Defiance still lacking in comparison to Shield Oath

[Kitru]

Let's play a game: ask anyone who's ever tanked in any game if they'd prefer an immunity cooldown, a 20% damage reduction cooldown and a 40% damage reduction cooldown to healing for 25% of your damage dealt, last stand, and having a 30 second lower cooldown on a percentage based buff to a stat with diminishing returns. Don't forget to tell them that said buff is Warriors only true mitigation cooldown and that it's competing with a flat 20% damage reduction on the exact same timer.

Let's see... A 10 second immunity CD on a 7 minute CD, which means that, at best, you'll use it *maybe* twice per encounter, more likely just the once if even that since you'll be too worried that you might need it at some other point; a 20% DR CD with an uptime of 22% at best; and a 40% DR CD that lasts 10 seconds and is on a 3 minute CD, so that you'll use it maybe 2-3 times over the course of a fight. Those CDs are nice, but they're crippled by their CDs. You are *forced* to save them for emergency situations because they don't last long enough and you have to wait too long between uses.

You can get as hyperbolic as you want but you're still ignoring the fact that the PAL CDs all have terrible uptimes. Acting as if they were somehow *better* because they have better contributions *while they're active* while completely ignoring the fact that they're active *way* less often and, because of this, are less likely to be used is simply being obtuse.

The WAR CDs are meant to be used regularly; you're not supposed to save them. The PAL CDs are meant to be held in reserve; you're *supposed* to save them. That's not just theory. That's experience in tanking over multiple games over multiple years dealing with the same exact issues. I've seen plenty of people that only ever look at the size of a CD rather than the uptime, and they're always missing half of the story.

Personally, I prefer the WAR CD suite since I actually *like* using my tank CDs actively, cycling through them and not worrying if I might need the CD for something more important within the next 5 minutes. It's a playstyle question. If you only ever want to see tank CDs as emergency buttons, you can feel free to go PAL, but you're incorrect to say that it's outright *better*. It's simply *different* and, honestly, if you can't get the value out of the WAR CD suite, it's not because of the class/abilities: it's because you just don't know how to use a CD suite that is actually supposed to be *used*.

The only CD that I'm even *remotely* jealous of is the immunity CD and, even then, that's a bit questionable because of that insane 7 minute CD. At best, it lets you ignore one burst damage attack per fight, which is kind of kewl but *hugely* restricting and not even all that valuable since it's not like you're only going to see *one* of those big nasty hits per fight.

[Duelle]

You can get as hyperbolic as you want but you're still ignoring the fact that the PAL CDs all have terrible uptimes.

That's probably because PLDs treat their cooldowns as just that: cooldowns, as in saved for emergencies or "oh shit" moments.

Real cooldowns are not stuff you rotate over the course of a fight as part of standard play. To do so follows boneheaded design like the whole "Berserk => Last Resort => Soul Eater" thing DRKs had to deal with in FFXI.

The WAR CDs are meant to be used regularly; you're not supposed to save them.

Except you could get away with this if the abilities in question dealt with raw mitigation (the type PLD currently boasts). There's a reason WAR's inspiration required a damage shield procced by one of their main attacks to compliment their tank design, which was a self-healing tank. And I think WAR would be well served to have something similar.

[Kitru]

That's probably because PLDs treat their cooldowns as just that: cooldowns, as in saved for emergencies or "oh shit" moments.

The term "cooldown" refers to any ability that has a cooldown, not an arbitrary "oh shit" button. There are DPS CDs, heal CDs, tank CDs, etc. "Oh shit!" buttons are simply one subtype of tank CDs.

WAR *also* reserves CDs for emergencies. The difference is that the threshold of "oh shit!" is substantially lower thanks to the lower CDs. The "oh shit!" threshold for Hallowed Ground is ridiculously high: if you use it, it's not going to be available for the remainder of the fight. The "oh shit!" threshold of Sentinel is only slightly lower than that because you get maybe 2-3 uses out of it. The "oh shit!" threshold of everything that WARs gets is pretty much nonexistent such that you can burn them for any kind of minor emergency. You'd still save Thrill of Battle for a big emergency because it's up for only 10 seconds on a 3 minute CD, but you're going to use Bloodbath and Featherfoot pretty much every time it comes up for pretty much any physical burst damage mechanism rather than having to gauge whether you'll need it later on.

The difference between a WAR and a PAL in CD usage is that a PAL has to play triage with their CDs and a WAR doesn't: the WAR just sees a situation where damage is higher or healers need a reprieve and uses one without regards for whether another will be needed later. PAL, on the other hand, has to ask themself if it's a big enough situation to necessitate preventing them from not having that resource somewhere down the line.