Warrior vs SK for a 3box

Morning

When I'm not raiding I'm 3boxing (the old fashioned way with numpads and macros). When they are around I got a couple friends who come hang out and they at most play a 2box each. (So 3-7 total toons)

So on a tlp starting in classic, under the assumption the tank will be my raid main and bis / near bis geared.

What are the pros and cons of Warrior vs SK as the MT for this situation. Like I've 3boxed Drusella in era with a warrior as the tank. Can an SK do the same? Etc etc

Thanks again in advance for any info.
Abyssmul

A big question would be what is the other two boxes being considered?

There are three primary pros to an SK:
1) Splitting difficult pulls (but it is QUITE slow)
2) Additional personal healing they can push via lifetaps and Leechcurse (or burst DPS w/ HT per 72 min)
3) Snare (but they'll be mana starved compared to those that can afford to sit, with the most expensive type of snare)

They have a very expansive range of abilities which can fill in weak spots, but if you have quick pulling, plenty of healing and snare already covered - they'd add almost nothing. But that said, they're almost always useful and not a large detriment even then.

It depends.

If you're going to be small man tanking raid bosses (with friends, I assume) in the early 6 or so expansions, you'll want the warrior defensive disc.

If you're mostly doing group content with competent healing, you'll want the SK for snap aggro because warrior aggro will be constrained without access to +hate proc weapons (and hDEX) only sourced from raids.

This ignores the remaining box setup.

Unless you are in a raid early on there is no reason to take a war over an sk.

There's a reason you see a stupid amount of sk's on Live servers.

Based on the information you provided, SK.

SK will be the better option for a few factors.
You are going to have better threat than a Warrior.
You will have more gear options due to the number of Amy's in PoFear.

The question of Drusella:
What are your anticipated other 2 boxes ?
3 boxing her in era is a bit rough without Defensive and being able to maintain DPS with only 3 boxes enough to kill her.
If you have a Shm/Cleric I am sure it is possible but that DPS is going to be horrendous and take you forever. ( bring clarity pots )

SK can MT in classic but rarely did I ever see them used in guilds for some odd reason, they maintain aggro better and hp/ac averages out about the same until Kunark lands.

So to answer the box question I almost always ran a cleric on my Warrior. I found as we hit later xpacs like god and omens that a cleric in group gear could cheal me way way more effective than the shaman. Especially since I couldn't effectively canni dance a box.

I could do much harder content with cleric and no slow than a shaman and it's weaker healss / mana issues.

The third was a utility spot sometimes a bard, sometimes, s wizard, sometimes an Enchanter. And this may sound insane but I swear for ages I used a teacher then a Zerker cause the afk dps and damn near gid tier snare it worked so well. Coupled with their high melee dmg boosts they provided to the warrior.

I'm a well above average (Tho not elite) tank player, and an average at best boxer. So that third toon needs to be derp easy. (Aka the chanter didn't charm, just mez, buff, and slow)

hp/ac values are not what determines who can tank the best. SKs don't have anything comparable to defensive, at least until dragons of norrath, and even then Soul Shield is a joke compared to defensive. Even without disciplines, and with identical HP/AC values, warriors will still take less damage because they just passively have an always on melee mitigation bonus that no other class has. But in reality, equally geared, warriors will have more hp/ac

The problem you are going to run into is DPS to counteract the Mitigation healing with only SK/Cleric/Ench. Especially if you are not charming. ( Drusella )
However I can likely be done, just really need to hope your mana on the cleric lasts and abuse healing pots on the SK.

