A detailed Reaction to Warrior in SB

Before we get going, let's get a few things out of the way:

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1. I (and others most likely) do not care that PLD is amazing. Or even the best tank. In my case I'm actually happy for the changes and am somewhat fearful that SE will think that nerfing PLD will fix problems with WAR. Generalizing everyone to the idea that we are only upset over WAR changes because we are "not the best" is a silly idea.

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2. Being told that you are an amazing off tank as a saving grace is stupid. First of all, if that's the ONLY thing you can say our tank is great at, that's not a compliment. Second of all, this also applies to the "damage argument", if you want to argue that we are "the damage tank" as our saving grace instead, the fact that PLD is outputting equal to or better DPS proves that factually incorrect.

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3. Enough with the goalpost moving. It's constantly moving goalposts.

First against complaints about changes to war it it was "You haven't played!" then when we got the preview it changed to "it's not final!" and then when we got final skill previews it was "But you still haven't played it!" and with EA it was "you're not level 70" and when I hit 70 it was "you haven't played enough" and "we don't know what tenacity does!" after 2+weeks of being at level 70, it was "wait till omega!" and now it's "wait till Omega Savage!"

It's a contradiction that people aren't able to decide that they dislike the WAR changes but people are able to tell me "the class is fine." So you've had enough time to determine WAR is fine and I'm "over exaggerating" but we haven't had enough time to determine WAR isn't fun or useful?

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1. So let's start off with tank role abilities and moves that were removed.

PLD "lost": Rampart, Convalescence, Provoke, and Awareness.

WAR lost: Foresight, Fracture, Bloodbath, Brutal Swing, and Mercy Stroke.

DRK lost: Shadowskin, Scourge, Low Blow, Reprisal, Dark Dance, Delirium.

So the only tank that is able to slot every skill it used to have is PLD. In addition it's the only tank to have a DOT aside from the sole remaining one DRK has (it kept both actually). If WAR/DRK want a stun, they have to slot it. Something PLD does not need to do.

In addition WAR/DRK lost skills that were not replaced or now have inferior versions. For instance instead of changing foresight to reduce all damage and letting us slot rampart alongside, they just remove it. They removed fracture and mercy stroke with no replacement and brutal swing was "replaced" by the inferior low kick. As a whole, WAR lost out heavily as did DRK with the pruning while PLD wasn't affected by the changes at all, actually it benefitted from them.

Let's a take a look at brutal swing. We've all heard the excuses about why it was removed. And I'll just say that they are stupid reasons but let's look at how PLD got combo's changed to benifit the class.

"Combo action changed from Savage Blade to Riot Blade."

So basically, they changed a move to better suit the class. Instead of changing fracture to be like goring blade, they removed it. Instead of making brutal swing a GCD, they removed it. Instead of changing mercy stroke, they removed it. Instead of changing foresight, they removed it.

At every turn it's a negative for every tank not PLD. That's not even getting into why Shadowskin with it's awesome DRK specific animation was changed to the lame Rampart animation. I mean DRK with three CDs? Clearly OP for some reason.

As a whole, these are small changes the add up to a big nerf for WAR. WAR is unable to slot everything it wants while PLD can. In addition WAR lost many skills that were not replaced meaning it has ever so less utility and survivability.

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2. Stance Dancing's removal cripples WAR more then any other class in the entire game. No other job is so dependent on stance. And no other tank especially, relies on stance for so much of its kit. PLD has two skills that use its gauge and DRK literally suffers no negatives from switching stances or turning them off.

We have 14 job skills, 10 that are dependent on being in a particular stance, AND 9 OF THEM DO DAMAGE. (eleven if you want to include how dependent berserk is on deliverance) that rely on stance. Yet it's also the one most crippled by the changes to stance changing.

An argument people frequently make is that WAR can just use IB to tank attacks and basically have 20% damage reduction all the time. However this shallow argument relies on WAR doing nothing but ever staying in defiance and literally ignoring half the job AND THE LEVEL 70 ABILITY WE GOT.

How would DRK play if they ignored the darkest night? This isn't even getting into the dps loss that would be. WAR is a class literally designed around changing stances. Nearly every new ability it has gotten in the past two expansions has been stance related or benefits from being in one stance over the other.

Stance changes cripples the fluid nature of the class, runs contrary to the very nature of the class, and heavily reduces the WAR's overall utility by making it clunky and slow to adapt to new situations without great cost. No other tank suffers like this. No other tank plays like this. (If you want to tank that tank buster, you'd better be at 100% when you switch stances otherwise you're eating the full damage as you try and get to 50 gauge. No other tank suffers like this when switching stances)

No tank aside from WAR got a stance dependent ability (and the dps stance no less that offers no team utility and by its very existence, forces unchained to be completely irrelevant) as it's 70.

