Unchained. Seriously, why are we not abusing this skill?

Unchained

Recast: 120
Cast time: Instant
Nullifies the damage penalty inflicted by Defiance.
Duration: 20s
Can only be executed when Infuriated.
All Wrath is lost when used.
Effect is canceled if Defiance ends.

But Fallen, all it does is make defiance damage not bad? Why should I trade a Fell Cleave for i- FOOL!

This increases your damage under Defiance, which multiples with the enmity bonus you gain from Defiance! What does this mean? IT MEANS YOUR GOOD BUDDY PLD/DRK DON'T HAVE TO SUFFER THEIR STANCE PENALTY TO BUILD HATE! 33% more Damage/Enmity is INSANE!

By opening as MT with Unchained, your PLD/DRK gain upwards to 20% damage in their opening and don't have to rotate Rage of Halone/Power Slash! While the Warrior only loses a pitiful 5% from not having Deliverance and 1-3 Fell Cleave opportunities.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

Once Unchained ends, you can(and probably should in most circumstances) quickly tank swap(if mechanics allow) so that your fellow PLD/DRK can enjoy the benefits they gain from MTing AND they can ride that fat aggro lead that will afford them more time in their Offensive stance and/or avoid more Rage of Halone/Power Slashes!

What if... You paired Berserk with it? Watch as that pitiful Black Mage's aggro bar disappears into oblivion and reap the praise you shall receive from your DRK/PLD buddy as they join you in ultra tank DPS that put terrible DPS to shame! (Nothing to be proud of really)

Honestly, I fail to understand why there are these tales of Warriors who only OT and refuse to do anything but. Never touching their Defiance button or making sure Deliverance is activated once the encounter begins. One quick glance at this skill and it should be disgustingly clear how powerful it is and what a RAIDdps benefit it would bring if utilized well. Optimize for your team dang it!

You can save your stacks you gained from rotating combos during the opener for Fell Cleaves at the end instead of popping them for Inner Beasts. So an example opener I would use would be:

(Precharged 5 stacks with Infuriate, Raw Intuition at 1 second, then pull at 10 seconds.) Unchained, TmhK/OP, HS, Zerk+IR, Maim, Pot, SE, Brutal Swing, HS, SS, BB, HS, Deliverance, FC, Infuriate, FC, Maim, Pacify, Tank swap! Etc.

If I wanted to just generate a Fat aggro lead and don't wanna do the precharge Infuriate it would look more like this: Infuriate, Tmhk/OP, HS, Unchained, Maim, Zerk+IR, SE, Brutal Swing, HS, SS, BB, HS, SS, BB, Deliverance, FC, Pacify. You actually won't drop SE if you can get a cleanse for the pacify.

Those are my openers anyways, perhaps not perfect but I implore you to create your own, optimize it, and share so we can all reap the benefits.

Bonus Points if NIN can Smokescreen you and Shadeshift the new MT so that you can rotate some more Butcher's Block in without worrying too much about aggro. Otherwise SE spam is not as bad.

You should both be sharing tanking responsibilities where possible, regardless, to get the most out of your defensive cooldowns and maximize your time out of tank stance. There's less of a need for dedicated MT/OT designations now that both tanks are wearing equivalent gear (i.e. equal amounts of vit).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

Touch me

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I could be way off, but why waste a stack on RI when you have 5 stacks of sexy?

Until such time that a DRK or PLD in offensive stance can deliver numbers equal to a "Tripple Fel Cleave" combo, or "4800 Potency in 20 seconds with the added 10% mitigation and a 10% damage boost to the MT", I shall continue to OT as that's what WAR is undisputably best at...;)

The only time Unchained is a viable use of Wrath is when you have an extended phase with a hard-hitting single target to off-tank during a dps check... And even then, Inner Beast can arguably do almost as much damage while mitigating damage better and giving your healers a breathing space.

You need to grab enmity? Provoke. You need to hold enmity? Enmity combo... I've yet to encounter a situation where the DPS can pull a mob harder than I do unless I'm eighter (a) Undergeared 10 or more Itemlevels, or (b) Doing far too many StP, EoS combos.

It's not that Unchained is *bad*, per say... It's just that popping a defensive cooldown and going into Deliverance with a berserk-boosted tripple Fel Cleave is *so much better*.

The fact that 3.0 gave WAR a dedicated dps stance that bursts harder than the melee jobs, while simutaneously indulging Yoshi P's love for bursty dps races and bosses with long invincibility/untargetability windows simply makes Unchained redundant....

