Yoshi P talks about Warriors- from Producer Letter Live @ TGS

[Kitru]

Kitru.. How much damage does Sword Oath can do? Its 50 but not 50%.. And that's only applicable to auto attack (Correct me if im wrong).

Sword Oath does an extra 50 damage with each auto-attack, which happens more than once per GCD so the baseline estimate I was going with (one hit per GCD) is actually underestimating PLD DPS in Sword Oath.

You are right on berserk though but how does maim skill this advantage "disappear" out from a warrior?

Because you're acting as if PLD and WAR have the same base damage before multipliers, which they do not. A WAR has a fair deal *less* damage pre-multipliers because PLD has Circle of Scorn and Spirits Within.

War does and able to do more damage than a PLD. It's depending on how you are going to play with it, combining what kind of based class skills & cross class skills before entering a dungeon.. Too bad you cant proved that..

I've already proven it elsewhere. Let me prove it, once again, right here and now. To clarify, we're talking about WAR outside of Defiance and PLD in Sword Oath. These are *not* tank active numbers. Furthermore, there is no difference between the damage that a sword and an axe deal. The only difference *at all* is that Sword Oath does more damage with a faster weapon and, as previously stated, I'm acting as if the weapon speed for it were 2.5 for simplicity's sake, which ends up underestimating PLD DPS by a small amount.

The only additional that is going to improve a WAR's DPS is Internal Release. It provides 20% additional crit for 15 seconds every 60 seconds. With a baseline 10% crit rate and 50% additional damage from crits, this amounts to a 9.5% ((1+3*.5)/(1+.1*.5)) increase in damage with 25% uptime (15/60), which equates to a monumental 2.375% (9.5 * .25) increase in damage dealt.

Berserk has separate benefits for auto-attacks and special attacks thanks to pacification. For auto attacks, Berserk provides 50% additional damage for 20 seconds every 90 seconds, or 11.1% increase to damage (1/.9, yet again). For special attacks, it provides a 50% increase for 20 seconds and a -100% debuff for 5 seconds every 90 seconds. Effectively, it's got a 10 second duration so that amounts to 5.56% increase to damage (.5/.9).

Maim is a 20% increase in damage on a permanent basis. Storm's Eye is a ~11.1% (1/.9) increase in damage dealt, but it applies to both PLD and WAR if there is a WAR present.

Fight or Flight provides a 30% increase in damage dealt for 30 seconds every 90 seconds, which amounts to a 10% increase in damage dealt over time. Spirits Within deals 300 potency every 30 seconds (as DPS, you shouldn't be taking damage), and Circle of Scorn provides 250 potency every 25 seconds. As such, that's an extra 25 damage per GCD (300/30*2.5; 250/25*2.5) since they're both off GCD.

Fracture provides a DPS increase by providing a 220 potency attack every 3 Halone uses. This necessitates some downtime on the debuff, but it's required to prevent interrupting a combo or clipping ticks. For a WAR, it's 300, but the optimal rotation clips one tick so it's practically only 280.

Auto-attacks provides a baseline 83.33 potency per GCD (2.5/3). Sword Oath provides 50 additional potency with every auto attack hit and swords tend to have attack speeds in the 2.1-2.3 range, but, as previously stated, I'm simplifying which underestimates performance slightly.

The effective rotations for each are as follows:

PLD: Halone>Halone>Halone>Frac (150 + 200 + 260 + 150 + 200 + 260 + 150 + 200 + 260 + 220) = 205 per GCD
WAR: SE>BB>Frac>SE>BB (150 + 190 + 270 + 150 + 200 + 280 + 300 + 150 + 190 + 270 + 150 + 200 + 280) = 213.85 per GCD

The total damage formulas are then...

