Ravaillac wrote:
I can certainly see the benefit a few more points of damage will do to annoy mobs, but a few counterpoints:
1) I routinely use all my taunts throughout a group battle to maintain aggro
2) I do not care about the damage I deal, only the damage I take
3) After dinging 20 I went out and fought 2 groups of 4 green Gnolls (1 caster, 3 fighters), once with Halberd and once with axe/tower shield combo. There was no differnce to the amount of power I used in both fights, but with the Halberd of Defense I had about 10% life left after the battle. With the axe/shield, I had about 95% left. Seems pretty clear which is better.
And, yes, they were the exact same mob combos in the same exact place and there were no significant differences in hit/miss ratios.
I'm not suggesting that a two-hander increases your DPS. In fact, in some cases, it simply maintains your DPS (you hit slower, but for a larger amount). I'm suggesting that a two-hander generates more *pure aggro* than a single-hander.
Again, to my knowledge there are no formal stats on this in EQ2. But there *are* back in EQ1, and the reason the MT typically went with a two-hander was to maintain aggro, not to increase DPS.
Now the fact is that in EQ2 we have *many* more tools to accomplish aggro management than merely weapon selection and mashing the "taunt" key every time it refreshes :) So, the overall effect is probably a minimal one. Many things in EQ2 seem, so far, to simply come down to a matter of personal style. I can pick up a two-handed sword and be just as effective as when I use my usual two-handed hammer. That is quite impossible in EQ1 unless you've been maintaining those skills.