Forgive my noobness, but I am on this forums to educate myself about my warrior, who isnt always the main tank. I have read on two different threads now that SB is higher DPS than dual wield when not tanking. How is this possible? I remove my secondary weapon and replace it with a shield (eliminating at least one off hand attack) and now I have greater DPS? Is there a simple way to explain this to me? is it a bonus given to warriors so they dont have to swap weapons or soemthing? Or is shield bash really that good?
Yea, the Shield Specialist / Improved Shield Specialist line (when you get them) give you a 65% damage bonus when using a shield, as well as increase agro generation. Remove the shield and you're using your base weapon damage. From a couple different parses provided by other warriors, you do between 5-10% more damage when using a shield and weapon than when dual wielding / using a two handed weapon.
Primary weapons produce more swings per round than secondary. The damage mod from shield specialist is such that it exceeds the dps of a secondary weapon of the same tier.
When you use a shield, your training converts your puny primary weapon into an appropriate for use with a shield weapon. Look up the Warrior Only 1H aggro weapon. Look up the top knight 1Handers in the same tier. The Warrior weapons are designed to be used 2 at a time. The knight 1Handers are designed to be used with a shield. When you are tanking Warriors typically use aggro augged aggro weapons. although some Warrior say they use AC H/E/M augs (see top 50 or so Warrior Magelo's - narly a DMG aug to be seen). Unfortunately there are 1Handers with better ratios than the Warrior Only tanking weapons (and the elemental damage on our tanking weapons appears as full value on parsing dummies). Add a 10DMG aug to suh a weapon and you get what's probably an unintended S&B DPS setup - a very useful thing to point out two years after SS went into effect if your goal is to have SS removed and DW return to it's 24/7 status. Using an aggro augged Warrior Only aggro weapon vs. two 10DMG augged damage weapons my experience is that the DMG augged DW setup did more damage. And that's not even including the fact that when tanking challenging content one is likely to use defensive disciplines and when DPSing with another person tanking using DW you are likely to be using offensive disciplines. There's too wide a DMG/DLY gap between our Warrior Only aggro weapons aggro augged and our better DMG/DLY DPS weapons DMG augged that can be taken advantage of by using a damage weapon with a shield.
And yet when I showed the T1 Agro weapon S&B parse Vs DW damage the Agro sword still did more DPS than the DW.
Incorrect. When set up to tank with a pure aggro aug on a Warrior Only aggro weapon in a tank support group and using defensive discs I do less damage than when I use a DMG aug on a DPS weapon in a DPS support group and using offensive discs. Oh, when I do that I also do more damage than when I use a bow - which is also a weapon. it's for DPS, it's just not for very good DPS. There may be (or may not be - S&B may be our preferred configuration we being tanks and all) an issue with DPS 1Handers /w 10DMG aug creating a S&B DPS mode. But it is a dps weapon and a DMG aug - what else would it create? Did you have a MKrarrg's Striking Stone in a Warrior Only aggro weapon and were you tanking in a tank support group? Using any defensive abilities were you? Did you have 10DMG augs on T1 damage weapons while you were DPSing with someone else tanking? Using any offensive abilites were you? Tanking and DPSing are not just the weapon setup you are using. I figured OP being a new players and all ;-) needs to know that. Oh, btw OP - if you see a guy in plate armor seeming to tank but he's not using a shield...he is in fact tanking. Tanking and DPSing are not just the weapon setup you are using. (Although devs could in fact fix it to be otherwise ending all dispute - EoA on shields, defensive abilities locked out when in DW or 2H and switched off if you enter those setups, etc.). I figure devs will fix issues and the outcome will not be tanking S&B nerfed back into the dumpster or DW having it's DPS increased beyond what devs feel is appropriate for the Warrior class nor DW tanking improvements.
Yes S&B does more damage than DW as a baseline, when you use offensive discs with it the margin grows. BB likes to compare S&B tanking with Defensive Discs to DW with Offensive Discs so he can say DW does more damage and not be lying. However if you take that S&B set and burn those Offensive discs it does more DPS than the DW set does.
Actually, I'd be willing to bet most of those top 50 warriors keep the AC aug in their primary, I know I do. Why? The aggro from an aggro aug is next to, if not, entirely worthless. Between disces, AA, innate procs on both the toon and weapon, and swing aggro -- that little 400 hate aug isn't going to amount to a whole lot of anything. Aggro is no longer an issue for any half-decent warrior, as a result of this weapon proc-augs have become obsolete outside dropping a rune aug for cheap AE aggro into a non-rune weapon This times a thousand. There is NO SCENARIO in EQ where DW will out-shine S&B - none, period, zero, nothing, zilch, etc. If you aren't S&B, even for DPSing, you are handicapping yourself...plain and simple. Also, who the heck refuses to use offensive disciplines while "tanking" if you're defensive discs are down? Can disagree if you like but deep down every single warrior knows it's true, whether or not they want it to be.
