Defiance still lacking in comparison to Shield Oath

[Evandis]

Your recommendation of "re-spec and do majority build for STR" is seriously ambiguous to begin with.

-snip-

I don't know how you do a majority build that ends up being a totality build, but whatever big guy, keep going on and on and on. One day when you get a chance to play with a PLD who focused on STR and you realize he has not only a better sustainability than you, but also a higher enmity threshold, you will get wise.

I did all VIT and then re-spec'd to 2 STR to 1 VIT, and my sustainability did not drop at all, but I now am able to keep enmity through even the most overzealous of healers. I may even re-spec to a full STR build as the numbers are explored further. VIT can be boosted through gear, as it is the primary stat on just about all PLD gear.

I don't care what you do. I have been a PLD since day 1 on FFXI until now. Before the shield buffs on PLD I was one of the first to use a Terra Staff to tank with primarily, to all the nay-sayers like you, who a couple months later were buying up Terra's Staff. Then all the nay-sayers like you who said PLD/RDM was a horrid idea for JoL, but soon it became the accepted method to tank.

You do what you want, but I will continue to advise other Paladins on how to get the most from the job. At the end of the day, I keep my party alive and win. If my party is upset about that, well then, I will go ahead and get a measly 400 extra HP and loose enmity on the regular.

And before you bother replying, keep in mind that I have no intention of reading it or responding to it. I am spending my day leveling by running DF and getting groups through Stone Vigil. I'd much rather prefer practice than theory.

[Junk4Brains]

Regeneration is a non-factor. The Paladin damage reduction increases the effectiveness of their regeneration by 25%. It's a wash. Additionally, the break point for efficiency for incoming heal amount for a Paladin vs. Defiance (average uptime) is ~5800. This is before we get to their additional block defense.

As it stands, the numbers seem to indicate that the Paladin would be superior in all tanking situations that are not a DPS race. That might also be false depending whether or not the healer could add additional damage to compensate.

Had a bit long post typed up. And lost it so just will give the shorter version.

1.)This post you quoted had NOTHING to do with comparing PLD to WAR. It was comparing what WAR gained from holding on to stacks of wrath vs what they gained by using them on Inner Beast. Which boiled down to, if you can get more than 3k health return on your Inner Beasts or close to it. It is better to use Inner Beast. Which naked no buffs was not worth it, with Main and Storm's Eye, it got close. And that was factoring the LOW end of the spectrum with 600 health return from Inner Beast. Most WAR's can get an 800 return in their sleep.

2.) People are thinking too linearly they see PLD's tanking stance and WAR's tanking stance and automatically think they should function similarly towards the same purpose and they DON'T. Warrior's main mitigation tool is NOT Defiance. Defiance is WAR's hate management tool but Inner Beast is what mitigation the most damage for War. So its not a really about Defiance vs Shield Oath. But Inner Beast vs. Shield Oath. Which automatically means to things:
a. Warrior is more gear dependent than PLD. A PLD really only needs to stack defense and let their mitigation do all the work. WAR needs to bolster both their defense and offense to get the most out of their skills.
b. Warrior has healing coming in from TWO sources. If a PLD is over-healed that is not such a big deal since their mitigation is always at work. A WAR's self-heals and a healer's heals can 'step on each other's toes'. If the healer cure bombs before Inner Beast, all that damage Inner Beast WOULD have mitigated via recovery gets flushed down the toilet. If the WAR Inner Beasts before the heal, the MP the healer used to cure that heal gets wasted. So its not that WAR requires more healing but requires more precise healing.

3.) To go through the rest of the skills in a blow by blow:
-Sentinel pretty much = Infuriate. Sure the damage reduction is huge but it only has a 10s window. Infuriate has the same recast and depending on the situation will heal for as much damage as Sentinel Mitigates. In some situations the spike damage will be large enough to give Sentinel the win. In others a lucky crit or lower in-coming damage will give Infuriate/Inner Beast the edge.

-Bulwark pretty much is answered by Featherfoot. Both skills have 15s durations. But one has a 90s recast and the other 180s. So in the time a PLd uses Bulwark once a WAR could have 30s of Featherfoot. Which there are two things to consider a block will negate partial damage while a dodge will take no damage at all. And if a hit can be blocked it can be dodged. So they pretty much balance out here.

-Convalescence and Foresight is a skill they both share. And I will see these both as being balanced. PLD has 10% more healing but WAR has Wrath and/or Mantra at their disposal to balance it out. And while WAR has a 30 second less recast time on Foresight, PLD's native 20% damage mitigation means the added defense has more effective value while its up. And you can throw Awareness in here too. I mean really... 5 second difference is not a lot to write home about.

