Defiance still lacking in comparison to Shield Oath

[Kitru]

I genuinely can't believe there are still people insisting that warriors are not worse tanks than paladins.

I agree that WAR, at the moment, is the worse tank from a mean mitigation standpoint: Defiance and Wrath don't compare with Shield Oath. The +healing that WAR gets needs to be made permanent (or near permanent; I'd have no problem with some abilities reducing or turning it off for a short period of time as part of their cost) and larger (average out to 25%).

I do, however, disagree with the assessment that the WAR CD suite is inferior to the PAL CD suite just because some people are incapable of using it properly. Any tank that actually knows how to use a CD suite that's actually supposed to be used rather than held in reserve will find the WAR CD suite to be amazing. A tank that tries to hold things in reserve for only the most severe emergencies (or doesn't use them proactively to preempt an emergency) is going to find the WAR CD suite to be horrible. Once again, it's a question of player and playstyle, not the tools themselves. If you don't like the WAR CD suite, it's on you, not the class.

[Wangstrong]

Ah, the ad hominem of "you're just bad at the game if you think the cooldowns are inferior!"

Look, the paladin tanking cooldowns are so vastly superior to warrior's that it's laughable to sit there and staunchly deny it. Paladins have five cooldowns that are all considerably better than the best warrior cooldown.

It's such a straw man to plainly presume that warriors are having problems because they're all, every single one of them, "using their cooldowns wrong." Get the fuck out of here.

[Jayded]

I genuinely can't believe there are still people insisting that warriors are not worse tanks than paladins.

If they cut Marauder damage by about 60% they can tank as well as pallies. Why not just play a pally then?

[Junk4Brains]

It's not really Shield Oath vs. Defiance that's the problem (although please make the healing bonus native to Defiance instead of the Wrath stacks, this is simply necessary or most of the warrior job skills will remain worthless) but rather the fact that paladins have all these vastly superior tanking cooldowns on top of their already better stance.

If the difference had mainly been that one class mitigates damage 20% better and can block attacks while the other has 25% more HP and does more damage, that would have been completely fine. Paladin would still be the better boss tank without warrior being so far behind that their place in a raid can barely be justified. It's these multiple insanely strong cooldowns on top that make the difference too big.

It's like there's something missing here -- the warrior is unequivocally a tank class, yet it has one measly tanking cooldown, and a very poor one at that (tests indicate that Foresight gives less than 10% mitigation). The self-healing is mostly worthless, with only Inner Beast really being noteworthy. Bloodbath and Storm's Path could have their healing doubled without becoming overpowered. They simply don't count as tanking abilities. The warrior just doesn't have enough tanking abilities for a class that is exclusively a tank and is barred from being anything else by hardcoded mechanics.

The divide is only widened by the fact that paladins have entirely decent AoE aggro, incredible raid utility in their freaking cooldownless stun (whose idea was that?!), and of course are able to spam Stoneskin on themselves mid-fight because casting in combat appears to carry no disadvantages. It's all this stuff they have where warriors have nothing comparable and are just completely gimped, having basically nothing but high HP and a small self-heal that comes at a considerable opportunity cost.

You cannot make a class that is only a tank, can only queue for instances as tank, has tank itemization, and is constantly advertised as definitely not DPS, and then give that class mostly DPS abilities and say that their decent damage is the reason they're not allowed to tank very well. It makes no sense and is a complete failure of game design, a declaration of ignorance of MMORPG standards, and simply a lapse in common sense. It would be entirely possible to make the two tank classes unique and distinct without having to resort to making one deliberately worse at a job that they both have and are forced to perform at all times. I can't believe something so obvious was not realized in three years of development.

The warrior job needs two or three additional tanking abilities that are on par with Rampart, Sentinel and Hallowed Ground. Until this happens, the class is going to remain broken and unable to perform its role sufficiently. The real endgame content isn't even out yet and already the job's shortcomings are becoming clear, with warriors being barely capable of tanking some of the current content whereas the thing that they're supposed to be good at is suspiciously absent and, anyway, it's obvious that paladins will be able to do that just fine as well.

If people haven noticed already the real crux of this boils down to this. When it comes to PLD vs WAR the meat of it is Shield Oath vs. Inner Beast.
That is the real work horse behind a WAR's tanking ability. Used correctly it will recover about the same amount of health a PLD will mitigate.
War's answer to Sentinel? Infuriate. Yes Sentinel is a great tool but it only has a 10 second active window. Warrior being able to double up on Inner Beasts pretty much balances this out.
War's answer to Rampart? Blood Bath. They have a whole 15 seconds more than PLD and their superior damage buffs means they get higher returns.

