Warrior MT at a disadvantage in O3S?

This post contains a lot of maths, thoerycrafting, and maintanking by someone that has had zero success with Savage drops.

So, as someone who has been trying and failing to clear Omega 3 Savage for the last two weeks, I've gotten a good feeling for the fight. And if anyone remembers my post on O1s, you'll know that the percentage based attack there can cause one of your own cooldowns to backfire on you.

But from my experience maintanking this, I felt like I had to watch out for certain mechanics, as they had a very real risk of killing me just like a tankbuster. I had a feeling in my gut that WAR needed to be a lot more careful compared with the other tanks, and so ran some theorycrafting calculations to see if it's true.

From my current gear level, and the numbers rounded off to estimates for easy calculations, this is what I find.

My health is 51000. The boss hits for 17000 on a critical auto attack. Queen's Waltz in the Library phase will deal damage equal to 50% of your maximum health.

First, for DRK and PLD, they can use their tankstance to get a natural 20% damage reduction. So:

Book: 51000*0.5 = 25500
Auto: 17000*0.8 = 13600
Book+Auto = 39100
Remaining HP: 51000 - 39100 = 11900 (23%)

Now we run it with WAR, whose tankstance doesn't increase damage reduction, instead it gives them bonus health. For me, it's roughly 61200 HP.

Book: 61200*0.5 = 30600
Auto: 17000 (hits for full damage)
Book+Auto = 47600
Remaining HP: 61200 - 47699 = 13600 (22%)

That's a very slight numerical disadvantage, but not something worth writing home about. But then I realised something... This is time that the healers often spend scrambling to get to their far tiles. She might be working in a second auto-attack.

A crit here is lethal for any tank, and extremely unlikely, so I'll just make it two auto-attacks. I've seen the damage for me under Inner Beast hit for a bit more than 10K, so that's the number I'll work with.

For PLD and DRK:

Auto: 10K
Book+2Auto: 25500 + 2*10000 = 45500
Remaining HP: 51000 - 45500 = 5500 (10.8%)

I see Auto-attacks hitting me for a bit more than 13K outside of inner beast, so that's the number I'll use.
For WAR:

Auto: 13K
Book+2Auto: 30600 + 2*13000 = 56600
Remaining HP: 61200 - 56600 = 4600 (7.5%)

That's a far more significant difference. Because the Book Drop deals damage exactly equal to 50% of max HP, the tank whose defence IS to have more HP gets hit harder. Although, I'll admit I don't recall seeing my HP dip this far, so I'm betting that the first set of calculations are the better example.

Now, all of that said, there's one more thing to throw a wrinkle into this: her queen's waltz + holy spellblade combo. The red marker is ironically easier, because it gives a defence buff against her auto-attack, but the stack markers give magic defence, meaning the cut by 50% hp on top of the stack marker damage leaves her in a very good place to kill the maintank. Not helping is that the healers are silenced until after the book drop damage hits, so any heal casts will go off after her auto-attack, assuming they didn't all go to the other side of the room.

I don't recall the damage from that off the top of my head, and I can't make sense of parsers to find it out, but I can do some theory crafting based on it being something you'd want to use cooldowns for.

WAR would use Thrill of Battle, being an immediate heal and bonus to HP. It has the odd position of being the only cooldown that's reduced effectiveness by the books, but at the same time mitigates the books. Maybe being used after would be better, but I don't like the timing, I think Hally starts closing the distance before the books hit (and remove the Out of Action debuff).

Ideally, PLD would use Sheltron to further mitigate the damage, but I'm looking at a worst case scenario where she crits her auto, so that and Bulwark are out of the picture. Rampart has a pretty swift cooldown, so in that position, I'd use that.

