Lowbie warrior can't hold aggro?

[Veranish]

Hey guys, I'm in a trio and trying to figure out how I can help outfit our warrior.
Our trio is a cleric, rogue, and warrior, and the rogue very much holds aggro almost
the entire time. Warrior spams taunt (When the aggro is not pointed at him, which is always), and gets about 44 damage in crits occasionally, (level 14).

The rogue has a small dragonbone shard, doing 22dmg pretty consistently on normal hits. Does 88 on backstab.
The warrior has a jade broadsword? The crescent can-opener thing, occasionally doing the cap of 22, but mostly staying between 12-18.

I'm trying to figure out how to help the tank hold aggro, I figure he needs to do more consistent damage, what would be the best weapon for me to get him? My total budget is around 1k. Should he use 2H or 1H? Should he dual wield now that he's able?

Or does the rogue just need to calm down, and not stab things for a good 30 seconds after the mob arrives? Cause at this point I'm ready to just make the warrior hand over all the AC rings and such I got him to the rogue, cause it sure isn't helping him and my mana is going to waste.

[Qtip]

Warrior is garbage at holding aggro without clickys. Your best bet is get 2 weapons with procs. You should have rolled sk/pally which both have lom insta aggro spells.

[kaev]

agro/hate from melee does not rely on how much damage you actually do, nor even whether you hit the mob. Melee agro is on a per swing basis and the amount is fixed based on the weapon damage and the attacker's level-based damage bonus (damage bonu does not apply until L28 and above). Melee threat for 1h weapons is [2x base damage + level bonus] per swing, a miss is as much hate as a max damage crit.

Backstab is a big chunk of agro, that's part of your issue.

The rogue needs to use his evade ability to reduce his agro, evade is accomplished by stopping auto-attack & using Hide, so 3 key taps (third is to resume auto-attack.) A successful evade will reduce the rogue's agro from that mob by a small but significant amount.

So if your rogue is using backstab at every opportunity and not using his evade ability, and the rogue and warrior are using weapons with very similar melee hate generation, yeah the rogue is gonna take agro with his first backstab and rarely lose it.

Taunt fails a lot at low level, hell it fails a lot a high level, better to say taunt fails most of the time at low level. Don't expect great things from Taunt, it's important but it fails a lot.

If you root an NPC it will attack the nearest target on its hate list, so if the warrior is on top of a rooted mob and the rogue is at max melee range the warrior will be tanking. Root only works well against mobs several levels lower than the caster as the chance of a resist or an early break is heavily affected by relative level. Root can break early on each server tick (every 6 seconds), and also when a rooted mob is hit by spell direct damage (as from your Furor spell) it gets an extra chance to break the root with a bonus to do so.

hth

[eisley]

get a staff of battle

i can give you 1k to buy one if you need

[SlankyLanky]

i dont know what level you guys are or how much plat you have but grabbing the warrior a pair of http://wiki.project1999.com/Obsidian_Shard would help his aggro alot. they go for about 50pp per.

[Rararboker]

Originally Posted by SlankyLanky [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

i dont know what level you guys are or how much plat you have but grabbing the warrior a pair of http://wiki.project1999.com/Obsidian_Shard would help his aggro alot. they go for about 50pp per.

Best advice so far. These proc at low lvl and can be all the difference. Get +dex items when you can to increase efficiency.

[Naethyn]

I found obsidian shards to be terrible at low levels due to mobs hp being so low and hardly getting a proc per every other kill at best. I wouldn't consider proc weapons until yaks at 37.

[Rararboker]

Originally Posted by Naethyn [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I found obsidian shards to be terrible at low levels due to mobs hp being so low and hardly getting a proc per every other kill at best. I wouldn't consider proc weapons until yaks at 37.

Sounds like a low dex problem more than anything. Easy fix, dex items are cheap.

[kaev]

Originally Posted by Rararboker [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Sounds like a low dex problem more than anything. Easy fix, dex items are cheap.

100 dex will be ~ 1.5 procs/min, 200 dex will be ~ 3 procs/min, both assume dual wield (1/min & 2/min if primary only). At ~ 1.5 procs/min average you are proc'ing less than once per mob on average vs. these poor overmatched low level mobs being crushed by groups with 10/25 and better weapons. Show me the lowbie sporting a 200dex and he won't be the subject of this thread.

My warrior wasn't seeing groups where proc'ing weapons were regularly useful until he was in his mid 40s. Before that going for best damage (Staff of Battle) and rooting liberally was always more effective, even in low-50s best damage + rootmania can be most effective and reliable depending on group makeup. If procs are the answer to lowbie agro control your group is doing something terribly wrong in the way of damage output.

tl;dr
proc's are overrated and smart play is underrated for agro control

[Jimjam]

Originally Posted by Rararboker [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Sounds like a low dex problem more than anything. Easy fix, dex items are cheap.

It's not a dex problem. Even with over 160 dex Obsidian Shards won't be good most of the time. I've tried it. Yes, if you get a proc or two you can hold aggro against a ragebringer, but most fights at 14-30 aren't long enough to even get one proc.

Honestly, most classes tank well enough for the teens, even low twenties, it might be worth switching strategy to having the rogue tank and have him evade BEFORE back stab instead of after, at least you are likely to get in more back stabs that way. Have the warrior berserk DPS?