A Question For Warriors into SB.

Back when I started playing with ARR I had first picked up on MRD/WAR and had fun with leveling it up and learning the early throws of tanking; unfortunately some unfortunate events had left a bitter taste in my mouth and I ended up dropping tanking for the rest of ARR and through HW. Over time I would pull WAR back out and do fates or other events to keep it leveled, mostly because while tanking was still an issue for me I loved WAR tremendously.

Well with SB coming I had resolved that with a new expac and with so many adjustments coming that maybe it was time for a fresh start. Thus far I have been playing through the MSQ as WAR and enjoying it tremendously, as with the dungeons. It was a shaky start at first but I'm getting better with aggro management again and being more reactive, however there's been a worry of sorts running in the back of my mind.

Said concern is I feel like I am taking a LOT of damage and really pushing the healers. Thus far no deaths or close calls, but does feel like I'm taxing the poor popples. So to other WARs leveling or have leveled through the dungeons, has it felt this way for you? As those with longer experience is this a normal state for early into an expansion/while leveling?

For information I do understand that Defiance doesn't provide mitigation and instead a buff to healing received, and I have been using cooldowns per encounter. I have thus far been keeping to a single mob pack at a time with the odd roamer here and there. But I don't know if I'm using the cooldowns in the right order or in the right manner. Sadly I have no one else within my inner circle that plays WAR and those that are playing tanks are currently away for a time or playing other roles atm. So I'm hoping those here can throw out some tips that I can steer myself in the right direction with.

TL;DR Getting back into Tanking with SB after long hiatus. No wipes or people screaming at me yet, but everything hurts and feel like I'm being bad at this. Is this normal and/or have any tips?

Being new to this entire role and to warrior on a more serious note, I'm taking more damage and causing healers to pay a bit more attention to me. Even in sync'd dungeons.

The solution is simple from what I've been doing and seen. Manage cool-downs & pulls. Which it looks like you're doing. It seems to be a lot more attentive to tank in dungeons now which is great.

Then again i'm brand spanking new and am not in any way holding onto the mentality of hardcore warriors from 2.0 / 3.0, so this is a good place for myself to find some help.

You're using your cool-downs , keeping hate, and keeping your iLV up, you're good. I can be wrong, so don't quote me I just feel S.E has adjusted things to make people pay more attention to their role rather than doing two over powers and pulling the entire floor to have things die in a few seconds. Then again the game is new so lets see what happens in a few weeks.

Everything in SB does hurt, does not sound like you are doing anything wrong. Remember healers are adjusting to the changes as well.

For what you are running you just what to chain the CD's. A few bosses have tank busters, but nothing too too major, that if you are at 80% health and even no Mid in tank stance, you should live just fine.

For mob pulls i would chain Vengeance, Rampart, Raw Intuition paired with Awareness, and inner beasts to fill in some gaps. (And add in Convalescence or Anticipation if crossed whenever)

Pop Equilibrium if you are feel low on HP.

Thrill of Battle is now popped like a offensive CD when paired with a zerk Upheaval. But if not trying to max dps, then pair it with Convalescence or Anticipation as another chained CD.

For mob pulls, just pop zerk on cooldown, finding I am needing it more and more just for the enmity increase.

Pray you have a melee to goad you now, as WAR TP management is alot harder now.

And hope you enjoy the new play style.

Hey there Lewtskie,

I'd say in the end, it all comes down to:
- Did you keep aggro? => If not, try seeing what's wrong. Maybe throw in a couple more Overpower at the beginning of the fight to build a large lead.
- Did someone die? Is it your fault? => If so, you probably lost aggro a moment or you tanked with the mobs facing your group (some mobs cleave, they have AoEs that aren't shown on the ground)
- Did the group wipe? => If so, maybe your healer couldn't keep pace (it happens), maybe you didn't use enough defensive CDs, maybe your gear is too low, maybe that specific mob hits like a truck (don't double pull the golem pack before the Huge Golem Boss trial for instance).

It's all about learning your limit, and setting the pace you like. I like trying to pull as much as possible, see what's possible and what's not, and always double pull or more (unless my healer asks me to slow down, which I will happily oblige to). That you got very low HP in a fight doesn't matter as long as no one died! (Also yes, I definitively feel like SB trash mobs hit harder in dungeons than ARR/HW)

I will say that the tank/healer dynamic has changed for all tanks. Tanks in general are squisher than they were in 3.0 and 2.0 and healers need time to get used to this fact its not just warrior that are having said issues persay. I can say after clearing susasano ex a warrior can easily main tank that boss without taxing the healer at all.

If anything I've noticed is warrior MIGHT be in the position to be the best main tank as their off tankiung capabilities were nerfed heavily while their main tanking abilities were buffed to high hell. Theory crafting will tell.

WAR was always a tank that was about about a bouncing HP score. It goes up and down a LOT.

My solution is that I have stacked my role skills with mitigation skills - and try to have one of them going as close to always as possible.
I also make very heavy use of Inner Beast, Equilibrium, and Thrill of Battle.

Hitting Infuriate and then Inner Beast is handy - but don't use it when you're full on health.
Once I have locked down aggro, my Beast Gauge is all about Inner Beast - situational exceptions of course.

Also once you have locked aggro... you can cycle Storm's Path as much as possible to keep a constant small amount of self healing going.

After a few runs, managing it all will just become instinctive and you'll know when to use that beast gauge for something like Steel Cyclone or Onslaught, and when to use it for Inner Beast. Once this becomes 'intuitive' the class will start feeling pretty powerful.

I personally think all of the 'doom and gloom' over WAR before launch was just 'not yet seeing it in practice'...

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Originally Posted by Makeda

I personally think all of the 'doom and gloom' over WAR before launch was just 'not yet seeing it in practice'...

