I won't speak for other warriors, but the reason my warrior turtles up is not for DPS, hate generation or because he likes the look (he doesn't, btw). He turtles up because he really, really, really despises rez sickness. The aug mentioned in the original post? He would go out and get it. He would place it in a weapon. He will bag it and remain turtled up, though.
Would think many of the arguments listed in http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/why-dont-warriors-get-knight-1handers.538/ would still hold true unless the weapon reduced the effective increase of warrior shield specialist. 258 damage x 1.65 = 425/35 or a 12.14 ratio weapon.
Fair enough our ratio would be better then knights in the case of sword and board, but we can't cast or HT ect. Plus 2 hand isn't a dps set-up for warriors either! The only thing we have is our sword/board even though we get dual wield and 2 hand skill. TBH I don't give a crap about dps I more care about being the MT and surviving. I would still like to be competitive in dps when I in some cases happen to be one of 8-9 warriors. This would then allow use to be competitive in dps in those cases. Don't really see it being game changing if they gave us that type of primary. Worst case test it in beta format and see......I don't think they have plans of making dual wield a viable source of dps and its stupid at current to even put 2 weapons in our hands or 2 handers. Lesser dps + lesser AC= fail if using it.
my 2cents because i can. Warriors= best mitigation best sustained dps tanks they earn this right because of the lack of abilities and the difficulty in which to lvl them(yes with pling the way it is today the gap has demininshed some) Sks= best dps knights...burst can beat out warriors but sustained warriors win out. best aoe agro great for add tanking when multiple adds Paladins= lowest dps tank, has decent to good heals, other raid utility like curing and loh and so on, dps 70% that of warriors and 85% that of sk's in sustained but significantly higher vs undead enough to keep up with hybrid dps classes.
DW was broken because it was used 24/7 and it isn't really even a proper tanking setup. The other DWers are not tanks. If they even use a shield it's an emergency turtle up device. In the best of all possible worlds WAR, PAL, and SHD 1Handers would have had shield appropriate ratios from the get go. Just as is the case with knights, they would have looked a lot like a 2Hander. We would have shared 2Handers. Given Warriors could DW we'd have access to not very damaging daggers/parrying daggers (maybe shared with DPS casters who'd use it in their primary hand en extremis). Just enough extra DPS to push us beyond knights using a 2Hander. IMO it should be largely abilities, spells and disciplines that distinguishes one class in the Tank Archetype from another, not hardware. SS FIXED S&B (at least in part).so that we no longer used a DPS setup (DW) when tanking. IMO putting EoA on shields henceforth would further clarify S&B is for tanking and DW/2H is for DPS. In fairness I also believe SS could be scaled back a bit and something like a Damage Shield buff triggered by a successful Shield Block would also make the point S&B is for tanking, not for DPS with another person tanking.We should still do Warrior appropriate DPS in our usual role when geared properly to perform out usual role. DW (and S&B) was broken by design oversight. Design corrections are what's needed to make them sensible. In the case of fixing S&B which is for tanking, that's mostly happened. In the case of DW and 2H people still cling to the idea one of those DPS setups has a or should have a tanking role. All swords/no shield - I don't think so. Not for Knight 2H, Warrior 2H, or Warrior DW.
If you look at the bigger picture (multi-class) DW is quite brilliant - a perfectly elegant design to balance pure melee vs hybrid DPS. Dual Wield to this day functions sufficiently for every other class who has it. The 'broken' part is deeper class problem unique to Warriors- Horribly insufficient swing agro. This was not, and still has not properly addressed, despite a history of bandaids. For example: Oh, EoA. What should have been a class fix was done via itemization, inexcusably limited to only the most elite, who arguably needed it the least. In a facepalm-worthy turn of events it was eventually farmed out to knights, turning 180 degrees from the reason of its original existence and holding tank DPS hostage forever. A similar betrayal of purpose occurred in UF when Knights got Shield Specialist. Putting EoA on shields (only?) would be the polished turd on top of a wedding cake of excrement representing the history of bad decisions. I mostly agree with you on these points. Ultimately a sword is just a sword. The wielder's skill, physical attributes and combat style should determine it's effectiveness. This was present in original EverQuest when weapons were largely multiclass. Class-specific weapons were used as shortcuts around EQ's code and the waters became muddied. Fast forward 14 years to today and everyone scratches their head when halfbreed hybrid melee have exclusive access to the finest weaponry and EoA/Shield Specialist further make a mess of things. ------ edit - made the rest into a separate post
What hasn't seen sufficient discussion is giving DW and 2H further differentiation from each other for Warriors. Simply identifying both as 'DPS' isn't exactly meaningful. In Elidroth's example of big crits vs fast hits, the end result is purely aesthetic to get the same DPS. I propose: 2H - Advantaged in multitarget with increased riposte chance, plus a stance to 'Wild Rampage' and hit all targets in front arc. Improve swing DPS further with better itemization and more ranks of Merciless Blade. Pure ratio advantage gets magnified by ADPS, making it the clear choice for synchronized burns. DW - Advantaged in sustained, trivial enemy dominance via a SkillAttack+Stun proc with a poorly-stacking recourse that provides HundredHands, LeapEffect and a Procratemod.
