Warriors - How to fix our damage mitigation

[HiirNoivl]

How is PAL *not* better than WAR?

No way does it even approach the DMG of a competent WAR or or mitigate damage better. At most it's equal. If I'm on PLD and my healer is preoccupied with something, and my health is dropping? What do I have, oh yeah Hallowed Ground. That's really it. At least on WAR I can heal myself efficiently until I get some attention again.

The only thing I really envy PLDs on is their debuff arsenal. All I get is Stun every 30 seconds and Bind and then I'm bound too so there's just no escape. PLD has silence and Blind and stun and even Pacification... but if I use Berserk who's pacified? ME! It's just not fair I tell ya.

But yeah PLD damage mitigation is just overblown. They're entirely dependent on healers to keep them up, they can't really assist in the fight because their mitigation does no damage at all. They're truly hate holding turtles and that's great... so long as your DPS is nice and they can kill the mob before it goes Enraged and then there's nothing anyone can do.

WAR's mitigation? Death. At that point, the WAR is taking 0 damage at all.

[Kitru]

If I'm on PLD and my healer is preoccupied with something, and my health is dropping? What do I have, oh yeah Hallowed Ground. That's really it. At least on WAR I can heal myself efficiently until I get some attention again.

So you're saying that the only time that a WAR has any advantage over a PAL is if the healer is completely and utterly ignoring the tank? That sounds a lot like soloing. It also sounds like complete and utter bullshit for any kind of tanking situation because any time that mitigation would actually *matter*, you expect to have a healer around to actually pop you back up. Arguing that WAR somehow has an advantage thanks to selfheals that don't even actually provide a real mitigation advantage of any kind is just naive. You're specifically trying to concoct a scenario where a WAR has an advantage when that scenario only occurs when someone screws up massively or you specifically try to put yourself in that situation.

But yeah PLD damage mitigation is just overblown.

Except that it's not. PAL mitigation is exactly what it is. WAR self healing is what gets drastically overblown. Yes, it's nice, but it in no way makes up for the 8.7% increased external healing requirements and lack of a shield. PLD simply requires less external healing than a WAR does. It's not even up for debate. The only reason you'd still be hanging on to this is if you somehow want to alter reality to accommodate your preconceived notions rather than changing your viewpoint to account for reality. At that point, you're not interested in the truth; you're interested in spreading your own delusions.

WAR's mitigation? Death. At that point, the WAR is taking 0 damage at all.

Except that, based upon both math that's been done several times and your own admission earlier in this very post that I'm quoting, PAL and WAR have the exact same damage. Unless you want to claim that somehow stuff dies faster to a WAR than a PAL for reasons *other* than damage dealt (maybe they deal damage to themselves out of pity?), you're making no sense *whatsoever*. You can't even maintain internal logic within your *own posts*.

[HiirNoivl]

So you're saying that the only time that a WAR has any advantage over a PAL is if the healer is completely and utterly ignoring the tank? That sounds a lot like soloing. It also sounds like complete and utter bullshit for any kind of tanking situation because any time that mitigation would actually *matter*, you expect to have a healer around to actually pop you back up. Arguing that WAR somehow has an advantage thanks to selfheals that don't even actually provide a real mitigation advantage of any kind is just naive. You're specifically trying to concoct a scenario where a WAR has an advantage when that scenario only occurs when someone screws up massively or you specifically try to put yourself in that situation.

This is what I don't understand about this discussion. The only time I've been one shotted as a WAR have been in situations where I would have been one shotted as a PLD. (Barring Hallowed Ground of course) The amount of damage that you guys say that PLD can take with no problems is way overrated. Even with Rampart and Sentinel and a Shield, I have no recourse but to put up my shield and pray that my WHM is ready. At least with WAR, I know that even if my WHM is NOT ready, it's not the end of the world, I'll just heal myself.

As a PLD, if a WHM is not ready to heal me, I'm dead in the next shot. I have less HP and even with mitigation there's no second chance if for some reason the healers are interrupted. It happens frequently in tanking situations and that's why I like WAR so much. So what if I just took a big hit? I heal for half of it. If I take another hit, I'll heal that as well. I have the same survivability as a PLD, plus more damage.

Except that it's not. PAL mitigation is exactly what it is. WAR self healing is what gets drastically overblown. Yes, it's nice, but it in no way makes up for the 8.7% increased external healing requirements and lack of a shield. PLD simply requires less external healing than a WAR does. It's not even up for debate. The only reason you'd still be hanging on to this is if you somehow want to alter reality to accommodate your preconceived notions rather than changing your viewpoint to account for reality. At that point, you're not interested in the truth; you're interested in spreading your own delusions.