In a nutshell. Remove Stance Dancing penalty completely. Stop punishing a class for playing to its strengths. It makes no sense to have this on WAR when you do nothing but add stance specific abilities, when you make our 70 stance dependent, and design a class that best plays when frequently swapping stances to meet the situation.
it's a clunky ill designed nerf that beyond ruining a aspect of the class that the devs themselves encourage, makes it clunky and unfun to play.

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3. Continuing onwards, if WAR wants that "amazing" self heal in equilibrium it needs to be in defiance or it needs to switch to defiance. If it has any gauge, switching to defiance to self heal is a punishment no other tank has to suffer. In addition WAR's self healing was heavily nerfed. Bloodbath is gone completely and both Inner Beast and Storm's Path have reduced healing at higher levels. In short, the "amazing" sustain WAR had before is no longer there unless all you do is spam Inner Beast over and over for an entire fight. In comparison, PLD's healing spell which can be used in any stance actually got its cooldown time reduced in SB...why?

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4. New abilities. PLD got five new skills. Total Eclipse was a "much needed AOE" attack for PLD. Yet WAR and DRK got exactly 4 new skills like everyone else despite the removal of many of their OGCD's and attacks. There now exist holes that need to be filled in their kits that was not fixed, unlike PLD which got everything it needed.

In addition, Shake it off is hilariously useless. It is by far, the most useless ability that any tank in the entire game has ever gotten. Foresight is by comparison, godlike. It's so bad of a skill, that in a thread where someone tried to explain why all the changes to WAR were good, the only good argument they could come up with was "In the future it might be good."

The entire skill needs a 100% overhaul to how it works. It is garbage by every standard. It's useless in raids and 100% situational in every single fight in the game dungeon or overworld as you can basically dodge every status effect simply by moving. THERE IS NO REASON AT ALL FOR A LEVEL 68 SKILL TO BE SO USELESS. NONE.

Upheveal is actually amazing.

Onslaught would be amazing if it had no BG cost. As it is, the times where it's good to use are few and far between. It's a situational ability that isn't worth its cost 95% of the time.

Inner release...just wow lol There's a lot to be said about a level 70 skill that can only be used in a dps stance in a time where more people are arguing tanks need to only tank and not dps. There's a lot to be said about a skill that by its very nature, makes another (unchained) completely useless. The number of conditions that need to align for warrior to do a proper burst phase are immense and largely beyond your control as a player now. Used to setting up a triple fell cleave took a little time, some understanding of how the class worked, and the ability to sacrifice a single cool down. It was fun, rewarding, and a risk/reward scenario. Now setting up the 6 cleave burst (remember cleave hits for less now) is basically a dream come true when it happens but largely impractical.

A good skill, ruined by sharing the CD of another skill among other factors. Its very existence goes against the idea that "tanks don't need to dps" (which again, is a terrible argument). The fact that they made it a level 70 dps stance only skill after nerfing every aspect about WAR, especially concerning stances, is a complete paradox.
Plus, the insanity that is the tank damage formula just sits in the background nagging at you. But you know, PLD can burst like WAR, only with more damage because they can do it more often in any stance.

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5. Zero unique team utility. WAR does not have a team buff, (no damage or health increase for people despite it fitting the theme of the class) it has no damage down debuff with storms path, (and no Reprisal does not replace it. It's an irrelevant skill in comparison) nobody cares about your slash debuff as Ninja and SAM both have it (For NIN the slash debuff is a part of their standard damage rotation so it's always up), WAR has no team shield unlike DRK and PLD, WAR does not bring more dps than the other tanks, it's sustain and damage reduction is outclassed by PLD, it can't heal its team, its self healing and former personal sustain has been either nerfed or removed completely meaning it places more strain on the healers unlike before. In short, there is nothing WAR does unlike PLD and DRK that someone else can't do better or also has. WAR has zero team utility for virtually every composition.

In Omega as a WAR you play an irrelevant role. You bring nothing that nobody else does not cover. Sure you can get the job done but so can every other tank and they offer unique utility to the team. In short, there is no reason to bring a WAR to this content unless you want to.

SE by nerfing or removing everything that made WAR good previously, crippled the class heavily when they gave nothing in return for what they took away. Why does shake it off exist when WAR has nothing special to offer the team? Why isn't it a damage buff or a new self heal at the very least?

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6. Lastly, the class is simply just not fun to play (IMO). People complained about PLD previously being a 123 combo tank. Well guess what you do with WAR now? 123 path over and over again. WAR has this weird new rotation as well that's heavily time oriented down to the last 2 seconds, that deals less or equal damage to PLD despite being more complicated.

The class is clunky, I don't help my team that much, i don't output much damage, i rarely switch stances at all meaning I'm barely using half my skills at any given time unlike before where I made full use of all of them, I spam one combo over and over. And the reward for all of that is a class that can be replaced easily by any tank and that be a positive to the team.

