Defiance still lacking in comparison to Shield Oath

[Sephirah]

Imbalanced gameplay is really not something you should be so proud of.

Do you answer all posts asking for gameplay changes with "if you don't like it, you can get out!"? Or is it just ones you have a bias for?

The whole point is they aren't imbalanced, they are balanced, they just play differently. If WAR received an increase to defense, THEN it would be imbalanced. Still waiting for an answer for the "why would anyone be a pld" question.

Mitigation through defense is currently the only thing PLD is superior at compared to WAR. WAR has superior HP, self-survivability, damage, and aoe control. If you get equal defense as PLD, then there is no reason to be one.

[Delorean]

Tanking in WoW is boring as hell nowadays.

Just sayin'.

that's more because threat is a non issue nowadays and the warrior class is nothing but a shell of it's former self raped by homogenization. classes are still pretty different and have their own strengths, even the warrior. but tanking in wow is standing in place for 5 minutes and using big cd on boss nuke.

i mean, i don't really tank. because of how boring it is in world of warcraft. i didnt know mrd/war was tank role until i hit lv 15 on beta, i assumed it was dps because it was doing more damage than pugilist. i dont play games that dont have a warrior class and the only reason im not resisting being pigeonholed into tanking is because it's fun in this game.

The whole point is they aren't imbalanced, they are balanced, they just play differently. If WAR received an increase to defense, THEN it would be imbalanced. Still waiting for an answer for the "why would anyone be a pld" question.

lets be honest

no one cares about balance

they care about getting an invite to group and keeping their spot based on their ability to play the game, not the class that they play.

[Kitru]

The whole point is they aren't imbalanced, they are balanced, they just play differently.

Actually, there's a pretty strong case that there is an imbalance between the two. Their CD suites are effectively balanced because PAL gets the better burst CDs whereas the WAR gets the better mean contribution ones, but, from a mean mitigation/required healing standpoint, PAL has a definite advantage: PAL gets a shield to block attacks, which is countered by the WAR self-heals; PAL gets 20% DR which *should* be countered by the 25% higher max hp and increased self healing, but the self healing is only 15% (and not even up 100% of the time thanks to being a consumable and losable resource), which puts WAR at a roughly 8% disadvantage.

The people that bring up the higher max hp as an advantage that WARs get simply don't understand how to do the math. The 20% DR that PAL gets is a 25% increase in eHP.

[Duelle]

Just wanted to say, a certain MMO also known as World Of Warcraft contained four fabulous tank classes years ago, four different gameplay which were really cool to play because one was really different from the others.

People cried 'cause they were "not balanced", so patches after patches, those four amazing differents tanks became just the same gameplay and nearly the same mechanics. You now play a warrior as you play a pally, as you play a DK and as you play a feral. Tanking in WoW is boring as hell nowadays.

Tanking in WoW went through the "fixed despite not being broken" issue. Blizzard changed stuff at will without actual reasoning, which is what effectively killed tanking for me. I was a prot warrior through and through since Vanilla and LOVED how they played in WotLK, only for them to entirely change how rage worked and then when they fell in love with the DK active mitigation (AKA blood shield) mechanic to the point they changed the other tanks to go by that model I simply chose to hang up my sword & board because the aspect of gameplay choice was not there anymore; I didn't like active mitigation and stuck to my prot warrior since it had mechanics I liked.

That being said, there's only so much you can do to stray from a set tanking model, because otherwise you get the "only warriors can tank Illidan" scenario, making the other tanks chopped liver. Regardless of whether we can change classes and jobs, people should still tank using whatever class they want, not worry about whether their class and job are viable in the hard content, and certainly not affect their group's chances of success.

Imbalanced gameplay is really not something you should be so proud of.

This.

Mitigation through defense is currently the only thing PLD is superior at compared to WAR. WAR has superior HP, self-survivability, damage, and aoe control. If you get equal defense as PLD, then there is no reason to be one.