DRK is in a good spot. The Blackest Night gives a 20% shield, effectively 20% more HP, but without raising the damage taken from the books. Whether it bypasses or not, that's an excellent bonus, hampered only if the books adjust their damage to break the shield AND drop hp by 50% (if this happens, can a DRK tell me, please)

So:
Auto on PLD: 17000 * 0.8 * 0.8 = 10880
Book on WAR: 61200 * 1.2 * 0.5 = 36720

With that out of the way, we get the following (with War2 trading out ToB for rampart):
Book+Auto (PLD): 25500 + 10880 = 36380 (71% of health)
Book+Auto (WAR): 36720 + 17000 = 53720 (73% of health)
Book+Auto (DRK): 25500 + 13600 = 39100 (63% of health)
Book+Auto (War2): 30600 + 13600 = 44200 (72% of health)

DRK get to keep more of their health due to the shield, but it boils down to Warrior having a significantly rougher time of this fight, thanks to all the damage based off your HP.

Was there a point to all this? Not really. Did I mess up due to mixing hard numbers with vaguely remembered ones? Quite possible. Could I just use a cooldown to mitigate it and save some hassle? Yeah, probably. Should healers pay more attention to the MT during these parts? I'm not going to tell them how to do their job.

I'm just pointing out that with a slow shift towards giving bosses access to fixed percentage damage, they need to take into account how it affects WAR tanking.

IIRC, the books ignore shielding. I've tried to TBN the books before, I can't remember it ever working (no blood). In fact I'm pretty sure they ignore all mitigation, otherwise you could screw up the mechanic and live which I have never seen happen. I.E. all tanks lose the same percentage of their max HP no matter what, so no I don't think WAR is at a disadvantage. A DRK/PLD in tank stance with 50K HP will take 25K, not 20K, and likewise, a WAR in Defiance with 70K HP will take 35K, not 28K. The fact that you take more damage in Defiance and with ToB than you would without just means it is ignoring the mitigation of those abilities just as it ignores Grit/ShO, TBN, etc. If it did any less than 50% of whatever your max HP is that would mean that ToB or Defiance would be mitigating that damage, which would actually give WAR an unfair advantage. Basically, no matter what tank you are playing, 2 books = dead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AqnmgNq7mU - in this video, @ 4:45, the DRK takes 29100 damage from the book. Immediately after this, he gets a Bole from the AST. Later, after picking up the panda, he has Grit turned on, and the bole is still ticking, and the 2nd book hits him again for 29100 damage. Yet again, @ 5:52, he has Grit off, the Bole is still up, but he now has a shield from the AST. The book hits him for 29100 damage once again and leaves the shield completely untouched.

Have you actually tanked O3S on the other two tanks? Its not any easier, trust me.

If anything, its less about what tank you bring in that fight and more about who gets stuck OTing, as MTing O3S is very easy.

If you want to talk about advantages, WAR can holmgang every other buster and Vengeance+Awareness the rest, and still have more than half their CDs to cover Deliverance tanking.

As a DRK in O3S with Grit off, I am completely naked throughout the fight outside of TBN casts as I need Rampart and TBN for every buster, while alternating Shadow Wall and Awareness every other one PLD probably needs to do something similar (Rampart/Shel for every one, alternate Awareness and Sentinel). They can use LD/Hallowed but likely only once/twice, so its not really a part of a rotation, just a one and done.

The percentage based damage always ignores mitigation so it doesn't affect WAR any differently than the other tanks. You take more damage but have more HP, same as every other scenario in the game.

The math is all wrong, war has the advantage in every salvage fight for the times they have the boss because They have the most cds and if your doing savage your tank stance uptime should be lower that 5%. If it's more than that you should consider just staying in 1 and 2 since they aren't really savage to learn how to tank properly at that level. if your a way your only in it for 1 gcd because all your doing is tomohawk>equilibrium>deliverance
Another issue I see is that you appear to be actually solo tanking this and never swapping with your co tank, don't do that. If you co tank wants to be a bum kick him and find a decent one or leave.

Cleared this yesterday as a PLD MT with no swaps. I can say that auto attacks are the worst part of this fight for me (that and maybe the fractions of seconds she gives you to re-position her somewhere.)

If you have a Paladin as your offtank get them to Divine Veil that book mechanic. There's a raidwide AoE just before the book debuffs; plenty of time to proc the effect. As Paladin MT I use Rampart during those books (and last phase mindjack auto attacks.) Otherwise I'm down to 1k hp or dead. Bulwark + Awareness, Sentinel, and Hallowed were always available for her Critical Hit's. Rampart for the Ninja's + Intervention for the offtank during Iron Giant.

