Warrior defensive rotations with CDs please

I apparently have been sent for a loop since 2.1 and am having trouble figuring out decent rotations in combination with CDs.

Could someone please help me in figuring things out?

Thanks-
Bloodclaw

I can't recommend doing rotations because Tanks are much more of a prediction/reaction job than an upkeep job. Having the perfect rotation to have a buff up 100% of the time is not really going to do better than learning each enemy's pattern or your own groups quirks. Doing a rotation will end with you "wasting" cd's and not having them up when you really need them.

The basic Idea should be splitting your CD's via timers/efficacy. Pop the lesser cooldowns often, and the big guns on stuff that hurts or when you are in danger. On WAR, your lesser cooldowns are: Foresight, Fleetfoot, Awareness, Bloodbath and Convalescence. Your big guns are Vengeance and Thrill of battle.

IB is an exception. If the enemy has an easily-predicted attack, you should time it with it. If it doesn't, just spam it as soon as it's available. Keep Storm's Path up all the time.

Basically I keep SP debuff up and pop IB before any major dmg like Death Sentence or Montain Brust, I only use vengence or thrill of battle if for some reason i cant comb IB+SP or when i have some healing/life debuffs, on garuda ex fight to hold the double wreck wheel dmg u need to combo IB+SP+vengence.

think this is it, it changes fight to fight

btw sorry for a poor english this is not my first language

Keep SP up all the time.

IB for scripted huge hits - if they don't exist just use it on cooldown (see: T1, T2, etc.).

Foresight + Bloodbath + Featherfoot are all 90s cooldown so I just pop all of them initially between GCDs. Vengeance is good for moments of high burst damage or mitigating a big hit when your healers are getting MP starved (best paired with IB for 6s of huge mitigation). Conv still works the same, Thrill still works the same, pair 'em together if you need to for an extremely powerful CD.

Thassit.

I have my Bloodbath and Berserk tied together on a macro, and another one with Foresight and Featherfall. They all have the same CD, so I just pop em when they're ready. My macro is good and they always go off one after another. Everything else is individually pressed. I tried weaving my buffs in one at a time, but found it to be a pain in the ass. Is there any real benefit?

Remember the theory of relevant mitigation.

It's not about how much damage you mitigate over the course of a fight that decides the outcome, it's survival. Every fight that could be called difficult has burst mechanics, wheelx2, MB, DS, incinerate spam, etc. These burst mechanics can kill even the best geared tanks, an unmitigated DS + auto can take me from full to zero in less then a second.

So the point is, just don't spam defensive cooldowns, know the fight and use them at the proper times.

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Originally Posted by Alwryn

So the point is, just don't spam defensive cooldowns, know the fight and use them at the proper times.

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Kk, thank you. I'm getting to that point, but I have to keep practicing. Just this weekend, though, my tanking improved big time.

Always have Inner Beast up before big hits and from there pick one or two of your defensive cool downs. I macro Foresight and Featherfoot, Vengeance and Convalesence, together because they both have the same cool down and allows me to have four skills in two slots. I can spam them together or after the cd wears off. Either way they both work hand in hand and can help you in a pinch.

I make a rotation with the lesser cooldowns, namely: foresight, bloodbath, featherfoot, awareness (or) mantra. Their uptime and cooldown give me a defensive buff about 100% of the time.
(I skip Mantra if I want Flash or Internal release abilities)


I don't think any of these cooldowns will save me from death, they are too weak or too random. I also cannot see any appropriate time to use them during fights. I'd better pop Inner Beast, Vengeance, Convalescence or even lolmgang to save my ass or recover from a bad hit.

In fact, I noticed I was pretty much ignoring these weaker cooldowns, because it was tedious to think about when to use them, or which one to pick. So I made a macro with all these 5 cooldowns in, and when a buff goes down, I press the macro again to get the next one. This way, I don't have much to think about them and I almost always have a basic defensive buff, and I use them on cooldown, so I don't waste their slight buff effect.


In fact, I see these skills as the shield of the warrior: won't save my life, but I'm happy to have one on me.

I use 2 defensive macros. I call them "Oh Crap! Level ONE" and "Oh crap! Level TWO!"

Level one is:

Thrill of Battle
Vengeance
Convalescense

This is a fantastic macro. You instantly heal 1000+ HP, get higher max HP, take 30% less damage, and are healed for a lot more for several seconds. This is my Diffraction Laser / Cad just hit 6 stacks / I just pulled half the dungeon macro.

Level two is:

Second Wind
Foresight
Featherfoot
Bloodbath
Inner Beast (if up)

This one gives you a minor heal and then stacks a bunch of your little buffs, topping it off with an IB for good measure. This is my GP defense macro, or what I pop if level one in still on CD and I'm getting tagged hard. Follows nicely into Berserk and Overpower spam on large groups of trash.

