willsapper and red epic

Of note, Frostreaver (my primary workhorse) and Epic 2hs will suffer disproportionally if you get slowed or have torpor as the majority of 2hander threat comes from white damage potential. For Frostreaver the white damage is 80% of total threat potential.

For that reason, I'd consider WS/Red_epic functionally 3rd best.