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Originally Posted by Dizzy_Derp

Another issue I see is that you appear to be actually solo tanking this and never swapping with your co tank, don't do that. If you co tank wants to be a bum kick him and find a decent one or leave.

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Not sure why people are so adamant about tank swapping this fight. I never run out of cooldowns and we had 20 seconds to spare before enrage. Sure MT will end the fight around 2300 DPS but that lets the OT push much higher.

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Originally Posted by Dizzy_Derp

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Unforced swapping in O3S is kind of a wash honestly, because the OT has to tank almost as much crap as the MT does, and the adds hit much harder much more often. So you're not actually gonna get much more mileage in terms of CDs by swapping as one tank is still going to need theirs for the adds, which is the whole point of unforced swapping as it allows you to recover shared CDs to give each tank more room to tank in DPS stance. In a fight where the OT's CDs would go unused, this makes sense, but in O3S, they don't.

I can't take any other tanks in. I've only gotten WAR to 70, and although my DRK alt is at 70, can't get them into Savage due to lower iLevel.

In the end, I wanted to see if there was a direct disadvantage, or if it was just me not being as good at it as I should be. If it breaks the shield, reduces HP by 50%, and doesn't give blood, then the book waltz is fairly unfriendly towards DRK, but if it's just ignoring the shield, DRK is in a good place, because the shield helps protect against the follow up auto-attack, which is a very real threat in most groups I'm in. Heck, they could just apply it immediately after the books, which is what I should be doing with the books, but I don't like my ping times.

I just feel like there's something about the fight that's against warrior, and that's the thing that causes the third most grief for me. The other two are granite phase reapers (which is all on me), holy spellblade markers on the MT, and those books. Does having 10% more health (120% health cut in half) than other tanks make up for not having a 20% mitigation of her auto-attack?

I have two very unfortunate problems, in that my "static" is only partly formed, and that our final run of the week is on Sunday. So, I can't rely on knowing who my co-tank is, or how efficient they'll be playing, and the most practice I get is in the bitter final runs of the week. All I can do is improve myself, and so if that means I have to stay in tank stance for the fight, then so be it. Haven't been able to see the enrage, so my personal DPS isn't an issue yet.

It's easy to say "healers should do better and focus heal at these parts". But I'd rather be proactive, and figure out if there's a way I can improve, or if the class overall needs to be improved.

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Originally Posted by Ekimmak

It's easy to say "healers should do better and focus heal at these parts". But I'd rather be proactive, and figure out if there's a way I can improve, or if the class overall needs to be improved.

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You're referring to the basic and age-old disadvantage of Defiance which is present in all content and that is that it is only functional while being healed or when you are at full health. If you are in Defiance however, you have IB, and WAR's mitigation kit smokes the other two tanks'. Your mitigation suite has insane uptime and is completely costless with the exception of IB, which is really only there (along with Equilibrium) to make Defiance's aforementioned disadvantages largely moot. An unpopped TBN after the books will still mitigate AAs if it lasts long enough (remember TBN is only 5 seconds, in fact if you pop TBN immediately prior to the books you're almost certain to have just wasted 1/4 of your mana), but so will ToB, technically, since you will still be left with more HP to take those AAs.

Assume a DRK/PLD and WAR that are all in tank stance and at full HP when the book hits. They all have 50K HP at base. 50K HP in Defiance is 62500. Assume also that they take a 15K AA after the book.

DRK/PLD: 50000/2 = 25000, 25000 - (15000*0.8) = 13000
WAR: 62500/2 = 31250, 31250 - 15000 = 16250

13000 is 26% of 50000, and 16250 is 26% of 62500.

So, every tank got left with the same percentage of their maximum HP remaining after eating a book+AA.

So the job is not at a disadvantage.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

You're referring to the basic and age-old disadvantage of Defiance which is present in all content and that is that it is only functional while being healed or when you are at full health. If you are in Defiance however, you have IB, and WAR's mitigation kit smokes the other two tanks'. Your mitigation suite has insane uptime and is completely costless with the exception of IB, which is really only there (along with Equilibrium) to make Defiance's aforementioned disadvantages largely moot. An unpopped TBN after the books will still mitigate AAs if it lasts long enough (remember TBN is only 5 seconds), but so will ToB, technically, since you will still be left with more HP to take those AAs.

