I am leveling a warrior (Dwarf) on the TLP server mischief. Am I going down the wrong path here? I am currently guild-less, and while looking for a guild I see most guilds show classes currently in need and Warrior is always in low demand. I chose a warrior as I like the class, and thought I would try my hand at raid tanking. Now it seems that wont be possible. Are there really that many Warriors?
Warriors have no buttons in early expansions. No tools with which to do their nominal job. Choosing a warrior early on a TLP is purely an investment in the future. Raid guilds won't want warriors until the warrior class matures.
If raid tanking is your goal, be aware that there is a very high standard/burden on you. You will need to play a lot - to max AAs early, once those become available; to collect max augs, once those become available. Almost every highly successful raiding warrior I have played around had a significant box team, to ensure they were able to 'solo' for all of that content and more (as the warrior class, by itself, is very much on the low end of effective soloing). Things to keep in mind for playing this class.
Thank you all for the information. I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew with thinking of raid tanking. I dont have all the time in the world to maintain a Warrior it seems. Sadly, as tanking is fairly fun for me being responsible for the mobs and their placement as well as protecting the rest of the group so they can do their jobs.
While this is true, mischief/thornblade are already in Kunark era, and warrior class has matured enough to have defensive discipline. A warrior may not be required to tank Kunark raid targets, but some of them are certainly quite a bit easier with a warrior tanking. Warriors are definitely needed to tank some Velious targets that are coming up soon. You may want to start by targeting a guild that raids on a schedule that works for you and asking them what classes they are recruiting. It's true that a lot of guilds end up building their tank core up very early on and do not really need to add any more tanks until server attrition starts setting in.
Nobody should play a Warrior on TLP. The few that should know why this statement does not apply to them.
If you wanna warrior, you warrior. Doing so is an investment in the future, but it's substantial mental contortion to interpret that as "don't." Like 99% of magicians & enchanters rolled and leveled to max are straight up jettisoned inside two months, but folks still roll em and are right to do so. Ditto the 99% of monks that will be heartlessly orphaned as soon as other classes can't be owned on the parses with zero effort.
I have continued on my path of the Warrior. I am now looking at it as an investment to the future expansions. I enjoy the Warrior class and even though they maybe "hampered" in their ability at first. I feel as if they will be needed later on once other expansions come out and people lose interest in this new TLP.
You will probably find warrior demand being low as guilds already have them rather than them being unwanted. Knights will tank raid mobs in classic, but from kunark onwards warriors will tank 90% of raid encounters. Guilds typically want 4-5 warriors from Kunark through to ~GoD. 4 warriors is the minmum for a 100% defensive rotation on long fighs and you arent going to be tanking mobs like AoW in velious without defensive for long. From GoD onwards fights tend to be more about mechanics than just really long tank and spank fights so defensive tank switching mid fight tends to die out.
erm, Defensive in particular does virtually nothing versus your particular example of AoW, or the "mob like" AoW, Thall Va Kelun in Vex Thal. Defensive changes AoW/TVK hits by 50 points or something, from quad 1100s to quad 1050s Tunare, I suppose, or if some dragons are threatening, Defensive rot can come into play versus those.
This was accurate for the original version of AoW. TLP's have a version with overall increased dps, higher max hit, and higher DI variance. Defensive is VERY noticeable when healing on TLP AoW. And the VT mob you are thinking of is Thall Xundraux Diabo, same result.
If I remember rightly AoW hits around 1600 non-defensive and as you say above about 1050 with def running, so quite a conciderable change. My experience is from Agnar and Mangler rather than live servers.