Hello everyone, Does anyone have a list or guide of a progression pre-raid (tradable or obtainable by a group) tanking weapons? I've seen lots of recommendations for entry level weapons like the entropy spine, venomous brood axe, wave crasher, etc. I've also seen recommendations for the high end like blade of carnage and sceptre of destruction. But is there anything in the mid range for tanks to try and strive for while leveling, especially since pop has gone live? Thanks!
Is this for a warrior? Once you can obtain proc weapons, your priority for procs is: 1) Stun/Slow/Snare 2) DD Until you're high enough level to proc weapons and even afterwards when your DEX stat is low, you're largely relying on swing aggro which can't keep up with spell casters doing their thing -- other characters will have to seriously throttle their output. PoP doesn't bring any new aggro 1h weapons outside of raiding -- you're relying on cheap entry level bits like Wavecrasher until you save up for one of the big Velious raid droppables.
I suppose it would be more geared to warrior, but I'm sure any melee tank benefits from agro generating proc/weapon. Just hadn't seen mention of anything other than the extremes of entry or BiS. But I guess that's the reality that it's either a weapon for 1-2k vs 50k in the bazaar without a lot between? So then to make a quick list for one handers: Fast swinging weapons: Swiftblade of zek Split Blade of Destruction Sebilite croacking dirk Entry level with DMG proc: Venomous axe of the velium brood Wind-worn handblade Club of the ice ocean Bloodpoint Higher agro tanking weapons: Wavecrasher Willsapper Silken whip of ensnaring Sarnak warhammer Wrapped entropy serpent spine Lurid dagger Frostbringer Warrior epic Pre-Raid BiS: Blade of carnage Scepter of destruction If anyone else has things to suggest we can keep adding to this list! Edits: adding to the list!
If a weapon doesn't have a stun/snare/AC debuff/slow proc it mostly isn't worth considering. At least if your plan is to hold agro.
Looks about right. Suppose you could add Willsapper and the Warrior Epic. For spell-casting classes (e.g., Beastlord, Ranger, Shadowknight, Paladin) weapon agro generation isn't a factor. Warriors are stuck with a lot of low-tier options until they can afford to purchase Velious BiS raiding gear and then they're capped out until raiding and you farm Ssra (Hategiver, BBOE, and BF are all slightly better than a BoC) or Rallos Zek in PoTactics (Blade of War).
I would imagine someone might need multiple types of weapons too depending on the mob? For example, the hobgoblins are immune to snare and stun and no one's going to be facing those without a slower in the group. With most of those types of procs not sticking/not taking hold (I presume agro doesn't increase in the event of the mob being immune), I would imagine it either comes down to something pure for agro like enraging blow, AC debuffing, or simply swinging enough and doing enough DPS to have a hope of holding agro? I would imagine even the scepter of destruction struggles when the mob is immune to the stun component of anarchy?
Spell/proc hate is the same regardless if a spell is resisted or not. EQLive Hate List Logic and Spell Hate Values - EQEmulator Forums
Mob being immune doesn't change agro. An arsenal of weapons is useful for FashionQuest, but serves no practical purpose.
Oh awesome, never knew that! All this time I've been switching depending on the mob lol! And thank you for that link from eqemu. It's dense but that beautifully explains things and how the effects are ranked!
Warrior weapon progression in PoP: Greatstaff of Thunder (will be 100p soon in the bazaar) > raid stuff end of list
Are we at a transition point where 2H weapons are more desirable now to limit the number of high damage rippostes? I can't imagine the Greatstaff of thunder is more desirable than the BoC/SoD combo especially to the loss of all those weapon swings?
Not counting procs, 25 + 28 hate per swing versus 67 hate per swing is largely negligible when you're talking about a single Wizard nuke generating 1500+. Your procs per minute would be higher with two weapons though, yes.
Greatstaff of Thunder is the most underrated weapon, yup. Number one issue is it's an instant lose in the fashion quest department. Number two issue is like Lenas suggests, you need an ungodly amount of swings to keep up with a single shaman slow (hope they don't resist!) or wizard nuke. I wouldn't suggest anyone try running a warrior for content if this is the best weapon they have available.
On the flip side of things, I would imagine an SK/Paladin/Ranger using a BoC would never be a bad thing for agro in addition to everything they're generating in hate from their spells? Or are they better to just focus on the best ratio possible for the pure DPS?
So when the time comes, and Warrior decides to put in an app to a raid guild, if they show up with a Greatstaff of thunder, they're obviously not going to be main tanking from the get go if they haven't been farming VT for years, but they're not going to be shunned and laughed away for not sporting the BoC/SoD combo?
There's no need. When you're casting spells for agro, you're generating in excess of 20,000 hate per minute. An extra 1,500 agro from two proc is a rounding error.
No raid guild here cares what gear you have when you show up, because if you have a great staff of thunder you may as well have your trust a rusty short sword* that you obtained at level 1. You're casting clicks for agro or you're AOE taunting or you're waiting 10 minutes to establish agro before calling in for DPS.
When you say casting clicks you mean items like midnight mallets etc to generate instant agro? Kind of make me wish I'd saved that *starter weapon now just to see what people would say about it lol! I'm also seeing more and more why there's never really been a guide for a progression of weapons. Something fundamental like the proc weapons listed above is enough for a trio, the BoC/SoD while awesome is expensive and may help with boxing in a trio to a degree, but largely unnecessary, especially if raiding as the high end raid gear drops.
If the goal is hate, weapons are even less relevant for hybrids. A ranger casting tangling weeds / flame lick will never lose threat until they want to.
Proc weapons are never sufficient for a trio, unless you're into throttling the output of your other classes. Warrior hate generation is the second-worst balanced item in this game. Shortly after our Timeline, it was fixed and Warriors even started equipping shields to better mitigate!
This. With Jolt, Rangers are sort of melee chanters in their ability to gain and lose aggro at will. Knights can gain, but not lose. Not that this is usually a problem for them.
this is a wild exaggeration. whenever I trio with war clr wiz I am permanently oom on the wizard and I can do it without taking aggro. What in the world is your trio setup / trioable content that absolutely requires you to generate a bunch of hate on other classes at the start of a fight? if you’re wearing a paper bag and can’t last 5 seconds without a heal or a slow, then you should scale back to more approachable content for your gear / AA level, and I question that your knight or whatever else is going to be succeeding in that same scenario. there’s no trio with a warrior involved that is shredding through mob hp so fast that it’s nuke before the mob is in camp or never.
Yak's are really good at the lower levels. But honestly warriors for group content aren't great, and unless you get in a raid guild that can get you the gear you need you are going to be miserable maining a warrior. Knights really shine in groups and are far more useful in trio settings. If your concern is more about your trio than a raiding main, go with a knight or ranger.
SKs can FD. Prior to the early Luclin change DA would hate dump which was AKurate, but apparently it made Emperor too easy? So it got removed.
The Lurid Dagger from griegs end is often overlooked. Not quite as good as willsapper, but the mob can be zone pulled instead of a long crawl. https://www.takproject.net/allaclone/item.php?id=26507
This sounds almost completely untrue. I have Hategiver and Blackout right now and they are more than enough to allow for whatever healing and chain nuking I want to do. I often trio (like in Valor) with Willsapper and Primal, and that's also fine for agro. WS/Primal is only problematic for multipulls where I need to switch agro between two mobs. There are still several notable upgrades left for me to loot.