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Fair enough. Inner Beast doesn't help when Spellblade +books hits, since it needs me to be standing on next to the boss to use, but it's a minor gripe compared with DRK's overall DCDs.

I probably do need to just "man up and get good". But with servers down, this is all I can do. Run some calculations, and see what other people on the forums say.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

Unforced swapping in O3S is kind of a wash honestly, because the OT has to tank almost as much crap as the MT does, and the adds hit much harder much more often. So you're not actually gonna get much more mileage in terms of CDs by swapping as one tank is still going to need theirs for the adds, which is the whole point of unforced swapping as it allows you to recover shared CDs to give each tank more room to tank in DPS stance. In a fight where the OT's CDs would go unused, this makes sense, but in O3S, they don't.

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It's the furthest thing from a wash in 3. You should be swapping on adds to use invulns and in last phase it's pretty important to force swaps. Either way advantage goes to war.

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Originally Posted by Dizzy_Derp

It's the furthest thing from a wash in 3. You should be swapping on adds to use invulns and in last phase it's pretty important to force swaps. Either way advantage goes to war.

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You think so? Not sarcastic, I'm genuinely curious to know why tankswaps should be used for adds. Nobody on my server ever talks about having tankswaps.

The timing for my own cooldowns as MT works fine, Holmgang one Critical Tankbuster, then Rampart+Awareness the next. Alternate as needed.

For offtanking against adds, it's Vengeance + Inner beast against White Flame, Rampart + Inner Beast against Dragon, Vengeance + RI against Apanda, and I've reached the ninja+iron giant adds so few times I don't know what I'd normally do.

I don't see why you'd need to tankswap.

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Originally Posted by Dizzy_Derp

It's the furthest thing from a wash in 3. You should be swapping on adds to use invulns and in last phase it's pretty important to force swaps. Either way advantage goes to war.

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My point was you aren't gaining very much, since whoever is not tanking the boss is still going to be using CDs either way, so its not a net gain of mitigation.

Compared to a fight like A12S where the OT is a gimped DPS for the majority of the fight, unforced swaps there nearly double the available mitigation. But in O3S there are crit hits immediately before/during/immediately after almost every add, so it really doesn't matter if you swap, particularly if the WAR is MTing. You're not gaining mitigation that would have otherwise gone unused. If the MT gives the OT the boss, before the add, the OT is just gonna use the CDs or invulns they would have used on the add on the boss, and the MT is just going to use whatever CDs/invulns they would have used on the boss, on the adds. So that's why, relatively speaking, its a wash.

I hate to be one of those people who dismisses a long post that's taken a lot of effort with a single sentence... But WAR is at such an incredible advantage as MT in that fight that using a WAR to hold the boss from start to finish is probably roughly as effective defensively as if you were to have a DRK and PLD together utilizing frequent tank swaps to maximize cooldown usage. A negligible disadvantage on their tank stance versus PLD/DRK tank stances doesn't really even put a dent in that - particularly given that Thrill of Battle is actual effective mitigation versus Folio, whereas the other tanks sort of just have to focus on mitigating the followup attacks.

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Originally Posted by Ekimmak

You think so? Not sarcastic, I'm genuinely curious to know why tankswaps should be used for adds. Nobody on my server ever talks about having tankswaps.
The timing for my own cooldowns as MT works fine, Holmgang one Critical Tankbuster, then Rampart+Awareness the next. Alternate as needed.
For offtanking against adds, it's Vengeance + Inner beast against White Flame, Rampart + Inner Beast against Dragon, Vengeance + RI against Apanda, and I've reached the ninja+iron giant adds so few times I don't know what I'd normally do.
I don't see why you'd need to tankswap.

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You just said why yourself, you use ib while i dont ever have to be in defiance and never use a single ib for o3. Forced swaps make that possible.

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Originally Posted by Dizzy_Derp

You just said why yourself, you use ib while i dont ever have to be in defiance and never use a single ib for o3. Forced swaps make that possible.

