Is warrior aggro greatly exaggerated?

[Nickelback8469]

It really just depends on the gear of the party's melees

Root is a good bandage to fix a tank's aggro problems but isn't perfect for every situation. Root gives a lot of aggro to the caster, and if your cleric for example is having to constantly root that's probably going to significantly affect their ability to med.

An warrior equally geared to a SK/Paladin will probably edge out in damage, but it isn't very noticeable until triple attack at 60.

A poorly geared Paladin can still hold aggro just fine by spamming Flash of Light while Ragebringer rogues go ham on a target's back, meanwhile a poorly geared warrior will have no chance at doing his job as a tank without outside roots.

While I was leveling my moderately twinked warrior (Less than 20k in armor/weapons) there were very few times when aggro was an issue during normal play. The problems arose however when things when south. A knight has tools for snap aggro to get control of mobs rampaging on the casters, as a warrior I have to pray for taunt or a few lucky procs.

Warriors are fine tanks for xping, but in most cases I'd rather have the safety net that a knight's snap aggro brings if I'm a caster or DPS in a group.

[Snaggles]

Technically swing aggro is ratio and delay. This includes haste. For that reason a knight and warrior is just a math comparison. Knights can readily tank with a 2h or 1h and shield. Strictly for swing aggro a warrior should lead a knight, apples to apples, dps though isn’t always much better if using mediocre proc weapons. The issue with this though is haste caps vary per level and higher level PC’s will do more dps/aggro than you. This is painfully apparent with a low 50’s warrior and 55+ rogue.

The knight can cycle a spell between swings without any loss in DPS. That’s more than snap aggro, it’s simply more aggro from start to finish. You can sustain chain FoL for an entire grind session with c2, or maybe just PoTG and a Narandi helm. In this same situation with a rogue, the knight should have little issue and the dps will take much less hits.

In practice, it doesn’t matter. In a group someone has to tank. There are three archetypes but rangers and monks can easily fill this role. With a server pop of 300-600 people this isn’t a choosers market. Unless you are known idiot, people fill spots based on when they can fill them. They might only pause on a bard for CC if they aren’t certain they are skilled, or hold off on a ranger for a more efficient dps fill.

I’ve said it a hundred times but killing blue cons is not hard. Slowed, anyone can tank them. There are only a handful of items I’ve tanked on my ranger, or my paladin, that I wished I had one step-up in mitigation. None of these were exp mobs but rather loot ones. P99 is a pretty intense crowd, nobody cares about a knight vs warrior unless they play them and have to feel good about their decisions. With charmed pet dps do you truly think people give a crap about what the tank is dishing out? It’s not coming down to the last 15dps…

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

I’ve said it a hundred times but killing blue cons is not hard. Slowed, anyone can tank them. There are only a handful of items I’ve tanked on my ranger, or my paladin, that I wished I had one step-up in mitigation. None of these were exp mobs but rather loot ones. P99 is a pretty intense crowd, nobody cares about a knight vs warrior unless they play them and have to feel good about their decisions. With charmed pet dps do you truly think people give a crap about what the tank is dishing out? It’s not coming down to the last 15dps…

Yeah groups are doing way more DPS than they should be for most content anyway. Classic zones weren't balanced around the idea everybody would have 21%+ haste items, 0.5+ ratio weapons, and charmed pets. Groups chew through XP content on P99, even if the tank isn't doing the absolute best DPS they could be doing relative to what's easily available on P99.

[Drueric]

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

I’ve never been in a group where the people in the group don’t root the mobs.

As someone who has duo’d with a lot of melees I would take a warrior over an sk or paladin any day out of the week because mobs die so much more dramatically faster with a warrior.

The concept of warriors being bad in group parties just doesn’t compute for me.

If I don’t root the mob, I can’t sit down. I need to be able to sit down, so I root mobs. Often times or preemptively, especially if I plan to malo/slow them.

Even when I’m playing my enchanter I notice the clerics in my group frequently casting root on mobs I’m in the process of mezzing. It’s hard for me to believe that warriors are tremendously suffering from aggro. I think it’s more likely that warriors are suffering from bad groups where rogues stand too close to mobs, magicians over nuke, and support classes simply don’t root mobs??

From playing my warrior, what i see is that the other melees I group with often have much better weaponry, or they cast spells(paladin/sk) to intentionally take the agro. And rogues have their backstabs that usually take agro. So its not the fault of the warrior. My gear is pretty decent, but most of the random ppl I group with are super twinked/hasted. Its actually rare to find ppl who arent.

[sajbert]

Yeah I'm not gonna cry if my super twinked character pulls aggro. At that point it usually doesn't matter anyway because the content becomes trivialized and/or I tank better than that warrior due to the gear difference.

[Drueric]

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

Yeah I'm not gonna cry if my super twinked character pulls aggro. At that point it usually doesn't matter anyway because the content becomes trivialized and/or I tank better than that warrior due to the gear difference.

Well you likely wouldnt tank better than the warrior unless its a very significant gear difference because the warrior has better ratio for stamina and AC than anyone. Anyway, no one is trying to bruise your fragile ego, we are just stating observations and discussing.

[Jimjam]

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

Well you likely wouldnt tank better than the warrior unless its a very significant gear difference because the warrior has better ratio for stamina and AC than anyone. Anyway, no one is trying to bruise your fragile ego, we are just stating observations and discussing.

My warrior in banded always outtanks supertwinka with their fancy regen bps and 40AC per slot.

[Snaggles]

If you can slow it anyone can tank it.

Invite warriors if you can. They do solid dps and can take hits. Everyone needs a road to 60. They just aren’t “needed” until they hit level 60 and you are killing VERY tough mobs.

[PatChapp]

Monks are the best group tanks. Warriors do fine but monks take the least damage due to their insane mitigation and great dps.
On my cleric,duoing with a monk vs warrior in the hole at 50 is a vast difference. Monk and I can clear the entire entrance camp ,warrior and I have to turn around after a while or face respawns and have to resplit.
Root is the best agro for xp groups anyway so melee threat is irrelevant.

[Drueric]

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

Monks are the best group tanks. Warriors do fine but monks take the least damage due to their insane mitigation and great dps.
On my cleric,duoing with a monk vs warrior in the hole at 50 is a vast difference. Monk and I can clear the entire entrance camp ,warrior and I have to turn around after a while or face respawns and have to resplit.
Root is the best agro for xp groups anyway so melee threat is irrelevant.

No doubt you give both of them your best buffs. The warrior will still be tankier than the monk every time. How fast they kill depends on their weaponry, for monks it is very easy for them to get some of the best weapons in the game for monks. Not so much for warriors. Even a monk just using hand to hand lvl 51+ will outdamage most other toons. But they dont tank better than a warrior and never could.