Tunnel Gear - Warrior Weapons

[zelld52]

First time being serious about a warrior means I'm thinking about aggro weapons; should I be lucky enough to find groups while levelling. I currently have Swiftblade of Zek, Frostbringer and Wrapped Entropy Serpent Spine.

My intuition tells me that the Swiftblade + Frostbringer will be my best bet while levelling 30-50s. The 11 damage and fast delay of Swiftblade will generate me white damage threat, and the Frostbringer proc is nice bonus for offhand threat. (Once level 40, that is)

When I start to approach 50s, will it be better to switch Swiftblade out for WESS for that mega-threat from the long-duration blind? I imagine I'll need more than Swiftblade white damage threat when there's epic rogues backstabbing.

Or, should I just stick with the Swiftblade through until I get a leet DKP weapon like Trident or something, once the warrior is in its 50s+?

[Naethyn]

Get the best haste item you can afford and then you can use whatever weapon you want.

[Keebz]

Did they unnerf WESS? Last I checked it was terrible. Swiftblade x frosty is fine. Personally I'd just use the root shovel and reaver. If you raid on another char, get dain axe.

[zelld52]

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

Did they unnerf WESS? Last I checked it was terrible. Swiftblade x frosty is fine. Personally I'd just use the root shovel and reaver. If you raid on another char, get dain axe.

hmm i woulda thought the threat would be great because its a 1.7 minute duration blind - so even if it gets resisted thats alot of threat. havent field tested it yet

[Crede]

Originally Posted by zelld52 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

hmm i woulda thought the threat would be great because its a 1.7 minute duration blind - so even if it gets resisted thats alot of threat. havent field tested it yet

Infestation/wess aggro was nerfed a few years ago. Nobody uses these weapons anymore.

2h is king. Just grab a reaver or try to get kt axe / frost reaver for minimal dkp if you have access to it as others have mentioned. 2h is also a nice easy swap with truncheon once you start using that.

[greatdane]

Originally Posted by zelld52 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

hmm i woulda thought the threat would be great because its a 1.7 minute duration blind - so even if it gets resisted thats alot of threat. havent field tested it yet

Generally speaking, duration has no impact on threat. All effects of a given type generate a uniform amount of threat. All stuns are the same (except the ones that also deal damage, in which case the damage is added on top at a rate of 1:1 dmg:threat), all snares are the same, all slows are the same.

For spells cast by an actual caster, the amount of threat generated depends on the mob's HP if it's a binary effect like stun or slow, basically HP/15 up to a maximum of 1200 which occurs at 18k HP. Damage spells are different, I believe they just generate the spell's base damage as raw threat, no matter how much actual damage it ends up dealing (if any). Poison and disease counters also generate some inherent threat, but the amount was nerfed considerably and it's not much anymore.

For procs, the maximum threat is 400 for base effects (stun, AC debuffs, snare, etc.) plus any damage on top; for instance, Ykesha is 400+75. Damage procs function the way damage spells do, as do procs that generate raw threat (I think the only one that exists on P99 is Blade of Strategy, since BoC doesn't proc Enraging Blow here), and so can generate more than the baseline 400 cap. The highest aggro from any weapon proc is SoD's 400+288. Blade of Strategy is 600 (500 raw threat + 100 damage).

Blind as an effect doesn't generate that much aggro on its own. The reason WESS used to be good was the poison counters attached to the proc, but that was nerfed. Same goes for weapons like Infestation and BotBDE. Poison/disease counters from procs used to be able to generate more threat than the default 400 of binary effects.

Incidentally, weapon swings generate a set amount of threat based on the weapon's damage stat and your damage bonus. Basically add them together and that's how much threat you generate with each attack of that weapon, so at level 60 with a damage bonus of 11, a swing with warrior epic generates 14+11 threat. It doesn't matter whether you hit or miss or how much damage you actually do. You could miss or hit for 5 or crit for 70 and it's the same amount. The same is true for spells - Ice Comet generates the same amount whether it's fully resisted, lands for 100, lands for full damage, or crits. Crippling blows from a warrior do have a ministun component that generates extra threat.

Most of the commonly used tunnel weapons are approximately equal and the thing that sets them apart is ratio and any stats they might have (though they tend not to have much of that). SoD is the obvious exception, but you wouldn't really consider that a tunnel weapon in any sense. At level 60 with a damage bonus of 11, Wavecrasher is the best one that can be bought for a realistic amount of money, and Frostbringer is the second best. Before 60, Frostbringer is slightly better.

