The Glade 4.0

Midgen, with Razael at 58, have you managed to purchase some of the Taunt / aggro building AAs? Have you found that he holds aggro better now?

I can't comment for Midgen, but I'll comment in general:

Warriors are extremely proc/weapon dependent for aggro. Getting a good stun or +hate proc in the main hand is by far the biggest aggro boost they pick up, as opposed to knights that get aggro in large part through spells.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Discs also help a great deal with warriors on building and holding aggro, in particular multiple mobs. However, some of those discs are fairly Endurance intensive, and in more than one case, I have seen warriors ask for a quick med break to regain some Endurance in a high DPS group working to maximize kill rate.

There are also some items (typically masks from what I recall) with Anger focus effects that are a nice boost for warrior aggro.

And of course, as Nephyr stated, procs are good... stuns and I have heard some warriors/knights talk about how great Rune procs are at aggro (as well as the benefit they stick when stuns dont).

Stun aggro sticks even if the stun doesn't. That's been shown over and over at parses over at The Steel Warrior.

The discs help, don't get me wrong... But it's not like the SK aggro line of spells, and as Ladas mentioned they aren't very sustainable. Besides End costs, some of the better ones have some decent recast times on them.

There's AE Taunt, which is amazing (unfailable taunt to all mobs in the area), but has a long reuse timer.

The aggro mod is on some masks, but is also found on a few Warrior gloves, and primarily on BPs in the current game.

I can't speak much for anything past 80, and I think warriors have gotten some decent AA based aggro boosts from UF and HoT both, although they're primarily 80+.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

That's not what I meant. I was referring the decrease to incoming damage caused by the stun procs briefly stopping the melee attacks of the mob. For a long time, this was a significant point of contention between warriors in paladins. Even with the DI shift for warriors, the ability of a paladins to essentially stun lock mobs while tanking as a huge advantage that easily overcame difference in gear/HP levels.

The debates I have seen recently (and I don't really follow this anymore) is between the benefits of Rune Procs compared to Anger or stun procs. The anger procs, as the name suggests, are just straight up hate, and do a good job in warriors aggro. The real question is between Runes and Stuns. Perhaps someone has parsed it better, but I have seen several comments that tanks would rather have the Rune procs because at worse the aggro generated from the rune is similiar to (some claim better, but its anecdotal), but always provides the benefit of decreased healing needs compared to level capped stun procs.

Personally, I molo'd a named in Ferrott the other day that dropped a decent group level 1HS with a stun proc I kept for the aggro when tanking in groups, and I am probably going to place a Rune proc aug in it, since my Brells Hammer ornament only fits 1HB weapons. My hope is that between rune procs and thunder procs, I can significantly cut down on incoming damage while tanking or soloing, while not losing a ton of aggro or DPS.

At this point my warrior is way way low level. It's fun enough to hack and slash on him at the moment but he's had little grouping experience due to my play time and the Merc seem to do so much better in grouping anyway, is it worth leveling the warrior up at all?

Besides the fact that I'm pretty sure if I had a warrior or shaman option for groups I'd be asked to bring the Shaman (which is the main anyway).

Ladas:

Oh, absolutely. And SoE has finally started putting in decent stuns that are up to a reasonable level, and are like 1s stuns instead of the old 0.0sec stuns that were on aggro procs.

The Stunning Blow line was good for that in SoD/UF, I hope they up it once again in HoT, but I haven't really been watching the new gear.

I think Rune vs Stun seems to be a personal playstyle choice among most of the plate tanks, with most choosing either over a straight aggro proc.

Ranelagh:

As to playing a warrior... Mine is 75, and I enjoy him quite a bit. I play both the warrior and my SK as alts, and while both are fun the play styles are completely different.

Warriors are still distinctly the best raid tanks- they take punishment better than either of the others- but at the cost of snap aggro. On longer fights, all three are able to keep aggro pretty well, it's mostly snap aggro where the high end warrior suffers.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

I'm not planning on having a raiding Warrior realistically, a groupable one at best. I also just worked out there are tomes and a 20th level one that increases hate. I also don't know when Warriors gain triple attack, so newb!

Rane,

You've gotten better answers than I could give based on my experience with Razael. Compared to mercs, he's just a lousy tank. I pretty much gave up trying to use him as group tank if there is any other tankable class (merc or PC character). He has very little means to gain single target hate (Taunt = FAIL, and Bellow isn't much better), and aboslutely zero hope of agro'ing mulitple mobs in a fast pulling XP group.

At level 52/53 he brings very little to the group other than a little extra damage and his healer merc.

The only reason I leveled him from 54 to 58 is because I need a character with a healer merc to group with my Berserker (who was still using a DPS merc) when I was leveling him in his 50's.

I'm sure based on everything Neph and others have said, that their tanking viability, and thus their value to a group is higher as he levels up and gets some new discs and AA's (perhaps after the area taunt AA at .. 65? , i forget).

I'll eventually level him and finish his epic (this seems to have become a hobby of mine), but for right now, I'm having fun on the druid, rogue and berserker.

I think a Bard will be my next 'project'. I'll probably put him on the same account as the druid (both can track), but that still remains to be decided.

Back to your Warrior Agro question. I'd just level him up to 65, and start buying AA's at that level before you have much in the way of agro expectations...

For now I'll molo him in my spare / off times. McDuff is still the main so slows aren't going anywhere - even if you don't like them cause the mobs don't maul themselves on DS as much =)

Oh, I like slows just fine...

They are just situational (like many things we all do).