Like I said before the only thing PLD really only has over WAR is Hallowed Ground. WAR has no answer for this. Nor should they have one. Honestly if WAR could mitigate as much damage as PLD this thread would be the opposite. You would be have people crying about how weak PLD is and that there is no reason to bring a PLD because a WAR can mitigate just as much damage as them while doing more damage in the process and they'll be crying.

I mean all the people who are crying about how 'weak' WAR is are the one's who are looking at WAR's skills INDIVIDUALLY rather than looking at how they all work together. I mean you are so quick to point out how 'small' the healing from Blood Bath and Storm's Path is and completely ignore the boost in passive regen but none of you really point take into account that PLD's main mitigation tools Rampart and Sentinel, are only active for a total of 30 seconds. Outside of those 30 seconds PLD is going to be taking as much damage as a WAR... now like I said before Rampart is huge. 20 seconds on a 90s cooldown of 40% damage reduction. That is the real workhorse behind PLD. Every other cooldown a PLD is in the 2-3 minute range. So yes PLD has a lot of cooldowns but they have to wait longer to use them.

Now Faction has said this before. Warrior is very capable of tanking... its just that PLD mitigates damage much easier. But as I said just because something is easier doesn't automatically make it BETTER. Yes, with Warrior the margin for error is smaller and you actually have to put in effort to mitigate damage. WAR is not a passive tank. If a PLD is tanking a lot of damage they just hit a cooldown and go back into their normal rotation as the defensive buff takes care of all the mitigation. With a WAR its not that easy. You have to manage wrath stacks, optimize your rotation to fit in as many Storm's Path's as you can. (Yes its not a big heal but the more you use it the more it adds up) It is a very busy way of tanking. You can't play WAR like a PLD and if you do you're not going to have fun. PLD has lots of cool downs but they are on longer timers so a PLD HAS to space them out because if they use too many too soon they'll find themselves later on not having one on hand when they need it. Because a PLD without any cooldowns is just a gimp WAR that can block. With WAR you're not suppose to be as frugal with your cooldowns.

Like I said PLD and WAR are not only meant to suit different types of content but they are meant also to suit different types of playstyles. I for one find PLD tanking BORING. I like the challenge WAR presents, I like the always on the edge of your seat type of combat. I like the sense of danger and having to be a bit of a daredevil to get the most out of the class. The name of the class is WARRIOR, it should not be for the feint of heart. If you don't have the stomach for a little hardship and adversity... please... go level PLD and play game nice and safely hidden behind your little shield.

This is why I can understand why real gamers dislike casual gamers. Because they want everything to be easy and to be handed to them and the moment they have to put effort into ANYTHING they are all "OMG THIS SUCKS!" NO. It doesn't suck. WAR just takes more effort and news flash... some people find putting effort into things enjoyable. It make seem shocking... it may seem weird... but its true. I am one of those people. I don't want to see WAR turned into an easy mode tank.... I think its in a fine spot as is. This game is easy enough and there are very few things in it that I find BOTH enjoyable and challenging.... don't take that away from me just because you want to be a PLD with an axe.


Please.


Just go level PLD.


You know you want to.

[Kitru]

Ah, the ad hominem of "you're just bad at the game if you think the cooldowns are inferior!"

That's not an ad hominem. An ad hominem is attacking the debater rather than their argument. Your argument is explicitly that the WAR CDs are inferior. My argument is that they're only inferior if you try to treat them the same way that you do PAL CDs. My argument counters yours rather than attacking you. If you want to interpret it as an attack upon yourself rather than a recognition that you're an actor within the debated topic and, as such, are relevant to the debate, it's not my fault.

Look, the paladin tanking cooldowns are so vastly superior to warrior's that it's laughable to sit there and staunchly deny it. Paladins have five cooldowns that are all considerably better than the best warrior cooldown.

I'd be curious as to how you can say they're better when I've actually put forth numerous reasons why they actually *are* valuable. The only advantage of the PAL CDs is that they provide great burst survivability but are crippled by low uptimes and long CDs. The major advantage of the WAR CDs is that they *do not* have long CDs nor do they have low comparative uptimes. If you try to treat the WAR CDs the same way you treat the PAL CDs, you're doing it wrong. If you try to compare the WAR CDs to the PAL CDs without taking uptime and CD duration into consideration, you're doing it wrong.

It's such a straw man to plainly presume that warriors are having problems because they're all, every single one of them, "using their cooldowns wrong." Get the fuck out of here.

