Difference between revisions of "Sakuragi's Warrior Guide"

Revision as of 22:04, 15 October 2013

A Word of Warning

Warriors are something of an endgame class, both in terms of levels and gear. At 60 wielding the Blade of Strategy and Sword of the Shissar and wearing toys like the Belt of the Four Winds and Cobalt Breastplate you're the best tank in the game. But during most of your time leveling (especially if you aren't twinked) you aren't going to compare to the snap aggro of Paladins and Shadowknights or the damage of monks. Warriors are the most gear dependent class in classic EverQuest. It's simply not possible to make up a large difference in gear with skill, the way you can on an enchanter or even a monk.

So from a min/max perspective, Warrior is the most hardcore class out there. You should expect to either put in a LOT of time to level and gear up, or just be a mediocre warrior. I rolled my warrior mostly to do something different and not play a powerclass after romping through the game as an enchanter; on the whole I think Sakuragi is great but there have definitely been times when I wish I went Monk.

Just to drive the point home, it's easy to think that a Warrior is one of the simple, base classes. And they are. But they are also one of the most demanding in terms of time. You should learn about the endgame scene first: to get those pixels you're either going to have to track/batphone or farm for a long time.

The Mathematics of Threat Generation

The takeaway here is that you want two fast weapons with good ratios that also proc high-threat spells, while getting as much haste and dexterity as possible. If you are allergic to math, skip this section.

As a warrior, your primary means of generating threat is by beating on your target monster. Every time you swing your weapon, hit or miss, you will generate WeaponDamage+DamageBonus aggro. Some examples:

• L40 Warrior with a Short Sword of the Ykesha in the mainhand: 8+5 = 13 hate per swing
• L40 Warrior with a Short Sword of the Ykesha in the offhand: 8+0 = 8 hate per swing
• L60 Warrior with a Blade of Strategy in the mainhand: 14+11 = 25 hate per swing
• L60 Warrior with a Blade of Tactics in the offhand: 14+0 = 14 hate per swing

This means that as you level up and increase your damage bonus, fast weapons generate relatively more hate than slow weapons. A 9/18 Jade Mace is actually putting out more melee hate per second (ratio (9+11)/18 = 1.11) than the Blade of Strategy (ratio (14+11)/24 = 1.05).

Your secondary means of generating threat is by equipping a weapon that procs a spell. Your chance to proc is dependent purely on your dexterity: the game computes the number of procs per minute you get (0.5 + 1.5 (dex/255) for the mainhand, half that for the offhand) and then distributes them over your swings. Some examples:

• 255 dex, 60 delay weapon, 10 swings per minute, 20% chance to proc per swing
• 255 dex, 30 delay weapon with 100% haste, 40 swings per minute, 5% chance to proc per swing

It's not that hard to put these together (along with estimates for dual wield, double/triple attack, and so on) into a spreadsheet that lets you figure out the estimated aggro for each pair of weapons. Some results (at Level 60, 255 dexterity, 100% haste):

These numbers aren't exact: I'm using data from my tests which seem to indicate that damage is 1 hate per, debuffs are 550 hate, stuns are 500, and poison/disease procs are 750 (this is also why Willsapper doesn't score so well). You can see the testing thread at http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=120110 It's also possible I have a bug in my spreadsheet.

Anyway, it may not be obvious, but these are actually pretty solid numbers. For example:

So the wizard will die, but everyone else is looking pretty good. The problem is that procs (and taunt) are horribly random and fights are short. Suppose that our epic warrior is cursed by the random number generator gods and does not proc/taunt at all. Suddenly he is only generating 46 hate/sec. Our Shaman fired slow as soon as the mob hit camp, so it takes our warrior 12 seconds to generate enough threat for the shaman to sit down again. If the group is killing mobs every 25 seconds, that means our RNG-cursed warrior is tanking a whopping 50% of the time.

