Maximizing DPS on WAR while tanking.

Has anyone tested/parsed a sure maximized WAR tank rotation yet? +30 STR with crafted accessories in defiance I can get 210 DPS (250 out of Defiance). Main concerns with when/how to use certain abilities. Assuming you're rotating SE+SP exclusively.
Fracture:
- Always up
- Only with buffs (Berserk/Unchained/Str Pot)
* Re-apply fracture before buffs fall halfway through duration (~16 ticks in).
- Ignore for TP/100% Storm's Eye

Berserk:
- Use on CD
- Save strictly for unchained

A tested rotation if anyone has would be great as well.

I'm following this. This is on my too do list.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

Fracture is a 300 potency hit that you can throw out once every 13 GCDs (12 GCDs for the DoT duration w/o breaking combos and 1 GCD for itself). Considering the average potency/GCD from special attacks of most of those attack strings is ~200, assuming you're not messing with Maim/SE debuff uptime, you're getting an extra 100 potency every 13 GCDs, which is 7.69 potency/GCD. Assuming a baseline potency/GCD of ~370 (SP>SE>BB, which is the median), that's a 2.08% increase in DPS (it's actually lower than this because using it would interfere with Maim and SE debuff).

The problem with Fracture, however, is that it is expensive. The WAR combos all consume 63.33 TP/GCD ((70 + 60 + 60) / 3). As such, throwing in Fracture every 13 GCDs equates to a cost of 64.61 TP/GCD ((63.33 * 12 + 80) / 13), which is a 2.02% increase in TP cost.

As such, in any TP constrained scenario (any prolonged fight without regular periods of doing nothing, e.g. Titan HM and EX, coil), Fracture doesn't really do anything and, in fact, will end up reducing your damage by stopping you from reapplying Maim/SE when you're TP starved. If TP isn't a consideration at all, it's a tiny DPS increase that you probably wouldn't notice.

You actually don't want to use Berserk on CD because it ends up contributing less over time than if you only use it once every 120 seconds while you've got Unchained. The reason for this is pretty simple: the 33% damage increase from Unchained balances out the loss of contribution from artificially increasing the CD by 33% (90->120) but it also reduces the loss in damage from the Pacification effect from it by 33% for the same reason.

If you've got IR, you want to use Unchained>Berserk>IR in that order whenever you've got Unchained up and use IR on CD otherwise (it's a 60 sec CD compared to Unchained's 120).

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Context: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post1857709 (or just click through)

Interesting decision between using Unchained & Berserk together or on cooldown.

So consider 2 scenarios:
A) Unchained/Berserk at start, Unchained at 90 sec, Berserk at 120 sec, Unchained at 180 sec, Berserk at 240 sec, Unchained at 270 sec, (restart at 360 sec)
B) Unchained/Berserk at start, Unchained/Berserk at 120 sec, Unchained/Berserk at 240 sec, (restart at 360 sec)

Let's say the damage you will do in 20 sec without Unchained or Berserk is "100". Could be any literal amount of dmg, so units don't matter except that they remain static.

Using Unchained alone is 33% increase -> +33 damage units.
Using Berserk alone is 50% increase -> +50 damage units.
Using Berserk & Unchained together -> 100 * 1.33 = 133 -> 133 * 1.5 = 199.5 -> +99.5 damage units.

Now applying those values to the 360 sec scenarios.
A) 99.5 + 33 + 50 + 33 + 50 + 33 = 298.5 total damage increase.
B) 99.5 + 99.5 + 99.5 = 298.5 total damage increase.

So in a vacuum, assuming your base damage is always steady, then using Unchained/Berserk together or on cooldown are exactly the same.

The way I could see getting an advantage from using Unchained/Berserk together is if your base damage is higher at some part. For example: right after Maim/Storm's Eye with a Str potion running. Do enough multiplicative stuff all together and you increase overall damage. But these 2 alone pairing them is the same as on cooldown.

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Originally Posted by RhazeCain

So in a vacuum, assuming your base damage is always steady, then using Unchained/Berserk together or on cooldown are exactly the same.

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You're forgetting about the Pacification debuff from Berserk. The bonus for using Berserk on CD or syncing it with Unchained maintains the same *bonuses*, but using it on CD ends up having 33% more time lost due to Pacification as it does when syncing: syncing them loses you 2 GCDs every 48 GCD (a ~4.2% loss of special attack damage) whereas using Berserk on CD loses you 2 out of 36 (a ~5.6% loss of special attack damage). As such, you get more from Berserk and Unchained by using them together as opposed to simply on CD because it has the same bonuses as using them on CD but has a reduced amount of time affected by Pacification.

If you use Internal Release as well, it has the further advantage of syncing with the Unchained CD, which means that for every 1 use that is alone, you get another that is buffed by both Unchained and Berserk, as opposed to having every third IR buffed by Berserk and every other buffed by Unchained.

Also, random point, Berserk increases attack power by 50%, not damage. It's actually closer to a 40% increase in damage as opposed to a 50% increase.