WAR:
(213.85 * 1.0556 + 83.33 * 1.11) * 1.2 * /.9 * 1.02375 = 434.39 potency per GCD

PLD (without WAR):
(205 + 83.33 + 50 + 25 + 25) * 1.1 = 427.16 potency per GCD

PLD (with WAR):
(205 + 83.33 + 50 + 25 + 25) * 1.1 / .9 = 474.63 potency per GCD

So, yeah, PLD in Sword Oath deals only slightly *less* damage than WAR outside of Defiance *and that's underestimating PLD damage*. WAR has a lot of damage modifiers but it has a lower base value to act upon. This is the issue that people keep forgetting. It's not like PLD and WAR start off with the same base damage and WAR ends up doing more thanks to a crapton of amazing multipliers. PLD ends up doing more because Fight or Flight is flipping awesome, Berserk is terrible, and Circle of Scorn and Spirits Within are, effectively, a 14.78% increase in total DPS (it's even larger in Shield Oath because it doesn't have that pesky 50+ additional getting in the way).

The only reason a PLD will deal less damage than a WAR is if said PLD isn't using the tools given to them like they should be. If they're not using Circle of Scorn and Spirits Within, their DPS plummets (372 potency per GCD).

Now, because I know you're going to ask for it, here are the numbers while in their relevant tank stances. Everything is the same except that they have their relevant damage multipliers (.75 for Defiance, .8 for Shield Oath), PLD no longer gets the +50 potency, and WAR gets a 4.76% increase to DPS from Wrath V ((1+.2*.5)/(1+.1*.5)). Internal Release actually drops its contribution to 2.72% increase (((1 + .4 * .5)/(1+.2 * .5) - 1)*(15 / 60)).

(Edit: I'm adding a pure Butcher's Block, max enmity generation formula; base DPS per GCD is 210: (150 + 200 + 280) / 3)

(Edit: Butcher's Block is actually inferior to a new combo rotation that I've been playing with: BB>BB>SE; the math on it is slightly more complex because you're sacrificing 100% uptime on SE, but I'm adding it as well; the damage numbers are 630 for a BB combo and 610 for SE)

WAR:
(213.85 * 1.0556 + 83.33 * 1.11) * 1.2 /.9 * 1.0476 * 1.0272 * .75 = 342.45 potency per GCD

WAR (Butcher's Block):
(210 * 1.0556 + 83.33 * 1.11) * 1.0476 * 1.0272 * .75 = 253.56 potency per GCD

WAR (BB>BB>SE):
((2 * (630) / .9 + 610) / 9) * 1.0556 + 83.33 * 1.11) * 1.2 * 1.0476 * 1.0272 * .75 = 325.3 potency per GCD

PLD (without WAR):
(205 + 83.33 + 25 + 25) * 1.1 * .8 = 297.73 potency per GCD

PLD (with WAR)
(205 + 83.33 + 25 + 25) * 1.1 * .8 / .9 = 330.8 potency per GCD

A PLD without a WAR around to provide the debuff deals 86.9% of the damage that a WAR does, but as soon as you go WAR + PLD, the PLD gets pretty damned close (96.60%). Of course, as soon as you start not using Inner Release and Berserk on CD in order to maximize mitigation through Inner Beast, the WAR number starts going down pretty quickly. A PLD can use his CDs as quickly as possible without negatively impacting anything.

(Edit: By maximizing enmity generation using the BB>BB>SE combo, WAR damage drops a fair deal, reducing the DPS advantage. With 2 WARs, you can do some really dangerous things if you know how to cycle SE combos properly to maintain 100% uptime while using BB>BB>BB>SE>Fracture, but that requires the WAR synchronize adding in a Fracture use would increase damage but creates some problems with maintaining uptime and combos. If you do it right, you actually maintain *better* damage than a WAR solo.)

Basically, there is no DPS advantage to using 2 WARs (Edit: You *can* get a DPS advantage out of running 2 WARs, but it is *really* hard to manage and requires a lot of precision between both players). To max out damage, comically enough, you want a PLD offtank and a WAR main tank since PLD does a crapton more damage with Sword Oath than a WAR does without Defiance. Of course, the maximization of said damage is actually a comparatively small amount of damage. The difference between a PLD tank and a WAR tank exclusive of one another, is a whopping 31 potency per GCD. When you consider that each DPS is going to do in excess of twice the damage that a tank will deal (try holding aggro with just the Storm's Eye combo and Defiance; Defiance has a 2x enmity modifier so you should be able to match/compete for aggro unless DPS does a crapton more) and that there are twice as many DPS as tanks, that 40 DPS amounts to a whole 2.67% (40/(300+600+600) increase in total damage dealt. In an 8 man group, the difference is even smaller because you've got twice as much DPS.