Fine you say, but what is the chance of being so cursed by the RNG gods? Higher than you think. For an exponential process exp[-ax] the mean is 1/a. In practice this means if you are due for a proc every 20 seconds (255 dex), you'll have to wait 20 seconds on average (not 10 as you would think). The worst case is much worse:

So if you have two proccing and weapons and 255 dex, you'll have to wait on average 20 seconds for a proc. 50% of time you'll get one inside of 14 seconds, 25% of the time you'll have to wait 27 seconds, and 5% of the time you'll have to wait almost a minute. If you have only one proccing weapon and less than 200 dex, you'll be waiting over a minute between procs fairly frequently. The point here is that warrior isn't bad as much as it is inconsistent. Having two proccing weapons and high dexterity not only increases your threat but decreases its variance and makes it (well a bit) more predictable.

Defense (HP vs AC)

If you are being healed by a shaman or druid (or, god forbid, a paladin), AC is all that matters. More AC = greater efficiency.

If you are being healed by a cleric, especially on raid encounters, HP is going to be more important. Raid mobs have very high ATK and AC is not as effective. In addition, you don't care about the average case: it doesn't matter whether you average 25% or 30% when the complete heal hits. What matters is the worst case, i.e. death, and avoiding it. I feel like HP compensates for that a bit better than AC.

So I feel that 1AC is worth about 3HP for raid tanking but more like 5HP while leveling, when mobs have lower ATK scores and it is more likely you'll be healed by a druid or shaman.

Also, slowed mobs are better than any amount of AC. If stuff is slowable, the best defense is a good offense so that your enchanter and shaman can get to work earlier.

Creation

In the long run (and there really isn't any other reason to play a warrior from a min/max perspective) you'll want to max both Stamina and Dexterity. With full Shaman/Enchanter buffs you'll get +80 DEX but only +50 STA, so I suggest setting Stamina to 30 more than Dexterity.

From a min-max perspective, Ogres are clearly the best. Aside from having the best stats, a quick back-of-the-envelope estimate shows the value of stun immunity: mobs get their secondary attack every 8 seconds, bash instead instead of kick 75% of the time, hit 50% of the time, and stun 50% of their hits. So if the mob isn't hasted you'll be spending roughly 2 seconds out of 40 (5%) of your time stunned. Depending on how fast your weapons are, that's some 2-3% of your threat and damage (your weapons will be ready as soon as you aren't stunned, so you don't lose all of the time) which isn't gamebreaking but is certainly nice.

Second best are Dwarves, Trolls, Halflings, and to some extent Barbarians which all have nice stats and special abilities. There is no min-max reason to play the other races (especially Dark Elves with their brutal 75 starting stamina AND dexterity), but of course min-max isn't everything and with some effort you'll be able to cap your stats in the endgame anyway. In the long term the lack of Slam is not that important as you'll get stunning Kick at 55.

Last but not least are the Iksar. In Velious their AC and regen bonuses will make them competitors with Ogres, but currently we have been mired in Kunark for the past three years and Iksar Warriors are still wearing ranger armor. Really they are only 5-10% worse than comparably geared Ogres in Kunark (Hakata has tanked just about every mob in Kunark, and Sakuragi has tanked most of them) but people will expect you to be horrible. To these people I have only one thing to say: hiss! hiss!

Gameplay (Waving the red flag at mobs)

95% of the 'skill' of playing a warrior goes into making the orc/frog/dragon attack you instead of the robe type behind you. Aside from good weapons/haste/dexterity, your only method to increase your hate is the taunt skill. Taunt (when it works, which isn't all that often) moves you to the front of the hatelist with a value of one more than the previous owner of that dubious distinction (probably a wizard). Taunt is pointless if the monster is already attacking you.

