Raid Warrior gear upgrade

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

  1. FranktheBank Augur

    Well, warriors dont lose much dps while tanking, that's a big benefit. It also frees up the SKs to tanks adds, because SKs are better at tanking multiple targets.

    Why would a cleric get blamed? When Gorgasm dies with a 2h you know what happens? We call him a big dumb idiot, because he is a big dumb idiot. Why would any guild blame clerics lmao. If the cleric is hitting their heal bind and not afk or huffing glue, then they're good. In general, no, I don't care when a tank dies. They usually picked something up without a cooldown running.

    Thank you for finally agreeing.
  2. Too Many Praxes New Member


    to answer the question rather than engage in the stupid p2aa shield trolling, here is my suggestion for a purchase order from the point of view of a tank in a top10 raiding guild:

    ore 1 & medals of conflict: luclinite coagulated broadsword (1) and edge of madness (medals)
    (if you don't have COV ore armor) ores 2&3: arms/legs
    (if you don't have COV ore armor) ore 4: bp
    ore 5-19: the rest, starting from your weakest slots. prioritize class specific slots (aka visibles) if there are near ties & do charm after your visibles are complete. if your raid is doing anniversary event, avoid buying neck/rings for now until the event is over and you're sure you aren't going to loot pulsing green stone amulet or one of the rings.
    ore 20: shield
    If you do have COV ore armor already, fill in your weakest spots first but still prioritize your class specific slots then charm.

    As for your follow up question, 4 clerics is fine. We usually have 4 as well. I would stick to hDex until you hit 3200 then focus on hSta. Having an artisan's prize helps a lot with hitting this threshold, & make sure you're keeping your missions on cooldown until you're suited out in all shadowed stone of waves. Takes about 200-ish runs in total, so 50 sets of all 4. Good luck my dude!
    Endorek, Gorgasm and Szilent like this.
  3. Qimble Augur

    Shield makes you slightly more likely to survive situations you otherwise wouldn't. Assuming you're going from all gear being the same tier (CoV ore, ToL group or w/e) it should provide you largest survivability upgrade. As others have said, much like healing with survivability for the most part you either have enough or you don't. If you already have enough, more doesn't usually do a ton unless something goes wrong. (I assume most guilds aren't gonna have the MT clerics on rez / buff duty)

    That said, in my experience in ToL raids for adds at least there is a noticeable difference in average damage roll on incoming hit when I have a shield on vs when I don't. For some situations that is acceptable (tanking one mob, healers aren't overwhelmed) while for others it isn't. (wait did 16 adds just spawn and we've got 2 tanks unable to accept rezzes or zone back in because the servers are currently melting?) My philosophy has always been to gear for the SHTF moments first, so I go shield first. Not everyone plays that way, just like how you will always hear an argument whenever type 5s are brought up.

    On the type 5 front, I think most warriors still go h-sta and most knights go h-dex. I've got full sets of h-sta and h-dex augs, once I finish my h-agi set I'll start doing the work of parsing them on raids to see if any of them provides a noticeable difference over a few weeks of raids on each.
  4. p2aa Augur

    Nice attempts at cherry picking what I said, here is the full sentence, with the missing part bolded

    "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."

    So, no I disagree with you, and my answer takes into account OP's guild situation, which enhances further that shield is the best option.

    Tanking means you do all you can to stay alive, and using all your tools at your disposal.
    EQ has never been a game where you see spectacular results, using a given set up. It's every bit that adds up and that contributes to the whole picture. You don't know what would save you from a death, maybe you could have avoided it if you did avoid this hit completely with a Shield block

    So clerics heal the same, whatever the dmg you are taking ? They don't take into account the massive amount of more dmg you are taking when under a 2hander versus a shield ? Ok, cool then.
    That's right, if you died, it's your fault because you were under a 2hander lol.
    The shield, aside the fact the AC bonus is important in this slot, allows you again to block hits completely in this expansion.