Furthermore, here's the math for enmity generation.

Tank stances double enmity generation. Crits do not generate any extra enmity beyond that caused by their increased damage.
Halone generates 2050 enmity per cycle pre-tank stance (150 + 200 * 3 + 260 * 5). Put that into the optimized combo and you get 637 enmity per GCD ((2050 * 3 + 220) / 10) before multipliers and additional potency.
Butcher's Block generates 2150 enmity per cycle pre-tank stance (150 + 200 * 3 + 280 * 5). Storm's Eye generates only 610 (150 + 190 + 270). Put that into the optimized combo and you get 446.15 enmity per GCD ((2150 * 2 +610 * 2 + 280)/13)). (Edit: I'll also include a enmity generation numbers for pure Butcher's Block spam, which is 716.67 enmity per GCD)

(Edit: adding BB>BB>SE numbers)

WAR:
(446.15 * 1.0556 + 83.33 * 1.11) * 1.2 /.9 * (1 + .0476) * (1 + .0272) * .75 * 2 = 1212.66 enmity potency per GCD

WAR (Butcher's Block only):
(716.67 * 1.0556 + 83.33 * 1.11) * (1 + .0476) * (1 + .0272) * .75 * 2 = 1370.43 enmity potency per GCD

WAR (BB>BB>SE):
(((2 * (150 + 600 + 1400) / .9 + 610) / 9) * 1.0556 + 83.33 * 1.11) * 1.2 * 1.0476 * 1.0272 * .75 * 2 = 1403.18 enmity potency per GCD

PLD (without WAR):
(637 + 83.33 + 25 + 25) * 1.1 * .8 * 2 = 1355.78 enmity potency per GCD

PLD (with WAR):
(637 + 83.33 + 25 + 25) * 1.1 * .8 * 2 / .9 = 1506.70 enmity potency per GCD

Pay no attention to the italicized. It is conclusions derived from from old numbers that I'm leaving for historical perspective.
WARs *do* generate a metric shitton more enmity than a PLD does (this actually surprised me; thanks to the difference in spamming Halone v. alternating BB and SE, I fully expected PLD to win out handily, but the PLD "bonuses" are flat value whereas the WAR bonuses are multipliers so, because baseline enmity generation is higher for both, the bonuses that PLD gets are *heavily* diluted). This is the *only* advantage that WAR has. Of course, a PLD is more than capable of maintaining all of the threat that it might need and redundant enmity is completely pointless: there's no difference between having 1 billion more enmity than the DPS and having 1 more enmity; either way, you have aggro. As such, the "advantage" is less important that it might otherwise be.

Editing in new conclusions:
Apparently my initial belief that PLD is better at enmity generation is supported: PLD *does* generate better enmity per GCD because it gets to spam its high enmity combo ad nauseum. This just makes WAR look even worse: you have to choose between slightly better damage but dramatically worse enmity generation, likely enough to have really good DPS riding your ass nice and hard, or enmity generation that just *barely* edges out PLD along with utterly abysmal DPS. It would be interesting to get a conversion rate between DPS potency value and tank potency value to determine what the relative enmity generation between the two is. As it stands, we can only guess at whether WAR actually has enough to keep aggro off of a mathematically perfect DPS.

Edit after adding BB>BB>SE:
WAR can manage to edge out PLD in solo enmity generation. A PLD with a WAR is still going to match DPS while generating slightly better damage. Really, nothing really changes about the end conclusions since the two classes are still effectively identical. Pointing out the fact that the differences between the two classes are minute, which was the point of all of this, is still completely valid.