So, how do warriors manage to keep the attention of their foes? Well, first off I have painted the grim worst case picture. Every so often taunt will fail three times and the procs will vanish at the same time, and your groupmates will be thinking 'maybe that fatty SK's XP penalty isn't so bad'. But more frequently the procs will go off or taunt will work and things will be fine. Here are a few other tips and tricks you can try:

Don't worry about it

You really don't have to be tanking 100% of the time. If your groupmates have regen/bardsong/fungi tunics it's actually more efficient to let them get beat on occasionally to maximize those abilities. And the Shaman tanking the slowed mob is going to do way better than you against the full strength version. Finally, the point is to kill stuff: as long as the cleric isn't bitching about mana you're doing fine.

Make friends with shaman and enchanters

A good shaman will make any tank look great: you get 750HP for complete heal efficiency, +50 dex for extra procs, and slow dramatically reduces the damage you take. You can also duo with them very effectively once you get some Blood Points; as long as pulls aren't a problem Warrior/Shaman is basically equivalent to Monk/Shaman.

Enchanters, aside from being the god class of EverQuest, will max out your haste, give the cleric clarity, and slow the really tough mobs, which all make you look good. Plus all that extra damage from the charmed pet speeds things up a lot as well.

Don't be underleveled

Unlike Clerics who can not unreasonably head to Sebilis at 39 when they get complete heal, a Warrior really can't afford to be underleveled for the camp. It leads to fewer spell resists, getting hit harder, less damage, and fewer accurate taunts. Unfortunately this conflicts with getting good gear; welcome to life as a warrior.

Root a lot

A rooted monster will attack whoever is closest, which if you deliver proper instructions to your groupmates will always be you. It will eventually break (especially with a mage pet in the group) but it gives you some time to proc or successfully taunt. If you are grouped with an enchanter, they should always root anything they mez. Shamans should be slowing the mezzed mob so you only need one taunt to vault over both to the top of the hatelist.

Sneak in extra taunts

If you are comfortably tanking thing 1, taunt is worthless. You can turn off auto attack, target another (mezzed) mob, hit taunt, and revert back to the previous mob (there is a key). This makes it a bit more likely the mob will come for you when mez breaks.

Switch Early

Assuming your group is handling runners well, you should work on breaking mez and building some hate ASAP while they finish beating down the previous one. You take a bit more damage, but your threat will be a lot smoother.

Use a mallet

One or two clicks from the Midnight Mallet will solve all of your problems with threat. Unfortunately, they also will run you 100p each. The good news is your guild will usually supply you with one for the big targets where it really matters.

Rage at your groupmates/Laugh at their dead corpses

Even with good gear and good technique, your groupmates are still going to have to compensate for your inconsistent threat. At some point you are going to see 'You will not evade me, HastyWizardX'. About all you can do is remind people before the fight and snicker when they die (or rage out if the cleric saves them and then you have to wait 5 minutes to get some mana back).

Watch your parser

At 60 with good weapons, Warriors do quite well - 65 dps or so seems average.

Disciplines

Warriors get the best disciplines in the game, mainly because many of ours ours last 3 minutes instead of 10 seconds.

Evasive vs Defensive

These are your bread and butter, and the big reason Warriors trump other classes for endgame tanking. A Warrior with 4000HP and one of these disciplines will outtank a hybrid with 5000HP . . . easily.

Mobs hit for DamageBonus+DamageInterval*Rand(0,20). Evasive causes them to miss more, while defensive reduces their damage interval. What this means is that if mobs have a high DI but low DB, defensive is better, while if they have a high DB but low DI, evasive is better. There is an entire [thread] devoted to which discipline to use when, but as a general rule of thumb I suggest using defensive for mobs that hit for over 400 max.

Precision

With this discipline you will basically never miss. It's good for about a 50% increase in damage for three minutes, and if the fight lasts long enough you can outdamage the rogues and monks.

Mightystrike/Fellstrike

Mightystrike is best saved for when you are in trouble and below 40% health, when all of your critical hits will be crippling blows. Unfortunately it has a 60 minute reuse time.

Fellstrike is good for the 30 second endgame kills we see on this server and refreshes a bit faster.

