Onslaught change for WAR

Since the 4.05 update I've finally been able to enjoy my WAR like I remember it so kudos to SE for making those revisions - however, there are some minor tweaks/additions that need to be made but I'm focusing on Onslaught in this post whilst making note of other skills/synergies for easier critique/up-votes.

We already had 4 Beast Gauge dumps prior to learning our insane uppercut of Upheaval which has great planning/synergy with Defiance, plus a handful of other abilities whilst giving us a reason to switch out of Deliverance - this skill is perfect in my opinion.

On the other hand, the Beast Gauge cost to damage ratio of Onslaught is absolutely not worth the investment. We lost Fracture in 4.0 and the reduction in TP for Heavy Swing (albeit a welcomed change) leads to a lot of wasted TP in numerous situations, I can hardly get rid of it quickly enough. One being those moments of back-to-back Inner Beast/Fell Cleave combos as they act as a natural way to regenerate TP anyway. I want to feel an urge/requirement to plan around Equilibrium in Deliverance, not to mention Goad and Tactician are being thrown about so when are we even thinking about TP?


I propose the following change: Onslaught costs 20 TP but generates 10 Beast Gauge for 100 potency.


This way we can fill in those gaps around the 40/90 range, dump the excess TP, not be gated by having zero gauge before a pull, give the Deliverance:Equilibrium more forward-thinking/planning and add some complexity to our Beast Gauge generation and stance-dancing. Sometimes you need that oGCD to squeeze in an extra 10 gauge to get off another Inner Beast for some timely mitigation or damage from Fell Cleave.

As it stands I dislike the feeling of thinking I've wasted precious resources for a skill that could've been spent on something much more potent and integral to our class.

Thoughts?

Onslaught synergies well with the 3 & 6 fel cleave mid-fight rotations / downtime rotations as well as generating x10 aggro which is amazing for your snap aggro + shirks.

In it's current form it has a strong foundation and fits neatly into all our rotations, I suggest simply raising the potency at this point and leaving the rest alone.

Wasting TP really doesn't come into the equation, it's all about beast gauge management, riding your GCD and landing your berserks every 60 seconds.

No need to try and make WAR even more complex then it is already by worrying about TP on top of everything else.

This is the thing about Onslaught and its damage/cost:

When you use a Fell Cleave, you're not just getting a boost of 500 potency for 50 Gauge, because if you didn't use Fell Cleave, you would be using a standard combo GCD instead. In other words, the gain from using a Fell Cleave can only really be said to be the difference between using FC, and using the combo action you would have used otherwise.

Storm's Path and Storm's Eye combos each total up to 610 potency across three GCDs, for an average of 203.3 potency per GCD. Fell Cleave is therefore (on average) a gain of 296.7 potency over the combo action you would have used instead during that GCD.
However, while using Fell Cleave costs BG, your standard combos are where you actually gain BG. Assuming that you're rotating Eye-Path-Path, you're generating 80 BG for every 9 standard combo GCDs, or an average of 8.9 BG/GCD. Fell Cleave represents a loss of this 8.9 BG, in addition to its 50BG cost, so the effective cost is 58.9 BG.

Potency/BG for every Fell Cleave is then 296.7/58.9, or ~5.04 p/BG. And bear in mind that losing 50 BG in one go reduces your crit rate by 5%.


Now with that in mind, let's look at Onslaught. This one is actually really simple: When you use Onslaught, any gains and costs are as-is, because you use Onslaught in addition to the GCD action you would be using otherwise.

Onslaught is 100 potency, for 20 BG. You can do that without really thinking: 5 potency per point of BG. The 20 BG cost also only lowers your crit rate by 2% on your next GCD.


The similarities there should be pretty striking. Neither skill is an automatic 'use BG on this ASAP, every time' skill like Upheaval or pre-4.05 Inner Release, so both of them are your BG dumps. Both of them convert BG into damage at a rate of approximately 5 potency per point of BG. In a vacuum, Onslaught and Fell Cleave are approximately equally good for your overall DPS. Fell Cleave has the advantage of pushing your combo back by one GCD, which can help a lot with aligning your combos to your Berserk/Infuriate. Onslaught has the advantages of being an insanely good enmity tool, and giving you more mobility than any other tank.