What I dont understand is, and my Knight brethren may hate me for bringing this up, is that if Elidroth truly envisions Warriors as a sword and board tank ala Knights, then why arent the Warrior only swords around the same ratio as Knight 1hers are? In essence, the Warrior only swords are still dual wield ratios. Meaning they are pretty much the same as any run of the mill 1her out there that Rangers, Bards and other dual wield classes use. So this to me is a conflicting problem here and its going against what Elidroth stated when he mentioned sword and board and Warriors. So why continually give Warriors dual wield ratios? If they cant dual wield and survive vs mobs that can kill them? It makes no sense to me at all. If you understand what im getting at here. If the devs are worried about Warriors dual wielding Knight ratio 1hers, then just make them primary only and problem solved. But why continually give Warriors dual wield ratio 1hers when Elidroth considers the class a sword and board tank? (assuming Elidroth said this, I havent seen it anywhere) - But anyway, it just seems like a contradiction to me. "Yeah, your a sword and board tank, however, we'll continue to only give you dual wield ratios when you cant dual wield and tank stuff that can kill you" meh
1. Warriors are a S&B tank ala Warriors.. Warrior only shields prior to Kunark release, higher Bash skill caps historically than knights, a few attempts like Furious Bash shields to entice us, etc. 2. You have to retrofit more than just current content Warriors. 3. Warriors are more sensitive to Flurry rate increasers. Give us knight ratio shield only 1Handers and our DPS when using S&B in DPS mode might even double. 4. If they could "just" give us Knight ratio 1Handers Primary Only there's still the suddenly too good by half offhander issue. 5. He could have gotten around those things by creating an appropriate for Warriors "Shieldmate" weapon. With shield only 1 Hander but he'd still be stuck with the retrofit issue and there'd be a new class of item to maintain. Seriously, once the original dev team failed to look far enough ahead to realize War, Pal, and SK should share primary only 1Handers, Warrior DWing was best handled by having them use caster templated daggers, and skill sets couldn't diverge so much that shared weapon templates could not be maintained it was pretty much SS or fuggedaboudit. Well TBH SOE could have killed Shield AC not subject to the softcap and Shield Block turning shields back into something for knights to hold in their offhand since they can't wield offhanders. The issues are the flip side of trying to allow knights to DW given their existing mainhanders except in the case of Warriors and shields there is that masters of offensive and defensive thingie and knights do have a tanking and a DPS setup that makes sense - they don't have the need. Or he could have just magically transform Warrior primary 1Handers into shield appropriate weapons when we use a shield...oh wait, he did. Once that happened and aggro adjustments no longer prevented it, Warriors would naturally gravitate to using S&B pretty much as frequently as knights - infuriating the DW 24/7 preferers who would launch a campaign to undo things by suddenly getting a we should be able to use all weapon setups religious conviction they never had before. Leaving Elidroth with DW is not for tanking and really only putting EoA on shields in future content to enforce it.
No. If they do give us a version of hundred hands, it shouldn't be tied to a particular weapon type/setup.
Pretty sure the other HHE procs are similarly restricted - Fists of Steel fires from h2h and Etherium Blades from 1hp <- both are dual-wield specific. I'm also unaware of a similar ability for Berserkers (not that I'd be opposed to a 2H version they shared) I do see your point and I hope you see the reason I suggested it - as an example of how DW can be differentiated from 2H DPS.