Who said anything about equal defense to a PLD? Asking for a small buff to mitigation is not suddenly going to make WAR the only tank choice in the game. There's ways you can do it, and since WAR is in part inspired by WoW's Cataclysm-era Blood DK, something akin to the Blood Shield mechanic may be all they need.

lets be honest

no one cares about balance

they care about getting an invite to group and keeping their spot based on their ability to play the game, not the class that they play.

Yes and no. I care about balance between members of the same roster because if left alone that sort of thing trickles down, and before you know it other roles are affected. Even as a PLD (I don't and have never liked axes) I want WAR to be equally viable not only to the number crunchers but to everyone that plays the game, where it's business as usual in beating content regardless of who is doing the tanking. That also applies to heals (I have some issues with SCH for the same reason I have issues with WAR) and DPS.

[Sephirah]

...stuff about WAR being at 8% disadvantage.

The people that bring up the higher max hp as an advantage that WARs get simply don't understand how to do the math. The 20% DR that PAL gets is a 25% increase in eHP.

This brings us back to they are both situational, I'm still sure more content will be released that will allow the WAR to shine. Everything you’re saying makes sense to me by the way, not sure if all the math is correct but let's assume it is. I think an 8% discrepency between these two classes at launch is pretty well balanced; I don't think that 8% will make or break a group. For example, 2 groups attempting the same fight, equally skilled and geared, and one group using a pld tank the other war - both these groups will succeed. I think an argument could also be made that, that 8% discrepancy can be bridged by the individual player’s skill and cooperation with their group.

[Evandis]

So the complaint here is that the defensive spec job has more defensive potential? I see.

Balance? Fine, give Warrior some form of shadows ability. Fixed.

[Kitru]

This brings us back to they are both situational, I'm still sure more content will be released that will allow the WAR to shine.

The math is pretty simple actually. 20% damage reduction is the equivalent of 25% increased max hp and 25% increased self healing (1/.8 = 1.25; reduced damage means that a smaller hp pool is effectively larger against the same amount of incoming damage as well as having the same amount of healing act upon an effectively larger amount of incoming damage). WARs have 25% +hp but only 15% +healing, which is where the 8% discrepancy comes from (1.15 / 1.25 = .92).

For there to be content for WAR to really shine in, it would need to be content where healers are either incapable of healing the tank for extended periods or rapid fire burst phases (i.e. burst hit once every 15-20 seconds), such that either the self heals or the quick CDs of the WAR are actually valuable. It's a delicate balance to play around with. Honestly, I think it would just be better to take care of that 8% discrepancy and have the player make the entire difference, rather than having to create explicit situations just for WARs to shine.

[Lharz]

Guys, what I meant was that I just hope that if some balances are needed, SE will be smarter than Blizzard and won't destroy the spirit of the classes by making them similar.

[Duelle]

Guys, what I meant was that I just hope that if some balances are needed, SE will be smarter than Blizzard and won't destroy the spirit of the classes by making them similar.

And as I've said, that can only be taken so far. I don't think WAR should get carbon copies of anything PLD has (at most, Improved Foresight should be buffed for MRD/WAR besides the defrease in recast). I do however feel that WAR needs a slight boost to their mitigation game. Self-heals should still be part of their gameplay model, but it stands to reason that a tank should have mitigation on some level.

You could clone Blood Shield (as I mentioned earlier, rename it Dulled Nerves and make it proc from Inner Beast), buff Foresight only for MRD (change Improved Foresight to reduce the cooldown to 90 seconds and change "+20% defense" to "reduces damage taken by 15%"). If you don't want to clone Blood Shield directly, make the mitigation come from higher parry chance with a 20-25% mitigation ceiling; Foresight used to increase parry rates back in 1.0, and that concept might be worth recycling for 2.0's MRD/WAR.

[Ondesvin]

they should make the 15% healing as default on our defaince and not someting we can lose and make it work on all the healing we can get even our own buffs, or increase it to 25% only works on cure, as it is now we got a problem, what does a higher health pool give you if you cant get back to max hp after hit?

but then again i think healers should learn that they can spam heal on us at there hearth content and not worry abourt threat being pulled of the warrior tank, we are after all not paladin noobs with low threat.