P.S. Previous maths I did didn't account for Wrath V and Internal Release, hence the discrepancy with those numbers.
P.S.S Yes, I recognize that I'm reversing my position on enmity generation between the two, but I've got no problem changing my view based upon math and evidence.
P.S.S.S Holy crap, all of that math was fun.
P.S.S.S.S After further revision and correction of numbers, apparently my initial view on enmity generation were correct. No, I'm not flip flopping. I follow the numbers, and we're continually honing them.

[Tanaya]

P.S.S.S Holy crap, all of that math was fun.

I will say even as a Paladin, I do enjoy reading your theorycraft and mathematical posts.

[wlakiz]

Words

So you neglected to take into account of Unchained and Vengeance during tanking? What about enmity/damage against multiple mobs? Overpowered damage vs Circle of Scorn

[Kitru]

So you neglected to take into account of Unchained and Vengeance during tanking? What about enmity/damage against multiple mobs? Overpowered damage vs Circle of Scorn

Unchained is a *terrible* thing to use as a WAR: it eats your Wrath stacks while simultaneously preventing you from using Inner Beast. If you're using Unchained, you're reducing your mitigation.

Vengeance is a wonky ability because the damage it provides is dependent upon taking physical damage. As such, Stoneskin and Adloquium reduce its value. On top of that, it's on a really long CD.

Assuming 2.5 seconds between incoming attacks (doesn't happen in my experience; bosses tend to use magic/cast time attacks often enough that the incoming rate goes significantly), you'd be getting 6 ticks off of Vengeance every 48 GCDs. At 50 potency per tick, that's 6.25 additional baseline potency/GCD. On top of that, I'm not sure that Vengeance can crit, which could reduce the value of it further. The only time you'll really get a lot out of Vengeance is when you're AoE tanking with physical damage targets.

AoE damage and enmity are a more complex question than you might think. The PLD AoEs are effectively free: CoS has no cost and Flash costs MP. Overpower, on the other hand, is expensive as hell. If you use it more than 2-3 times, you're completely demolishing your TP, which means you're going to have empty GCDs when punching the boss later on. On top of that, Overpower deals laughable damage compared to DPS AoEs and has a much smaller area of effect.

This is further complicated by the vagaries of Flash's enmity generation. Supposedly, it doesn't scale with gear, is unaffected by Shield Oath, and all sorts of other factors that would render it effectively worthless. Getting answers to those questions would go a fair way towards putting some numbers down.

There are a *lot* more balancing factors associated with AoE enmity/damage than there are for single target damage/enmity. The reason I don't do the math for them is largely because it's a *lot* more math involved coupled with a *lot* of missing information.

[wlakiz]

Unchained is a *terrible* thing to use as a WAR: it eats your Wrath stacks while simultaneously preventing you from using Inner Beast. If you're using Unchained, you're reducing your mitigation.
...
AoE damage and enmity are a more complex question than you might think. The PLD AoEs are effectively free: CoS has no cost and Flash costs MP.

Here is the problem with your math.. you are not comparing apple to apple. Supposedly, in your math, you are assuming while tanking PLD always have full health to do a full 300 pot Spirit Within, but at the same time, you assume WAR will never use IB on CD because they need to save it for big hits. Does the PLD never get hit in your scenario?

If you want to compare damage, you need to compare a WAR going all out without consideration of his own survival.

Also, I liked how you downplayed WAR's Aoe damage/enmity output compared to PLD. Even if flash and COS is free (flash will eventually require PLD to regen his own mana), it doesn't change the obvious fact that WAR who can also use flash, overpowered/vengeance/Steel cyclone will out enmity/damage PLD (which is more important to the 'AOE down Adds' scenarios).

You called Overpowered 'laughable damage compared to DPS AoEs and has a much smaller area of effect' but somehow PLD's CS is not laughable?

[Kitru]

If you want to compare damage, you need to compare a WAR going all out without consideration of his own survival.

No, because if I really wanted to do that I would just have the WAR run around without Defiance on. If you're in tank stance, you are *not* attempting to go all out for damage without consideration for survival. The math I did is for maximized damage while still maintaining optimal survivability. One of the reasons why Unchained is so laughable is specifically *because* you could just drop out of Defiance for the duration and have it behave in pretty much the same way.

