Maximizing DPS as a Warrior

I don't think ive seen this addressed for 2.1, but in terms of maximizing damage is IB worth using if infuriate is not up?

My point being you would be losing out on crit while trying to get back to max stacks, where as if you only used it when you had infuriate ready, you would not lose out on max crit uptime.

Wondering others thoughts on this.

Take off Defiance. That's it.

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Originally Posted by MythToken

My point being you would be losing out on crit while trying to get back to max stacks

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The +crit contributions of Wrath stacks aren't worth delaying the use of your Wrath consumers. Ignoring the baseline crit chance for simplicity's sake, 10% crit translates into a 5% increase in damage (10% chance for 50% more damage = 5% more damage over time) which basically means that each Wrath stack adds 1% to damage. When you are generating Wrath stacks, you average 2.35 Wrath stacks over time (8.5 GCDs required on average to get to IB) since the benefits of Wrath aren't factored until the following attack and I'm reasonably confident that they're not factored into the Wrath consumers. Ignoring Maim and SE since they're equal multipliers to everything, without using IB, the BB>SE rotation generates 206.67 pot/GCD from special attacks (((150 + 200 + 280) + (150 + 190 + 270)) / 6); using IB ever time that you can with the same basic rotation generates 229.41 pot/GCD ((206.67 * 15 + 300 / .75 * 2) / 17). If you tack on the 83.33 pot/GCD from autoattacks, you end up with 290.00 and 312.74, respectively; factor in the simplified crit bonuses and you end up with 304.5 pot/GCD (290 * 1.05) and 320.09 pot/GCD (312.74 * 1.0235), which is basically a ~5% advantage towards immediate Wrath consumer usage compared to storing Wrath.

It's important to remember just how hard IB hits: it's the equivalent of a 400 potency hit while you're in Defiance since it ignores the damage penalty. Delaying an ability that massive in order to get a miniscule bonus just isn't worth it.

How I maximize DPS as a Warrior is thus:

1st Method: The "The party only needs one tank, and there are two tanks in the party" method.

1. Turn off Defiance.
2. Profit

2nd Method: The "I'm tanking, but I really want to help DPS maximize damage while I'm tanking" method.

Disclaimer: Use this for bosses only! Other enemies will not be alive long enough to take advantage of this method.

1. Use Enmity-generating combo for about 45-60 seconds. That would be about 5-7 full, uninterrupted rotations. If the party generates a lot of enmity on their own, try shooting for a full 90 seconds, or 10 rotations.

2. Once you've generated enough enmity, switch to your Maim rotations and use Fracture in-between rotations as needed.

3. If you get 5 stacks of enrage, go ahead and use any of the three enrage-using abilities, depending on the situation. Unchained if you haven't used it yet, Steel Cyclone if you're trying to pull adds, or Inner Beast under any other circumstances.

When using the second method, under no circumstances should you ever use Berserk. Berserk ends with a Pacification debuff, which can cause you very critical seconds in which the tide of battle could change signiricantly. For the first method, you can trust the other tank to cover you, so it's fine. But if you're tanking, Berserk is a HUGE no-no. The damage bonus is not worth the uncurable stun-like aftereffects.

Since everybody is being witty about not using Defiance, your biggest damage boost (with Defiance) is going to be, after a Storm's Eye Combo: Unchained - Internal Release - Berserk. This is rather general, as unchained, internal release and berserk can be weaved into your Storm's Eye combo. You can also Infuriate to get your crit boost.

if for whatever reason you arent producing enough enmity with this or would like some additional heals, Bloodbath before the other buffs.

You should macro Berserk so that you let your party know you will be Pacified in # seconds. Esuna/Leech

If I'm tanking I use 1 hate combo followed by Storm's Path and Storm's Eye combo, then alternate between hate and Storm's combos as needed.
Usually my damage is high enough to hold hate without more than a Butcher's Block combo every 2-4 rotations.

When not tanking, deactivate Defiance and keep alternating between the two Storm's combos to help your damage and make the fight a bit easier for healers and tank.

I also find that it's not required to go full tank gear for Warrior against not so hard bosses/trash.
Often the increased damage from more Str and secondary stats will outperform more Vit.
As long as it's not hurting the party I'm swapping in and out Str/Vit gear as needed.

