War tanking tips on Cad

Hi everyone, just got my war coil ready and freaking love it.
I would like some advice from fellow war tanks in tanking caduceus, I've beaten it as dps and I know how hard it its, and I don't want to go blind to it.
My gear is: full Dl, myth body, hoplite head, 1 hoplite ring and relic.
Got like 7.5k hp with food. All my points to VIT

Thanks :D

Hold agro and don't die. There are no special tricks. If you've killed it as a DPS, then you know everything you need to know.

Not much you can do aside from what Paikis said.
Since you lack any defensive cooldowns that can make a real difference in this fight, you can only spam your abilities and pray that your half of Caduceus drops before or a split-second after you do.
Well, and pop everything you have (Featherfoot, Thrill, Convalescence...) after it reaches 4 stacks. Sometimes a hood swipe you dodge saves the day. Too bad it's unreliable as hell.

Pretty much flash the add, have your pld take the original across the map. You rotate cooldowns around 3 stacks, and hope your dps can make it over by 4, no later. The highest amount you can really hold is 5 stacks, if your decently geared.

I haven't actually run BCT1 yet. I tanked BCT2, we didn't win . . . and that's it :'( I'm hoping to start running with my new BC group tonightish.

My advice is this
A) get a static healer if your in a static, it helps ALOT to be in-sync with your healer.
B))Also have a melee trigger tail swipe, it seems in significant but while its casting tail swipe it cant knock you over the head with hood swing, which is always a good thing.
c) Keep at it, while WAR does have its disadvantages in coil having WAR in turn 4 is a HUGE advantage, when my static off-tanks war turn 4 goes down SO much quicker. When we beat it on Tuesday we killed the last dreadnought with one AoE going off and without lb, it was glorious

Sadly this was the fight that really illustrated the differences between myself and a paladin. Paladins can simply cooldown their way through this fight and Wars require massive healing attention from the whm. Also, I recommend in the split phase that your team ensures you NEVER exceed 3 stacks on your mob. Pull 1 or 2 adds to it in order to keep the stack count low. We also feed at least 1 to the split the paladin is tanking, but ideally it still helps if we get 2 on the paladin's as well. In order to make up for the extra healing my add receives we tend to use a level 2 limit break on my split. On the plus side I find turn 2 to be far easier for war than turn 1, and I keep hearing promising things about turn 4. We just got to turn 4 last week for the first time and we are partially limited by our dps so I still haven't been completely through the battle yet.

Get your combo prepped and ready for the boss split. Have already hit the main target with step 1 of your combo before the split, and immediately as it splits switch targets and hammer step 2 of the combo and then step 3 as you drag it away. In a perfect world, you could get by with tomahawk(s) or flash(es), but as crazy as fights get at times with whatever your healers are having to do, it's better to adamantly plant enmity as soon as possible.

I've tanked it as both PLD and WAR now, and PLD is WAAAAY easier with the cool downs. It almost feels like cheating.

But as a WAR all you can really do it just use what cool downs you have to try and keep yourself alive and hope the healers have a lot of MP to dump into you. We also run with a SCH and WHM heal team, and we found having the SCH dedicated to healing me a bit more as WAR worked out better due to their little shields and % based heal.

If you're getting hit too bad you can also see about having a DPS spawn an add to remove some stacks off your boss to lessen the blows. We found that even just 2 stacks was pretty scary for a WAR.

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Originally Posted by Kaonis

We found that even just 2 stacks was pretty scary for a WAR.

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I have zero gear from coil and tanked it up to 7 stacks... 2 stacks? I don't even feel it!

I've tanked it as WAR and PLD and the only advice I can give is make sure you are over geared and your healers are awesome.

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Originally Posted by Paikis

I have zero gear from coil and tanked it up to 7 stacks... 2 stacks? I don't even feel it!

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'I have zero gear from coil' =! 'I have no coil equivalent gear' which by at least by your forum picture you have 2 coil comparable pieces.

Your 5% damage reduction/1800 inner beasts/15% dodge chance/20% extra health wasn't the reason you were living through 7 stacks, it was your healers.

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Originally Posted by Illya

I've tanked it as WAR and PLD and the only advice I can give is make sure you are over geared and your healers are awesome.

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This ^

Back when my entire group was trying turn 1 for the first time, we realised that a warrior tank wasn't gonna last long. We decided to feed my snake a few slimes, constantly keeping it at 1 stack. Id save all my buffs and inner beast when they would leave me alone to dps the other snake. We barely got by.. It's like trying to get Megan fox's number from Megan fox herself, whilst dressed in an "I love NY" t-shirt and Bermudas.