Think of Onslaught as a way to do one third of a Fell Cleave, at exactly the same level of efficiency. Pretty much every aspect of the skill is powerful, and getting rid of the associated costs is essentially just a straight DPS buff to the tank that already has a DPS advantage - while robbing the class of a key gauge management skill that plays a huge part in how smoothly WAR can cope with any downtime or mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Crater

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Well said. I feel like people who are asking for Onslaught to be changed are still learning how warrior works. Without Onslaught as a gauge dump, you'll either be overcapping (bad) or using FC to dump too close to a Zerk (also bad). Onslaught lets us dump small amounts of gauge frequently so it is not wasted while managing the gauge optimally for use in Zerk phases.

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Originally Posted by Crater

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I really appreciate this response - the detail and patience executed here taught me a lot so thanks for that. Ultimately I'm still learning WAR but this approach to the number-crunching/CD management will help me going forward with other classes as well and broaden my thinking when it comes to skills. Kudos to you.

On a side note, what's your opinion on Infuriate not being usable out of combat? That's my main gripe from a fun-factor point of view, not being able to charge in immediately off the bat.

Starting a fight at 50 BG then dropping to 30 BG after an Onslaught into an Eye combo seems to fit nicely but would be bless to get your input on that.

(Unless you can guide me to another post that's already talking about this)

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Originally Posted by mxllxr

On a side note, what's your opinion on Infuriate not being usable out of combat? That's my main gripe from a fun-factor point of view, not being able to charge in immediately off the bat.

Starting a fight at 50 BG then dropping to 30 BG after an Onslaught into an Eye combo seems to fit nicely but would be bless to get your input on that.

(Unless you can guide me to another post that's already talking about this)

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It's a good thing. A very good thing. I don't know if you played WAR in 3.X, but the ~50 second pull macros were getting pretty old. If we could infuriate outside of combat, we'd be waiting +1min for every encounter.

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Originally Posted by mxllxr

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If you're going to blow 20 gauge immediately, use upheaval instead. It can be good in certain fights (lakshmi EX) and upheaval will be back on CD for your delayed Zerk IR, plus as I'm sure you know, Infuriate will be back up as well.

But in general, don't use gauge until your IR, that way you maximize your opener during Trick Attack/ Embolden

Loving the input from the above posts, thanks a lot. Last question would be, outside of those Zerk IR windows and lining up CDs with other classes, should I use Onslaught on CD given what @Crater mentioned?

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Originally Posted by mxllxr

Loving the input from the above posts, thanks a lot. Last question would be, outside of those Zerk IR windows and lining up CDs with other classes, should I use Onslaught on CD given what @Crater mentioned?

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Not on cooldown. Basically you'll wind up using it in two circumstances:

1. Twice when Inner Release is up

2. Depending on the fight you might use it twice in-between a berserk to level out your gauge before serk is back up. The reason for it is because you SHOULD be using Upheaval pretty much on cooldown(basically, if berserk has >10s left before it's back up, use it. The goal is to always upheaval during serk.), which will spend 20 gauge and throw your generation out of sync if left as is between serks- the extra 40 spent levels it back out. There's other ways to do the same thing, though, but I've never sat down to do the math on using two onslaughts versus throwing out an extra cleave.

Both of these are, obviously, ignoring when you might use it for positioning. Which... isn't very common, but there's a lot of wiggle room to incorporate it as a part of point #2 since it's cd is only 15s(so you basically have a 15s window to throw it out at any given time). As a rule of thumb, you're aiming for 70~100 gauge on every berserk(I usually am at 70 or 80) and absolutely always 100 on every Inner Release, and in both cases you want to be using both as close to on cooldown as possible.

Onslaught as is is... more or less fine, but I'd appreciate if the potency was raised a bit.

I appreciate the role onslaught plays in warrior's kit, but I'm disappointed that it had to be the 300 yalm shoulder charge that serves it rather than some other ability. DAMN YOU MONKEY'S PAW, you give me a badass shoulder tackle but tie it to my gauge.

If anyone's been OTing v3s, then you will know the true value of Onslaught and that it is not just a BG dump, but one of the best god damn add management skills in the game.

Don't get me wrong, I would much rather have it cost 0 BG and do 0 damage, than how it is right now.

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Originally Posted by xvshanevx

If anyone's been OTing v3s, then you will know the true value of Onslaught and that it is not just a BG dump, but one of the best god damn add management skills in the game.

