Possible to play a non-twinked warrior?

[kaev]

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

You can get cheap proccing weapons on a non-twinked warrior if you're smart with your plat and take a little time out to farm PP (bone chips, spiderling silks, HQ bear skins) and research the right proc weapons and their prices. If you're grouped with some twinked monk or rogue obviously that won't be good enough for you to hold aggro, but you're not at fault for that so you shouldn't worry about it.

DD procs are worth very little for agro. You need stun or snare or dot+debuff, and the only one of those that comes to mind that procs below L37-ish is such a poor ratio (Whip of Strangulation 6/24, procs Choke at L10) that you still have crap agro due to low melee threat.

It's true that a low-budget SK can get a lot of mileage out of Disease Cloud and the low level snare/dot. He still needs good armor and a weapon that generates decent melee threat, and Shadowknights are popular enough here that good gear is somewhat expensive.

As for Paladin, [rant] I strongly suspect that over-reliance on Flash of Light is why Paladins have such a terrible rep as crap tanks on this server. Flash of Light isn't one-tenth as good a spell as many people make it out to be. It has very little intrinsic agro, so when it doesn't stick or wears off it has nearly zero effect, plus there are some very wierd interactions with the pathing code here when it does stick. FoL is basicly a group wipe begging to happen, and yet this server is chock full of people who think "Paladin is easy, just chain FoL". Want to play a Paladin well? Delete FoL frmo your spellbook and learn to play your class. [/rant] Paladin doesn't have two stuns to rotate until L49, so effective use of Root is crucial, yet I have seen very few Paladins making use of Root for agro control. The main plus for Paladins here is that they are so unpopular that Paladin-specific gear is pretty reasonably priced.

At any rate, without strong gear any tank in EQ is weak. Warrior, Shadowknight, & Paladin are by far the three most gear-dependant classes in classic EQ due to their primary role as damage soaks, with Warrior heading that list because they have such poor intrinsic agro. Relative to other classes, you need good weapons, item haste, and excellent armor to do your job well. It's tough to obtain those playing a tank up from scratch (good friends & supportive guild do make it possible tho.)