Gameplay (the other 5%)

Positioning

Warriors are generally responsible for putting the mob in a good place. Unfortunately, dragging the mob around is rather difficult as Warriors are usually happy just to be first on the hate list, let alone by such a large enough margin that the mob will actually chase you with other players in melee range. Even if it sufficiently enraged, attempting to position a summoning casting mob will usually result in 'You will not evade me, WarriorX' immediately followed by 'a froglok ilis shaman begins to cast a spell' and by this time you've probably aren't first on the hate list anyway.

Therefore, you have to pretend you aren't a boneheaded Ogre and think ahead. It's not really that hard to figure out where the melee push is directed, and it shouldn't be directly into a wall. Having a few hotkeys to the effect of 'get on the other side' or 'get on my side' work wonders, although it may take a few repetitions to get the rogue out of his chemically induced Netflix trance.

Positioning is especially important for mobs which can gate; everyone needs to be on the same side with space to push for the last 20%. Stunning kick (or slam) helps there as well, but many mobs are just stun immune anyway.

Solo

Assuming you have the right toys, warriors can solo adequately. The most important ones are the Truncheon of Doom for 50% slow, the Silken Whip of Ensnaring so that your targets don't zoom off, the Blood Fire for extra damage, the Polished Obsidian Great Axe for fear, the Blood Point for lifetap heals, the Wooly Spider Silk Net for safety, and of course the ubiquitous Fungus Covered Scale Tunic. When I couldn't find a group (or just didn't feel like exerting myself) at L59, I would solo the L50 Undead Foreman in OT. I used evasive until I could get my array of procs going and did fairly well.

Pulling

Nothing is more fun than a warrior announcing he has 12 mobs incoming to the group. Get a bow so you don't have to tag stuff, and strafe back so you don't take quite so much damage.

Useful Clickies and Procs

Although warriors get zero utility from spells and skills, they do have access to a large number of nice clickies and procs:

• Blood Point Procs a 90 point lifetap at L50
• Truncheon of Doom Procs a 50% slow
• Silken Whip of Ensnaring Procs Snare
• Blood Fire Procs Boil Blood (cheap and excellent for soloing)
• Journeyman's Walking Stick Procs Tash
• Larrikan's Mask Invis clicky
• Wooly Spider Silk Net Root clicky
• Ring of Shadows Instant invis clicky
• Greater Potion of Heat +25 STA, +25 CR
• Blood of the Wolf Sow Potion
• Greater Null Potion +25 DEX, +25MR
• Blazing Bracer of Fennin Ro Fire Bolt (long range pulls)

Progression

By far the most important thing as a warrior is to be social and have a long friend list. You can't group well, and you are so gear dependent that you are going to be relying on other classes to help you with quests and such. You aren't going to level quickly anyway, so take it easy, chat, and be nice (think Road House). Expect to have to form a lot of your own groups.

1-20

Life is pretty easy at low levels. Kunark has been out so long that you can cheaply acquire nice mid-level weapons like the Sword of Skyfire, Green Jade Broadsword, Fist of Zek, Ebonwood Cudgel, or Jarsath Trident. Armor wise, you should shoot for a full set of banded or bronze armor and two Platinum Fire Wedding Rings. Don't beg in the tunnel like a retard; just ask for a 10% discount as a new player.

Your groups will be loaded down with twinks and fungi tunics and high-level buffs, and the monsters aren't that hard anyway, so just relax and roflstomp. You won't have proccing weapons at this stage and taunt will be borderline worthless, so don't worry if you aren't tanking much - you'll still be doing decent damage. Save bone chips, spiderling silk, and high quality pelts to sell. All of the major starting areas have their respective noob dungeons which are pretty solid, especially Crushbone where you can sell belts and pads for decent money. You can also farm the famous Nybright Sisters in Lesser Faydark; they frequently drop Bronze weapons.