-Rage of Halone is met by Maim and Storm's Eye. Once negates 10% damage one ensures roughly 30% bonus to your Inner beasts.

-Shield Swipe is a bit of a toss up. In comparison it is matched by Haymaker. But what gives SS the edge is that it is a unique debuff ONLY the PLD can inflict where as with slow both DRG and BLM can inflict the same status. But if neither are doing so, Haymaker does a better job of lessening damage over time and SS does a better job of lessening spike damage.

-Fight or Flight vs. Berserk is also balanced. 30s up time 180s recast vs 20s up time and 5s Pacification and 90s recast. Berserk still has the edge here for two reasons. One 20% more damage and two, it grants an additional stack of Wrath. Meaning your next Inner Beast can be done in 15 seconds rather than 20.

-Which brings us to the big one. Rampart. This is the reason why WAR has to work harder than PLD. Great up time, great mitigation, and a relatively short recast at 90s. Then I'll lump in Cure, Stoneskin, and Flash. Flash is just a great tool not just for hate but the blind adds to mitigation. Cure and Stoneskin by themselves are kind of weak but if you pop Rampart or Sentinel on a target you already have Rage of Halone on. Well during that time the eHP of those skills skyrockets. But if you are noticing a pattern what makes WAR strong is not the upfront value in their skills but the frequency in which they can use them. What WAR has is every single one of their self-heals has a chance to crit and that chance can be augmented for 15s every MINUTE. They have a higher natural regen because of their max heal, so with a different of 1000hp that WAR is getting 400hp a minute for free. And yes, Storm's Path is a small heal but even small heals add up the more you use them. Then you have Second Wind and/or Thrill of Battle. You have an entire 15 seconds more up time of Blood Bath. If you time Berserk right in your rotation you can land 2 'zerk Boosted Inner Beasts before its duration runs out. If Berserk is down you have Vengeance which is often overlooked but is good for another free application of Wrath.

And when you get down to this level of intricacy of gameplay elements that it no longer becomes the effectiveness of a skill that determines its usefulness but the effectiveness of how the skill is used by the person using it that really dictates its value.

And that should be it in a nutshell. I left out Hallowed Ground because I believe WAR should have no answer for that. That is PLD's skill so when WAR's start to get too uppity they can remind them why they are the kings (...and queens) of straight up damage mitigation. If you like active always on the edge of your seat combat roll a WAR if you like to be in control of a fight and tackle content at your own pace forgoing a little action in place of more security roll a PLD. And remember in situations with more than one tank its not about how much one can out perform the other it is about how well they both can work together.

Now if I left anything out feel free to point it out. But I think I covered all the important skills that pertain to tanking efficiency.

[Hachiko]

Now if I left anything out feel free to point it out. But I think I covered all the important skills that pertain to tanking efficiency.

Very good and comprehensive post, but I think it ignores something pretty important, and that is how instances scale and how damage scales in this game in general. Monster damage scales very fast compared to player damage. Auto attacks is Castrum do a lot more than auto attacks at stone vigil, and Auto Attacks in Coil do WAY more than auto attacks from Castrum.

However, WAR damage only increases slightly with weapon upgrades.

Say a fresh 50 WAR is hitting 800 HP heals on inner beast. A geared war with Relic weapon will be hitting what? ~1k assuming the increase is about the same? (not sure because I don't have the relic weapon yet.)

So, going from a fairly weak weapon to a relic weapon is going to net us ~200 more self healing every 17 or so seconds. But that is nothing when compared to how boss damage scales, where even hardmode primals hit for significantly more than that on their auto attacks.

I don't know if that explains it well. But the thing is the damage mitigation of Inner Beast (and to a lesser extent the healing buff from Fury Stacks) scales with PLAYER damage. While the damage mitigation of Shield Oath or other paladin cooldowns scales with MONSTER damage. And since monster damage scales far faster that player damage, that will have a very big impact on how effectively warriors can tank endgame content.

I like that the "flavor" of the classes is very different, and love playing WAR, but tanking efficiency without looking at monster scaling is missing a big part of the picture. And once we get to 24 man instances, I don't see how Inner Beast is even going to come remotely close to being sufficient for main tanking, unless it's a situation where there are 6 bosses that need to be tanked, and each tank has a personal healer.

[Derza]

Very good and comprehensive post, but I think it ignores something pretty important, and that is how instances scale and how damage scales in this game in general. Monster damage scales very fast compared to player damage. Auto attacks is Castrum do a lot more than auto attacks at stone vigil, and Auto Attacks in Coil do WAY more than auto attacks from Castrum.