    Hello New member. The one that did troll this thread is Frankthebank when he posted a stupid non sense sentence.
  5. Gorgasm Journeyman


    We had three clerics, three shaman (+ 1 box), and 1 druid last night. We do not run healer heavy on purpose. It's like not this is some crazy healer heavy raid comp that is enabling not using a shield, shield's just don't do very much.

    I'm a big dumb and like pushing limits, so the above healer raid comp also supported me tanking at least part of that with my 2hander equipped (one handers on during a large wave or if a healer is called to run out since healing is spread out more, 2hander when smaller waves or singular mobs).

    I also don't think that the rest of that sentence changes things. Nobody is asserting that the shield does absolutely nothing. What we *are* asserting is that the shield isn't likely going to be the difference between living or dying, which you've also stated. Given that it isn't likely going to be the difference between living or dying, then you have to weigh what you gain or lose from choosing to equip a shield vs 1handers.

    For instance, you could also reduce your incoming damage by just not turning on attack at all to reduce the amount of riposte damage you take. By the same logic that would have someone wear a shield, you'd want to do that. Any damage you avoid by missing a riposte is damage not taken, the same as with shield block (and I suspect tanks take more damage from riposte than they would avoid from shield block). Warrior can hold threat without turning on their attack (we've had warriors tank shei that way once or twice).


    So are you tanking with attack off? If not why are you giving up that "bonus" to help yourself survive, since that's certainly another tool at your disposal?

    I can turn this same sentiment around though.

    EQ has never been a game where you see spectacular results, using a given set up. It's every bit that helps and contributes to the whole picture. You don't know what would save you from a death, maybe you could have avoided it if you contributed more DPS to the raid, and thus the raid killed it prior to it having a chance to kill you.


    Have you played a healer in modern EQ? I have.

    Modern EQ healing you're not really sitting there judging how much damage someone is taking and selectively choosing how you're going to heal them. A tank is taking damage, and you're spamming your mulitbind to keep a constant flow of heals coming in. If they stop taking damage for a few seconds (or longer) you switch to someone else and spam your multibind on them. A cleric and shaman also have near infinite mana in modern EQ, so there's no reason to hold back heals to try and conserve mana or something.

    Maybe if you're in one of those guilds that run around with like 17 clerics, then your clerics can sit around staring at their navels while they try and decide how they're going to heal you, I dunno I've never been in a guild like that.
  6. Gorgasm Journeyman


    Oh, to add to this, one of the things that people who haven't really played a healer in modern EQ often don't realize is that the health bars in EQ lie to you, or rather they don't update in real time nor do they update fast enough for you to actually trust them to be an accurate representation of what that person's health currently is.

    You can see this because it's very common that you'll see a heal land for full, with little to no overheal while the tank's health bar on the healer's screen never left 100% health.

    So for a healer, it ends up being very binary. "Does this tank need healed, or are they likely to need healed in the next few seconds? If yes, heal them".
    Szilent likes this.
  7. Qimble Augur



    Snipped to just select a couple quotes.

    I absolutely have tanked with attack off. I've tanked with a 2 hander and weapon stances turned off. I've tanked with a 2 hander and weapon stances turned on. All of those are things that can be adjusted on the fly to up or lower my mitigation to make sure I can stay alive through whatever I'm doing at that time. When things are going wrong having the strongest shield possible is the most likely to prevent a raid wipe.


    Healing isn't that, but unless your raid force makes no mistakes there is going to be moments where people die who shouldn't, and the remaining healers have to choose who's gonna pause healing to do a random rez or rebuff. Generally my healer is one of the ones who carries a lot of that burden, so even if tanking something I can tank with a 2 hander, being able to swap to shield lowers incoming damage by enough / removes enough spike potential that she can weave rezzes and buffs in between heals.
  8. FranktheBank Augur

    Why would you click off the stance to tank with a 2h?


    so does swapping from a 2hb to dw lol
  9. Gorgasm Journeyman


    Sure, nobody has said that you should never ever equip a shield, just that the cases where a shield is helpful are fairly niche. If I know a healer is busy doing something else, I typically just pop flash, if I do anything at all. Typically you can find a spot to squeeze in rebuffing, and if you truly can't then a shield likely isn't going to give you that either.