20-40

The game gradually starts to feel like unforgiving classic EverQuest, and you aren't as overgeared as you were before. You can start to think about acquiring proccing weapons, but unfortunately the ones that proc at your level have horrible ratios, like the Goblin Skullcrusher or the Gnoll-Hide Lariat, so probably it's best (and cheapest) to stick with what you have. Stay in zones a little longer than other classes so that taunt will work better. You should definitely be working on the Crafted Armor quests, and if you can manage the 10k, buy a Flowing Black Silk Sash.

The best dungeons are Upper Guk, Solusek A (camp near the zone to Sol B), Unrest, and Mistmoore. Get a mage to summon you some weightless bags and loot fine steel weapons and bronze armor; they'll sell for 5p each. At the end of your session, get someone to kill you in a duel - no-rent items won't poof on a corpse.

40-50

This is probably the worst part of your entire leveling experience. You do get your first decent proccing weapon, the Ykeshan War Club, at 40 (You can also try hanging out in Kithicor for a Scimitar of the Ykesha which is even better) and gradually start to gear for Dexterity with pieces like Carnal Pauldrons, Cloak of Shadows, Grotesque Mask. Unfortunately, both of those weapons sport feeble ratios which may be even worse than what you have. To make things worse, your skills all capped at 200 back at Level 40 (but somehow monks get increased skills, RAGE).

50-59

Things significantly improve over the Kunark levels. Your skills gradually match a monk's, and you get the best disciplines in the game. Join a casual guild and cover yourself with excellent hate and sky armor, including the Belt of Contention which is better than the FBSS anyway. You can proc any weapon in the game, so buy a Sarnak Warhammer, Silken Whip of Ensnaring, Trochilic's Skean, and two Blood Points to duo with shamans. The best part is that with higher mob hitpoints, fights take longer, which means you'll be tanking a much larger fraction of the time.

You should be spending your time at the Efreeti in Sol B (the Golden Efreeti Boots and Djarn's Amethyst Ring both sell very well, and you can duo with a shaman), the basement/Warlord camps in Karnors, Howling Stones North, and especially Sebilis. The best thing you can do for your pocketbook is level through 59 on the myconids in Sebilis; it won't be fast, but it will be profitable. You can also try farming Journeyman Boots via the South Ro ancient cyclops.

60

Congratulations, Warlord, you aren't done at all! You still need a decent haste item and weapons, and ideally a bit of Cobalt. If you are willing to batphone at all hours and track 20+ hours a week, you'll have little trouble joining TMO and all your gear issues will be solved after a few months.

If you aren't willing to do this or just don't want to leave your friends in CasualGuildX, your life is substantially harder. Your best option in my opinion is to try to scrape together 300k to buy Veeshan's Peak rots from TMO; practically everything in there has a solid ratio and an excellent high threat proc. I would take a Howling Cutlass/Malevolent Runeblade combo over the epic in most cases, and the epic will be more expensive as you have to you buy Green Dragon Scales anyway. Your other options are the Ringed Mace of the Ykesha (moderately expensive, low dps, no stats) or the Blade of the Black Dragon Eye (very expensive, no stats). If you can afford a BotBDE, you can afford VP weapons which are basically better anyway.

Your ideal haste item is the Belt of the Four Winds, which gives you enough haste to get Visions of Grandeur and its +20 dex/ATK instead of Speed of the Shissar and still hit the haste cap, but the same formula applies: lots of tracking/batphoning or lots of platinum. Probably your best bet is to kill Ixiblat Fer a few times and hope to get lucky on a Cloak of Flames. You can also try to pair the Runed Bolster Belt with a Hierophant's Cloak.

If you can make it to 60 and acquire good gear as well, you'll be the best tank in the game, with the most hitpoints and armor class, damage only slightly behind monks, solid threat, and the best disciplines in the game. Paladins, Shadowknights and even Monks can tank Kunark content adequately if not well, but if Velious ever comes out Warriors are going to be head and shoulders above everyone else in the tanking category.