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Originally Posted by
Kitru
No, because if I really wanted to do that I would just have the WAR run around without Defiance on. If you're in tank stance, you are *not* attempting to go all out for damage without consideration for survival. The math I did is for maximized damage while still maintaining optimal survivability. One of the reasons why Unchained is so laughable is specifically *because* you could just drop out of Defiance for the duration and have it behave in pretty much the same way.
And, actually, if you understood the math that I did, I *did* include leeway for using Inner Beast: you simply replace it with Fracture. Fracture and Inner Beast just so happen to deal the same damage. It's a pretty obvious exchange.
Its called damage potential, with your math, even if IB does 9999 damage, you would still ignore it because it would affect the tank's mitigation. There are certain phases/scenario in a fight where survivability is not the top priority (Titan heart phase, or when you run with 3 healers..etc). Fracture does not replace IB because: 1. Fracture requires 30s to reach full damage, and 2. You can do both fracture and IB as part of your rotation for even higher damage.
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Any WAR that takes Flash is wasting an additional slot. A WAR gets to use Flash all of 3 times without the advantage of the Blind debuff before running out of MP and it takes twice as long to get the mana for Flash back, thanks to WARs having half of the mp of a PLD. Bringing up Flash for a WAR in a discussion of AoE threat demonstrates that you have no clue what is actually useful for a WAR.
I take flash to fill in pacification gap after berserk and extra aoe threat generation on top of overpowered. I find the skill to be useful as it allows me to continue to generate enmity so my healers and dps can continue to their job without reserve.
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Furthermore, Vengeance is only useful when you're actually being attacked. If you're being attacked, you've already got aggro. As such, it's there as a DPS increase, but it's not a useful consideration for aggro generation. On top of that, Vengeance still has that 120 second CD and 15 second duration. At 1 attack per GCD, Circle of Scorn is going to provide just as much threat and damage as Vengeance is, and Circle of Scorn is on a much shorter CD.
Steel Cyclone is another one of those completely worthless abilities to bring up in the discussion. Steel Cyclone is the equivalent of a whopping 266 enmity potency and actually ends up being *more* expensive thanks to costing Wrath stacks. Overpower provides 240. Steel Cyclone is so bad that it could stop existing entirely and it wouldn't affect the way WAR is played *at all*.
You're behaving as if AoE occasions exist completely independently of the rest of the fight. You *have* to consider the resource costs of the abilities and the opportunity cost that using the ability accrues. Flash doesn't have *any* opportunity cost because it's functionally free. Overpower has a *massive* opportunity cost. Every time that you use it, you're cleaving off ~20 seconds off of your effective fighting time. Use it more than 2-3 times and you're going to be incapable of doing damage to the actual boss a short time later, and that ends up costing you a *crapton* of damage in the end.
Opportunity costs matter and Overpower comes with really high ones. That's what you seem to be incapable of understanding, no matter how much I tell you.
If you are being attacked Vengeance helps you maintain aggro. If you can't generate the threat required to hold them against the DD's AOE, then you're not doing your job as a tank. Steel Cyclone like CS is a free AOE. It can be modified by damage boosting abilities like berserk, maim and IR. You are looking at an instant ~990 enmity (not like CS, where it slowly generates the enmity) and this goes for overpowered as well. Not to mention if you pop bloodbath, you get extra enmity from the healing that you do with the aoe. With a WAR you can have the dps burst down the mobs way faster than if a pally tanks and this matters.
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All tanks have laughable AoE damage compared to DPS. You seem to have focused on the first part of that sentence while ignoring the second half. The only thing that matters, as far as tanks are concerned, is AoE enmity generation. The damage doesn't matter. WAR has better snap AoE threat, but it's harder to manage, from both a functional and a resource based model. Flash is easier to use, covers a larger area, is effectively free, and comes with a nice little debuff as a cherry on top.
When discussing the AoE capabilities of the two tanks, people get *really* hung up on the damage just because Flash doesn't deal any. They're willing to ignore *every other factor* that distinguishes the AoEs just because of that one thing. It's even more audacious when people act as if the damage that Overpower provides actually matters; the dilution of tank damage applies just as much to AoE capability as it does to ST damage: it means almost *nothing*, especially when you recognize that you'll manage all of 2-3 Overpowers before you're effectively forced to stop thanks to resource management.
Damage matters, because its modifiable and scales nicely. Flash scales poorly. You can't make Flash generate more threat in emergency situations and your argument is that you don't need to because a PLD can be stuck tanking mobs all day instead of helping DD kill them and that may have it uses but not in a typical encounter where killing adds is the priority.
WAR is a 'sharp' tank. It is high risk and high reward. It does substantially more dps/threat than PLD if you are willing to take the risk that goes with it.
P.S Your math seem to have errors: In WAR optimized combo, you don't take in account that the slashing resistance bonus is still present when reapplying Storm Eye and You also don't look at WAR with WAR scenario, where MT can do BB spam while the other does slashing dps.