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Originally Posted by Anienai

I could be way off, but why waste a stack on RI when you have 5 stacks of sexy?

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Pre-charging 5 stacks allows you to have 5 stacks of Wrath/Abandon on pull while also having Infuriate up as well. This is done by Infuriating first (60 second cooldown), waiting till your Wrath/Abandon reach 3-1 seconds left then popping Raw Intuition/Vengeance to extend it by another 30 seconds (pulling at 10 - 5 seconds left).

This enables the above opener or a quicker triple fell cleave zerk that lines up better with party buffs. i.e: Precharge 5 stack,(Fight start) HS, Maim, SE, HS Zerk (your triple FC rotation) ...

Most people won't wait for it but it's there if you wanna min-max.

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Originally Posted by Twailaith

snip

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you think too small if you think that your triple fell cleave is the be all and end all of dps and frankly it's selfish to think that just because your personal dps is good or decent that you are helping the raid. the fact is that WAR has the best threat and will do 5% less damage with a unchained opener and 1 less FC while also providing a massive boost in overall raid dps thanks to your PLD or DRK doing X% more damage thanks to not being in their tank stance.

whats funnier more is you claim that WAR still does more burst then any melee, that right there is a complete lie.

so do please tell me why again you should be the OT? it's not damage, it's not raid damage, it's your over inflated ego that thinks it's topdog dps.

Isn't this old information? I thought this was common knowledge, and I don't even main WAR. Then again, my group on A5S has the PLD pull for some reason... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Because a lot of the WAR population now consists of people who started in 3.0 and don't know how WAR works, only that they do a lot of damage.

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Isn't this old information? I thought this was common knowledge, and I don't even main WAR. Then again, my group on A5S has the PLD pull for some reason... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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A5S is actually kinda weird since the MT gets knocked with damage down stacks and then gets stunned for like 10s. I wonder if the WAR pull would still be optimal there, especially with the reduced damage the boss takes during that time. Hard to say.

so, unchained and berserk in defiance(without unchained) which one gives bigger boost to damage?

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

A5S is actually kinda weird since the MT gets knocked with damage down stacks and then gets stunned for like 10s. I wonder if the WAR pull would still be optimal there, especially with the reduced damage the boss takes during that time. Hard to say.

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That's a good point, i'll have to think about this.

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Originally Posted by konpachizaraki

so, unchained and berserk in defiance(without unchained) which one gives bigger boost to damage?

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Unchained raises you from 75% to 100% (A buff of +33.3% damage - stronger than Fight or Flight!)
Berserk raises you from 75% to ~75%x150% = 112.5%

Maim and Storm's Eye make the difference larger.

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Originally Posted by BattleGrace

so do please tell me why again you should be the OT? it's not damage, it's not raid damage, it's your over inflated ego that thinks it's topdog dps.

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Wasn't WAR sort of shoe horned into the off tank role because of the rep it got for not being very tanky? The job overhaul (the one that added a damage reduction to vengeance and some other changes) made them solid tanks, but PLD were too high and mighty to step away from the main tank role.

Because moar DEEPS.
Duh !

Yes, it's sad...

I think this really depends on the party setup.I'm assuming the reason people don't open up this way for the most part is that if say there's a dragoon in the party it's worth staying in deliverance on opening for that higher fell cleave crit chance.Given the long cooldowns on some of the party buffs in general you're probably still losing more dps overall.
Most competant MT's can stay in their offensive stance when dealing with a single target boss anyway.
Hell you could just open with a tripple cleave on warrior and hold agro on boss that way and let pld switch after anyway.

I love using unchained as often as I can, when it's the right time. This includes my openers, but also times when I want to keep my deliverance-like damage while being in defiance. Mainly done when a situation calls for me staying in defiance longer than usual cause the healers need the help, and I don't want to waste wrath stacks but IB isn't necessary. Otherwise, I'm in deliverance cycling through defensives as the situation calls for using all stacks on FC.

A lot of people in this thread are drastically missing the point.

No matter what your party comp consists of, it is always - always - always - optimal for raid DPS to have the WAR do their 1-minute cooldown opener with Unchained chaining into Deliverance>Berserk and then have the other tank swap in on Pacify. It allows both tanks to do near-perfect opening DPS on the pull without threat issues at the start or in the long run. The issue with this is that it's a JP strat, not NA/EU. The mentality of NA/EU players is different from that of the JP players. Where they consider ways of making micro optimizations here and there to the overall benefit of the raid, we have this unfortunate strict definition of MT and OT and whoever pulls is MT.