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Originally Posted by HakuroDK

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While i totally agree with the 2 methods you mentioned i'm kinda confused why you advocate not using berserk. Both Flash and Provoke are still usable during pacification as well as your defensive cooldowns.
Spamming Berserk on cooldown might line up the pacification in an ugly moment but especially when you are running things with competent healers, they will esuna/leeches your pacification quite fast too.
Especially on your second method your enmity-creation for 60 seconds/90 seconds would create enough leeway to keep the enemy on you during the pacification.

Edit: On top of that, don't forget that using berserk actually gives you one charge of wrath and can sometimes be just what you need to get the Inner Beast up in time(Looking at you, twintania's DS).

@ Kitru, thx for the awesome reply on wrath stacks, makes a lot of sense. And that was some great info!
As for defiance duh lol

I am talking about maxing dps with defiance up/tanking. There is another thread this relates too about parry being worthlessish, and this is sort of taking it to the next level.
If we are assuming that maximizing DPS as a tank is the best way to go, then this is what this thread is about. (you don't have to agree, but please don't post stuff about how parry ect ect, this is just to explore the idea of doing max damage)

So lets assume we are +30 Str, do we try to max Det then Crit? or Crit then Det? Is a little bit of SS a decent dps increase without too much TP starvation? How much?

These are questions I have.

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Originally Posted by MythToken

So lets assume we are +30 Str, do we try to max Det then Crit? or Crit then Det? Is a little bit of SS a decent dps increase without too much TP starvation? How much?

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I don't have any numbers for the damage formulas, but for healing 1 det is slightly more useful than 1 crit (roughly 1.33 crit = 1 det for overall output). The choice really depends on what items are available - 11 crit vs 11 det? det! 16 crit vs 8 det? crit!
With the iLvl 110 gear, you can usually get both stats or just one of them for that slot to begin with. The only noteable choices are 29 crit vs 20 det on pants and 13 crit vs 9 det on belt, but these differences are so small that you likely won't notice any difference in your dps.

Skill speed is another matter, I for one don't like it at all for the sole reason that unlike crit/det, it doesn't improve your damage per tp. In a world with unlimited resources (read: for black mages), speed is actually a pretty good stat, but in any fight where your tp are finite, the other stats are more useful. If you wanted to find a perfect balance on skill speed, you would aim to finish the fight with as little tp left as possible while never starving yourself, but that number varies hugely with different encounters and a good number for a dodge heavy fight may well be way too much for an encounter like t4.

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Originally Posted by HakuroDK

1. Use Enmity-generating combo for about 45-60 seconds. That would be about 5-7 full, uninterrupted rotations. If the party generates a lot of enmity on their own, try shooting for a full 90 seconds, or 10 rotations.

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I dearly hope you're not talking about just spamming the BB combo. It's lower damage and lower enmity than any of a number of other rotations. The highest enmity rotation is actually SE>BB>BB>BB, so, if you're advocating cranking out enmity for the first minute or so, that's what you should be using.

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2. Once you've generated enough enmity, switch to your Maim rotations and use Fracture in-between rotations as needed.

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Fracture isn't really worth it since it costs so much and doesn't really offer a particularly impressive increase to damage. In fact, because it's not part of your combos and inhibits uptime, it ends up being a wash, basically. And, once again, if you want to maximize damage dealt, you're talking about the wrong rotation. BB>SE is the highest damage rotation we've got so, if all that you're aiming for is damage, that's what you should be using.

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When using the second method, under no circumstances should you ever use Berserk. Berserk ends with a Pacification debuff, which can cause you very critical seconds in which the tide of battle could change signiricantly. For the first method, you can trust the other tank to cover you, so it's fine. But if you're tanking, Berserk is a HUGE no-no. The damage bonus is not worth the uncurable stun-like aftereffects.

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If you honestly think that you should never use Berserk because of the Pacification debuff, it's because you don't know the fight. Berserk is an amazing tool when used properly and is only going to screw you over if you use it indiscriminately instead of waiting for the proper time, when you know that you'll have a safe time frame to be Pacified in 20 seconds, which actually happens quite often. About the only time it's going to screw you over is if adds are about to spawn.