    At a minimum, 3 other classes have rez on a ~1s cast, and paladin aego is almost as good as cleric aego. So if a cleric has a hard time squeezing in a rez and rebuff... they just shouldn't IMO. People can also just banner back instead of get a rez if healing is that tight. They'll still have to get rebuffs, but the paladin can probably squeeze it in between their 18s splash CDs.

    Though I am confused why you would use a 2hander with weapon stances off. 2Handers are already pretty close to 1handers in terms of DPS, and if you click off two hand proficiency II you lose +90% to their damage. Since the only reason I can think of to use a 2hander at all is for increased DPS (when it is), equipping one then murdering your DPS by taking away two-hand proficiency II seems.. silly compared to just using your 1handers. Maybe there's some very specific niche I'm not thinking of at the moment.
  10. The real Sandaormo Augur

    Lot of blanket statements going on. You have to look a little deeper into the guild itself I would think. If your a top 10 guild, top 20 maybe, Dual wield and use your 2 Hander all you want, I don't think anyone cares. The OP sounds like he is from a guild working on new content for them and maybe even struggling with getting enough healing. If thats the case he should be using all the tricks in his bag to be his tankiest, including using a shield.
    Lubianx and Ozon like this.
  11. Qimble Augur



    2h stance turns of CA/CS, there have been times when I was trying to rid the absolute edge of the line between life and death and losing those two would probably have made the difference. Edge case, just wanted to make sure you understood that I've got a shield on 100% of the time.
  12. Tucoh Augur

    Dual wield is so strong it feels like a waste to use a shield unless you really need that extra survivability. In so many cases the extra damage increases likelihood of raid success and kill rate for a raid. A shield is just one more tool in the kit.
  13. Bigstomp Augur

    I once had a situation where my healing in group while i was tanking one of the 2 minis was literally 3 SK's. My first thought was WTF, but it worked. (Underfoot, brells temple I think).
    Cadira likes this.
  14. p2aa Augur

    Shields are doing something, I yet said it, big AC boost with no softcap AC and the return of Shield Block.

    Have you parsed the DPS of tanks in tanking groups with no ADPS ? It's bad, therefore a MT under DW will not change anything on the DPS parse and speed of killing compared to one with a shield, regarding the overall DPS parse of the guild.

    Each to their own, you think the DPS of DW when MT can make the small difference, I think that Shield is making the small difference.

    If a tank is taking less dmg than the others, the the clerics can focus less on this tank, and also if a tank is taking more dmg, there are heal AA to use and other tricks when damage is higher.
  15. Cicelee Augur

    As an outsider unbiased opinion, I think both sides are right.

    A shield does provide extra survivability. It is like a security blanket.

    On the other hand, I do not believe raid clerics are standing around waiting to heal. Correct me if I am wrong, but they are always chain casting heals to be proactive instead of reactive. Which means heals are coming non stop to the tank. So the question becomes, how much AC and HP do you need in order to survive. Theoretically a tank could be naked if enough heals came to prevent death. Which means if a tank can survive using DW, then that tank can do more DPS than a shield tank.

    It is a risk thing. Some tanks are less into risk and want a shield. Some are more risky and hold two swords. Don't think either side is wrong
  16. Szilent Augur

    I gotchu boo. Tanking in a tank group with a shield on, warriors in my guild are typically 200-250k dps. In a tank group dual wielding, a warrior is 400-450k dps.