That Shield only blocks some damage. WAR heals all damage. If anything relying on your shield to help you only helps some of the time. If you want increased block rate, your block effectiveness on your shield goes down a lot. If you want more effective blocks, than your block rate goes down a lot. Whereas, my Axe will heal for a lot in every circumstance so long as its buffed by abilities that should always be on cooldown.

Except that, based upon both math that's been done several times and your own admission earlier in this very post that I'm quoting, PAL and WAR have the exact same damage. Unless you want to claim that somehow stuff dies faster to a WAR than a PAL for reasons *other* than damage dealt (maybe they deal damage to themselves out of pity?), you're making no sense *whatsoever*. You can't even maintain internal logic within your *own posts*.

Theorycrafting is just that theory. Your math doesn't pan out in my reality. In my reality, my Inner Beast heals for way more and way more often than your math. For me, I play in real time, I see real results.

If it doesn't match your math, that's not my problem is it?

[Kitru]

This is what I don't understand about this discussion. The only time I've been one shotted as a WAR have been in situations where I would have been one shotted as a PLD.

Actually, by saying this, it's pretty apparently that you just don't understand the discussion at all. PLD *doesn't* have a one-shot disparity with WAR. 25% increased max hp is effectively the same as the 20% decrease in damage taken that a PLD gets. Any attack that one shots one will one shot the other. All damage against either of them amounts to the same percentage of max hp lost. The disparity is in the amount of external healing required (which you seem to be incapable of actually understanding). WAR self heals do not make up for the 8.7% disparity in healing required and, comically enough, that actually stands up in both practice *and* theory. I wonder why...

So what if I just took a big hit? I heal for half of it. If I take another hit, I'll heal that as well.

Except that you won't. You'd recover *maybe* half to one-third of the damage, assuming you get a crit *and* you have multiple DPS CDs active, by using Inner Beast. You'd then have to burn Infuriate to prevent yourself from losing the 15% +healing that is effectively required as a WAR. For the second hit, you'd burn Inner Beast again, for the same amount, once again recovering either half to one-third of said hit, but then you'd be out of those self healing resources and require 15% more healing than a PLD while not being able to do the same thing for another 90 seconds (because you have to wait until you get a DPS cd up again in order to get anywhere near decent heals with Inner Beast). You're shooting yourself in the foot time and time again, which is the *problem* with the self heals that you constantly bring up as if they were the panacea for every situation. They're not because you simply don't have them *often* enough.

Your entire argument is that WAR is great when your healer is an idiot and the tank isn't getting any heals for an extended period of time. Why the hell would you *ever* need to argue that? You might as well just say that tanks are supposed to be entirely self-sufficient and that healers exist only to provide raid healing.

I have the same survivability as a PLD, plus more damage.

Except that you don't have more damage. Seriously. We've gone over this. A WAR, properly played, has no better damage than a PAL, properly played. The fact that you don't have PALs using Fight or Flight like they're supposed to is the fault of the player, not the class, and acting as if balance were designed around players being idiots rather than having reasonable level of competency is simply naive.

That Shield only blocks some damage. WAR heals all damage.

And not taking damage is better than healing damage. It's a trade off.

Whereas, my Axe will heal for a lot in every circumstance so long as its buffed by abilities that should always be on cooldown.

Except that, even if you're using said abilities that buff Inner Beast on CD, you're never going to have 100% uptime. Inner Beast is only an effect self-heal every 60-90 seconds. A Shield is effective *at all times*. Uptime matters.

Your math doesn't pan out in my reality.

Your reality is colored entirely by your own preconceived notions. You act as if Inner Beast is *always* up and *always* heals for 25% of your max hp. It isn't. It's up, at that level, once every 90 seconds. It's up at a pitiful level once every 20 seconds.

You're entirely incapable of understanding the theory because you're completely incapable of actually looking at reality without altering it to fit your own views. You're not going to be the one that notices whether you require more healing or not and, as such, you're completely ignorant of any difference in performance. You only pay attention to your own damage and, as such, have no idea what you're comparing your own damage to in order to make an educated assessment of comparative performance. You just say "I WAR! I tank good! I heal self! I break things!" without having *any* ability to actually make a comparative assessment.

You can talk about WAR all you want but, if you want to compare PLD to WAR, which is what's is being done here because balance is a comparative assessment, you've readily demonstrated that you're completely unprepared to do so. Your entire argument is that WAR is a viable class to run through content. Yes, it is. You'll not find me arguing against that. The error you make is in extrapolating "viable" into "balanced", which is completely and totally facetious.