Once again, that doesn't mean what you think it means. A Straw Man argument is where you set up a weaker version of your opponent's argument so that you can tear it down. This is nothing like that. I'm directly contradicting the assertion that WAR CDs are somehow drastically inferior and using both logic and information to back them up. I'm not creating a weaker version of the argument but rather pointing out the flaw in the method of comparison and then backing up that assertion with data, specifically referencing the uptimes.

Honestly, you really need to learn more about debate and argument if you want to take part in this because it's obvious you don't know what you're talking about, nor are you actually following it (if you're curious, *that* is an ad hominem).

[Sephirah]

I think you guys (Faction, Wang, etc, Faction) have made it clear to everyone else at this point that you clearly prefer how PLD plays compared to a WAR. GO LEVEL PLD.

You all keep saying that improving damage is not enough to warrant being able to take less damage, but it is. That's what balance is, you can't be just as good at defending and be stronger - this question has been asked several times but is always ignored, why would anyone roll a paladin? It is not a matter of playstyle or preference. Currently WAR does more dmg, has more hp, and can self heal, if you give them stronger mitigation through abilities like pld, then what reason is there to be a pld at all, to have less hp, deal less dmg, have a harder time holding aoe threat, and take more dmg? Because that's what you are asking for.

[Hachiko]

I find it confusing that people are arguing PAL CD's are actually worse than WAR CD's.

Paladins have unequivocaly better CD's.

20% damage reduction
40% damage reduction
60% bonus block
Invulnerability
30% healingreceived
20% increased defense
25% physical damage to HP

(and that's not counting awareness).

War CD's have better uptime for them. But the problem is they aren't remotely as effective. Bulwark is leaps and bounds ahead of bloodbath which just ends up being ~600-800 healing over 30 seconds at best.

The biggest issue is, imo, if you look at everything a WAR gets from 40 to 50, and everything a PAL gets from 40-50, the discrepancy is huge.

WAR's get too many relatively worthless skills: Holmgang, Steel Cyclone, Improved Maim, and Vengeance. It's just too many skills which do nearly nothing to help you tank at all, or really do anything else for that matter. WAR caps out on defensive CD's at about level 34/44. PAL get them all the way to 50.

It's not even just about the fact that paladins have stronger damage reduction. They have far stronger mitigation overall because of the way WAR skills fall off at 40. If Any of our skills past 40 had any defensive use whatsoever (even self healing) it would probably be more even.

Ultimately there is no real excuse for having as many blatantly worthless skills as WAR's have.

[Kitru]

Paladins have unequivocaly better CD's.

Except that 2 of those that you mention are MAR additionals that they get. You're also, once again, forgetting about the uptime issue. Just because they're really strong while they're up doesn't mean that they're *better*. That's the mistake that people keep making. WAR CDs are lower effect but usable more often and last longer. PAL CDs are amazing while they're up, but they can't be used nearly as often. The argument that the PAL CDs are somehow better only works when you completely ignore the actual advantage that the WAR CDs are designed to utilize.

[Jayded]

That's not an ad hominem....

....Once again, that doesn't mean what you think it means. A Straw Man argument is where you set up a weaker version of your opponent's argument so that you can tear it down.

You beat me to it. Kids see these things thrown around on the internet and then attempt to use them, albeit improperly, all the time.

[Hachiko]

That's the mistake that people keep making. WAR CDs are lower effect but usable more often and last longer. PAL CDs are amazing while they're up, but they can't be used nearly as often. The argument that the PAL CDs are somehow better only works when you completely ignore the actual advantage that the WAR CDs are designed to utilize.

It does mean they're better. You keep talking about uptime, but the biggest boon to uptime for WAR is Bloodbath which is easily the least effective defensive cd in the game. You don't get to say "it lasts for 30 second! Huge uptime!" when it's really only about 30 healing per second. It is outshined significantly by Inner Beast for example. It's a decent skill for maintain. But it's 100% no replacement for an actual defensive cooldown. It doesn't help you survive burst damage, and it only really helps with prolonged sustained damage over time.

You ask any experienced main tank what they would rather have: 40% damage reduction for 10 seconds or 20% damage reduction for 20 seconds, every decent main tank will go for 40% reduction for 10 seconds. Efficacy matters more than uptime in almost every situation. With the way damage works in this game, where you can avoid many AOEs, it makes the more powerful short duration CD's even better.

WAR don't need to have equivalent CD's to PAL at at all. But it's silly to not recognize that WAR's biggest weakness is our CD's when it comes to tanking.