Aside from that, just always keep Storm's Path up and blow Inner Beast on cooldown.

do not macro any of your first tier mitigation tools like the above poster

2nd tier mitigation skills like: bloodbath, featherfoot, maybe even foresight sure but not your first tier

first tier would be:
Thrill
Veng
Convo

each of these should be used in high damage situations only

The only macro I use for WAR is for Featherfoot > Foresight; both are pretty weak, but they still have their value with Featherfoot being arguably stronger. With Featherfoot and Foresight, I will keep them on cooldown unless I know there are phases where all possible mitigation will be useful (eg; Sister phases on Garuda EX). For me, Bloodbath is normally kept on cooldown when any HP is missing or will be missing.

/micon Featherfoot
/ac Featherfoot <me>
/ac Foresight <me>



Veng., ToB and Convo. are all very strong in comparison and should be manually managed for highest benefit.

- Vengeance is completely proactive aside from the Wrath attached to it.

- Thrill of Battle is both proactive and reactive, but arguably stronger used proactively to stay out of that "oh shit!" zone.

- Convalescence is more so reactive, but it can also be use proactively to boost a Galvanize (Adloquium/Succor) shield.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alwryn

Remember the theory of relevant mitigation.

It's not about how much damage you mitigate over the course of a fight that decides the outcome, it's survival. Every fight that could be called difficult has burst mechanics, wheelx2, MB, DS, incinerate spam, etc. These burst mechanics can kill even the best geared tanks, an unmitigated DS + auto can take me from full to zero in less then a second.

So the point is, just don't spam defensive cooldowns, know the fight and use them at the proper times.

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This guy knows his stuff. Listen to him.

A good time to pop featherfoot is on multiple adds attacking you in numbers greater than 3, so say spider's phases of turn 4. Also when your speed running and grabbing around 6 or more enemies at a time.

Combining featherfoot with bloodbath and vengeance on adds is also a good idea since they all feed off on each other. Blood bath feeds off vengeance hits as well as overpower spam/steel cyclone your likely to do, featherfoot will reduce the chances of successful enemy hits at least 1 on one of the enemies, and vengeance reduces of course the damage you take and as a added bonus helps kill the adds faster.

Bad times to pop featherfoot on single target bosses since these bosses have high accuracy on you and featherfoots effect on them is spotty at best.

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Originally Posted by Cessna

Combining featherfoot with bloodbath and vengeance on adds is also a good idea since they all feed off on each other.

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Featherfoot actually interferes with Vengeance because you have to be hit in order for Vengeance to deal the retributive damage (and cause Bloodbath to heal you for that little bit) and Featherfoot makes attack miss you (which renders any defense buff you might have active redundant). If anything, Featherfoot should only be used alongside Convalescence or ToB since those aren't reducing your incoming damage. If you explicitly *need* to use another CD on top of Vengeance for whatever reason, you'd be better served by using Foresight, ToB, or Convalescence.

I generally follow one of two mentalities concerning my tank CDs depending upon what I'm going to be tanking.

On tank swap fights, like Titan Ex and Ifrit Ex, where I can expect to be tanking roughly 50% of the time with a 30-40 active window, I'll use my CDs actively to make sure that I always have one up while I'm tanking (you've got 30-40 seconds of time on a regular basis where it doesn't matter if your CDs are up or not when you're not tanking so there's no reason to not get some use out of that time by having your CDs recharge). I use Featherfoot or Foresight right when I take over (because they're weak and you just want to reduce mean incoming damage to lighten healer load in the long term) and Conv/ToB/Vengeance when I'm 15-20 seconds away from no longer tanking based upon my tank buddy's remaining duration (since you really need the tank CDs when you've got 3-4 stacks of Suppuration on you, especially towards the end of the fight).

The general "rotation" for this is something like Foresight(20 secs)>Vengeance(15 secs)>Swap(~30 secs)>Featherfoot(15 secs)>Convalescence(20 seconds)>Swap(~30 seconds), which is a 130 second "cycle", allowing for a bit of overlap/flexibility, and keeps ToB in reserve for times when you're worried that you might drop through whichever CD is active (since it's only really effective for burst survival; the same applies for Holmgang).

On straight up tank fights, I'll keep my big CDs (Conv, Veng, ToB) in reserve but use Bloodbath, Foresight, and Featherfoot whenever I expect to be attacked for the full duration and I don't have another CD up at the time. Foresight isn't strong enough while it's active to really be noticeable as a tank CD in the short term and Featherfoot just isn't reliable, which is something you want out of an emergency CD. They're still quite nice because you can just use them all the time without worrying as to whether you're wasting them or might need them later on since you're not going to in either case.