However, WAR damage only increases slightly with weapon upgrades.

Say a fresh 50 WAR is hitting 800 HP heals on inner beast. A geared war with Relic weapon will be hitting what? ~1k assuming the increase is about the same? (not sure because I don't have the relic weapon yet.)

So, going from a fairly weak weapon to a relic weapon is going to net us ~200 more self healing every 17 or so seconds. But that is nothing when compared to how boss damage scales, where even hardmode primals hit for significantly more than that on their auto attacks.

I don't know if that explains it well. But the thing is the damage mitigation of Inner Beast (and to a lesser extent the healing buff from Fury Stacks) scales with PLAYER damage. While the damage mitigation of Shield Oath or other paladin cooldowns scales with MONSTER damage. And since monster damage scales far faster that player damage, that will have a very big impact on how effectively warriors can tank endgame content.

I like that the "flavor" of the classes is very different, and love playing WAR, but tanking efficiency without looking at monster scaling is missing a big part of the picture. And once we get to 24 man instances, I don't see how Inner Beast is even going to come remotely close to being sufficient for main tanking, unless it's a situation where there are 6 bosses that need to be tanked, and each tank has a personal healer.

Yea that is the same thing i'm worried about... It can be fixed pretty easy though... by simply removing the 15% heal from wrath stacks and moving it to defiance buff ( may also need to raise its % to ~20%-25 ish that would put it on par with what the plds get... I see inner beast being more of a compensation for all the other damage mitigation skills that the plds get and not something to make up for the difference in effective health pool that plds currently have over warriors. ( to make the 2 buffs equal you would need 25% HP and 25% healing - but due to the fact that wrath stacks also give 10% crit chance i'd be ok with it being 25% Hp and 20% healing). But that is something that will need to be changed for warriors to compete for tank slots in the very end game boss fights.

Another idea could be leave the wrath stacks as they are but only add a flat 10% healing on defiance... that way you would get up to 25% healing with 5 stacks but only drop to 10% when you use inner beast and what not, putting the average % healing right around 20%.

[Junk4Brains]

Very good and comprehensive post, but I think it ignores something pretty important, and that is how instances scale and how damage scales in this game in general. Monster damage scales very fast compared to player damage. Auto attacks is Castrum do a lot more than auto attacks at stone vigil, and Auto Attacks in Coil do WAY more than auto attacks from Castrum.

However, WAR damage only increases slightly with weapon upgrades.

Say a fresh 50 WAR is hitting 800 HP heals on inner beast. A geared war with Relic weapon will be hitting what? ~1k assuming the increase is about the same? (not sure because I don't have the relic weapon yet.)

So, going from a fairly weak weapon to a relic weapon is going to net us ~200 more self healing every 17 or so seconds. But that is nothing when compared to how boss damage scales, where even hardmode primals hit for significantly more than that on their auto attacks.

I don't know if that explains it well. But the thing is the damage mitigation of Inner Beast (and to a lesser extent the healing buff from Fury Stacks) scales with PLAYER damage. While the damage mitigation of Shield Oath or other paladin cooldowns scales with MONSTER damage. And since monster damage scales far faster that player damage, that will have a very big impact on how effectively warriors can tank endgame content.

I like that the "flavor" of the classes is very different, and love playing WAR, but tanking efficiency without looking at monster scaling is missing a big part of the picture. And once we get to 24 man instances, I don't see how Inner Beast is even going to come remotely close to being sufficient for main tanking, unless it's a situation where there are 6 bosses that need to be tanked, and each tank has a personal healer.

Yeah I understand what you are talking about and while I don't play it myself I've watched a few videos and have a friend who lets me tool around with his legacy WAR every now and then. And to that point I have to say this is where some WAR's will have to just swallow their ego and deal with the fact that some content PLD will be the better main tank. And also like you said WAR's mitigation is player/gear based.

And to this I have to say, maybe WAR is just a late bloomer. I'm used to playing hybrid classes in other RPG's and this could just be a case of the ugly duckling. That WAR is just going to hit an awkward phase before getting all their awesome gear and really finding its own. I mean we don't know what kind of gear those 24 man raids will drop or how drastically it will effect WAR's game play.

But then it boils down to the problem being two things. Monster/Gear scaling both of which have NOTHING to do each classes skill set. So maybe instead of tweaking the skills, tweeking the content/gear might be the case... it might not be. But lets put in a real effort and see what it is really like for WAR at the END of end game not at the start of it before we start crying and whining about x,y, and z. I mean I've leveled many jobs in MMO's that I had to go through 40 levels of suck just so I can get to the last 10 levels of awesome and in the end it always paid off.

