Is Warrior viable for end game contents?

[Coramac]

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).

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...56#post1224556

I calculated break points for Inner Beast usage and for Paladin advantage in this thread. It would have been more comprehensive if not for character limitations. I'd be interested in the 7%. My number was somewhere around 7.8%. It's not really enough of a discrepancy to matter though.

[Vire]

Just tanked titan last night as a WAR was told by two of my healers I was no harder or if I was they couldn't really notice it then to heal then equally geared pld.

[Derza]

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).

Lets say on average inner beast heals you for 1200... (counting berserk/maim/storms' eye/and random crits) if you are giving up and average of 8% healing for lets say 20 seconds (starting at 0% and working up to 15% by 17.5 seconds or so) That means a healer would have to heal you for 15,000 in 17.5-20 secs for it to be NOT worth using (making it pretty much always worth using in 4 man groups, and depending on boss in 8 man parties it can go either way, it will be pretty worthless in 24 man raids if the trend continues like they did from 4 to 8 man). This once again points out how a warrior gets worse and worse in comparison to a paladin as group sizes get bigger and bosses hit harder. The paladin mitigation always stays at the same % no matter the amount hes getting hit for, where as the harder the warrior is getting hit the lower his mitigation becomes (due to a lot of the mitigation warriors have is in the form of self heals). The only way i see them being able to fix this without changing the class to much is just tacking on a base 10% healing to the defiance buff. This would still allow a cost/benefit to innerbeast and all other wrath using skills but would give the warrior equal mitigation from their tank buff while all stacks are up (25% HP and 25% healing (10% passive + 15% from stacks)). This seems like a no brainer fix and i really hope they implement something to this effect.

[Sebastien]

Why? The numbers are very straightforward.

What I can tell you is that people who are clearing Coil have told me that both are fine and that Warrior is stronger in some cases. So the numbers are not so straightforward.

The majority of people complaining that Warriors are unsuitable are actually .. Warriors. And mostly under-leveled ones worried about what the theory predicts rather than their experience.

I'm not saying Warriors are perfect - I don't know. But the pattern of the complaints is telling. I'll rely on what I heard from the progression teams that are working on the endgame content. For now, that information is: warriors are fine.

[Ahlen]

Isn't inner beast mostly a waste, as you're more than likely just going to waste heals as overhealing? If they converted it to a shield...We'd be in a much better place. Also baking in the +healing to defiance. Paladin's don't have to give up their defense buff to use their signature abilities, why should warriors?

Paladins are obviously going to be better at the moment, their mitigation ability favors worse gear. But better healer and better tank gear would get you more returns on the +healing from defiance.

[Derza]

But better healer and better tank gear would get you more returns on the +healing from defiance.

Better healing from defiance vs paladins? If that is what you are saying then that is not correct.. 20% damage reduction is equal to having 25% hp and 25% healing, warriors only get 25% HP and at best 15% healing no amount of gear will change that to favor warriors over paladins. Oh and the +% healing that warriors do get from defiance dose not even apply to the warriors own self-heals.

[SatrinaKali]

What I can tell you is that people who are clearing Coil have told me that both are fine and that Warrior is stronger in some cases. So the numbers are not so straightforward.

The majority of people complaining that Warriors are unsuitable are actually .. Warriors. And mostly under-leveled ones worried about what the theory predicts rather than their experience.

I'm not saying Warriors are perfect - I don't know. But the pattern of the complaints is telling. I'll rely on what I heard from the progression teams that are working on the endgame content. For now, that information is: warriors are fine.

This is the trouble with theorycrafting a vacuum. Your math can be 100% sound...but in actual practice there are more variables to account for then just the basic math for what works "better". groups find ways to work around issues and use their brains to come up with strategies.

[Kitru]

Please notice the "All other factors remaining constant" disclaimer from earlier.

The problem is that you can't gauge performance of a WAR and PAL looking *only* at those factors because there are other factors that don't remain constant. A WAR gets 25% additional max hp, which provides the same effective hit points as the PAL's 20% damage reduction. Given the same gear, a hit on a PAL is going to do the same percentage of a PAL's max hp as it does to a WAR's. The only difference is that a heal on a WAR is going to restore 92% of the same percentage of max hp that a PAL would receive (1.15/1.25).

Also, WAR gets more out of Bloodbath, not only because it lasts longer, but because they actually deal more damage and, as such, heal for more. Any time you attempt to bring up PAL self heals, it means *nothing* compared to WAR self heals. WAR just gets *so much more*. Of course, PAL gets a shield for blocking, so it balances out (at least, self-healing v. blocking).

I'd be interested in the 7%. My number was somewhere around 7.8%.

The basic gist of it is that you can use Inner Beast once every 22.5 seconds: 1 GCD for Inner Beast, 3 for a 3 combo (gain 2 stacks), and 2 seconds for a 2 combo (gain 1 stack). That adds up to 9 GCDs (1 + 3 + 3 + 2) or 22.5 seconds.

As to the 7%, Wrath stacks aren't evenly over time. They're gained at specific intervals: you spend 2.5 seconds with 0%, 2.5 seconds with 3%, 5 seconds with 6%, etc. Furthermore, you lose your Wrath stacks as soon as you use Inner Beast, so that's another GCD with 0 stacks. When you average out these values ((0+3+6+6+9+12+12+15+0)/9), you get 7%.

To be cost effective, Inner Beast needs to provide at least 8% of the total (baseline) healing of a healer over the course of 22.5 seconds, or, effectively, 80% more than what they can/will do in a single GCD. Since it's pretty much *never* that big (assuming we're discussing GCD use in a burst healing scenario such as you would need to be in to use Inner Beast without wasting it on overheal), Inner Beast is only useful as an emergency heal or when you've got Infuriate up to give you back those stacks immediately.

Without immediate Infuriate use, any use of Inner Beast outside of solo play (wherein healing received doesn't matter) is either a break even, at best, in a 4 man party (it will very often end up being a net loss unless you've got a bad healer *and* Berserk active; remember, as burst healing, unless you're going to benefit from *all* of it, you're wasting the healing, so you better be pretty low before even thinking about it, especially if a healer is there casting on you) or an explicit, and very substantial, loss of effective healing in an 8 man party.

[Ehayte]

groups find ways to work around issues and use their brains to come up with strategies.

This^ However, what we are talking about is which class is naturally more suited to do something. Naturally, and mechanically, it seems PLDs are attuned to take massive amounts of damage. If they couldn't do that better than WARs, then what the hell good would they be? With about 1/2 the DPS, no AE dmg, their only AE aggro ability worth crap being usable by WARs, they would just be a pointless class if they couldn't do SOMETHING better.

Obviously the intention is to have PLDs be the "Main Tanks" for bosses, but obviously they left enough free-play in the space between the tanks so that either could substitute for the other. Play what class you have the most fun with, not which class is going to min/max and make you "teh most ubar, d00d!1" If you're good, you can work around what your class lacks.

[Relics]

groups find ways to work around issues and use their brains to come up with strategies.

In the first turn of the coil last night on the ADS adds, our Warrior was getting one shot with 5-6k Crits. We swapped tanking positions and I took the ADS adds and was only getting hit for 2k. We downed it with ease this way, but if we didn't have 2 bards for the silence this wouldn't have been possible and would have took many more attempts trying to get lucky with his damage taken. SE needs to give wars some love.

Side note our warrior is fully geared in Darklight with AF2 body and relic weapon at 7k health so he isn't lacking in gear.