Basically, the tanking roles are and should be considered to be more fluid than that.


Also in regards to what Metalwrath said, I don't play WAR, but I am 99.9% positive that your Berserk is delayed by the exact same amount whether you drop an unchained butcher's block first or if that first BB is Deliverance as the off-tank. You're not gonna Berserk before you've built 4 stacks, which takes 2 combos, which is all you'll be in Defiance for anyway with an Unchained pull.

http://ffxivrotations.com/613 versus http://ffxivrotations.com/615

(can obv swap the Infuriate Fell Cleave to be the second not the third if wanted for additional gains off party buffs)

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Originally Posted by Brian_

From that perspective, Unchained is one of the strongest defensive CDs in the game.

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Considering that you should never be stanceless, Unchained is thus a Defensive cooldown that decreases your damage by 5% while locking your most powerful skill for slightly less than 25% increase in eHP.
So, basically, it's weaker than Rampart.

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Originally Posted by BattleGrace

you think too small if you think that your triple fell cleave is the be all and end all of dps and frankly it's selfish to think that just because your personal dps is good or decent that you are helping the raid. the fact is that WAR has the best threat and will do 5% less damage with a unchained opener and 1 less FC while also providing a massive boost in overall raid dps thanks to your PLD or DRK doing X% more damage thanks to not being in their tank stance.

whats funnier more is you claim that WAR still does more burst then any melee, that right there is a complete lie.

so do please tell me why again you should be the OT? it's not damage, it's not raid damage, it's your over inflated ego that thinks it's topdog dps.

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Firstly; I am just as likely to use my DRK as I am to use my WAR, They literally have the same gear and Itemlevel and I'd like to think that I'm decent at both of them, with PLD slowly climbing it's way to 60 as well...


My oppinion is based upon what I've seen and experienced with the classes, both as MT and OT.

The 20 seconds after you activate Berserk, you'll do roughly 4800 Potency's worth of damage. If there's a melee (We all know that MCH has *The* Burst combo) that can do the same or better in the same amount of time, please prove me wrong and I'll happily cede that claim... Also; Please refrain from calling me a liar.

I'm not even sure what your actual argument here is... A WAR *Has* the best dps of the tank classes. The Raid's priority *is* (after survival) the amount of damage it does to the boss, as virtually all end-game bosses has a enrage mechanic that hits unless you kill it within a given amount of time.

A Raid *will* have two out of the three tank classes. A WAR *is* the best at dpsing, the same way DRK mitigates magic damage and a PLD is unbeatable at taking physical hits.

A DRK's main mitigation skill and resource gain *requires* it to be hit. A PLD's entire shtick is to have Block on top of it's cooldowns to passively mitigate damage and ease the burden on your healers.

A WAR's entire toolset *is* designed around boosting it's own damage and self-heal rather than mitigate damage. Unlike the other two it doesn't need to be MT to utilize it's full skillset, and it's raid-affecting skills both rotate from it's non-enmity combo.

The only instance where another tank class needs to leave tank stance is when a DRK uses Blood Weapon, which it can do and still hold aggro if it's properly timed and you communicate with your raid's DPS and healers. Dark Arts and Powerslash is a wonderful thing when combined.

That you've somehow gotten it into your head that a DRK or PLD in offensive stance is better at dpsing than a Deliverance WAR is beyond me. That you somehow think that higher enmity (which still always caps at "The boss is hitting me") is more important than higher damage confuses me.

A competent tank *will* hold aggro, no matter what class it is.

So yes, it is my honest and sincere oppinion that WAR's greatest benefit to it's Raid group is as a Deliverance-using Offtank that takes advantage of it's skillset to pack as much concentrated dps into it's rotations and cooldowns as it can.

It is my oppinion that a WAR that's MT'ing should rely on Inner Beast rather than Unchained, as it can hold aggro anyway and the 6 seconds of mitigation and the 300 potency self-heal offers more Raid-wide benefits than "Pulling harder on the boss I'm already pulling and holding".

Sit down, son.

Machinist: 7306.53 potency done during the duration of Wildfire (including the WF pop).
Dragoon: 6446.59 potency done while Blood for Blood is active.

Neither of these include the 3 (MCH) or 2 (DRG) lead-up GCDs before the period I measured. Both of these end less than 25s into the fight.

BLM is likely higher than either, considering the fact that their Fire IV (of which there are 5-6 in the opener) is 500+ potency without Raging Strikes included.

4800 is garbage.