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You could do it even without forced swaps, easily. Holmgang every other buster, Awareness+Vengeance the rest.

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Originally Posted by Crater

Roughly as effective defensively as if you were to have a DRK and PLD together utilizing frequent tank swaps to maximize cooldown usage

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Still not sure why PLD is being lumped into this swapping idea. Bulwark + Awareness and Sentinel are enough for every Critical Hit. Hallowed is there if you are caught off guard and don't think you can hit Bulwark + Awareness in time or if healers are stressed. Rampart, Convalescence, Reprisal, and Passage are just sitting there to be used whenever you feel like being a gentleman to the healers.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

You could do it even without forced swaps, easily. Holmgang every other buster, Awareness+Vengeance the rest.

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You could yes but then you're just raw dogging a good portion of the fight which puts more strain on the healers and is just unnessicary. Tank swaps should be forced any time you are in a spot where you are running without a CD because u will need it later and your co Tank is sitting on one. Yes you can alternate super cd and hg for Crist the whole fight but for adds it's better to invulns both and last phase leaves one tank too setessed for cds to be optimal. I think the better thing to ask is why if you can would you not swap? You are only hurting your team by not.

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Originally Posted by Crater

I hate to be one of those people who dismisses a long post that's taken a lot of effort with a single sentence... But WAR is at such an incredible advantage as MT in that fight that using a WAR to hold the boss from start to finish is probably roughly as effective defensively as if you were to have a DRK and PLD together utilizing frequent tank swaps to maximize cooldown usage. A negligible disadvantage on their tank stance versus PLD/DRK tank stances doesn't really even put a dent in that - particularly given that Thrill of Battle is actual effective mitigation versus Folio, whereas the other tanks sort of just have to focus on mitigating the followup attacks.

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It's fine. I'm pretty sure my maths has some sort of issue with it, probably due to me throwing in too many estimated numbers. I feel like there's a problem for WAR facing the books phase, but the differences are fairly low, so maybe it's just me being wrong.

Honestly, that's why I put the question mark on the thread title. In case there was something I hadn't realised.

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Originally Posted by Dizzy_Derp

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Because adds are present and dealing high damage for a significant portion of the encounter, so you are, as I said, not gaining mitigation that would have otherwise gone unused. On a fight with minimal or no adds, absolutely, why not swap all day. But in O3S, even on DRK who's mitigation kit is questionable, I have CDs/invulns to survive every single crit without ever using Grit unless there is a death and the healers need some space to work with. If I can do it on DRK, WARs should be able to do it one-handed in their sleep. Believe me, I'm not trying to undersell the value of swapping even when the fight does not require it. Its amazing on almost any encounter other than O3S, particularly if you have a WAR MTing.

The adds hit hard enough that unless you're tanking them in Grit/Defiance/Shield, I can't imagine the OT ever "sitting on CDs" outside of the first phase of the fight, unless you're a WAR, in which case you should be MTing the entire thing as mentioned before, because they would not be "raw-dogging" much of anything considering that rotation leaves Raw Intuition, Thrill, and Rampart available to mitigate the damage that occurs in between the crits ezpz.

The only reason why there are swaps is because of Shirk bypassing tanks having to maintain aggro. You get away with just 1 aggro combo.

The only exception for this is o4s because Grand Crosses reset aggro.

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Originally Posted by Ekimmak

Book: 61200*0.5 = 30600
Auto: 17000 (hits for full damage)
Book+Auto = 47600
Remaining HP: 61200 - 47699 = 13600 (22%)

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If your basic health is 51000, Defiance won't put you at 61200 but 63750 (+25% max HP)

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Originally Posted by Ekimmak

Auto: 10K
Book+2Auto: 25500 + 2*10000 = 45500
Remaining HP: 51000 - 45500 = 5500 (10.8%)

Auto: 13K
Book+2Auto: 30600 + 2*13000 = 56600
Remaining HP: 61200 - 56600 = 4600 (7.5%)

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If you take 13k with auto, then a PLD/DRK would take 10.4k for the same autos.