The greatest nerf to warrior was not to its healing or sustain or anything. The greatest nerf to warrior is that I no longer want to play it. And so I don't anymore.

Some stand out posts:

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

6.) Personally I'm fine with them getting rid of Bloodbath (and Foresight) since we got Rampart in it's place. That said, they should've really given us something self-heal related in the expansion so that our initial identity in 2.0 (literally the self healing tank) wasn't just relegated to one self heal (only usable in Defiance) and IB. We also lost Second Wind, so we're basically just... the tank that... has a lot of burst... or something.

8.) That said... we completely lack utility/mitigation that isn't just on us. This is largely a problem because PLD has a ton of it and if you stack double PLDs you're never in a situation where one can't support the other, whereas if WAR is OTing at any point then he literally can't do anything to help the MT outside of Reprisal (which PLD/PLD would also have). Even DRK has BN which, though isn't as amazing as PLD's stuff, is at least something. I'd really like it if Shake It Off was changed into some sort of utility skill, we don't need as much as PLD just something to offer the party.

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Originally Posted by Tegernako

This is a crucial concept because literally every single move that healed WAR except for equilibrium came from doing damage.

Bloodbath, Inner Beast, Storms Path were all self heals that rely on doing damage. Literally more then half the skills in our job are damage oriented and LOCKED in the dps stance. We have 14 job skills, 10 that are dependent on being in a particular stance, AND 9 OF THEM DO DAMAGE.

Our level 70 ability literally IS our raid utility move and it's dps stance only and is a move that ONLY EXISTS TO INFLICT DAMAGE.

They took away all of that in SB. It makes absolutely no sense. Listen to the description of the class and its skills. It's all about that fantasy of being this unstoppable force of destruction in the middle of a battle TAKING ON numerous foes and walking out with nary a scratch. That berserk concept doesn't even exist anymore. Everything you do now, is so slow and clunky. Even the amazing "six fell cleaves!" that people try to hype up to justify "WAR being perfectly fine!" takes so much damn time to set up.

Okay, WAR was OP in HW. Let's just, to keep things simple go with that statement. When you nerf something, taking away every single aspect that made it good doesn't leave you with a balanced or fun class. It leaves you with a bad one. And the absolute worst part is again, they nerfed all our utility and couldn't even keep the class fun AT THE VERY LEAST.

Six fell cleaves and it's not anywhere near as exciting as being able to fit in that fracture at the end of a berserk rotation in HW.

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Originally Posted by BluexBird

Pld's heals already benefits from convalescence and now requiscat too, healing for a 27k crit. They won't make it benefit from fof or the job will be far more broken imo. While war only has berserk which only affects equilibrium

B-But but INNER BEAST HEALING!!11!!1

Also I love it when they use arguments like "oh, but it doesn't matter if Paladin can use Clemency. It's a DPS loss!" You know what else is a DPS loss? When one of your healers is dead and the other healer is struggling to keep things under control and you could have saved that DPS from dying, instead of getting some freakin' Holy Spirits off, you manage to stop them from dying. Or hey, not to mention any of the other couple of abilities you can use to literally keep the entire run from resetting.

What can Warriors do? Switch to Defiance and use Equilibrium. lol

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Originally Posted by Remiilia-vermilion

Switch to defiance to use equilibrium halving their gauge and spend the next 4-5 gcds to get back some of their gauge and go back to deliverance if things went back to normal to halve their gauge once again.. do I even need to speak anymore?

Note: I do not hate on the new pld changes, but those who say everything is fine for war are just.. they're either blind or they want it that way (no offense)

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Originally Posted by Dizzy_Derp

War has no raid utility. Way more dps is exactly what it HAS to have to be wanted in any group. Even se said so themselves when talking about why sam dps is higher, it's because the only thing they have is slashing same as war. War is the sam of tanks that doesn't do anymore damage than the other way easier to play ones. That is the biggest problem war has right now.

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Originally Posted by Rhyn

- Inner release and Unchained have VASTLY different power levels. When you make them share their cooldown, one of them might as well be removed from the game (or you hamfistedly prevent people from changing stance like you did). Unlink their cooldowns or make Unchained competitive. It isn't bad, it's just a bit dull and outshined by the giant hexacleave.

- Stuns etc that used to have potencies should remain potency-less. It was a good change. They should be used to stun, not be an oGCD in your rotation. However it's removal from the rotation should be compensated. There is a lot of feeling that WAR took a step back instead of forwards because we lost so much and our new stuff is lackluster.

- Hexacleave, which promising on paper, turns out to be a bad direction to take WAR. It changes our fluid think-on-your-feet stance dancing job into a plan-ahead job. The two minutes between the big payout is rigid and kinda 'meh' now. It also requires a 20 sec uninterrupted window to apply it as well and the punishment for having to do mechanics in that window is severe. At least we don't lose our buildup by phase transitions like the new DRG.