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Originally Posted by Paikis

I have zero gear from coil and tanked it up to 7 stacks... 2 stacks? I don't even feel it!

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Zero pieces from coil and your millions of gil in melded gear kinda moot your point. lol. I'm sure you DONT feel 2 stacks.

Hahaha 7 stacks... Dreams? WAR/PLD here as well, my WAR is at 8021 HP and at 5 stacks a well timed Hood/Auto will 2 shot you before a healer can even react. If you can bring 2 PLD to coil currently, you do, there is no reason to shoot yourself in the foot and bring a WAR. WAR works fine in turn 2 because you can't block/parry/dodge the ADS nodes or ADS himself so the tanks even out a bit, but lacking Hallowed does kinda stink, nice to eliminate 20s of tank healing if you chain halloweds with two PLDs.

I really don't understand where the idea that WARs out DPS PLDs came from, because they do not. Have a WAR, not in defiance, and a PLD in Sword Oath stand next to each other and DPS dummies, PLD will out DPS WAR, it's easy enough to swap stances as a PLD when the DPS is needed. I usually go WAR for turn 4 anyways, but I do miss Circle of Scorn for the off GCD AoE snag.

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Originally Posted by Ipkonfig

Hahaha 7 stacks... Dreams? WAR/PLD here as well, my WAR is at 8021 HP and at 5 stacks a well timed Hood/Auto will 2 shot you before a healer can even react. If you can bring 2 PLD to coil currently, you do, there is no reason to shoot yourself in the foot and bring a WAR. WAR works fine in turn 2 because you can't block/parry/dodge the ADS nodes or ADS himself so the tanks even out a bit, but lacking Hallowed does kinda stink, nice to eliminate 20s of tank healing if you chain halloweds with two PLDs.

I really don't understand where the idea that WARs out DPS PLDs came from, because they do not. Have a WAR, not in defiance, and a PLD in Sword Oath stand next to each other and DPS dummies, PLD will out DPS WAR, it's easy enough to swap stances as a PLD when the DPS is needed. I usually go WAR for turn 4 anyways, but I do miss Circle of Scorn for the off GCD AoE snag.

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Maybe a fail war gets out dps by pld ... our war w/o tank stance is doing 220 dps.

He also tanked snake clone up to 5 stacks since our strategy was straight burn and dont feed slimes... PLD only tank better than war when their cool downs are up if they are down as a healer I prefer war with bigger hp pool less chance of dying from rng crits plus they can IB which is helpful after large hits.

Why does everyone believe WARs are great DPS it has been proven OVER and OVER that PLD in Sword Oath can do the same DPS as a WAR w/o Defiance.. not only are their basic rotations almost identical damage, but PLD has 30% dmg for 30s with no draw backs like Zerk, yes you can esuna/leech off pacification, but still it's annoying. 300 Potency attack every 30s and 100 Potency with 30 Potency over 15s DoT both off the GCD which more than makes up for the lack of Maim and SE debuff. PLD could take Mercy Stroke/Fracture, so in reality the only things a WAR has are the use of Internal Release, and extra duration on Fracture. The only big hurdle for a PLD doing DPS is that they can only use their Enmity rotation since Riot Blade doesn't do great damage. WAR can mix in Maim/SE for the buffs and since it causes no extra enmity can be used a few times in succession to avoid taking aggro.

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Originally Posted by Solduios

words

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Sounds more like you're an over healing monster and as such you enjoy the large health pool of a WAR because it makes your poor play seem less poor.

PLD and WAR have the SAME base eHP without CDs so anything along the lines of 'larger HP = less chance of dying' is merely an illusion. A 3000 hit is just as lethal to a PLD as it is a WAR the difference is you are spending more MP to top the WAR off before the next hit vs. the PLD.

And 220 DPS? So he's sitting in almost full myth and millions of gil in DPS crafted accessories? You're comparing 2 different gear sets unless your PLD also does the same. How does he not pull from the PLD when pushing that much? I would very much like to see a parse of this.

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Originally Posted by Ipkonfig

WAR can mix in Maim/SE for the buffs and since it causes no extra enmity can be used a few times in succession to avoid taking aggro.

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Doing this also makes you bottom out on TP much more rapidly and it is VERY noticeable without a TP Ballad.

Forgot to add Sword Oath adding 50 potency to every auto attack, and PLD already has the better base AA potency of the two tanks. I don't disagree that a WAR can do all of coil, but as I stated above it's basically just shooting yourself in the foot. Yes you can tank Cad past 5 stacks as a WAR, but a well timed Auto and Hood, either of them crit, at 5+ stacks will drop the WAR instantly I've gone from 8021 to dead to one of those hits.