Also, the Pacification can be esuna/leeched off of you, so it's not as if it's incurable. It's only 5 secs long so it's generally not worth it to burn the healer's GCD.

Now, if you really want to talk about generating a massive enmity cushion before going on to using lower enmity-higher damage rotations, spamming your high enmity combo for the first minute is actually a pretty inefficient way to go about it. I can generate the same amount of enmity in 20 seconds as someone using BB spam does for the first minute, and I do it as part of my starting attack string:

(Brutal Swing)HS>SS>BB>
HS>Maim>SE(Vengeance)>
HS(Unchained)>SS(Berserk)>BB(Brutal Swing)>

From here, you can go one of two ways. There's a higher enmity variant that uses

HS(Internal Release)>SS>BB>HS>SS>BB>

But I tend to prefer this lower enmity/higher damage variant that actually maintains Maim (I generate more than enough enmity with this anyways)

HS(Internal Release)>Maim>SE>HS>SS>BB>

And then you finish off either of those with an IB right before you get Pacified by Berserk. The order of CD usage is really important. You want to use Unchained before Berserk so that the last GCD of Unchained isn't eaten by the Pacification as well as making sure you get the Wrath stack from Berserk (not because you want to avoid wasting Wrath stacks because the rotation wastes 2 already, but because it gives you 2% extra crit for the first 2 rotations); this also means that you have 1 GCD at the end where you do not have Unchained but do have Berserk, which is when you use IB (which wouldn't benefit from Unchained anyways). Internal Release because used 2 GCDs after Berserk is used means that you won't have IR for the first buffed HS (not a big deal) but you will have it around for the IB at the end (which is a big deal).

The enmity generated by this attack string is obscene. Using it, I routinely reduce PLD tanks using FoF and RoH spamming in Shield Oath to tiny slivers of enmity. I also end up pulling bosses that other tanks have had a full 40 seconds to build up enmity on their own before the rotation finishes. Berserk and Unchained combine to increase your damage by ~87% while they're up, which means that, for the 3 BB rotation, you're basically getting 5.6 BBs for the cost of 2. Toss in IR on top of that and you're basically doubling the value of every ability you use while all 3 buffs are active.

In general, I try to do this attack string every 2 minutes or so and, in between, I almost never bother using BB (I end up doing SE>SP; the only reason I'd use BB is if I elect to do SE>BB for the extra damage if I think we don't need the SP debuff) because I have such a massive enmity cushion that there's no reason to try and generate more.

If you seriously want to give advice to people, make sure you actually know what you're talking about. Pretty much all of the advice you provided was wrong (beyond the whole "turn off Defiance" derp, because, you know, it's not as if it never occurred to anyone else to turn off the stance that reduces damage by 25% when they don't need to tank).

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Originally Posted by ManaKeKz

I don't have any numbers for the damage formulas, but for healing 1 det is slightly more useful than 1 crit (roughly 1.33 crit = 1 det for overall output).

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Det is also itemized heavier so that you get less of it, roughly 66-70% of what you'd get if it were any other secondary stat. As such, if you really want to get down to brass tacks, crit is still the stat you want to have on all of your gear, as opposed to determination (1.33 * .67 = .89). The only time you'd want to take det over crit is when you're forced to choose between equal numbers of both, which almost never happens unless you're dealing with a disparity in ilvl (which is going to choose for you anyways since mainstat trumps all) or secondary stat (wherein you have to start looking at stuff other than crit and det).

As such, when given the option, go with the crit: you get more of it such that, even though it's valued for less on a point-for-point basis, you still get more out of it.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

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That's nice to know. For healers, a 1:1 choice between crit and det isn't very unusual (i90 necklaces, i110 robe/boots and other instances), but crit is less of a debate there - scholars have vastly improved gains from crit while white mages usually do well to avoid the unreliable nature of crits. For dps, crit reliability is less of an issue and the overall dps increase is usually greater, but I wasn't certain that it would be worth it on a 1:1 trade. Thanks for the info!