Calculations:

In the 15s during Wildfire, a Machinist will do:
Slug Shot [HE+B4B+RS+HC+GB+A] 200x1.15x1.1x1.2x1.1x1.3x1.05 = 455.85
Clean Shot [HE+B4B+RS+HC+GB+A+Auto-Crit] 220x1.15x1.1x1.2x1.1x1.3x1.5x1.05 = 752.16
Split Shot [HE+B4B+RS+HC+GB+A] 160x1.15x1.1x1.2x1.1x1.3x1.05 = 364.68
Slug Shot [HE+B4B+RS+HC+GB+A] 200x1.15x1.1x1.2x1.1x1.3x1.05 = 455.85
Split Shot [HE+B4B+RS+HC+GB+A] 160x1.15x1.1x1.2x1.1x1.3x1.05 = 364.68
Slug Shot [HE+B4B+RS+HC+GB+A] 200x1.15x1.1x1.2x1.1x1.3x1.05 = 455.85
Clean Shot [HE+B4B+RS+HC+GB] 200x1.15x1.1x1.2x1.1x1.3x1.05 = 455.85
Slug Shot [HC+GB] 180x1.1x1.3x1.05 = 270.27
Split Shot [HC] 140x1.1x1.05 = 161.7

Total for GCDs: 3736.89

In addition to:
Gauss Round 200x1.15x1.1x1.2x1.1x1.3x1.05 = 455.85
Ricochet 300x1.15x1.1x1.2x1.1x1.3x1.05 = 683.78
Blank 100x1.15x1.1x1.2x1.1x1.3x1.05 = 227.93
Head Graze 100x1.15x1.1x1.2x1.1x1.3x1.05 = 227.93

Total for oGCDs: 1595.49

And 5 ticks of Lead Shot:
45x1.15x1.1x1.2x1.1x1.3x1.05x5 = 512.84

That totals to: 5845.22
Wildfire deals 25% of that: 1461.31

The final total is: 7306.53 potency.
And I didn't include Disembowel or Trick Attack.

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In the 20s of Blood for Blood, a Dragoon will do:
Disembowel 220x1.15x1.3 = 328.9
Chaos Thrust 250x1.15x1.3x1.1 = 411.125
Chaos Thrust dot 35x8.2x1.15x1.3 = 429.065
4th Hit 290x1.15x1.3x1.1 = 476.905
Phlebotomize 170x1.15x1.3x1.1 = 279.565
Phleb DoT 30x8x1.15x1.3 = 358.8
True Thrust 150x1.15x1.3x1.1 = 246.675
Vorpal Thrust = 200x1.15x1.3x1.1 = 328.9
Full Thrust = 360x1.15x1.3x1.1x1.5 = 888.03
4th Hit 290x1.15x1.3x1.1 = 476.905
Heavy Thrust 170x1.15x1.3x1.1 = 279.565

Total for GCDs: 4504.435

While also hitting:
Leg Sweep 120x1.15x1.3x1.1 = 197.34
Jump 200x1.5x1.3x1.15x1.3x1.1 = 641.355
Spineshatter 170x1.3x1.15x1.3x1.1 = 363.435
Dragonfire 250x1.15x1.3x1.1 = 411.125
Geirskogul 200x1.15x1.3x1.1 = 328.9

Total for oGCDs: 1942.155

The final total is: 6446.59
Again, not including Hypercharge or Trick Attack.
I also didn't adjust for the +25% crit chance that these skills all have.
(15% for Dis -> second 4th, 10% for Dis -> VT, 25% on every ogcd)

//EDIT:

WAR is not ~4800, but actually ~6178.41 potency during a properly executed triple-fell-cleave Berserk. Much better than 4800, but still below the two shown above and likely most - if not all - other DPS Jobs. They /might/ be able to beat MNK and NIN burst, but I'd be shocked if they beat a proper BRD, BLM, or SMN opener. I just can't be arsed to calculate all of these.

The triple Fell Cleave Berserk looks like this:
Fell Cleave 500x1.05x1.5x1.2x1.1 = 1039.5
Maim 190x1.05x1.5x1.2x1.1 = 395.01
Storm's Eye 270x1.05x1.5x1.2x1.1 = 561.33
Heavy Swing 150x1.05x1.5x1.2x1.1 = 311.85
Skull Sunder 200x1.05x1.5x1.2x1.1 = 415.8
Butcher's Block 280x1.05x1.5x1.2x1.1 = 582.12
Fracture 100x1.05x1.5x1.2x1.1 = 207.9
Fracture DoT 20x10x1.05x1.5x1.2 = 378
Fell Cleave 500x1.05x1.5x1.2x1.1 = 1039.5
Fell Cleave 500x1.05x1.5x1.2x1.1 = 1039.5

Brutal Swing 100x1.05x1.5x1.2x1.1 = 207.9

Total: 6178.41

NONE of the above takes Auto Attacks into account. MCH has no autos, but they DO have a 160 damage auto from the Turret every 3s for that duration. It doesn't get any buffs besides its own Hypercharge, but all 5 of those hits add on to the Wildfire pop.