I would love for WAR to actually be comparable I leveled WAR to 50 first and wanted to main it, but why put the rest of your coil group through that RNG hell? Seems selfish when PLD makes things easier.

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Originally Posted by Ipkonfig

Forgot to add Sword Oath adding 50 potency to every auto attack, and PLD already has the better base AA potency of the two tanks. I don't disagree that a WAR can do all of coil, but as I stated above it's basically just shooting yourself in the foot. Yes you can tank Cad past 5 stacks as a WAR, but a well timed Auto and Hood, either of them crit, at 5+ stacks will drop the WAR instantly I've gone from 8021 to dead to one of those hits.

I would love for WAR to actually be comparable I leveled WAR to 50 first and wanted to main it, but why put the rest of your coil group through that RNG hell? Seems selfish when PLD makes things easier.

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This ^

I feel a lot of WAR tanks don't realize just how not 'in control' they really are personally over their odds of eating the floor.

'Sorry guys the boss' auto attack crit me after the <insert big special attack here> there was nothing I could do' <- should never be an acceptable reason for a wipe.

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Originally Posted by Phreak

This ^

I feel a lot of WAR tanks don't realize just how not 'in control' they really are personally over their odds of eating the floor.

'Sorry guys the boss' auto attack crit me after the <insert big special attack here> there was nothing I could do' <- should never be an acceptable reason for a wipe.

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I hear that from PLDs all the time.

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Originally Posted by Caar

I hear that from PLDs all the time.

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ZING! Shots fired! Hit the deck!

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Originally Posted by Phreak

'Sorry guys the boss' auto attack crit me after the <hood swipe?> there was nothing I could do' <- should never be an acceptable reason for a wipe.

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for me, my usual excuse for a wipe is: "whoops! should have popped a cd or two before that last hit, my bad."

i only need mercy stroke and i will have all of my cross-class skills. usually i have at least one cooldown back when i'm done cycling through everything but hallowed.

there really isn't an excuse, but i can be forgetful sometimes O.o

scholar's + warriors + voice communication (mumble, team speak, etc) = win.

Not a hard fight, just call out your cd's and let your healers know what up and have one dps trigger tail swipes. You need that breathing room! Communication is key! Besides dps do all the leg work, we just sit and look pretty till split

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Originally Posted by Paikis

I have zero gear from coil and tanked it up to 7 stacks... 2 stacks? I don't even feel it!

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Sorry, but you are full of shit, and with you having pld in addition to war, you are doing nothing but misleading those foolish enough to believe you.

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Originally Posted by ChriskoOnAnotherLevel

Sorry, but you are full of shit, and with you having pld in addition to war, you are doing nothing but misleading those foolish enough to believe you.

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Those who can, do. Those who can't, whine about it on the forums.

Our first kill was with me in full darklight, with Bravura+1 and a mix of Hero's, Gryphonskin and Darklight jewellery. I have tanked the intial snake to 3 stacks (died) and my split up to 7. I died at 7 on our first kill, where upon it merged back together, stomped our PLD, and then died to DoTs while we kited it around the arena. Our summoner was the only one alive when it died.

4-5 weeks after our first kill and it dies at 4-5 stacks without feeding anything.

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Originally Posted by Marxam

scholar's + warriors + voice communication (mumble, team speak, etc) = win.

Not a hard fight, just call out your cd's and let your healers know what up and have one dps trigger tail swipes. You need that breathing room! Communication is key! Besides dps do all the leg work, we just sit and look pretty till split

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I keep hearing SCHs work great with warriors but Can you explain me why? I don't really see it (i dont know jack about healing classes) but I know people keep saying this, however my static group basically laughs at me when i tell them this.

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Originally Posted by Caar

I keep hearing SCHs work great with warriors but Can you explain me why? I don't really see it (i dont know jack about healing classes) but I know people keep saying this, however my static group basically laughs at me when i tell them this.

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Scholars are better tank healers if you look at potency per GCD on their heals. WHMs are better group healers though, so its always good to have one of each. The difference is not large enough to worry that much about. I usually have a WHM healing me while the SCH heals the PLD.

The better player will be the better healer. The differences are minor.