    I can't speak for your guild mates, but those of mine that play "real" dps classes would shank a kitten to gain 200k dps from just /bandolier that doesn't substantially impact survivability.
    Endorek, FranktheBank and Cadira like this.
  17. Barton The Mischievous

    EDIT (Some)Real dps people I know, like even a really cute kitten. Maybe a litter of em in some folks cases.
  18. Gorgasm Journeyman

    Nobody has ever said they do nothing. Just that they don't do very much.

    Nobody in a raid should be with *zero* aDPS unless your raid is very bad. At a minimum if you don't have a bard in every group, someone should be playing AE War March. Auspice and War Cry should be getting MGBd, etc.

    But let's just pretend for a minute all your aDPS classes are busy huffing glue and aren't appropriately playing their class. ToL 1handers with *zero* discs running, no glyph, no brutal, no war sheol's no nothing. Just a full set of raid buffs and myself solo parses at around 400k DPS. Once I add in *only* the AE aDPS because hopefully your aDPS aren't busy huffing glue, and that jumps up to ~600k, again with no attempt to disc, just auto attack and shield splinter.

    Now let's swap to a shield. Those numbers look like 180k and 230k.

    So while it's not nearly as impressive as the DPS numbers you can put up in a pure aDPS group, if you have 3 warriors wearing shields, you're basically adding a whole another DPS class to your raid, or roughly a 6% DPS boost to your entire raid if you're what Lisard recently called an "average dps" guild here.. Even for what he defines as an "average night for a top 10 guild", that's still a 3-4% DPS increase.

    And just to drive home the point, that was with *zero* DPS discs on the warrior, literally just turning on attack and mashing shield splinter. Those numbers would be higher if I was hitting brightfield's, war sheol's, etc. They'd also be higher with things like Funeral Dirge applied, which I didn't bother to add in my limited GH parsing I just did.


    Honestly, I just think you have no idea how healing works in EverQuest in 2022. That's fine though, you can continue to sandbag your guild's raids doing something so minor that your healers almost certainly can't even notice the difference.
  19. FranktheBank Augur


    Why not just dual wield? Instead of clicking off the buff? I dont understand.

    Szilent basically covered it. Doing 400k vs 200k dps is really significant for a raid. Especially if your attitude is infecting other warriors. Then its 200k x however many warriors. Very significant.
  20. Zaknaffein Augur

    I went 2h, 1h, shield for the first 3 ores for a while now.

    These days the biggest "Upgrade" to ones overall contributions to the overall raid performance you can contribute is your weapon in regards to gear. As a warrior I tank DW and only in oh moments or events that have a lot of mobs being tanked and thus healing is spread out would I go to Sword and Board.

    The main reason to tank DW is the agro procs on the WAR one handers. Those procs with rage is the best way to keep up with the initial burst agro the raid is putting out in most scenarios. The other reasons to go DW don't really matter to me in a raid setting.

    Once I have created a huge gap between me and the next person on the agro list I may swap to sword and board just for the little added perk to Shield ac and block. I typically stay with DW though for the Heal proc augs I use in the 1handers and the increased personal DPS you gain over Sword and board.

    Roll with Glyph and pop out the 2hander if you are bored and feeling Frisky :p

    The 2hander being the first item I use an ore on is due to overall net increase to DPS is far more beneficial to a raid these days than what little increase to DPS/Ago generation I would get from upgrading the 1Hander. I also came from a guild that usually runs with 10-15 tanks so more often than not I was not tanking and thus in DPS mode.

    This would make me take the DPS upgrade even more honestly. DPS is king and the longer an event takes the more likely the tanks will die. 4 clerics is plenty of healing to keep tanks alive, it is the events mechanics slowly killing off your DPS to the point of stagnation where you can't keep up with the adds/boss regen/ etc. that is killing you, not tank survivability in terms of tanks gear being adequate.

    Gearing up the tanks always helps but choosing shield first over a weapon for ore upgrades won't really make any sort of meaningful difference in terms of survivability for the tank.

    hDex and then Hstam.