DRG AA's are stronger than WAR AA's, by which I mean a delay of 3.44 = 5-6 AA's in Berserk, while a delay of 2.88 = 6-7 AA's in B4B.

I think some of you are missing the point. A warrior doing an Unchained pull enables both tanks to be in dps stance for the entire fight even if you dont have a NIN. The PLD/DRK simply provokes after the opener and the war can go back to fell cleaving to their heart's content. For a paladin that's 10 minutes of not having damage penalty from shield oath and 10 minutes of using Royal Authority instead Rage of Halone while they still get shield swipe procs.

Clearly all PLD/DRK mains will require a WAR pull slave. Not only do WAR's have amazing utility but they also have the ability to generate tons of Enmity with no penalty and the PLD/DRK can just execute the Baton Pass. WAR truly is the best Tank job.

I'll come back to this thread the day that I actually see a War volunteer to actually "TANK" something ... ANYTHING. I can't imagine that will be anytime soon, though. Seeing a war in Defiance is about as rare as a purple spotted unicorn. I don't think I've seen one since the Coil days ... God I miss the Coils ...

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Originally Posted by Februs

I'll come back to this thread the day that I actually see a War volunteer to actually "TANK" something ... ANYTHING. I can't imagine that will be anytime soon, though. Seeing a war in Defiance is about as rare as a purple spotted unicorn. I don't think I've seen one since the Coil days ... God I miss the Coils ...

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To be fair, I usually go the opposite stance of what the other tank is doing, and when it's a pld or drk they almost always have their tank stance on before even loading in.

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Originally Posted by Februs

I'll come back to this thread the day that I actually see a War volunteer to actually "TANK" something ... ANYTHING. I can't imagine that will be anytime soon, though. Seeing a war in Defiance is about as rare as a purple spotted unicorn. I don't think I've seen one since the Coil days ... God I miss the Coils ...

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In DF 8-man content with a swap and where Path is at all useful, the usual assumption is that I, the WAR, will pull, and then the Sword Oath / no-Grit PLD/DRK will take it off me. Sadly, with no swaps, they tend to just pull even if I'm already in Defiance, despite that I could have allowed them full Sword Oath if they were to swap in on Pacify. "I'll be like, want to Sword Oath?" and they'll be like "That's okay, I'll just MT," and I'll be like "that's my point..." and they'll be like /confused...

Also tend to just MT fulltime as WAR if I'm with a PLD. If they let me. ...They rarely do.

That said, I'm no WAR main. I tend to PLD anything that HG or Cover can cheese, DRK if I'm with a NIN or WAR friend, and WAR the rest simply for the guaranteed NIN-ish tools (threat, slashing) when queuing solo. No-Grit DRK MTing is my preferred gameplay, if my internet can handle double-weaves, and stance-dancing WAR my second favorite.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Not only do WAR's have amazing utility but they also have the ability to generate tons of Enmity with no penalty and the PLD/DRK can just execute the Baton Pass. WAR truly is the best Tank job.

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Which is a shame because I would love for PLD and DRK to be on WAR's level.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Februs

I'll come back to this thread the day that I actually see a War volunteer to actually "TANK" something ... ANYTHING. I can't imagine that will be anytime soon, though. Seeing a war in Defiance is about as rare as a purple spotted unicorn. I don't think I've seen one since the Coil days ... God I miss the Coils ...

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It's so aggravating to see so many WARs sit there in Deliverance before a pull in Midas normal and not use Defiance and Unchained to open. Do you really want me, the Shield Oath PLD to pull...?

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Originally Posted by Syhrwyb

It's so aggravating to see so many WARs sit there in Deliverance before a pull in Midas normal and not use Defiance and Unchained to open. Do you really want me, the Shield Oath PLD to pull...?

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Well, yeah. You're in Shield Oath so clearly you want to tank, and it's Midas Normal where you won't have aggro problems against 99% of DPS because they're all trash anyway.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Syhrwyb

It's so aggravating to see so many WARs sit there in Deliverance before a pull in Midas normal and not use Defiance and Unchained to open. Do you really want me, the Shield Oath PLD to pull...?