And, actually, if you understood the math that I did, I *did* include leeway for using Inner Beast: you simply replace it with Fracture. Fracture and Inner Beast just so happen to deal the same damage. It's a pretty obvious exchange.

Also, I liked how you downplayed WAR's Aoe damage/enmity output compared to PLD. Even if flash and COS is free (flash will eventually require PLD to regen his own mana), it doesn't change the obvious fact that WAR who can also use flash, overpowered/vengeance/Steel cyclone will out enmity/damage PLD (which is more important to the 'AOE down Adds' scenarios).

Any WAR that takes Flash is wasting an additional slot. A WAR gets to use Flash all of 3 times without the advantage of the Blind debuff before running out of MP and it takes twice as long to get the mana for Flash back, thanks to WARs having half of the mp of a PLD. Bringing up Flash for a WAR in a discussion of AoE threat demonstrates that you have no clue what is actually useful for a WAR.

Furthermore, Vengeance is only useful when you're actually being attacked. If you're being attacked, you've already got aggro. As such, it's there as a DPS increase, but it's not a useful consideration for aggro generation. On top of that, Vengeance still has that 120 second CD and 15 second duration. At 1 attack per GCD, Circle of Scorn is going to provide just as much threat and damage as Vengeance is, and Circle of Scorn is on a much shorter CD.

Steel Cyclone is another one of those completely worthless abilities to bring up in the discussion. Steel Cyclone is the equivalent of a whopping 266 enmity potency and actually ends up being *more* expensive thanks to costing Wrath stacks. Overpower provides 240. Steel Cyclone is so bad that it could stop existing entirely and it wouldn't affect the way WAR is played *at all*.

You're behaving as if AoE occasions exist completely independently of the rest of the fight. You *have* to consider the resource costs of the abilities and the opportunity cost that using the ability accrues. Flash doesn't have *any* opportunity cost because it's functionally free. Overpower has a *massive* opportunity cost. Every time that you use it, you're cleaving off ~20 seconds off of your effective fighting time. Use it more than 2-3 times and you're going to be incapable of doing damage to the actual boss a short time later, and that ends up costing you a *crapton* of damage in the end.

Opportunity costs matter and Overpower comes with really high ones. That's what you seem to be incapable of understanding, no matter how much I tell you.

You called Overpowered 'laughable damage compared to DPS AoEs and has a much smaller area of effect' but somehow PLD's CS is not laughable?

All tanks have laughable AoE damage compared to DPS. You seem to have focused on the first part of that sentence while ignoring the second half. The only thing that matters, as far as tanks are concerned, is AoE enmity generation. The damage doesn't matter. WAR has better snap AoE threat, but it's harder to manage, from both a functional and a resource based model. Flash is easier to use, covers a larger area, is effectively free, and comes with a nice little debuff as a cherry on top.

When discussing the AoE capabilities of the two tanks, people get *really* hung up on the damage just because Flash doesn't deal any. They're willing to ignore *every other factor* that distinguishes the AoEs just because of that one thing. It's even more audacious when people act as if the damage that Overpower provides actually matters; the dilution of tank damage applies just as much to AoE capability as it does to ST damage: it means almost *nothing*, especially when you recognize that you'll manage all of 2-3 Overpowers before you're effectively forced to stop thanks to resource management.

[Tronic]

Any WAR that takes Flash is wasting an additional slot. A WAR gets to use Flash all of 3 times without the advantage of the Blind debuff before running out of MP and it takes twice as long to get the mana for Flash back, thanks to WARs having half of the mp of a PLD. Bringing up Flash for a WAR in a discussion of AoE threat demonstrates that you have no clue what is actually useful for a WAR.

I'll disagree here - I find it useful on fights leading up to bosses as a way to conserve TP by using it instead of more overpowers to get agro; this in turn lets me chain pull faster. Not to mention it is situationally convenient whenever it happens that you have mobs not lined up so that overpower hits them all, and don't want to waste that extra second or two repositioning.

