Is Warrior viable for end game contents?

[HattoriHanzo]

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How is it going? Everyone seems to be doom and gloom over the 1st boss as a Warrior tank.

Well the first go was last night, they made it to the snake boss with 35 minutes left, then they all went AFK on streak (i logged out of game) till 18 minutes. I'm assuming they were checking strategies. They got to the split phase but healer died right before so tank died to 2nd snake and they wiped. I'm sure they'll get it down sometime this week.

[Sebastien]

One thing for you all to consider is that warriors may be worse at some fights but better at others. People have pointed out some fights with heavy constant damage, mentioning that paladin is better suited for this. Yet if a team encounters a hard DPS check, you may see them using a warrior tank because they can handle the (more difficult) healing and need the boost to pass the hurdle using the gear they have. Another example is that some encounters will have infrequent huge spikes of damage, and it becomes a challenge to fill the tank back up in time for the next spike. Warriors may be well suited for this type of encounter as well.

I did speak with someone who is working on turn 2 in coil. He said that paladin does have an advantage for the first turn, but that warrior in his opinion is much stronger in the second one

[Ehayte]

I'm well behind all you folks, but have experience being specifically designated a "Raid Leader". Here's some math:

EX: Over 15 hits for 200 dmg each once every second, let's use really simple numbers: (ADD TANKING)
WAR: Takes 100% of the damage for all 15 hits, taking 3000 damage /15 seconds = 200 DPS
PLD: Takes 80% of the damage for all 15 hits, taking 2400 damage / 15 seconds = 160 DPS
So the PLD takes 40 less damage per second.

Now:
EX: 2 hits for 2000 damage each over 5 seconds: (BOSS TANKING)
WAR: Takes 100% of the damage, meaning 4000 dmg / 5 seconds = 800 DPS
PLD: Takes 80% of the damage, meaning 3200 dmg / 5 seconds = 640 DPS
That's a 160 DPS difference here. Obviously, if you are a healer, the 40dps difference isn't going to make you sweat, but the 160 dps difference is significant.

That different will become trivial with more healing power/gear. Without other considerations, PLD is superior MT, WAR superior OT.

[Bollucks]

What that doesn't take in to account is the 15% healing we get from damage. So if you add that in to the equation the difference is not huge.

But all of this talk has me concerned, I dropped my BLM to level this character and I am really enjoying the class so far. But should I be concerned with the classes ability to tank late game?

[Kal-El]

snip .

Sorry but I have to totally disagree with you here.

I can get Inner Beast up (without infuriate) about every 20 seconds at the most. I get on average 1.2k HP from that. I can Crit for 2k and then I can use berserk to boost that.

When I don't use Inner Beast I've got 15% bonus on heals.

Plus I've got second wind and bloodbath (most minor heals we have)

You completely left that out of your "Math" so it's basically all flawed.

EDIT: I forgot Thrill of Battle which is 20% addition to max HP plus 20% recovered. Some WARs are rocking 7k HP. Even 8k!

[Kitru]

Here's some math:

And you're completely ignoring the fact that WAR gets a 15% increase to all healing received. At 200 DPS, a WAR only requires 173.9 HPS (that is, HPS that anyone else would require). At 800 DPS, a WAR would require 695.7. Yes, it's still more than what a PAL requires, but it's not where near as large as you make it out to be.

[Coramac]

And you're completely ignoring the fact that WAR gets a 15% increase to all healing received. At 200 DPS, a WAR only requires 173.9 HPS (that is, HPS that anyone else would require). At 800 DPS, a WAR would require 695.7. Yes, it's still more than what a PAL requires, but it's not where near as large as you make it out to be.

You are forgetting that the 15% healing requires Wrath stacks. Using Inner Beast eliminates the healing bonus. Based on rotations posted, the average value of the bonus healing is going to be around 8%.

[Coramac]

Warriors may be well suited for this type of encounter as well.

Why? The numbers are very straightforward. The Paladin is equal to the Warrior in surviving burst damage / one rounding. The Paladin has a definitive advantage against high sustained damage. The Paladin has a definitive advantage in terms of cooldowns- both in terms of efficiency and emergency. The Paladin has a very definitive advantage in terms of healer efficiency.

While there is a lot of talk about Warrior self-healing, Paladins can use Stoneskin which has some significant advantages over Inner Beast.

You could create encounters that would favor a Warrior over a Paladin, but it would take some creativity.

[Kitru]

You are forgetting that the 15% healing requires Wrath stacks. Using Inner Beast eliminates the healing bonus. Based on rotations posted, the average value of the bonus healing is going to be around 8%.

Actually, it's only 7% (I've done the math and can direct you to it if you're curious). On top of that, you don't want to use Inner Beast. It's a net healing loss thanks to the loss of the +healing. You'll get more out of the 8% extra that your healers are doing than the pittance that you'll get out of Inner Beast. Inner Beast should only ever be used as an emergency heal when either you'd be dead in the time it would take for a heal to get to you or you've got no healers around (they're dead or you're soloing).

[Ehayte]

Stuff

Very valid points everyone - As I said I'm not end-game, so I don't have a huge grasp on WAR healing abilities. HOWEVER - a WAR cannot heal themselves if they are dead. If you go below 0 hp, extra healing power does you absolutely no good at all. PLDs can use Blood frenzy, can drop combos and cure themselves for 250pts every 3 seconds, can use convalescence which increases healing on them by a substantial amount, etc, etc, etc. Please notice the "All other factors remaining constant" disclaimer from earlier. PLDs may not get as many abilities as WARs do to make those little differences, but they get enough. My math was not "Flawed" (sorry, I had to also sardonically use quotes in my response to you as my ego now feels like a puppy that got pistol whipped), it simply ignored factors that I was not willing to do back-end math to calculate, and that I felt were negated by other factors.

Love these forums, and I'm not being sarcastic.