Switching from PLD to WAR and need advice

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Originally Posted by kukurumei

Wars are basically perfect for a meat shield, while the pld does the heavy lifting when the time comes (super hits, fancy strategies, stalling for time, etc)

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You must not run with any *good* WARs. I'm perfectly capable of doing everything you listed there and, barring strats that absolutely *require* HG (and very few strats *require* HG; they simply do well with it), I generally do them *better* than PLDs. WAR is all about using the tools you've got actively whereas PLD is more about holding on to them until they're absolutely required. The only time you're going to see a WAR get outperformed by a PLD is when that WAR is an idiot who tries to play it like it's a PLD (e.g. "ration Vengeance to a nearly HG level"; it's on a 2 min CD so that's just dumb).

Overpower is your main aggro generator now, use it to hold large groups of enemies or for pulling mobs/bosses. Cooldowns are all there, vengeance is almost like sentinel, ToB is something like that, convalescence is convalescence, foresight is bad, bloodbath is bad but use it when you can, Unchained+berserks are obv dps stuff, Inner Beast is your main mitigator and it's actually a cd, use when you can for big moves(mountain buster, death sentence etc.) and lastly try to have maim always up, storm's path/eye too, depending on situation(need dps? use the second. Need to survive? use the first)

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Originally Posted by Riyos

Overpower is your main aggro generator now, use it to hold large groups of enemies or for pulling mobs/bosses.

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That's totally not true. You should use Overpower to generate initial aggro on AoE groups, but you should not be using it to establish aggro on bosses or for pulling (unless you're pulling a group and can catch them all with it). Overpower is expensive as hell and doesn't generate Wrath stacks or provide you with any buffs.

Your main aggro generator is still the BB combo, and your main enmity rotation is still some combination of SE and/or SP and 1-3 BB. If you use Overpower for anything other than AoE (and, even then, only if you don't have Steel Cyclone available), you're doing it horribly wrong.

Think he meant use it for pulling bosses. Cause it generates shitton of aggro compared to pulling with tomahawk.
And the cost is nearly same.

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Originally Posted by Fue

Think he meant use it for pulling bosses. Cause it generates shitton of aggro compared to pulling with tomahawk.
And the cost is nearly same.

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It's an even worse idea for pulling bosses. Because of the range, you're triggering proximity aggro before you actually get to use it and you're already basically in melee range. Tomahawk gives you 120 * 3 ePot without prox aggro, and the GCD will be up whenever you're in melee with the boss so that you'll get to the BB combo 1 GCD faster (and be dealing significantly more damage).

The only possible reason you could have for using Overpower as a single target pulling tool is if your DPS throws out so much enmity in the first GCD that they're overcoming what you'd get with Tomahawk + Heavy Swing, which has never actually happened in my experience. Starting from scratch, even the best burst DPS requires 3-4 GCDs before they're really pumping out the damage and, by then, you should have gotten a BB combo through, which will more than solidify aggro for you.

Overpower is for AoE. It is not an ST pulling tool.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

The only possible reason you could have for using Overpower as a single target pulling tool is if your DPS throws out so much enmity in the first GCD that they're overcoming what you'd get with Tomahawk + Heavy Swing, which has never actually happened in my experience. Starting from scratch, even the best burst DPS requires 3-4 GCDs before they're really pumping out the damage and, by then, you should have gotten a BB combo through, which will more than solidify aggro for you.

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Even then, you can also use Unchained + Berserk on your pull. I've never lost aggro on pull when I pull with Unchained + Tomahawk, then Berserk and start my BB combo.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

You must not run with any *good* WARs. I'm perfectly capable of doing everything you listed there and, barring strats that absolutely *require* HG (and very few strats *require* HG; they simply do well with it), I generally do them *better* than PLDs. WAR is all about using the tools you've got actively whereas PLD is more about holding on to them until they're absolutely required. The only time you're going to see a WAR get outperformed by a PLD is when that WAR is an idiot who tries to play it like it's a PLD (e.g. "ration Vengeance to a nearly HG level"; it's on a 2 min CD so that's just dumb).

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And a better pld wil beat you. End game is about burst damage. It's not whether you're vengence 1k attacks or 4k attack or even 5k attacks. It's when you get that "one shot" attack that wipes pt.

And yes ration your vengeance where necessary because you need it when you need it, No "I got nothing". A pld can say "I've got nothing" HG. A war can not say "I have nothing". There are loads of times you will need that vengeance during the fight. If the fight goes faster or slower and your vengeance is not up, well that sucks.

In most hard content there are "critical times your vengeance should be up" they are very usually also the time "a HG should be up".

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Originally Posted by kukurumei

And a better pld wil beat you. End game is about burst damage.

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If you want to talk burst damage, there's but one thing that needs to be said: Inner Beast. End of discussion.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

If you want to talk burst damage, there's but one thing that needs to be said: Inner Beast. End of discussion.

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IB is bread and butter. your point? That's nothing compared to pld side.

foresight is foresight
IB = rampart
vengeance < sentinel
nothing - HG

When the critical moments in the fight comes, a PLD has all those on rotation and the HG (not to mention self stoneskin if it's not a threat race) .A war doesn't have that luxury, Best a war can do is IB + vengeance (sub standard to a HG) but that's all we have. It must be up.

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Originally Posted by kukurumei

foresight is foresight
IB = rampart
vengeance < sentinel
nothing - HG

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So where are ToB and Holmgang? If you're going to talk about burst damage mitigation, you need to actually include everything that applies.

IB is going to be up for *every single burst event*. Rampart is not, no matter how good you are. For WAR v. PLD, you have to compare IB + (insert CD) against whatever CD PLD is going to be using.

IB + Foresight > Foresight
IB + 20% Conv > 30% Conv
IB + Vengeance > Sentinel (and Vengeance is available every 3 minutes instead of 3 and lasts 5 seconds longer)
IB + ToB > Rampart (same DR, but ToB gives you an extra 20% hp)
Holmgang < HG

There are 2 cases where a PLD beats a WAR for burst damage survival: when you have to use your uber-CD or you're layering multiple CDs on top of each other (which only applies to certain combinations). At most, you'll have the HG once per fight, and, if you have to layer multiple CDs on top of each other, you're making it so that you can't survive something later on, which is going to hurt your burst mitigation.