Warrior Tier 1 Merits

[Mystery]

I am looking for some feedback regarding Tier 1 Warrior merits. Different people have used a wide variety of different merit setups. I'm not a big fan of Warcry 5/5 but I know a lot of people are due to the higher WS numbers rather, I've gone the 5/5 Double Attack route. Now, various people have said they picked Berserk over Aggressor and some just picked equal of each. What tier 1 warrior merits do you have and why did you pick them?

 

[Lyall]

I personally went 4 DA then 3+3 into Berserk/Aggressor. I didn't think the 1% DA would push my numbers higher than having my buffs ready 25% faster. I know a few people were saying 5DA/5Berserk when you've got the accuracy to spare but I decided to have a steady middle ground.

I personally didn't see a point to meriting Warcry down; even with 50s off of the timer you still see a better attack boost with berserk merits. Warcry just isn't potent enough for my tastes.

 

[Mystery]

Yea generally thats the two people debate between. Either 4 DA 3/3 Berserk/Aggressor or simply 5/5 Berserk/DA

 

[Tagrineth]

I went 5/5 berserk/DA. For merits against Not Colibri you have pizza covering acc (I just use DRG for birds, making it a non-issue) and against HNM you're gonna either pizza or sushi anyway.

 

[Mystery]

That's a good point. I haven't experimented much with the whole pizza thing but I was thinking about it for the Askar Korazin. Without hauberk to TP in, the acc boost foods help. That might be the case for non-colibri mobs if I do berserk 5/5.

 

[Mystery]

Small thought, why isn't it ever done with aggressor 5/5? I realize on some mobs that you can use food on, you can use acc food, but why not just use atk food all the time. With -50 seconds, you can have aggressor around 75% of the time (3 mins of use, 4:10 on recast). It would reduce a need for acc food which might help if you don't have enough acc.

 

[Tagrineth]

Right, but then you're missing and having trouble even building TP during that time frame you don't have aggressor up.

edit: and keep in mind with Pizza you still get a strong attack boost, just not quite as much as Zerk.

 

[Mystery]

Yea I was thinking that now actually, I would need to have three gear swaps I suppose if I go berserk 5/5. I would do one with pure haste and barely any ACC for when aggressor is up, then go to a lot more acc to compensate while aggressor is down and lastly one for WS. Not a terribly big deal, just one more set to make.

 

[isolation]

I went 5 zerk/5 agg and it works nice for me. I had at one point da @ 5. and with ridill zerk/agg just seem to be a better combo for me

 

[Tagrineth]

Yeah, Ridill doesn't benefit nearly as much from the double attack.

 

[Mystery]

On a gear related note, why are Hecatomb mittens better than lets say Relic Hands? The pure ATK on relic is a lot higher. There is obviously the STR mod and the DEX thats available but it seems like relic hands might be better for WSing in. I have both, just curious.

 

[Mansin]

1. Ridill sucks

2. Hecatomb hands are good because the STR boost on Raging Rush is both a mod and will also increase your weapon's base damage. Also, if you're doing it right (aka using Great axe, see #1) your attack in merits and most other events will be capped or close to capped.

Also, when you calculate out the attack boost that 7 STR gives you, relic hands are only a 7~ attack increase.

 

[Tagrineth]

Yeah, the additional STR will generally win out over additional Attack for WS, but it really varies. Single hit WS tend to benefit much more from STR rather than attack, and multi hit WS tend to benefit more from higher attack... for a Warrior though, especially with Berserk + Attack boosting food and possibly also Chaos Roll or Minuet IV, you're not going to see nearly as much benefit in a WS from +12 attack vs. +7 STR (and the spillover +5 attack from it).

 

[Mystery]

I'm tending to do Raging Rush though occasionally I throw in a King's Justice. I'm guessing the overwhelming consensus is that +7STR > +12 ATK. Thanks everyone.

 

[Redshift]

Relic hands suck and Nhands/+1 are pretty much the best hands to WS in. Not to mention the DEX helps to reach the upper limits of dDEX for crit increase for Raging Rush. Would not be able to get 118 DEX reasonably without Nhands/+1 for birds.