[Duelle]

a. Warrior is more gear dependent than PLD. A PLD really only needs to stack defense and let their mitigation do all the work. WAR needs to bolster both their defense and offense to get the most out of their skills.

Considering that PLD's aggro generation is calculated through STR and weapon damage, this is false.

b. Warrior has healing coming in from TWO sources. If a PLD is over-healed that is not such a big deal since their mitigation is always at work. A WAR's self-heals and a healer's heals can 'step on each other's toes'. If the healer cure bombs before Inner Beast, all that damage Inner Beast WOULD have mitigated via recovery gets flushed down the toilet. If the WAR Inner Beasts before the heal, the MP the healer used to cure that heal gets wasted. So its not that WAR requires more healing but requires more precise healing.

This only matters if you're meticulously measuring HPS on a WAR vs a PLD on a spreadsheet. WAR's threat generation is not affected by how much HP they recover from self-heals. They don't get a damage barrier measured by the amount self-healed. They don't gain or lose attack/defense based on amount self-healed.

And you can throw Awareness in here too.

Which will continue to be worthless unless every boss in Crystal Tower is given a Mighty Strikes phase.

In the end, instead of saying "tanks are supposed to mitigate damage, so a tank should be built on mitigation and mechanics to deparate them", the devs decided to make one tank that mitigates damage and one tank that doesn't. Exacerbated by the fact that the developers attempted to use self-heals in lieu of damage mitigation, which is a big no-no in tank design. Damage mitigation is generally baseline on some level and self heals should compliment that rather than have the latter outright replace the former. That is to say, self healing can be a part of damage mitigation but not the whole of it, which is the current issue with WAR.
-----------------------------

And to that point I have to say this is where some WAR's will have to just swallow their ego and deal with the fact that some content PLD will be the better main tank.

And here's where your words lose any value in this discussion. A game with multiple tanks has to have said tanks be equally vaible for content. Niche design is not going to work based on how ARR is set up, and the sooner people abandon the asinine mentalities that eventually screw over job classes out of content, the sooner we can truly enjoy the game.

Monster/Gear scaling both of which have NOTHING to do each classes skill set.

Actually they very much do, since gear is for the most part uniform. You don't have darklight for WAR and darklight for PLD, you just have a darklight set. When gear is uniform, the mechanics are what are lacking, and mechanics are obviously tied to the classes and their skill sets.

[Jahaudant]

whatever big guy
I have been a PLD since blah blah blah so I know better than you.
my opinion > hard facts

Typical response.

[Dead-Song]

Ah come people, dont get mad its just a game. Im just happy my parties alive by the end of the day hahahaha

[brainchild]

[...] But the thing is the damage mitigation of Inner Beast (and to a lesser extent the healing buff from Fury Stacks) scales with PLAYER damage. While the damage mitigation of Shield Oath or other paladin cooldowns scales with MONSTER damage. And since monster damage scales far faster that player damage, that will have a very big impact on how effectively warriors can tank endgame content.

I like that the "flavor" of the classes is very different, and love playing WAR, but tanking efficiency without looking at monster scaling is missing a big part of the picture. And once we get to 24 man instances, I don't see how Inner Beast is even going to come remotely close to being sufficient for main tanking, unless it's a situation where there are 6 bosses that need to be tanked, and each tank has a personal healer.

Nothing is going to change a warrior being a terrible end-game tank unless Defiance is straight up given a 25% healing taken buff. That would be a start, but Inner Beast needs to be changed to something like Death Strike for it to compete with block, which is where mob damage vs. player damage disparity comes in.

Here's a link to Death Strike: http://www.wowhead.com/spell=49998/death-strike

Note that the Death Knight's mastery creates a shield based on the amount healed. I'm fine with warrior's being based on active mitigation, but they still have to be balanced.

[Hachiko]

Nothing is going to change a warrior being a terrible end-game tank unless Defiance is straight up given a 25% healing taken buff. That would be a start, but Inner Beast needs to be changed to something like Death Strike for it to compete with block, which is where mob damage vs. player damage disparity comes in.

Here's a link to Death Strike: http://www.wowhead.com/spell=49998/death-strike

Note that the Death Knight's mastery creates a shield based on the amount healed. I'm fine with warrior's being based on active mitigation, but they still have to be balanced.

I totally agree. I think for a WAR to be close to on par with paladins in terms of tanking they would need 2 buffs: Defiance gets 10% more healing added baseline, with wrath stacks adding an additional 3% per, and Inner Beast is turned into a damage shield that rather than being a heal.

Even then PAL would still have the edge, imo, but it would be closer in difficult content.