During Kunark, if you can get a Rod of Mourning, that's actually in the running as one of the best aggro weapons prior to VP/epic, with the added benefit of being 2h for reduced riposte intake. It's removed from the loot table after a month, but it's not impossible to get hold of one. It's a bit outdated in Velious, and not worth the cost by then, but still serviceable and there's something kind of nice about tanking with a 2h. It also ekes a little bit of extra value out of your own ripostes.

[Botten]

Do you think Illusion: 60 adds any base threat when applied or do you think the game doesn't see it as a valid debuff?

There are two weapons that add Illusion: 60 + 75 damage

While the ratio's are not stellar they both technically don't have the No Drop tag (Tunnel Gear).

I have always been curious. Good write up by the way.

[zelld52]

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

Generally speaking, duration has no impact on threat. All effects of a given type generate a uniform amount of threat.

I don't think that's entirely true. Shaman get more threat for a resisted Turgur's Insects than a landed one - because it dumps all 6 minutes of the accumulated threat per tick into you at once.

Whereas if you landed the Turgur's Insects, you get incremental threat per tick. So with a 1.7 minute Blind, if it gets resisted (which it will on raid mobs) you get ultra threat, which is why Bio Orb is a good opener for a tank on a raid.

Incidentally, weapon swings generate a set amount of threat based on the weapon's damage stat and your damage bonus. Basically add them together and that's how much threat you generate with each attack of that weapon, so at level 60 with a damage bonus of 11, a swing with warrior epic generates 14+11 threat. It doesn't matter whether you hit or miss or how much damage you actually do. You could miss or hit for 5 or crit for 70 and it's the same amount

I also don't think this is entirely accurate. I have played rogue alot on p99 as well, and it's a noticeable difference between threat on a low-damage backstab and a missed backstab. I heard a rumor that if you miss an attack, it gives you the same threat as if you hit for full damage - compared to hitting for low damage. People who play rogues will notice this - that missed backstabs typically generate more threat than backstabs that hit for minimum damage, or low damage.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by zelld52 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I also don't think this is entirely accurate. I have played rogue alot on p99 as well, and it's a noticeable difference between threat on a low-damage backstab and a missed backstab. I heard a rumor that if you miss an attack, it gives you the same threat as if you hit for full damage - compared to hitting for low damage. People who play rogues will notice this - that missed backstabs typically generate more threat than backstabs that hit for minimum damage, or low damage.

For normal melee attacks you generate the same amount of hate on a hit and a miss as far as I know. The EQEMU code backs this up as well.

https://github.com/EQEmu/Server/blob...tack.cpp#L1733

// Hate Generation is on a per swing basis, regardless of a hit, miss, or block, its always the same.

Backstab is a weird mechanic because it is calculated more like a normal melee attack. The formula looks like this:

RoundDecimal(Weapon Damage * ((Backstab Skill * 0.02) + 2)) * 2 * 2.85 = Max Backstab Damage.

As an example:
15 Weapon Damage * ((225 Backstab Skill * 0.02) + 2) = 97 Weapon Damage rounded down. 97 weapon damage * 2 * 2.85 percentage multiplier cap = 552.9 Max Backstab Damage. That is 553 rounded up.

I'd be curious to know if the hate generated from backstab uses the modified weapon damage of 97, the base weapon damage of 15, or something else. I haven't looked into how abilities like kick, bash, backstab, etc generate hate.

[greatdane]

Originally Posted by zelld52 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Shaman get more threat for a resisted Turgur's Insects than a landed one - because it dumps all 6 minutes of the accumulated threat per tick into you at once.

Whereas if you landed the Turgur's Insects, you get incremental threat per tick. So with a 1.7 minute Blind, if it gets resisted (which it will on raid mobs) you get ultra threat, which is why Bio Orb is a good opener for a tank on a raid.

That's not a thing. It just doesn't work like that. The only effects that build threat over time is DoTs. Resisted spells don't generate extra threat. That's player imagination at work.

I have played rogue alot on p99 as well, and it's a noticeable difference between threat on a low-damage backstab and a missed backstab. I heard a rumor that if you miss an attack, it gives you the same threat as if you hit for full damage - compared to hitting for low damage. People who play rogues will notice this - that missed backstabs typically generate more threat than backstabs that hit for minimum damage, or low damage.

That's not a thing, either. The threat generated by attacks doesn't vary based on the damage roll. For auto-attacks, it's always weapon_damage + damage_bonus. For backstab, it's probably weapon_damage * backstab_multiplier. Missed attacks don't somehow generate extra threat.