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http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post4270480

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https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...riors/dig5gc7/

Rest of my response is here (1000 post max reallly hurts):

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

And I will use this post to be clear again about something:

PLD is perfectly fine as it is. The reason I compare so much to it, is because IT IS the tank to compare too. I am very happy PLD got the buffs that it did. My issue lies not with being the best tank but being useful to my team and retaining that spirit of what a warrior actually is and how it should play.

As it is I feel so clunky and useless. I don't need to be the best class in the game to be fun to play and offer utility to my team.

I agree from my perspective WAR only got 1 good skill in Upheaval. The disadvantages outweigh the advantages. And outside of TBN for DRK it is also crap.

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Originally Posted by Tegernako

Rest of my response is here (1000 post max reallly hurts):

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

You can actually get around the 1000 limit on posting by editing your post afterwards. Since when editing your post there doesn't seem to be a limit to how long you can make your post.

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Originally Posted by Vallamaria

You can actually get around the 1000 limit on posting by editing your post afterwards. Since when editing your post there doesn't seem to be a limit to how long you can make your post.

I've already learned so much.

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Originally Posted by Tegernako

Continuing onwards, if WAR wants that "amazing" self heal in equilibrium it needs to be in defiance or it needs to switch to defiance. If it has any gauge, switching to defiance to self heal is a punishment no other tank has to suffer. In addition WAR's self healing was heavily nerfed. Bloodbath is gone completely and both Inner Beast and Storm's Path have reduced healing at higher levels. In short, the "amazing" sustain WAR had before is no longer there unless all you do is spam Inner Beast over and over for an entire fight. In comparison, PLD's healing spell which can be used in any stance actually got its cooldown time reduced in SB...why?

I'm a DRK and not a WAR. But I can really relate to your pain in regards to self-healing. Since they also heavily nerfed DRK's ability to self-heal too. Which honestly feels like quite an outrage. When I saw a PLD in Stormblood use Clemency for the first time my jaw dropped from the shock. Because I just couldn't believe that they seriously get such an easy to use self-heal that lets them straight up heal 1/3rd of their HP like that.

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Originally Posted by Vallamaria

I'm a DRK and not a WAR. But I can really relate to your pain in regards to self-healing. Since they also heavily nerfed DRK's ability to self-heal too. Which honestly feels like quite an outrage. When I saw a PLD in Stormblood use Clemency for the first time my jaw dropped from the shock. I just couldn't believe that they seriously get an easy self-heal that lets them straight up heal 1/3rd of their HP like that.

Yeah they really want to not have anything to do with a HP sustain Tank playstyle on WAR or DRK yet give the tools for a PLD to do so very easily.

And yet, besides these valid, objective criticisms, a flood of WARs still claim that the job is viable and that they enjoy it the way it is. I wonder how much they would've enjoyed 2.x and 3.x WAR.

Good and informative post, well written!

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Yeah they really want to not have anything to do with a HP sustain Tank playstyle on WAR or DRK yet give the tools for a PLD to do so very easily.

Blows my mind they kept the MP regen on a combo in addition to adding a increase to heals (plus magic damage)on Requiescat AND reduced the cooldown time on clemency!

Everyone talks about Equilibrium being so amazing but it's every 60 seconds and only in one stance. If I want to use the amazing heal I have to lose half my gauge! What happens to PLD if they switch stances and use clemency? Nothing!

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Originally Posted by ovIm

And yet, besides these valid, objective criticisms, a flood of WARs still claim that the job is viable and that they enjoy it the way it is. I wonder how much they would've enjoyed 2.x and 3.x WAR.

Good and informative post, well written!

I don't have an issue with them liking the new WAR but I do take issue with how they justify their like oftentimes.

If you like it fine. But don't tell me that WAR has amazing utility, it doesn't. That's not even an opinion, it's a factual statement that WAR lacks utility. Don't argue that Shake it Off is fine just because "it might be useful in the future". Give me exact conditions in which it saved you or helped the team immensely. It's one thing to say it's fine, but it's another to never adequately explain why it's fine and instead spend more time attacking the person with the initial criticism of the class then explaining your own position.

They need to focus less on the fact that someone is being critical of something they like and actually respond to what we are saying. Saying I'm just salty because I'm not the best tank doesn't solve anything. It's like the PLD players who say "WAR deserves it" or that "You all deserve to have a sucky class because all WAR players are jerks who were mean to me in HW!", what does that even accomplish? And how do you know I was a jerk to PLD players?

Not at level 70 but thanks to the OP for his write up. I left for over a year came back and my warrior felt off, for lack of a better term. At least now i understand why.