Amen, Said exactly as I see it if they want us to only carry sword/board then give us knight primary only ratio weapons and problem solved. After all we have no need to cast or wait can't cast spells so I would think that would really be more balanced. I make do with what we have now but if they aren't planning to make 2 handers and DW of any use to us then throw us a bone and make our primary like that of knights. We have after all moved past swing/ proc being a big deal to our hate. I know in my case I build my big hate via spam disking my hate disk over and over.
I don't understand how someone could post that after I listed my take on some of the reasons SOE can't just do that. However, I suppose if I read your post as if you wrote "I want and if SOE has to uproot everything to satisfy that then oh well." or "if I could have the thing that would make me happiest,,,", then I can make some sense out of it, One, takes work to do it and doesn't change much, suggestion would be to visually indicate any DMG/DLY modification SS does to 1Handers when used with a shield. Pop in an offhander and you get to see what your primary is when its half of a DW setup. Pop in a shield and DMG and/or DLY changes (afaik DLY is not tampered with). Such a change would not alter the damage the weapon did, it would just reassure people that they're using the Warrior equivalent of a knight higher ratio weapon when they use a shield - and just how big a weapon it is. The time when Warriors, Paldins, and SK's could actually share shield appropriate 1Handers ended when our 1H ability set diverged.
Yeah, you lay out a fair argument. I just think there would be problems with the devs implementing it. At worst: It would be another merciless blades; a buff to a specific weapon type that doesn't do remotely enough to close the gap with S&B. At best: It would buff DW dps to slightly above S&B, but leave in a situation where the warrior DPS rot would be ultra cheesy and involve switching back to S&B on HHE procs, either every time or situationally depending on the realistic procrate of HHE... a problem that doesn't exist with 2x HTH monks or 2x dagger rogues. ---------------- I agree with your idea of a "poorly-stacking recourse" for warriors, as we're never put in strong aDPS groups on raids. I also agree with your support (and have suggested other versions in the past) of adding different tanking-specific attributes to different weapon types/setups. I just think tying recourses to weapon types/setups would be more troublesome for warriors than it was for rogues or monks.
Not to mention the design principle that Warriors often exhibit a generalist's mastery of weapons while other classes get narrower specialist capabilities: Rogue/dagger/backstab Ranger/bow/endless quiver, headshot Not that there aren't exceptions - while Call of Challenge is done as an ability, Hamstring which I proposed would have been essentially a proc. It also had the advantage of being simple, sensible, and in class character where other suggestions have not been. Warriors, Paladins, and SK's sharing shield appropriate 1Handers would have been more elegant, but became impractical over time. SS could get to the same outcome (taking into account divergent abilities) and could actually be done. Even with perfectly tuned setups from a DPS standpoint Warriors would use shields more often than not (as is the case with knights) - tanking is our usual role. There are some things one can't ignore.
Warriors spend a great deal of every raid night DPSing... probably more than you think, because waiting to tank is basically the same as DPSing, even if you're not focusing on it.
Are 2handers better DPS for us? Midasa's Dragon Slayer 127 damage, 24 delay Add in the 165% bonus from SS and the ratio is 8.73 If you add in the 10dam aug the ratio is 9.418 (and thats not including the +13 elemental damage) Vs Weight of Duty 241 damage, 30 delay = 8.033 ratio Add in the 16damage aug and you have 8.56 ratio. On average the sword and board would be 10% more DPS than the equiv tier 2hnder. I guess if you are killing a lot of mobs at once the extra damage from riposite would prolly push more in favour of the 2nder but one on one the sword wins out. Or is my maths wrong?
At current you are correct they may as well remove 2 handers and secondary weapons for us! The only useful weapon set is Sword and Board. RARE: use of 2 hander for in raid next to no use and DW for switch on rage.That is why I say give us Knight style primary this way we benefit from riposte better when tanking and it will give little boost when not tanking to DPS. Battleaxe likes to argue against this oddly enough? He wants us to only sword and board then knocks down idea of knight style primary only weapon! Yeah we do have higher attack skills but do we cast? Nope! We can't benefit from DPS other then our weapon swings and riposte and the minor damage from few disk. I think this would be fair as well its not gonna jump us in parses to much we don't get bards, shammy, Bst, Zerker, ect very often. Would say next to never in raids! Maybe different outside raid but not game changing. I roll with bard outside raid 100% time that is one of my primary bots. For me I only argue to better the class as a whole! I rarely try to burn with exception of joke raids like Velishon, and NToV dragons that allow for it. I'm normally helping with adds on raids requiring it or MT or awaiting my time in Tank line.