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I don't trust the average DF PLD to be able to make up for the small amount of DPS I lose doing that. Nor do I trust them to be able to tank swap properly when mechanics dictate they should. If they're clearly a geared raider who should know what they're doing then I'll gladly open. I don't care if some barely i220 PLD with unmelded gear would parse 500 DPS in SwO instead of an abysmal 300 DPS in ShO.

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Originally Posted by Launched

Well, yeah. You're in Shield Oath so clearly you want to tank, and it's Midas Normal where you won't have aggro problems against 99% of DPS because they're all trash anyway.

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Think you misunderstood what I meant. WARs will sit there in Deliverance making me go into Shield Oath, I never start off in that stance.

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Originally Posted by Brian_

It doesn't lock out your most powerful skill because if you could read, you would've noticed that Unchained's duration lines-up with the amount of time needed to build another 5 stacks. If you are Infuriating while Unchained, you are doing it wrong.

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But using those 5 stacks for Unchained prevents you from using Fell Cleave.

As for the healing bonus, you know that Defiance offers around the same eHP as Shield Oath thanks to the max HP increase and the healing bonus. And Shield Oath reduces damage like Rampart. So, a short time in Defiance...let's say, those 20s of Unchained, is exactly like being under Rampart for...20s. And it still reduces your DPS output by 5% just by forcing you out of Deliverance. And it also sits on a longer cooldown than Rampart.

I don't even know why I post here when apparently nobody bothers to read anything or have even a modicum of reading comprehension.

Like I have said and repeated, Unchained's duration is deliberately as long as it takes you to build another 5 stacks. For the third time --

Defiance + Unchained --> HS --> Maim(1) --> Eye(2) --> HS --> SS(3) --> BB(4) --> HS --> Maim(5) --> Deliverance + FC

That's 8 GCDs. 8 GCDs = ~20 seconds = the duration of Unchained.

So...

You are not forced to spend your stacks on IB/SC during Unchained.

You are not forced to spend your stacks on IB/SC during Unchained.

You are not forced to spend your stacks on IB/SC during Unchained.

You are not forced to spend your stacks on IB/SC during Unchained.

You are not forced to spend your stacks on IB/SC during Unchained.

And the reason why a WAR is in Defiance is because they need the extra eHP and effective healing. It's not necessarily to pop IB. Again, for the third time, you have 25% more HP, access to Equilibrium's healing, and receive 20% more healing. That's the combined effect of ToB and Convalescence. Do you even play WAR at any respectable level?

Reading is hard though! BabyRage

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Originally Posted by Brian_

Like I have said and repeated, Unchained's duration is deliberately as long as it takes you to build another 5 stacks. For the third time --

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For the third time, using 5 stacks for Unchained in the first place prevents you from using Fell Cleave. So, to use your "msot powerful defensive cooldown" you have to sacrifice one opportunity of using your most powerful skill. Is that clear now ? Now, tell me what DRK or PLD needs to sacrifice to gain 25% eHP for a short time ? Nothing. And especially none of their damage by being forced in tanke stance.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Brian_

Again, for the third time, you have 25% more HP, access to Equilibrium's healing, and receive 20% more healing. That's the combined effect of ToB and Convalescence. Do you even play WAR at any respectable level?

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Again, no. You don't have the combined effect of Thrill Of Battle and Convalescence, you just have the effect of...Defiance. Having 25% more HP and receiving 20% more Healing is less than the effect of Rampart.

You make it sound like tank stance has an awesome effect on mitigation, where, technically, it has not. Any defensive cooldown gives you higher mitigation than your tank stance. What makes tank stances good is the fact that they can have 100% uptime. But since you advise to stay in Defiance only for the duration of Unchained, then it loses that property. What also makes Unchained+Defiance less powerful than Rampart is that it doesn't increase your HP, so, you'd technically need to heal yourself, to really gain that 25%eHP. Will you burn another cooldown to gain the exact same eHP increase ? Equilibirum, maybe ?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Syhrwyb

Reading is hard though! BabyRage

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honestly these forums have been rather frustrating to go through lately. Same with healer forums too. Maybe brian was possibly including our little "argument" in my xeno thread, but there are a lot of people just saying stuff just to say stuff. They are arguing just for the sake of arguing and being childish/rude. When there are actual civilized debates with actual data/examples its really fun learning things (which is why I even bother coming here still), but some people just want to add their personal opinions into things and make it worse.