I'll go against the grain here and suggest warrior. Here's some context, though: I'm a lazy berserker. Ya, I want to do maximum DPS, but for me, I'm happy being being in the top 1-2% performance because being absolute best takes WAY too much effort. When I 3-box, it's with:

1. Raid Zerk
2. Group Zerk
3. Group Shaman
4. Merc Healer
5. Merc Healer
6. Merc Tank

OR

1. Raid Zerk
2. Group Warrior
3. Group Shaman
4. Merc Healer
5. Merc Melee DPS
6. Merc Tank

Here's my rationale based on my experience with a warrior alt:

1. Warriors have disciplines and not many of them (easy to learn & manage). SKs have both spells and disciplines to manage.
2. Many warrior abilities are blindly spammable and insta-cast. (Use a multi-bind for lazy winning.)
3. Warriors have superior auto-attack DPS allowing you to focus on other characters.
4. Warriors have FAR fewer AAs to get in every expansions and thus it's MUCH easier to get them to max power in every era.

• Level 125 War has 52,453 AAs
• Level 125 SK has 82,256 AAs

5. Warriors and SKs are equally armor/aug-dependent.

• But what about the SK's superior pulling ability?
  • The best crowd control is crowd obliteration. Equip a shield, pop a defensive disc on the warrior, hit AE aggro, and start wrecking the mobs with the rest of your crew.
• But an SK can recover the group by FD'ing and using a rez token if the group nearly wipes.
  • Campfire.
• The SK can help heal himself.
  • ... if you're actively managing the SK. In a 3-box crew, you have to divide your attention. I like a low-effort tank in that situation.

Bard just doing /melody is never a bad option. Lazy way to play it but still makes a ton of difference.

I never said hp/ac did FYI: I said they average out about the same in CLASSIC.

In classic it is so minimal that you would never see a difference on raid bosses between a SK/War if they are both BIS or that highly geared.
Once Kunark lands Warriors takes over 100% due to defensive.

I think there are pros and cons of a warrior up to velious.

Warrior Pros:

• Easier to box because they have less buttons. My main window is always the enchanter because they require the most work.
• Being able to auto/proc most of your threat is a low effort tank.
• Defensive allows you to do small raid content a SK cant. I used to 4 box Hate minis in Kunark era with my War/Ench/Cleric/Bard setup. Defensive allows this to happen.
• Throw stone is good for FTE.

Warrior Cons:

• Have to race change iksar in Kunark to fully min/max. Better AC, blade of the legion, and hate armor are all great reasons to race change. Iksar are also the coolest looking race.
• If you re-roll Iksar, there is nothing to really spend DKP on in Kunark since the Hate set is really good. This could be considered a Pro since you will have a ton of DKP to get Velious items which are actually good.
• Low threat in classic. Don't expect to ever MT anything over an SK because. Classic is easy and speed/efficiency > raw mitigation.
• Lacks utility. No snare, FD, fear, etc.
• Nerf to SoI hurt warrior threat.

This is

This is pretty accurate, a raid geared warrior can pop a disc and aggro like a God in 1 mob and be a top tier dps damn near afk.

Now if SK can with active management surpass that. I'm down to try. I'm interested in something new. But if I'm just going to feel and not be able to do what I want to. I'll stick to a warrior.

I swear my box bard died so many times as a warrior. Songs can wreck him on a large pull.

I always envied SK snap aoe threat

My SK regularly takes aggro over raid geared warriors with just auto attack and bold attacks turned on.

That strikes me as a poorly geared warrior? Or in velious maybe? Where the 2handers massively outclassed the 1handers? Paladius is busted!!

But even in Luclin, dual stun augs, on a wake with bloodfrenzy and Blasphemous Blade of the Exalted. You can pretty much afk and never even come close to losing threat except to the top 1 or 2dps.

And if your rolling both incite and provoke lines no way outside of a threat dump mechanic like the FD thing from the basement.

I'll admit, I know alot of warriors who genuinely don't understand gearing or threat. Warrior is so gear dependent that you can take two full raid geared warriors and one will be squishier than your shamans with threat. And the other will never drop threat and be a brick wall..

And this gap gets even bigger when augments come out. Augments are such a noob trap for warriors.

Double post

Sadly this is true, sk for ease of threat you dont need a warrior unless you're raid tanking