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I mean, WAR is still viable, but I don't think it's fun anymore.

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

I agree with Yithar. I'm considering going full SAM after I came to the conclusion of where war is in 4.0 patch at level 70. Here's a break down of everything wrong with the class.

1. Inner beast heals for 88% of damage and Storm's Path heals for 44% of damage at 70 as opposed to 100% and 50% respectively.
2. Gauge penalty for stance switching in addition to having to wait 10 seconds where as PLD/DRK only have 2.5 seconds to wait.
3. WAR soft nerf to overall damage by making Storms Path (250 potency) give 20 gauge as opposed to Butcher's Block (280 potency) and Storm's Eye (270 potency) which only give 10 making Storm's Path your main combo for gauge building, which you need a lot of.
4. High cost of Onslaught (100 potency) for 20 gauge. Relatively niche skill and due to point #3 makes it even less useful in utility outside of pvp. In pvp its pretty good.
5. Shake it off. No comment since the new raids aren't out but from experience its a wash.
6. No raid utility and no consistent self sustain outside of Equilibrium and spamming Inner Beast.
7. No new defensive cds in Stormblood.
8. Fell Cleave feels like just another combo in a rotation with no impact due to how prevalent it is spammed.

WAR is still an okay tank but these changes were far too drastic and after going through the war job quest to 70 I'm only sadder due to the skills we lost and how the NPC's present themselves as more "warrior-like" than us while still using the same job. I got pissed when a WAR in the 70 job quest used fracture on me. Not trying to scare anyone just trying to make sure you are well informed as WAR still has good defensive cds and Rampart on demand via Inner beast for 6 seconds, but coming from 3.0 and being a war main since 2.0 launch I understand the trials and tribulations this job has gone through.

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Originally Posted by Marxam

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If you're disgruntled about the WAR changes, the best possible course of action you can do is stop playing a job that you no longer find fun, and spend your time playing the game doing something that you enjoy doing.

The developers have statistics and metrics. If you no longer have fun on WAR, vote with your playtime. Changes will be made, if enough people share your sentiment.

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Originally Posted by Makeda

WAR was always a tank that was about about a bouncing HP score. It goes up and down a LOT.

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This has always been a false notion that misinforms new players.

WAR's HP does not bounce down more than the other tanks if played correctly as their CD suite is often times as effective when used and used more frequently. It bounces upwards because of their burst heals through Inner Beast, Equilibrium and previously Bloodbathed Fell Cleaves.

I believe that the notion of it bouncing up and down is through the misinterpreted idea that they take more damage and receive more healing in Defiance thus their HP moves up and down more. This is not the case as WARs HP is larger than the other two and when taking a similar hit, percentage wise, it goes down all the same.

i.e

War 12 500 HP (100%)
PLD/DRK 10 000 HP (100%)

They take a hit that would deal 10 000 damage.

PLD and Drk reduce this down to 8000, War takes the full brunt.

WAR: 2500/12500 (20%)
PLD/DRK: 2000/10000 (20%)

OP I can only comment from the healer side of this but (and this is agreed upon by most casual healers over in our forum) tanks are all in general a bit squishier right now. A lot of that comes from suddenly being ilvl appropriate (or, gasp, undergeared) for the SB content. At the end of Heavensward most people were around 60 ilvls ahead of most of what they were doing.

The general consensus is with time, gear, understanding new abilities and (where appropriate) buffs things will all hit a little softer the longer you play.

Also as a healer thank you for even thinking that you might be overtaxing us, considerate tanks are awesome! :)

Yeah, as it is right now, every tank can take a pretty big beating if you don't pace yourself. It could be a new game balance, or it could just be that since we're not all ridiculously overgeared anymore, we forgot how it was. I think it's the former, though. There seemed to be a pretty big desire with the dev team to focus more on better defensive play for tanks and healers.

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Originally Posted by SargentToughie

If you're disgruntled about the WAR changes, the best possible course of action you can do is stop playing a job that you no longer find fun, and spend your time playing the game doing something that you enjoy doing.

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I'm disgruntled because I'm passionate about the job. I love the story, lore and aesthetics behind it. I just hate to see my favorite job in the game just suddenly turn into a one button masher. Unfortunately game play was the deal breaker. I liked where they were taking the war in 4.0, the execution just fell a bit short of the goal. With regards to playtime, I already made my vote. I'm currently lvling up SAM and once that's 70 I'm going dps until further notice and hope that some changes will be made. Im also leveling my crafts and gatherers. I really do like this job but it just doesn't play "right" atm.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

This has always been a false notion that misinforms new players.

WAR's HP does not bounce down more than the other tanks if played correctly as their CD suite is often times as effective when used and used more frequently.

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WAR in 4.0 defiance is actually the one thing that improved in 4.0. The gauge allows easier access to Inner Beast thus making mitigation much more consistent and frequent which is always good for tanking.

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Originally Posted by Marxam

I'm disgruntled because I'm passionate about the job. I love the story, lore and aesthetics behind it. I just hate to see my favorite job in the game just suddenly turn into a one button masher. Unfortunately game play was the deal breaker. I liked where they were taking the war in 4.0, the execution just fell a bit short of the goal. With regards to playtime, I already made my vote. I'm currently lvling up SAM and once that's 70 I'm going dps until further notice and hope that some changes will be made. Im also leveling my crafts and gatherers. I really do like this job but it just doesn't play "right" atm.

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Trust me, I am absolutely right there with you. I'm still going to offhandedly level my WAR to 70 for the sake of my friend circle, but you won't catch me dead queuing for anything DF related on a tank for the foreseeable future.

It won't take a lot to win me back, really.

I want bloodbath, I want stance dancing penalties gone, and I want to gain Attack Power from my accessories. That's really all it would take for me to shut up and go back to full time tanking.