So, the calculations are :

PLD/DRK : 51000*0.5+2*10.4k = 25500+ 20800 = 46300. 46300/51000 = 91% health lost
WAR : 63750*0.5+2*13k = 31875+26000 = 57875. 57875/63750 = 91% health lost

Same results.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

*Better calculations than mine*

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And there's the danger of using too many assumed numbers. Really should have just used one number, and done all the numbers from there. But I didn't, causing some incorrect comparisons.

It's kind of hard for me to tell the exact numbers, because there's an unlisted Vit buff in parties, and I use food.

And it's really embarrassing to forget the actual number raised by Defiance.

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Originally Posted by Ekimmak

And it's really embarrassing to forget the actual number raised by Defiance.

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It's Defiance fault with its +25% max HP but +20% healing received :p

We (DRK MT + PLD OT) don't swap. I voke+Shirk on CD and throw Intervention on htim for each Critical Hit. No problems thus far.

I once was in a party with a Paladin that wanted to switch during each Panel Swap. When I asked why, he said "Awareness won't be up before the next Critical Hit!" Implying Awareness is the only way to mitigate Critical Hit. It's not. It's still gonna hurt, even if you only use Awareness. You really just need 1 cooldown for it, but to make it easier on the healers I always save Raw Intuition + Awareness for the first one, and Holmgang the next. It lines up pretty perfectly.

So really, I don't get where people come from whenever they feel like tank swapping during the fight. It's not a bad strategy or anything. It's just completely unnecessary, since as someone pointed out, if you're not the main tank, you're gonna have to deal with White Flame, Dragon, and Apanda - the latter requiring 2-3 cooldowns if you don't want to take chances.

As for this thread, I thought this was going to be about how Warriors have to either blow a sub-optimal Inner Release combo at the start of the fight, hold on to it until after Spellblade Holy, or just risk doing their best opener and hope they don't get stunned. This is ridiculous and pathetic. Especially since regardless of what option you go with here, the next Inner Release will be up at a very inconvenient time.

But if you're trying to say Warriors have a disadvantage tanking here, I really don't see it. They can Holmgang every other Critical Hit, which is just GODLY! And when you aren't tanking, picking up the spawns is easy. Oh and BTW, you don't need Inner Beast for White Flame. Just one cooldown (I go with Rampart) for the first hit, and then Holmgang a bit after White Wind. This will allow your healers to just focus on DPS and only have to worry about getting you back after it's dead. To be honest, you don't even NEED a cooldown here once your HP is high enough. Just make sure you're at full health.

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Originally Posted by MahoSenshi

We (DRK MT + PLD OT) don't swap. I voke+Shirk on CD and throw Intervention on htim for each Critical Hit. No problems thus far.

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Instead of throwing intervention you should just do cover + awareness + sheltron, since cover is essentially a free short rampart. That'd allow the MT to use the remaining cds for mitigating auto attacks, and you lose essentially nothing since you won't need awareness for adds.

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Originally Posted by BluexBird

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Other than the first inner release zerk I don't remember having much trouble with o3s. Second zerk is after first playing field, third zerk is during white flame add, I just move the boss to the edge and move back to mid while dodging blizz, to get embolden. You get no trick atk since it's on the add but ypu should at most lose one onslaught during this inner release zerk. Fourth zerk is during dragon add, fifth one is after book phase transition, near the oink after first book drop, no uptime loss there either. Sixth zerk is shortly before the playing field, this might have to be clipped early depending on mechanic. Seventh is shortly after the first jump in the last phase, I don't remember if there's risk of interruption by spellblade holy, since I never had a clean kill past this point lol. A bit disappointing that inner release won't align with the ninja phase for aoe padding though.

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Originally Posted by Ekimmak

YFor offtanking against adds, it's Vengeance + Inner beast against White Flame, Rampart + Inner Beast against Dragon, Vengeance + RI against Apanda, and I've reached the ninja+iron giant adds so few times I don't know what I'd normally do.

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Don't go saying you use IB on this forum! you're just asking to be beaten up with a noob stick...

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Originally Posted by Ekimmak

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The reason why you might be running into issues with the second waltz in this phase is because the OT is probably the healer's focus at that point. There's a pummel from the Apanda after the first auto for 25-35k, followed shortly by the damage from Folio, followed by a second pummel shortly after the Squelch, followed by a Dimensional Wave. A lot of this happens within the span of about a 10-15 second interval. If your healers are struggling here, then you need to do what you can to support them by minimising the healing load on yourself while this is happening.