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Curious why you find it especially good in V3S for add management?
All adds spawn pretty close to the boss so you're never really losing uptime to pick one up.
Unless you're referring to returning to the boss after an add is killed in which case it still just fulfills its gap closer purpose.

Onslaught is wonderful in V4S for its gap closing and emnity generation.

Personally, 0 BG/Damage would be pretty bad because we would lose an important gauge dump, would probably lose dps, and would reduce Onslaught's usage making it a niche skill.
Onslaught is currently an important aspect to dps optimisation due to it's BG cost. Without it you'd be forced to spend gauge into FC at inappropriate times and mess your Bursts.
Onslaught is very well designed as is.

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Originally Posted by Shinkyo

Curious why you find it especially good in V3S for add management?
All adds spawn pretty close to the boss so you're never really losing uptime to pick one up.

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Onslaught allows you to solidify agro on the spawns, without a having to go into Defiance. Especially when White Flame spawns. If you use Heavy Swing in advance to prepare to hit it with Skull Sunder + Butcher's Block when it spawns, you might lose agro towards the end. I've had it happen before, that's why I now use Skull Sunder and Onslaught before Butcher's Block. Same with dragon.

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Originally Posted by BluexBird

Onslaught allows you to solidify agro on the spawns, without a having to go into Defiance. Especially when White Flame spawns. If you use Heavy Swing in advance to prepare to hit it with Skull Sunder + Butcher's Block when it spawns, you might lose agro towards the end. I've had it happen before, that's why I now use Skull Sunder and Onslaught before Butcher's Block. Same with dragon.

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Also useful for grabbing hate on Neo Exdeath in preparation to holmgang Delta Attack. Once you know the timing of that part well enough, you can (anywhere within a combo) provoke + onslaught and you're good to go (assuming your WHM isn't bombing C3s like a boss)

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Originally Posted by Shinkyo

Onslaught is currently an important aspect to dps optimisation due to it's BG cost. Without it you'd be forced to spend gauge into FC at inappropriate times and mess your Bursts.
Onslaught is very well designed as is.

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Eh, I don't know; it feels more like WAR's rotation is poorly designed and Onslaught happens to fix it.

I'll trade you Plunge for Onslaught.

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Originally Posted by Crater

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Cannot like this enough. It is basically the same conclusion I came to about Onslaught.

I gotta say, I've been having an insanely good time with warrior ever since I got off my ass and finished leveling it. The sheer variety of gameplay it provides me with keeps me from ever feeling bored, and now that I have inner release, the class just feels so complete to me. The skill ceiling gives me something to keep shooting towards as I attempt to master the role, and the sextuple "GO FUCK YOURSELF" fell cleave combo NEVER gets boring. Warriors are just awesome. They should be re-named "fun personified."

Onslaught is pretty nice for snap-aggro, but it feels strange only being able to use it with beast gague. The only change I feel it could have is:

Out of combat, Onslaught costs nothing and generates 20 beast gague.
In combat, Onslaught costs 20 beast gague.

I feel that would smooth things out considerably.

It feels like onslaught's low damage and gauge cost is actually what helps it fit in. If it had no cost or had high enough damage, we'd simply keep it on CD because its worth more for the dps than it is for the utility.

So thanks to that, we're encouraged to use it when we need it, and if you somehow do end up overflowing with gauge due to not using it enough, well, that's not such a bad penalty either since you can only afford to use it maybe once in between zerk windows or so.


I'd like to add to onslaught being a godsend in OS3. During the briar phase's second minjack cast, I'm either applying storm's eye or about to apply it with 100 gauge ready. At that point when I've regained control, I enter my second IR+zerk window, and have just enough time to fit in 6 straight cleaves without interruption. Once I finish the 6th cleave or so, the dragon's spawned. I have enough time then to hit heavy swing the skull sunder. With the 10 gauge I get, I switch to the dragon and onslaught, and butcher's block just before eye and zerk fall off.

with the apanda, it's a similar story. before they spawn, I'm prepping by building 100 gauge and a fresh eye application. Just before the panda spawns, I hit heavy swing. at the spawning moment, I double weave defiance and onslaught, then use skull sunder and butcher's block to regain my lost gauge. I then apply new eye while weaving the necessary defensive cooldowns to stay alive, and switch to deliverance for my third IR+zerk window.

Were I to use tomahawk instead, I'd waste more time with walking distance ontop of combo interruption and less aggro generation.