Raid Warrior gear upgrade

Discussion in 'Tanks' started by Windance, Apr 20, 2022.

  1. Windance Augur

    Interesting to hear from any high end warriors what advice they would give to a returning warrior raiding on live. What would you get with your 1st/2nd/3rd T2 raid ore?

    Most of our warriors are 1h + shield.

    FYI - take into account that our guild is usually 1-2 groups short so we're always struggling to have enough clerics ( 4 on a good night ) and we're going to fail any kind of events that have a DPS check / enrage timer.

    Follow up question: Is it still better for warriors to go hAgi or hSta or hDex - again with the constraint that we generally do not have enough healers to go around.
  2. Ozon Augur

    In general any Tank type should get a Shield first, 2+3 are more up to you but obvious choices BP, Legs, Face, 1h is my personal order 2-5. BP/Legs are obvious, Face slot because the *regular* ones are always in high demand and in my experience fairly/very rare. 1h also obvious.

    For the record I main an SK, and alt other plate classes.
  3. Szilent Augur

    shield is bottom of my list. I almost never use it.

    Weapon first. 1h for warriors, 2h for knights. It's the only slot that does something better than the looted version of the same, something beyond a couple more hit points. The rest is just "if you haven't looted / don't anticipate being able to loot a version." Besides weapon, bricks are just gear wild cards. Fill in what you can't otherwise loot:

    If you don't have "some" raid tier of Cleave (IX-whatever) & Fero (XIII), then arms & legs are the first gaps to fill with a raid brick.
    BP next, the click is good. The brick version isn't special, but if you can't loot a current one then you'll want to make it. Wearing a group BP for the stats is really fine, but it feels bad to not have the +1 tick on deflect/fort even though it's only every 20 minutes.
    If tank mask is hard to loot (shouldn't be this year), make tank mask. Lil' all-the-time boost to agro is nice.

    And then just make whatever is still group/bad/old gear.
  4. Windance Augur

    Pretty sure he has CoV for most slots and a couple ToL T1 raid pieces
  5. p2aa Augur

    We are able to shield block again now in raids, even if it happens rarely. So the value of shield is good, avoiding completly a blow is the best "mitigation" thing, and shield is also a big AC boost. I would definitely make a shield at least as your 2nd slot if you didn't do it at first slot. Also, given your situation of low cleric count, your tanks need to be in best survival mode to soak dmg, and shield one is still the best one.
    BP is also a top 3 choice, as the Roaring shield clicky is a bread and butter mitigation tool in warrior's arsenal.
    The weapon choice is not obvious to me, when mitigation is the first criteria looked for.

    We are able to shield block again, dodge and parry successfully sometimes, because for the first time since TBL raid boss strikethrough isn't 100 % anymore. It's still too early for me to decide if HSta is still the best stat therefore. I need to analyse more tanking data when I have time to do it, and I also await the ToL tanking parses comparing HSta vs HAgi for example. But this expansion for me is very interesting as it makes me consider again the best Heroic stat I will choose for my raid warrior, for next expansion to come and I will buy the type 5 augs of next expansion missions. Right now, if you need an answer, I would go HSta still first, as you cannot go wrong with it and you are still hit very often, imo.
  6. Qimble Augur



    In another month or so I should be able to start providing parses for dex/sta/agi. Just gotta get the currency to buy the third set of augs.
  7. FranktheBank Augur

    No self respecting warrior should be using a shield outside of niche situations.
  8. p2aa Augur

    That's so wrong that it's comical.
    Annastasya likes this.
  9. FranktheBank Augur

    I said self respecting.
  10. Robnie Augur

    I didn't need to be attacked this way on a Monday, sir.
    FranktheBank and DaciksBB like this.
  11. DaciksBB Augur

    I thought you'd be used to this kind of stuff by now Rob
  12. FranktheBank Augur


    I swear to god, if you're using a shield outside of like... tanking CTG stonegrabbers away from the raid... :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
    Endorek likes this.
  13. Gorgasm Journeyman


    Sir, those stone grabbers need DPSd down too.
    Szilent likes this.
  14. FranktheBank Augur

    I mean, I agree. I'm just saying I would forgive the warriors on those, especially the one thats set to come in last.
  15. Gorgasm Journeyman

    If you're not tanking with your 2hander on you're not really living anyways.
    Endorek likes this.
  16. p2aa Augur

    Well go on being ridiculous, this is entertaining. I'm sure the clerics of your guild must like having their job made harder because you and the other warriors rarely use their shield.