DW is not for tanking (and by implication neither is 2H): Put the Echo of Anger focus on shields only henceforth. If necessary reduce auto-aggro. Even more extreme, shut off at-will defensive abilities while in DW or 2H. Less extreme, create offensive abilities like Offensive Discipline that shuts off major defensive abilities. DW and 2H is for DPSing Eliminate the S&B DPS mode by raising the Warrior Only tanking weapon DMG/DLY to offensive 1H DMG/DLY and aggro augs to contribute as much DMG as damage augs. With tanking 1Handers practically the same damage as damage weapons except having aggro effects there is no wildly better than the tanking weapon 1Hander to use with a shield. Adjust SS so that 1Handers used with a shield do on the order of 10% less DPS than DW/2H. Even more extreme, shut off offensive abilities while using a shield. Result S&B is for tanking and it's offensive potential is held in check. DW/2H is for DPSing and its aggro and defensive potential is held in check. Eliminate SS and nerf the damage intended by providing knights with higher ratio 1Handers and later by providing Warriors with SS is dead wrong on every front. Using what's probably an unintended S&B "DPS setup" in order to justify astronomical increases to DW (making tanking with the Warrior only 1 Handers practically every top-50 Warrior is displaying on their Magelo useless) is also dead wrong. Adding shield benefits to any all swords/no shield setup is also dead wrong. BTW, my Stalwart Defense is seldom down - when tanking challenging content there's always something defensive I can do. You can deny all this if you choose, but I think the case is VERY persuasive. All a dev has to do is equip a Verdant Heartpiercer with a 10DMG aug and a shield and compare it to a Polished Verdant Blade with a pure aggro aug and a shield kill some Conscripted Miners and he'll see what I saw - our putative tanking setup does not out DPS the overheated, because it probably wasn't intended, S&B "DPS setup". He need go no further than to look at Magelo and note that top tanks are not using Verdant Heartpiecers as a tanking setup despite your assurances that aggro doesn't matter. And he can browse some posts and find some (and I'm sure he can do much better) solutions for fixing the actual issues rather than the let's put shields back into the dumpster fake/partial ones. I think S&B will continue being for tanking. And I think DW and 2H DPS won't get major increases. Certainly not the kind of increases that saw Warriors not touching a shield since we lost 30% of our DPS if we did. I do like the creation of new players to quote the various slogans (I wanna use twin lightsabers or I'll cancel my 2 week old account. I'm a new player - what's this I hear?). Nice touch. I think devs will look at the underlying issues.
Hey look! More cut and paste garbage! I think we've sufficiently answered the OP's question, no need for you to turn this into another debate thread, BB. We all know, and have told the OP that S&B is the only "stance" we have.
Extra short version, With Shield Specialist AA the Main hand does more damage than an equal Teir 2Handed weapon even with all the 2 Hander AAs, and with Improved Shield Specialist that same 1hander with a shield does more agro than DW does with 2 Agro weapons. Thats how S&B eliminates our other Weapon sets.
OoooooMmmmmmGgggggggg. (epiphany) I just realized since underfoot I havn't been tanking at ALL. Even though held agro and I took all the hits from every mob that my group has encountered. I (not)tanked T1-T2 when I was DWing for my group in underfoot and when I got SS aa and put on my shield wielding a dps 1h with a dps aug I STILL (not)tanked everything. Since then I've been (not)tanking everything since I still roll with Shield/1H DPS/DPS aug. According to Mr Burlydorf none of this is suppose to be a tank set up. Therefor should not be possible. All this time playing at end group game content I had no idea I subjected my group to the dangers of me (not)tanking for them. Now i understand why the devs should never ever allow our DW setup to do more DPS and allow us to take hits at the same time. It would only continue the (not)tanking running rampant throughout Norrath. I mean really it puts silkies and the rest of them in danger! I don't even know how they survived the first decade of warriors DWing. Its astonishing really.
My tanking setup does less damage than my DPS setups. Looking at the top 50 or so Warriors on Magelo, given the weapon they are showing and the aug they have on it, it's very likely the case for them too. Extra extra short version - the 22 respondents at another website out of a huge 35 total that feel this is an important issue and DW should be used 24/7 again don't seem to realize that devs can repair DPS anomalies and enforce DW is not for tanking. Putting EoA only on shields would actually be a benefit for DW and 2H since when you are DPSing with another person tanking you don't want aggro. And no, I don't expect the final outcome to be Warrior S&B set up to tank to be anything like 30% less DPS than our DPS setups. The whole purpose of necessary SS is to make our intended to be wielded 2 at a time 1Handers into higher ratio shield appropriate weapons. I expect the gap between our aggro (or AC H/E/M) augged aggro weapons and DMG augged DPS 1Handers to be narrowed substantially and SS adjusted as needed. I don't expect dramatic increases in our DW DPS output based on a S&B "DPS setup" that can be eliminated. So many new members creating and posting on these threads - funny, ain't it?
What I'm saying is - "My tanking setup does less damage than my DPS setups. Looking at the top 50 or so Warriors on Magelo, given the weapon they are showing and the aug they have on it, it's very likely the case for them too." Are you seriously suggesting all these Warriors are perversely not showing their tanking set ups on Magelo? I didn't think so. Read and then post. (Its "you're" btw. It's = it is, its = possession, you're = you are, your = possession.)
I'm reading but you continue to allude that a war only weapon with a +10 damage aug does more damage. So sure, you don't use that setup but it doesn't negate that fact that it does more damage. So again, S&B does more damage?