If your concern is a follow up crit auto when the waltz cast finishes (there shouldn't be any outgoing damage while she is cast locked) then an easy work around is to have Awareness running. Folio hits about 19 seconds before the next Critical Hit, and Awareness has a 25 second duration. I suspect that you can cover this entire section if you activate it just as you're running out from Magic Hammer, although you may need to play with the timing a bit. You could probably fit in an early Rampart and/or Raw Intuition as well while this is running, if you want to pair these with Awareness for the tankbuster that follows Dimensional Wave, although the timing is slightly tighter than it is for Awareness.

You have a bigger surplus of cooldowns on this fight than the other two tanks, so there are multiple ways that you can tackle this.

If your issue is the third waltz (holy spellblade + waltz), there's no outgoing damage outside of autos until the dimensional wave 10 seconds later, so it's really on your healers. You can heal yourself with Equilibrium and Thrill if you really want, though.

As for your more general questions about job balance, Folio bypasses all forms of mitigation, including TBN. The mitigation instead applies to any follow-up damage, as it would with Sheltron, Rampart, Raw Intuition, and so on.

You are correct in pointing out that a WAR with Defiance or Thrill of Battle active will take more damage from attacks that hit you for a fixed percentage of your HP. But it's also worth noting that these attacks ignore all forms of mitigation, and cannot kill you on their own. So just put up your mitigation after, not before.

Lastly - and in fairness, you've partially addressed this yourself earlier in the thread - why was this phrased as a job balance issue instead of "I need help with X"? One thing that I liked about HW was that everyone freely admitted that WAR was overpowered. So if you struggled with a mechanic, it was entirely on you. You certainly weren't going to have an easier time on another tank job.

In SB, it's become fashionable to describe WAR as underpowered and 'clunky'. Most of this had to do with the nerfs surrounding WAR's stance dancing and associated resource costs which were designed to bring it back into line with the other two tanks (i.e. stuff that everyone else had to deal with). These balance nerfs have all been reverted, as of 4.05, and WAR has been buffed some on top of that. Resource management is non-existent. The rotation is even more forgiving. DPS is once again at the top of the charts across all percentiles and skill levels. There is a surplus of mitigation cooldowns over every other tank. In short, you have a job that is even more versatile and even more accessible to the average player than its HW incarnation.

Not to detract from the advice and discussion of the issues that you brought up, but I think that it should have been phrased differently, to avoid contributing to the spread of misinformation surrounding the job.

A lot of people on here haven't even done the O3s yet and are talking about swaps!! There is NO SWAPS needed I the fight if you need a swap you have a poor tank sorry but that's the truth. you should be managing you cool down effectively enough to withstand the hits. On top of that the OT is to busy taking care of the adds that hit harder then the boss and will kill the OT easily if they don't have cool downs available. if you know the fight you know swapping basically shouldn't happen if your serious about progressing through the fight. shocking to see people on here talking about swaps even have a war talking about how great there class is and haven't even gotten the class to lvl 70. my advise get to the content FIRST then give advise or suggestions. To the guy that made the thread great knowledge its interesting with me playing as DRK and my static tank partner is War he usually mains the fight but we may switch it up.

Swapping/covering is not required but it allows the tanks to rotate awareness. Just because you can tank it alone doesn't mean it's optimal. Doing tank swaps/cover makes the healing easier and require less tank stance uptime, and in many cases (not just o3s) this results in higher raid dps. Optimization is not necessary to clear, but calling out those who do it makes you look dumb.

If you're not using Holmgang as a CD while MT in O3S and O4S, you're playing the job entirely wrong.

WAR is easily the best MT for both these fights because of this. In O3S, WAR never needs to let go of the boss, but in O4S, obviously they do and should probably let a PLD tank it most the time and just eat busters when needed. Kinda hard to say that Neo Exdeath really even has a MT, but yeah. WAR should also be eating first and third dualcast lightnings for Exdeath with Holmgang, which frees up tons of CDs for passive fluff damage.