Furthermore, despite not being really necessary but merely convenient, I can't really see any other skill being more desireable. Assuming you start with Convalescence, Provoke, Featherfoot and Internal Release, what's better than Flash for your fifth slot? Savage blade is as useful as Steel Cyclone. Awareness nullifies crits over 25 seconds... assuming a mob has a 5% base crit chance, that's a whopping 2.5% mitigation over 25 seconds... meh. It might prove useful in a token encounter down the line which has high crit rate, but not for now. Second wind is so laughable I have to strain looking at my health bar to see it move when I use it. Haymaker sounds great on paper, but alas, most (all?) bosses are inmune to it. And if I'm going to choose a skill that is only useful on trash, I'd rather have flash, which is situationally convenient, rather than Haymaker which will mitigate damage I really don't need mitigated. And mantra, untraited, boosts party healing by 5%... I don't consider it enough to be worth it. I have heard somewhere it might be 10%, but I can't get a clear report with a date on it. If that were the case, then it'd be much better... but still, leveling monk up to 42... >.<

[Kitru]

Furthermore, despite not being really necessary but merely convenient, I can't really see any other skill being more desireable. Assuming you start with Convalescence, Provoke, Featherfoot and Internal Release, what's better than Flash for your fifth slot?

You'd be surprised at how useful Awareness is. The crit rate for NPCs is actually a fair deal higher than 5% (I think it's closer to 10-15%, but I could be wrong), but you don't use Awareness when you need to take less damage; you use it when you need to keep damage predictable. There are some attacks that go straight through CDs and are followed up by a cluster of melee attacks. Awareness lets you control the maximum amount of damage that you take for that time frame. Awareness isn't a tank CD in the traditional sense, which is where people go wrong with it.

I also don't see much use in Provoke. The only time I've ever had it be useful is when I'm MT, I die, and then get a rez. Of course, 99% of the time, when the MT dies, it's a wipe. Either that or the OT is capable of bouncing in and taking over as MT without any problems. At any other time, Provoke is so ludicrously worthless that I don't even remember that it's on my bar at the time. It just doesn't generate a useable amount of threat in any other situation.

Currently, my loadout is Convalescence, Awareness, Featherfoot, Second Wind, and Provoke. Second Wind and Provoke are only on there because I haven't bothered leveling PUG up high enough to get Internal Release and Mantra. As soon as I do, I plan on getting rid of Provoke first.

The issue with Flash, as I see it, is, and always will be, the fact that its so very limited in the number of uses you get out of it. You get 3 uses before you run out and then you have to wait minutes to get enough back to use it once more and a single Flash isn't going to be even remotely useful. AoEs only do their job when you used them repeatedly. I tried using Flash for a while, but it just wasn't useful. There really wasn't any point in keeping it.

[wlakiz]

No, because if I really wanted to do that I would just have the WAR run around without Defiance on. If you're in tank stance, you are *not* attempting to go all out for damage without consideration for survival. The math I did is for maximized damage while still maintaining optimal survivability. One of the reasons why Unchained is so laughable is specifically *because* you could just drop out of Defiance for the duration and have it behave in pretty much the same way.

And, actually, if you understood the math that I did, I *did* include leeway for using Inner Beast: you simply replace it with Fracture. Fracture and Inner Beast just so happen to deal the same damage. It's a pretty obvious exchange.

Its called damage potential, with your math, even if IB does 9999 damage, you would still ignore it because it would affect the tank's mitigation. There are certain phases/scenario in a fight where survivability is not the top priority (Titan heart phase, or when you run with 3 healers..etc). Fracture does not replace IB because: 1. Fracture requires 30s to reach full damage, and 2. You can do both fracture and IB as part of your rotation for even higher damage.

Any WAR that takes Flash is wasting an additional slot. A WAR gets to use Flash all of 3 times without the advantage of the Blind debuff before running out of MP and it takes twice as long to get the mana for Flash back, thanks to WARs having half of the mp of a PLD. Bringing up Flash for a WAR in a discussion of AoE threat demonstrates that you have no clue what is actually useful for a WAR.