In either case, I try not to layer CDs on top of each other unless it's a major emergency since I think it's something of a waste otherwise (stacking multiplicative mitigation buffs actually ends up diminishing their real value: reducing damage by 30% via Vengeance results in taking 70% of incoming damage, throw Foresight on top of it and you're taking ~63% for 15 seconds and 90% for 5 seconds; if you used them separately, you'd have gotten 15 seconds of 70% and 20 seconds of ~90%). ToB is something of an exception to this because all it does is increase eHP so it doesn't really have an appreciable mean contribution for you to worry about (it doesn't reduce incoming damage; it just makes sure you can survive spikes).

Like Most People have already said, you want to know the fights and use your best abilities right before those Big Hits or Whichever fits the situation.

What I like to do is Always Make sure Storm Path is Up.

And....

For Big Hits:
1. Inner Beast + Second Wind
2. Vengeance + Blood Bath
3. Thrill of Battle+Foresight
4. Convalescene+ Featherfoot
5. (Bonus) Mega Potion of Vit

The Combination of the skills above provide Great Synergy for me. I rarely have times where a big hit is coming and I dont have any way to mitigate it. Unless you blow them back to back, which I never do.


Inner Beast is My Bread and Butter, I stack alot of Skill Speed so I can use it about every20secs or so, thats why I combine my Big CD with my little ones since I can use Inner Beast so frequent. BUT in fights that require alot of mitigation, I save wrath to use IB right before thoses big hits so I dont have to waste other CD's.

I also save Infuriate for moments when I dont have 5 Stacks of Wrath to use or all of these Cool Downs are on timers. (Very Rare)

Well warrior have it both tough and easy.

Easy because if you are full on vit, you will have so much HP you will not get one shotted like a pld caught off guard. So face tanking is a lot more forgiving.

Tough, because warriors suck at damage mitigation. IB is not an Off-CD skill making that 6 seconds even worse (It's coming...omg CD!).

Vengenace is too long a CD to rely on more then once, and foresight is crap due to only being physical. Conv is limited since you already have massive healing surplus, and blood bath won't really do that much nor 2nd wind (and it's 700hp heals is it even worth a slot?).

Thrill is probably useful but limited, and realistically a war shouldn't be one shotted even unprotected.

So really, It's Inner beast/Vengeance or nothing. Foresight maybe if it happens to be physical, but everything else you might as well be used on CD, as the impact the fight very minor comparatively (though obviously some phases are more intense then others).

There isn't as many tricks as pld, for a war. Just gotta live on being good for IB when crap is coming.

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Originally Posted by kukurumei

Well warrior have it both tough and easy.

Easy because if you are full on vit, you will have so much HP you will not get one shotted like a pld caught off guard. So face tanking is a lot more forgiving.
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PLD and WAR have the same eHP so No matter if WAR has more HP, They will both get hit for the same % of Damage unmitigated if they are equally geared.

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Originally Posted by OmegaSinX

PLD and WAR have the same eHP so No matter if WAR has more HP, They will both get hit for the same % of Damage unmitigated.

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I can tell you a 6k Pld will die to a burst, but a 8k war will not die to the same burst. And this is before you are stacking on those storm path debuffs

Not all types of damage are the same.

There's a huge difference in on shotting between wars and plds.

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Originally Posted by kukurumei

I can tell you a 6k Pld will die to a burst, but a 8k war will not die to the same burst. And this is before you are stacking on those storm path debuffs

There's a huge difference in on shotting between wars and plds.

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I don't think so.. 6k PLD would be 7.5k War. It would take a 7500 damage hit to one shot both in their respective tanking stance. Less damage and both of them should still survive.

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Originally Posted by kukurumei

I can tell you a 6k Pld will die to a burst, but a 8k war will not die to the same burst. And this is before you are stacking on those storm path debuffs

There's a huge difference in on shotting between wars and plds.

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PLD+20% DR has the Same Effect as WAR+25% HP.

So if a boss hits the tank for 2k Damge

7.5k HP WAR - 2k = 5.5k (73% HP Left)
Equally geared PLD will have 6k Health -1600 (20%mitgated) = 4400 (73% HP Left)

While I generally agree with OMega they are basically equal.

I know I can barely survive a DS and an auto attack with no buffs of any kind that would kill my PLD partner

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Originally Posted by OmegaSinX

PLD+20% DR has the Same Effect as WAR+25% HP.

So if a boss hits the tank for 2k Damge

7.5k HP WAR - 2k = 5.5k (73% HP Left)
Equally geared PLD will have 6k Health -1600 (20%mitgated) = 4400 (73% HP Left)

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Damage doesn't come as easy as that or def would actually matter.

Well, actually.. After the IB changes I can see that for one specific burst event, the WAR is going to have the same 20% DR as PLD, plus 25% more health and the healing boost to recover. PLD can stack buffs and reduce damage by a much greater amount, but no good PLD is gonna blow all CDs at once.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kukurumei

Damage doesn't come as easy as that or def would actually matter.

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.....wat ? Im going to stop right there. This will be a endless back and forth. Do your research and Stop throwing out false information on the Internet.