    I will add that, given that the OP's guild has low healing output, this is again more critical that warriors use their highest survival set up, and not try to look cooler because you can wear 2 weapons lol.
  17. Cadira Augur

    Who knows, maybe the MT has two or three sks rotating epics in the group. Dw would prob blow shield out of the water in that circumstance.
  18. FranktheBank Augur


    Your mistake is thinking your shield has a huge impact on your survivability. I guess if you aren't using defensive, sure, but then you have bigger issues.

    Also, clerics are spamming a multibind to heal, they are going to spam it regardless if you have a shield, dw, or a 2h.
    Szilent likes this.
  19. p2aa Augur

    You are still doing defensive disc swaps between warriors ?

    Of course, a shield, given the amount of AC it has, and also with no softcap AC in shield slot, has a big impact on your survival, at least over DW. Have you heard of softcap AC ?

    Will it make the difference between life and death ? No, probably not, but every bit that can help a tank survive, especially when you have a low healer count like the OP guild has, is a bonus.

    And, if you would have read the threads posted here, we can now shield block hits again in ToL expansions, even if it's rare, avoiding completly a hit is the best mitigation you can get.

    Also, you might as well just make your knights MT raid bosses, a knight under shield probably mitigates better than a warrior under DW, or at worst equal..., so remove your warriors.

    The justification of DW is more DPS, well if a guild needs the MT warrior DPS to beat the raid, especially with bad tank DPS in tanks groups not supported, then there is a problem. Of course, ST should be under DW and not shield.

    Yeah, but I know as a warrior it's my responsibility to help them keeping me alive, by not putting more burden on them. Unless the clerics of your guild don't care when tanks die and aren't blamed when your 2hander warriors die fastly on raid bosses lol.
  20. Gorgasm Journeyman


    This is the only part that matters. If your tanks aren't dying, then increasing defensiveness at the cost of DPS is a net loss to the overall raid.

    Tanking isn't like DPS where you get increased gains the more "tanky" you are. The only question that matters is "am I likely to die in X situation". If the answer is "No", then further increases to survability have increasingly diminishing return, and you're better off focusing your attention elsewhere.

    Healing is in a similar boat, you only need "enough" healing to keep the tank/raid alive, further additional healing has increasingly diminishing returns.

    There are of course break points, if a shield provided so much additional mitigation that it meant you could run with one fewer cleric and one additional DPS, then that would mean that the option isn't between "warrior does more dps and isn't likely to die" and "warrior does less dps and isn't likely to die", but between "warrior does more dps and we bring along an extra cleric" and "warrior does less dps, but we swap in a DPS class that does even more dps".

    However, a shield doesn't provide anywhere *near* that amount of additional mitigation. It doesn't allow clerics to heal less, it doesn't allow anyone to meaningfully change their behavior, it just provides an additional safety buffer that is almost never going to be used anyways (and one could argue that killing things faster provides a similar safety buffer in a different way, by getting the fight over with faster to reduce the chances of an unfortunate round).


    It's not "more burden", since a cleric is going to be spamming their multibind regardless of whether you're using a shield or not. They're not going to change their behavior because the gains of wearing a shield are so minor as to be barely noticeable.

    Also what kind of toxic guild sits around blaming clerics if a warrior dies tanking with a 2hander? Or really meaningfully blames clerics for warrior deaths at all unless they stopped healing... which if they stopped healing, no shield is going to save your life anyways. Modern EQ has no real "timing" to tank healing like earlier EQ, it's just keeping a constant flow of heals coming into the tank

    So unless your clerics are doing something awful like trying to spam light or spending their time staring at their navel, a tank death is unlikely going to be their fault regardless. More likely it was a bad confluence of events (bad round + a cleric having to run out or something) or the tank being stupid and forgetting they have buttons to push.