I take flash to fill in pacification gap after berserk and extra aoe threat generation on top of overpowered. I find the skill to be useful as it allows me to continue to generate enmity so my healers and dps can continue to their job without reserve.

Furthermore, Vengeance is only useful when you're actually being attacked. If you're being attacked, you've already got aggro. As such, it's there as a DPS increase, but it's not a useful consideration for aggro generation. On top of that, Vengeance still has that 120 second CD and 15 second duration. At 1 attack per GCD, Circle of Scorn is going to provide just as much threat and damage as Vengeance is, and Circle of Scorn is on a much shorter CD.

Steel Cyclone is another one of those completely worthless abilities to bring up in the discussion. Steel Cyclone is the equivalent of a whopping 266 enmity potency and actually ends up being *more* expensive thanks to costing Wrath stacks. Overpower provides 240. Steel Cyclone is so bad that it could stop existing entirely and it wouldn't affect the way WAR is played *at all*.

You're behaving as if AoE occasions exist completely independently of the rest of the fight. You *have* to consider the resource costs of the abilities and the opportunity cost that using the ability accrues. Flash doesn't have *any* opportunity cost because it's functionally free. Overpower has a *massive* opportunity cost. Every time that you use it, you're cleaving off ~20 seconds off of your effective fighting time. Use it more than 2-3 times and you're going to be incapable of doing damage to the actual boss a short time later, and that ends up costing you a *crapton* of damage in the end.

Opportunity costs matter and Overpower comes with really high ones. That's what you seem to be incapable of understanding, no matter how much I tell you.

If you are being attacked Vengeance helps you maintain aggro. If you can't generate the threat required to hold them against the DD's AOE, then you're not doing your job as a tank. Steel Cyclone like CS is a free AOE. It can be modified by damage boosting abilities like berserk, maim and IR. You are looking at an instant ~990 enmity (not like CS, where it slowly generates the enmity) and this goes for overpowered as well. Not to mention if you pop bloodbath, you get extra enmity from the healing that you do with the aoe. With a WAR you can have the dps burst down the mobs way faster than if a pally tanks and this matters.

All tanks have laughable AoE damage compared to DPS. You seem to have focused on the first part of that sentence while ignoring the second half. The only thing that matters, as far as tanks are concerned, is AoE enmity generation. The damage doesn't matter. WAR has better snap AoE threat, but it's harder to manage, from both a functional and a resource based model. Flash is easier to use, covers a larger area, is effectively free, and comes with a nice little debuff as a cherry on top.

When discussing the AoE capabilities of the two tanks, people get *really* hung up on the damage just because Flash doesn't deal any. They're willing to ignore *every other factor* that distinguishes the AoEs just because of that one thing. It's even more audacious when people act as if the damage that Overpower provides actually matters; the dilution of tank damage applies just as much to AoE capability as it does to ST damage: it means almost *nothing*, especially when you recognize that you'll manage all of 2-3 Overpowers before you're effectively forced to stop thanks to resource management.

Damage matters, because its modifiable and scales nicely. Flash scales poorly. You can't make Flash generate more threat in emergency situations and your argument is that you don't need to because a PLD can be stuck tanking mobs all day instead of helping DD kill them and that may have it uses but not in a typical encounter where killing adds is the priority.

WAR is a 'sharp' tank. It is high risk and high reward. It does substantially more dps/threat than PLD if you are willing to take the risk that goes with it.

P.S Your math seem to have errors: In WAR optimized combo, you don't take in account that the slashing resistance bonus is still present when reapplying Storm Eye and You also don't look at WAR with WAR scenario, where MT can do BB spam while the other does slashing dps.

[Ruminate]

Theres a video of a PLD tanking HM Titan with a single healer floating around in the general forums. It was a bought run, too, so part of the raid was being carried. If I posted a link to that vid, it still wouldn't prove the argument at hand though. That video is more likely to prove that the healer was made out of 100% pure awesome, rather than the PLD being superior.