Ogre or Gnome?!

[Faerie]

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

Can't a warrior who is tanking (and so almost certainly dual-wielding) just swap in a shield in offhand to hit bash (assuming he hasn't been putting it on cooldown by kicking regularly) and then put the wep back in?

Only if they want to. Most warriors don't seem to consider this option, because they never played as bards I think.

[Splorf22]

Math for the min/maxing: let's say a mob gets its secondary attack every 8 seconds, bashes 3/4 of the time instead of kicking, hits 2/3 of the time, and gets a 2 second stun 1/2 of the time. That means 2 seconds of stun out of every 32. Now let's say that you are using two weapons with 20 delay and 100% haste. In this case bash will cost you 1.5 seconds of attacking on average (if you are bashed 0.1 after your swing, you'll only miss 1 attack round, if 0.1 before your swing you'll miss two, on average 1.5). 1.5/32 = 0.047 so bashing costs you approximately 5% of your damage/aggro while tanking.

To put that in perspective, according to my sperglord warrior aggro calculator (at 60/100% haste/255 dex, units are hate/second):

Iksar with Howling Cutlass/Veridix: 65
Ogre with Black Blade/Ringed Mace: 64
Iksar with Black Blade/Ringed Mace: 61
Ogre with Sarnak Warhammer/Silken Whip: 58
Iksar with Sarnak Warhammer/Silken Whip: 55

So it definitely makes a difference, although I don't think its as important as for a hybrid (god I wish I could roll Ogre Bard). That being said, for main tanking bosses in Kunark aggro is completely irrelevant as you can just mallet, and HP is borderline irrelevant because the fights are so short cleric mana is not an issue. After Nilbog removes dragons wielding weapons (no more quadding Hosh, thank god) and nerfs the Bee/Eye 5khp/1100AC buffed (i.e. relatively easy stats for any warrior), 2 clerics, and a fully charged mallet should be enough to tank anything in Kunark.

In Velious with 5-10 minute fights warrior mitigation and cleric mana will be much more important. Iksar are going to have +35AC over all other races, which is the equivalent of maybe 250HP, so about 5% defensively. Personally I'd rather have that; in my experience Sakuragi can hold aggro pretty well with his VP weapons. But maybe the 2k Wizard nukes will be crazy threat, I don't know.

That being said, I'd go gnome. Gnomes are just awesome!

[lecompte]

Originally Posted by Splorf22 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

That being said, I'd go gnome. Gnomes are just awesome!

Seconded.

[kaev]

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

Seconded.

Well yeah, but Flickker isn't a warrior. Just sayin...