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Originally Posted by Phreak

Sounds more like you're an over healing monster and as such you enjoy the large health pool of a WAR because it makes your poor play seem less poor.
PLD and WAR have the SAME base eHP without CDs so anything along the lines of 'larger HP=less chance of dying' is merely an illusion. A 3000 hit is just as lethal to a PLD as it is a WAR the difference is you are spending more MP to top the WAR off before the next hit vs. the PLD.
And 220 DPS? So he's sitting in almost full myth and millions of gil in DPS crafted accessories? You're comparing 2 different gear sets unless your PLD also does the same. How does he not pull from the PLD when pushing that much? I would very much like to see a parse of this.

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He has +1 relic and uses dps d/l rings when needed as off tank / dps, Also sch dont exactly drop heal bombs all over the place I just spam the shit outta phsicks and embrace. He tanked snake clone to 8 stacks last night granted the 8th stack was very brief.

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Originally Posted by Solduios

He has +1 relic and uses dps d/l rings when needed as off tank / dps, Also sch dont exactly drop heal bombs all over the place I just spam the shit outta phsicks and embrace. He tanked snake clone to 8 stacks last night granted the 8th stack was very brief.

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Forgot to mention he has mythos chest piece as well.... but other than that he is full d/l gear, maybe he just know his rotation better than most war's?

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Originally Posted by Phreak

Sounds more like you're an over healing monster and as such you enjoy the large health pool of a WAR because it makes your poor play seem less poor. PLD and WAR have the SAME base eHP without CDs so anything along the lines of 'larger HP = less chance of dying' is merely an illusion. A 3000 hit is just as lethal to a PLD as it is a WAR the difference is you are spending more MP to top the WAR off before the next hit vs. the PLD.

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Lets assume both pld and war cd's are down and both get hit for 3k dmg ... PLD has roughly 5800 hp and war sitting on 7400 hp. Now from my observation as a healer both classes take about the same damage w/o cool downs 5800 - 3000= 2800 left on pld 7400- 3000= 4400 + IB = 5400 hp. This is purely off observation as a sch healing... and yes I feel sch synergies better with warrior than pld but also my own observation.

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Originally Posted by Solduios

Lets assume both pld and war cd's are down and both get hit for 3k dmg ... PLD has roughly 5800 hp and war sitting on 7400 hp.

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If a PLD was at 5800 HP then a WAR of equal gear level would have 7250

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Originally Posted by Solduios

Now from my observation as a healer both classes take about the same damage w/o cool downs

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PLDs have a passive 20% reduction in damage at all times with Shield Oath active. (it's a stance, not a cooldown, just like the WAR's Defiance)

The WAR is getting hit for 3000, the PLD is getting hit for 2400.

^ That's where the healing bonus kicks in and equalizes the situation.

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Originally Posted by ChriskoOnAnotherLevel

Sorry, but you are full of shit, and with you having pld in addition to war, you are doing nothing but misleading those foolish enough to believe you.

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Pls stop quoting him, I can still see his garbage when you do, thanks.

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Originally Posted by Yagrush

^ That's where the healing bonus kicks in and equalizes the situation.

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The +15% healing taken does not equalize anything, it would have to be 25%.

WAR takes a 3000 damage hit, assuming a best case +15% healing taken it takes about 2600 in base healing to top the warrior off.

PLD takes a 3000 damage hit, lower it by 20% due to shield oath, the PLD ends up only taking 2400 damage and requires 2400 base healing to be topped off.

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Originally Posted by Phreak

The +15% healing taken does not equalize anything, it would have to be 25%.

WAR takes a 3000 damage hit, assuming a best case +15% healing taken it takes about 2600 in base healing to top the warrior off.

PLD takes a 3000 damage hit, lower it by 20% due to shield oath, the PLD ends up only taking 2400 damage and requires 2400 base healing to be topped off.

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The number of fights in the game with an attack big enough for the Warrior to require an extra heal to be cast based on this difference is exactly one. Twintania.

The difference is Hallowed Ground, the rest is just a rounding error in your healer's overhealing.

The best advise I can give you is to equip your paladin soul gem

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Originally Posted by Fersaken

The best advise I can give you is to equip your paladin soul gem

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You're cute, I hope you are proud on your clever little commnet. It's not like everybody else has said this before thinking their clever.

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Originally Posted by Phreak

The +15% healing taken does not equalize anything, it would have to be 25%.

WAR takes a 3000 damage hit, assuming a best case +15% healing taken it takes about 2600 in base healing to top the warrior off.

PLD takes a 3000 damage hit, lower it by 20% due to shield oath, the PLD ends up only taking 2400 damage and requires 2400 base healing to be topped off.

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IDC what math says as healer I see very little difference in healing the 2 classes if both dont have cool downs.

Just. Pop. Your. Every. Single. CD. After it reaches 4 stacks