Warrior Tanking

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Originally Posted by Megido

Sorry but your Defiance tooltip states that it REDUCES DAMAGE and INCREASES HP by 25%, and then some people choose damage over HP.
Like, srsly u guys.

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This was a valid tactic in 2.0. As Mysteltain said, it increases your self-healing, as well as helping with agro and parry reduction. The 45 STR from a set of Gryphonskin was about 15% extra damage (and thus healing) as well as at least 1% parry. Well worth the loss of ~400HP at the time.

Thanks Paikis! I guess I must've skipped over that one sentence ("30 Points in VIT is now the only correct choice."), because I even went back and reread that section a second time before I posted my question. I guess I was just focused on the gear you mentioned than the bonus stats.

I'll be honest, though, seeing some of my crits during Inner Beast makes me wish we still had the 300% heal. Ah well, I've got the seals saved up for a stat reset, and I doubt I'll be looking back afterwards.

I'm quite certain that nobody cares, but I'm quitting.

Anyone who wishes to copy+paste this guide to continue it is more than welcome to. I do ask that you give credit where appropriate and make sure no one else has made a copy before you though, as we don't need 17 copies.

Thanks guys, it was fun while it lasted.

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Originally Posted by Paikis

I'm quite certain that nobody cares, but I'm quitting.

Anyone who wishes to copy+paste this guide to continue it is more than welcome to. I do ask that you give credit where appropriate and make sure no one else has made a copy before you though, as we don't need 17 copies.

Thanks guys, it was fun while it lasted.

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I'm surprised Kitru hasn't done it yet. I know they had a numbers thread pre 2.1, but generally damn good advice.

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Originally Posted by Paikis

I'm quite certain that nobody cares, but I'm quitting.

Anyone who wishes to copy+paste this guide to continue it is more than welcome to. I do ask that you give credit where appropriate and make sure no one else has made a copy before you though, as we don't need 17 copies.

Thanks guys, it was fun while it lasted.

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Why would the fire that made you write this guide extinguish within a month?

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Originally Posted by Naiser

Why would the fire that made you write this guide extinguish within a month?

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I can only give you my opinion on the matter. I signed up to be a warrior because self healing appealed to me quite a bit. It wasn't great, and it needed lots of work, but I was willing to ride the storm in hopes that they'd take the time to actually make it work with %HP returns, or absorbs, or something! However, I eventually decided that I didn't want to wait another month or so because I had selected the wrong class at start, only to hear, and then experience, that it was paladin or bust, so I quit in October and only came back a few days ago to see these changes.

What I got was a bandaid fix (granted it works, don't get me wrong) that makes me feel like paladin v2.0. After a few days of playing (NEET here, so by playing, I mean lots of it) I don't have that same drive I used to. First time I hit IB, I was dismayed by it. I expected that somewhat large number to pop up. Did I get it? Nope. Saw a nifty little buff for 20% damage reduction that lasts 6 or so seconds. I thought, "hey, not bad!" Then I started thinking about it and looked at my other abilities and how they were changed up or left alone.

I saw the SP buff and thought it was great, but I still don't understand why it gives such a pittance of healing. I looked at Bloodbath, nothing happened there. So I fired up the patch notes and spent an hour or so looking over everything and doing some thinking. Eventually I came to the conclusion that I should have just leveled a paladin. Nothing we do is unique compared to them. We stepped into their territory, giving up identity for a quick (and easy) fix.

As much as they want a thriving game (and I do too), this is borderline unacceptable to me. %HP returns, absorption, anything like that would have made me happy. Because of the identity of the class. I want to really dig in and get into the game, but it's ridiculously hard for me to do when I feel like another class in different gear mechanically. IB is our lifeline. It is the one thing we can reliably do to handle predictable burst. During beta when I saw all the small bits of self healing and such, I was excited. I was impressed another company wanted to have diversity in their tanks (especially since there's only two).

It'd take lots of work (more than SE apparently cares to do, but that's just me upset about it). I have plenty of ideas that'll never see the light of day to make it work, genuinely because I feel SE is very happy where things are. At this rate, I'm not sure I really want to wait on another tanking class and hope it's not only different, but has actual effort put into making it work so it doesn't step on the toes of paladins.

Warriors have a very fun kit to use, but mechanically, I'd rather just play a paladin instead. That said, I won't because their kit looks boring as hell with neat effects tied to them. I mean, not seriously anyway. Might level one up so I can see the CDs, effects, and how their abilities work so I can just draw up a way to make self healing work for a warrior treating returned HP/absorbs like a %dmg reduction effect just for my own peace of mind.

To you other warriors, please, I'm begging you, help me get over this dark cloud and enjoy the class again, because at this rate, I'm just not sure and it really sucks.

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Originally Posted by Zegreiart

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2.0 WAR had always been about Wrath management; the only glimmer of self-healing we had was through Inner Beast, with Bloodbath and Storm's Path being a trickle at best, no more than icing on the cake that is WAR.

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Originally Posted by Skull_Angel

2.0 WAR had always been about Wrath management; the only glimmer of self-healing we had was through Inner Beast, with Bloodbath and Storm's Path being a trickle at best, no more than icing on the cake that is WAR.

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Kinda feels like you didn't really read much of anything I wrote. I never once mentioned I have issues with managing wrath stacks. It's more of a loss of identity and lack of interest in the direction of things. I wanted to see that trickle become stronger, wanted it to be more. Honestly, I wouldn't even call that icing on the cake, because it isn't. It's not even noticeable in the grand scheme of things. But that's alright, I had a moderately long conversation with a few people. It's not ideal, nor what I want out of things, but I do feel better about the situation. Just a bit disappointed overall, but I'll live.

pally or bust? yeah i leveled one to 50.. but one thing you're missing

pally is hella boring to play its just halone halone halone halone.. then spirits within / circle of scorn (both off the GCD so just stuff it in there while doing ur halone halone) .. then nothing else.. probably occasional stoneskin or so during transitions

WAR is still very much engaging to play since we have 3 chain combos = buff to piercing / debuff to boss / aggro

-10% from debuff + IB -20% damage redox can yield you -30% for a 6 second duration pallies at -20% (yeah i know its a small window but timing IB right for those big hits is the ONLY thing that matters ie: double wicked wheels / mountain buster/death sentence etc) since passive damage (auto attacks) from bosses are easily healable

the only real differentiation are cooldowns like hallowed ground and lets just hope SE does something about it

Pallies are so boring and way too easy to play

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Originally Posted by Zegreiart

Kinda feels like you didn't really read much of anything I wrote. I never once mentioned I have issues with managing wrath stacks.

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And that's the issue. You're focused upon the mechanic as opposed to the playstyle. A class is defined by its playstyle, not by the mechanics used. WAR has always been defined by Wrath generation and management rather than the self healing that you (and many other people) focused upon to the exclusion of pretty much anything else. All of the WAR self healing could be removed completely and be replaced by more mitigation and it wouldn't do anything to the WAR playstyle. The only difference is the specific mechanic used. The Defiance benefits could be replaced by a flat 20% DR (yes, *slight* buff, but that's beside the point) and, even though WAR would see smaller heals on it and wouldn't get to experience the huge max hp numbers, it wouldn't change how WAR played because 20% DR does the exact same thing as 25% + hp and 25% +healing.

Basically, you focused on the wrong aspect of WAR when choosing it. You focused upon a mechanic rather than the playstyle. Mechanics are *always* fluid and prone to changing, especially for balance purposes (which is what you're perturbed about; self-healing wasn't effective so a majority of it was replaced with flat mitigation) but playstyle is a relative constant (changing overall playstyle requires massive changes to a class/job).