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Originally Posted by ManaKeKz

For healers, a 1:1 choice between crit and det isn't very unusual (i90 necklaces, i110 robe/boots and other instances)

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Those aren't cases where you're comparing equal crit to equal det because you're not comparing the values of the two stats in a vacuum. In the i90 necks, you're not comparing 11 crit to 11 det; you're comparing 11 crit and 12 PIE to 11 det and 8 PIE. This is what I meant by the disparity in ilvl or secondary stat: you have to gauge the value of the item as a whole and not just individual aspects of it. At that point, you have to weigh the marginally higher value of det to the additional value of the other secondary stat. Unless that other secondary stat (or the difference between the two) is significantly less valuable than the det, it's better to go with the crit.

Healers get kind of wonky, though, because crits are generally viewed as somewhat wasteful unless you get some secondary bonus out of it (since crit heals often turn into overhealing) so determination has a greater practical value even if it's got lower theoretical value, and there are loads of opinions governing PIE depending upon your personal playstyle (I actually love PIE because it means I can use the less efficient cost efficient heals, like Adloq more often).

An example of a purely equal comparison where you only have to consider "1 det = 1.33 crit" is the i90 WAR pants (24 parry, 24 det) versus the allagan pants (24 parry, 34 crit). In any purely equal scenario, where the other secondary stat is equal, crit is always better.

For straight up damage, none of the healer considerations are deciding factors. The reliability argument *could* be made for enmity generation, but enmity generation is so easy now that I would say it's nowhere near being an issue to consider. As such, it's like I said before: always take crit rather than det if you can.

Thanks Kitru

A lot of useful information, Kitru. I have to admit i never put that much thought into the warrior rotation (I'm mainly a paladin :) )
Gonna try out what you posted there, sounds great :D

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Originally Posted by Kitru

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I never said that was the "right" way, I just said it's the way I do things. And to be honest, what I do works perfectly for my playstyle. The only time I have ever had enmity pulled off me was before I got my Relic Zenith weapon. I was merely trying to help as best I can.

You could be a little less mean and backhanded about it. I get you're trying to stroke your ego and prove so badly that you know more about the subject than I do, but that's not much of an excuse to openly insult me personally for trying to help because it's not the best way of doing things.

That being said, I didn't actually know that Pacification could be Esuna'd/Leeched off me (honestly because I don't trust most healers to remove any debuffs off me that they can remove off me) and I operate under the assumption that everyone can pull enmity off me if I don't generate a proper floor of enmity under me before I do anything else so I don't feel comfortable using a DPS combo before an Enmity-generating combo in fear that someone's going to pull something off me.

Maybe I just don't trust people in my party most of the time, and that's why I've developed the way I do things. But I will be taking some of your advice, because it is good advice, even though you were particularly rude about it.

The Pacification from Berserk can be Esuna/Leeches off if need be. I use Berserk when I'm helping with DPS bursting and IDGAF.

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Originally Posted by HakuroDK

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Kitru was completely right when he said:

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Originally Posted by Kitru

If you seriously want to give advice to people, make sure you actually know what you're talking about. Pretty much all of the advice you provided was wrong (beyond the whole "turn off Defiance" derp, because, you know, it's not as if it never occurred to anyone else to turn off the stance that reduces damage by 25% when they don't need to tank).

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You know how many people go to these forums for advice and info on how to play their class properly? Maybe 10% of the people who read these forums actually post here. Also, there's no way for them to know who is knowledgeable and who is not.

"Advice" posts should be held to a higher standard, because people depend on forums to help themselves understand their class and improve. Misleading advice makes the community worse.

I really hope that nobody took your post as good advice and is now starting fights by spamming Butcher's Block combo for 45-60 seconds and took Berserk off their hotbar.

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Originally Posted by HakuroDK

(honestly because I don't trust most healers to remove any debuffs off me that they can remove off me)

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I don't expect to get Pacification esuna/leeched off of me and only recently added a Berserk macro that warns my party when Berserk is about to end and I'm going to get pacified (and the only reason I did that was because the healers I regularly run with kept asking me to make one) so I understand the instinct to say that a tank can't, or at least *shouldn't*, expect it to be cleansed. It's still factually wrong to say that it can't be removed. It's also nowhere near the handicap you make it out to be. The impact of the Pacification is less about how you simply can't act for 2 GCDs since the chances of you needing to act within those 2 GCDs, assuming you're using it intelligently, are negligible and more that, because you can't act, it dramatically cuts down the value of Berserk over time (since you're getting ~40% increase to all damage for 20 seconds and a ~75% reduction in damage dealt, since that's about what your special attacks make up, for 5 seconds afterwards; it basically translates into 25% increase to damage over the entire 25 second period Berserk is doing anything to you, which is a reduction to only 62.5% of it's potential effectiveness).