I even question if a lot of the people here actually raid or research before chiming in. This is why I wish the skill gap for the game was higher. Right now you could have a monkey play a tank/dps in expert roulette (OR BOTH) and completely get through the instance still. Its just a lot of people aren't punished except in raid content and don't know right vs wrong.

internet be damned.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

For the third time, using 5 stacks for Unchained in the first place prevents you from using Fell Cleave. So, to use your "msot powerful defensive cooldown" you have to sacrifice one opportunity of using your most powerful skill. Is that clear now ?

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In my very first post, I stated multiple times that YES, YOU PAY 5 STACKS FOR IT. Did I ever deny that? NO. I said in explicit terms that was the cost. You pay 5 stacks for what amounts to one of the best defensive CDs in the game.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Now, tell me what DRK or PLD needs to sacrifice to gain 25% eHP for a short time ? Nothing. And especially none of their damage by being forced in tanke stance.

Again, no. You don't have the combined effect of Thrill Of Battle and Convalescence, you just have the effect of...Defiance. Having 25% more HP and receiving 20% more Healing is less than the effect of Rampart.

You make it sound like tank stance has an awesome effect on mitigation, where, technically, it has not. Any defensive cooldown gives you higher mitigation than your tank stance. What makes tank stances good is the fact that they can have 100% uptime. But since you advise to stay in Defiance only for the duration of Unchained, then it loses that property. What also makes Unchained+Defiance less powerful than Rampart is that it doesn't increase your HP, so, you'd technically need to heal yourself, to really gain that 25%eHP. Will you burn another cooldown to gain the exact same eHP increase ? Equilibirum, maybe ?

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Every good tank views their tank stance as an additional defensive CD. Unfortunately, for PLD and DRK, that defensive CD comes at a very high cost so it's their last option. As Layla Bell and Xeno put it, using Grit is like using an IB that deals no damage, doesn't heal you, and then gimps your damage. WARs have the benefit that their equivalent does not have so extreme a cost because of Unchained. You speak of Rampart and Shadowskin as if those two CDs aren't also 2 of the best defensive CDs in the game. Or, that Defiance + Unchained isn't basically the same.

Thrill of Battle boosts your max HP by 20% and heals you for that amount.

Convalescence increases the healing you receive by 20%.

Defiance boosts your max hp by 25% and the healing you receive by 20%. Gaining access to Equilibrium's heal is much better than ToB's healing component because you can control when you get that burst of HP back rather than have it front loaded.

So, come again about how it isn't their combined effect or better in practice.

But really, if you want to look at theory, then let's look at theory --

Do you know how ShO and Defiance compare?

25% max HP increase boosts your eHP the same exact amount that 20% damage reduction does. Do the math.

What is not equivalent is the value of healing. That is why Defiance has the healing boost that it does. All in all, the gap in healing is in the single digits. So, the effective survivability is basically a wash -- a point that people have always said about Defiance vs. ShO. It really doesn't matter that Defiance doesn't heal you unless you are in a situation where you need the max eHP immediately (in which case you can just Equilibrium).

So you pay what amounts to ~370 potency worth of DPS over the duration of Unchained for a defensive CD on par with Rampart and Shadowskin with slight side-perks like a boosted party shield with Adlo + deploy, significantly better enmity generation, and flexibility with self-healing. Also, what people don't often mention is how the massive ballooning of tank HP vs. the lesser scaling of damage has influenced this balance. When you have 34k HP + Equilibrium, you can live a long time with only supplementary healing from HoTs and fairies. That's a big boost from 27k HP + no Equilibrium. Your healers can top you off and then go to DPS town with little worry.

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Originally Posted by Syhrwyb

Think you misunderstood what I meant. WARs will sit there in Deliverance making me go into Shield Oath, I never start off in that stance.

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I think it's the stigma that WAR is the bonafide OT and that it is expected that the other 2 Tanks are almost always going to be the MT of the instance. Since the 2 get the most out of their kit in MT role.

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Originally Posted by Brian_

Every good tank views their tank stance as an additional defensive CD.

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It is, but in your case, you're not talkin just about Defiance, but Defiance + Unchained, which means that you're restricted by a cooldown. Besides, what makes WAR great at mitigation is Inner Beast. Without it, it has clearly less mitigation tools than PLD or DRK. So that defensive setup, in this situation, is cheaper for PLD and DRK than for WAR.

I'll make calculations on how PLD and WAR would compare on these 20 seconds :
Let's suppose that both tanks are in DPS stance, with every combo already active (Maim, Eye, Goring Blade, Halone...)

As a WAR, you pop Defiance+Unchained, then do the combo you mentionned : Eye combo (150+190+270) - BB combo (150+200+280)+ HS (150) + Maim (190) for a total of 1580 potency. With buffs, you have 1580*1.2(Maim)*1.1(Eye) = 2085 potency with a 25% eHP increase thanks to Defiance.

As a PLD, you pop Rampart, then do (at worst) Halone Combo (150+200+260), RA combo (150+200+340)+FB (150) + RB (230) for a total of 1680 potency. BUT, you also have a tick of Goring Blade and Sword Oath for approximately each GCD adding up to 800 potency. I'll remove two ticks of Goring because the GCD is lower, so 700. So 1680+700 = 2380. For the same eHP increase thanks to Rampart. On top of that, PLD will probably have Sheltron available to stack.

So, if the mitigation from your tank stance is enough to survive those 20s, then WAR is actually weaker than PLD on that window (And keep in mind that I didn't count Storm's Eye for the PLD). So, it would be better to let the PLD tank for that time, in SwO with Rampart, and use those abandon stacks for Fell Cleave while staying in Deliverance.

No, what makes WAR great at mitigation is the fact that they are a WAR. Like I said earlier, WAR has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to mitigation and that is the reason why we do not need to dig deep enough in our toolkit that Unchained becomes relevant. So, IB or no IB, WAR is more than adequately equipped for all the current content in this game. As a raiding WAR, I never use IB. But, because you are just running your mouth on topics you don't understand, of course you wouldn't know this.

Between Holmgang having a 180s recast (as opposed to the 300s recast of LD and the 420s recast of HG) and Vengeance / Thrill having a 120s recast (as opposed to the 180s recasts of Shadow Wall and Sentinel), WAR has a very easy time with mitigation. The only time where they don't have adequate mitigation without IB is in the hypothetical scenario where you are taking a magic tank buster that demands high mitigation on a <120s recast in a situation where you cannot tank swap. That situation will remain hypothetical because the PLD is even more hopeless given those conditions.

What you fail to comprehend is that Unchained + Defiance exists in addition to a toolkit that is already over equipped for current damage intake.

Rampart does not.

And great, PLD does more damage than WAR over a very selective 20s window. If only you structured tank swaps in raid content in 20s intervals.

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Originally Posted by Brian_

As a raiding WAR, I never use IB. But, because you are just running your mouth on topics you don't understand, of course you wouldn't know this.

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So you're not using IB and only stay in Defiance for the duration of Unchained ? Great...then a PLD can do better than you.

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Originally Posted by Brian_

Between Holmgang having a 180s recast (as opposed to the 300s recast of LD and the 420s recast of HG) and Vengeance / Thrill having a 120s recast (as opposed to the 180s recasts of Shadow Wall and Sentinel), WAR has a very easy time with mitigation.

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How convenient to forgot that Sheltron gives a better eHP increase that Thrill Of Battle, right ? And has a recast of 30s, allowing it to be paired with every other mitigation cooldown.
It's not that difficult to calculate that Thrill Of Battle + Vengeance + Raw Intuition offer less mitigation than Sheltron + Rampart + Sentinel + Bulwark. Do the math...

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Originally Posted by Brian_

What you fail to comprehend is that Unchained + Defiance exists in addition to a toolkit that is already over equipped for current damage intake.

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That's exactly where you're wrong. Unchained lowers your mitigation toolkit.

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Originally Posted by JackFross

//EDIT:

WAR is not ~4800, but actually ~6178.41 potency during a properly executed triple-fell-cleave Berserk. Much better than 4800, but still below the two shown above and likely most - if not all - other DPS Jobs. They /might/ be able to beat MNK and NIN burst, but I'd be shocked if they beat a proper BRD, BLM, or SMN opener. I just can't be arsed to calculate all of these.

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Calculated BLM and SMN

BLM: Full BLM opener gets 6269 pot over about 23 seconds, with 6 fire 4 and 1 fire 3 under RS.


SMN: I got 3 potential numbers, a regular opener will give you 7115 potency with 4 ruin 3s and 3 af actions during RS. Using 6 af actions gives you 7950 potency. Sit down for this last one, using 6 af actions, rouse&spur, and enkindle nets you 8900 potency!(not sure if it's even possible to get all those skills in). If you add in book slaps SMN could easily be over 9000. If you align your af actions better SMN could end up closing in on 10000 potency.