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and I operate under the assumption that everyone can pull enmity off me if I don't generate a proper floor of enmity under me before I do anything else so I don't feel comfortable using a DPS combo before an Enmity-generating combo in fear that someone's going to pull something off me.

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If you go back and check the post, I only said that the SE>BB>BB>BB rotation is the highest enmity rotation WARs have. I never said that's what you should start off with. In fact, if you check the explicit starting attack string I laid out, you'll notice that it starts off with a BB combo to establish the cushion required to be able to use SE afterwards specifically *because* I know that, if I don't, people will pull off of me. If you want to be especially paranoid about people pulling off of you at the start, you could add an extra BB combo to the start (and don't use Vengeance; the reason for the Vengeance is the 5th Wrath stack to let you move into the Unchained>Berserk>IR CD use string after the 2nd full combo; if you start with 3 combos, you don't need Veng for the stacks).

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even though you were particularly rude about it.

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If you hang around on these forums long enough, you'll soon realize that I'm not being rude. I'm being curt and direct, which you then interpret as being rude because you're not used to people not treating you as if you were fragile. Nowhere in there did I directly insult you. The closest I got to insulting you was pointing out that virtually everything you said was wrong, which was a factual observation. Don't confuse being told that you're wrong when you're wrong with someone being rude to you.

Theoretically, Kitru, since I'm not as good with math as you are, I pose a couple questions for a scenario that is likely unobtainable. =P

First question: What is the Base Crit chance for a Warrior at level 50?
2nd Question: How much % to Crit is each point worth in secondary stats?
3rd Question: At what point would your crit chance become so much more reliable, that it WOULD be worth using IB only as mitigation?

I did a Gear calcualtion and found that IF sacrificing ilvl, you can get to 553 Crit Rating. I don't know what your chance to crit is with that number, AND 10% from 5 Wrath Stacks.

But I would like to know how much +212 Crit Rating is actually going to give, and how beneficial it could theoretically be to Warrior DPS.

This scenario is totally Unrealistic, and impossible! So, Theory time. =P

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What is the Base Crit chance for a Warrior at level 50?

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A naked Warrior has about 5.3% Crit Chance.

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How much % to Crit is each point worth in secondary stats?

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Each point of crit gives you exactly 0.07% chance to crit

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At what point would your crit chance become so much more reliable, that it WOULD be worth using IB only as mitigation?

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Never. Each percent of crit chance becomes less valuable as you gain more of it.

Going from 0% crit to 10% crit would increase your DPS by 5.00%.

Going from 10% crit to 20% crit would increase your DPS by 4.76%.

Going from 20% crit to 30% crit would increase your DPS by 4.55%.

So if we're only talking about DPS output, as you gain MORE crit, it would become LESS worthwhile to sit on your Wrath stacks instead of using it immediately on IB. This is even before we consider that IB is more valuable now since it has a higher chance to crit.

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I did a Gear calcualtion and found that IF sacrificing ilvl, you can get to 553 Crit Rating. I don't know what your chance to crit is with that number, AND 10% from 5 Wrath Stacks.

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5.32% base crit + (212 x 0.07%) from CHR + 10% from Wrath.
=
5.32% + 14.84% + 10.00%
=
30.16%


BTW, you haven't addressed the post in the other thread where you said my friend's T8 DPS (~170) was low and that your DPS was better. He was tanking and in Defiance. You were in Sword Oath in Dragoon Accessories. Not a fair comparison.

Nice! Thanks for all that!

What I was wondering about is based on another game, (Aion) where you can get to 45% Crit chance easily, and it made Critting quite considerable, but clearly this game is never going to allow those % chances to happen.

It's sad to see that each point is That minuscule.. Why are there so many secondary stat points in this game? Why didn't SE just compound them... Make 1 Crit point, 1%, and make gear NOT have many of them available? It just seems like the weights are so low, that I'm basically not able to care about Secondarys at all anymore.