[GUIDE] Warrior: Skill Intensive Tanking

[Exrage]

I dont understand why you would put your points in str for the purpose of bigger self heals and hate generation, but not take internal release.

Hana this is just a general guide for starter tanking, if you're with a solid group that *never* pulls aggro because they give you a second or two you can probably swap provoke out for internal release as an STR warrior but I personally would never give up the "oh shit keep aggro" button that prevents a wipe in fights where staying on the boss can be difficult like up to 50% on Garuda HM. Remember the trick to a good guide is simplicity with an active "Q&A" session where you can address the reasons for why you don't include something or amend the guide later on if public opinion disagrees with solid stat data to back it up.

[Exrage]

Edit: I've since found the entry in the macro documentation, but it still doesn't seem to do anything for me: http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...e/macro01.html
Do you have a brief working example I could try?

Lol, was just about to link the data but remember that it's 1.0. Action queuing was alive and working in beta but as mentioned at the start of the guide I don't use it as I believe it takes a lot out of what it means to play a warrior as compared to the "3-button-dance" paladin. I'll see if I can make a crafting macro and if it was taken out I'll amend my post and give kudos to the FFXIV devs who realized it needed to stay in FFXII and out of the MMO setting.

[Exrage]

Whats your take on that one? Otherwise I think everything else is spot on with how I view the warrior.

A common question I get and I think I answered a post or two back, the answer is use it if you wish but I wouldn't sacrifice featherfoot for it. Your reasoning is sound but you have to remember which is more important, healing the damage you've taken or negating it completely? Currently our dex establishes a healthy 19% dodge rate as our gear specifically focuses on buffing our parry (negates damage off hits) instead of simply dodging them, feather foot turns our 1 in 5 chance to completely negate an attack to a 1 in 3. Statistically speaking this is *slightly* more favorable than increasing your healing by a a third for the same duration and this is assuming you use it properly in a DPS/High damage smash rotation everytime it becomes available.

It's really your call brudda, as you're going from beginner tanking to advanced tanking.

[Corkafish]

It is definitely important to hold onto Wrath stacks, and use Inner Beast when Infuriate is available to self-heal and then immediately get back to 5 stacks. This is a gain in both DPS and survivability. The only exception to this is that I tend to use Infuriate, Unchained, Berserk when pulling, once the mobs are activated. The buffs are a nice boost to your initial aggro, not to mention the amount of damage you will do in the several seconds afterward.

I believe the proper use of both Featherfoot and Vengeance is during phases when you have lots of adds on you, as the more frequently you are attacked, the more effective those abilities are. Alternately, Vengeance is also good to use 5 seconds after activating Berserk so that you continue doing damage during the Pacification effect.

If you want to chain off-GCD cooldowns together in a macro, use /wait 0.5 between the actions. Any shorter and they won't all activate.

[Exrage]

Use Inner Beast any time Infuriate is up, sure. ... Don't use it immediately every time available.

This is a good point and again one that comes up commonly to me, but to the new tanks learning rotations how do you tell them to know when to use their wrath and when it's statistically better to save it? You're holding a 10% crit bonus with 5 points of wrath when you can raise it back up to 6% with a single DPS/Main combo while also hitting with your largest damaging/healing/enmity ability. If I wanted to include every boss fight and when it's best to use inner beast I'd kind of take the work out of being a warrior.

Learning how to clutch is the finer point of making a great warrior tank, but not something one can demonstrate in a quick down and dirty guide to the basics, and you'll also notice that I mainly put it as a specific "PS3 ONLY" macro simply because they don't have many buttons to spare compared to PC jockeys.

[Exrage]

I believe the proper use of both Featherfoot and Vengeance is during phases when you have lots of adds on you, as the more frequently you are attacked, the more effective those abilities are. Alternately, Vengeance is also good to use 5 seconds after activating Berserk so that you continue doing damage during the Pacification effect.

An excellent point on Featherfoot/Vengeance and awesome of you to touch on it for us, but again you're holding onto that 10% crit rate for... how long exactly? Remember the guide is just the BASICS for new warrior tanks, that's something they gotta learn on their own with each fight.

Also if your macro is using off-GCD cooldown abilities why bother with a /wait 0.5 if the first ability will be on CD when the abilities become available anyway? I can't think of any off-GCD warrior usable abilities that you can use repeatedly off the top of my head so correct me if I'm wrong please.

[PiedPiper]

Equipping Actions To Your Bar: /eaction[slot] [actionname]
Another macro ability for the lazy, add it to your macro after your action and equip another macro into same button you just pushed, meaning you can keep tapping 1 and execute any combination you wish without fail.

Is the equip action to slot possible on ps3? I'm all for not being lazy.. but the ability to save space on my main cross bar by using this would be pretty awesome.

Note: I'm pld main, so... its not like there is much challenge to the rotation anyway lol.

[Corkafish]

An excellent point on Featherfoot/Vengeance and awesome of you to touch on it for us, but again you're holding onto that 10% crit rate for... how long exactly? Remember the guide is just the BASICS for new warrior tanks, that's something they gotta learn on their own with each fight.

It's not just a 10% crit rate buff, it's also a 15% extra healing received buff. Given the Warrior's relative lack of mitigation, it's key to make sure you're not nerfing your own healers in addition.

Also if your macro is using off-GCD cooldown abilities why bother with a /wait 0.5 if the first ability will be on CD when the abilities become available anyway?

What I mean is, if you use a macro that uses Infuriate, Unchained, and Berserk one after the other, you have to add a /wait 0.5. Otherwise, it will only activate Infuriate and miss the other actions entirely.

[Hachiko]

What I mean is, if you use a macro that uses Infuriate, Unchained, and Berserk one after the other, you have to add a /wait 0.5. Otherwise, it will only activate Infuriate and miss the other actions entirely.

Unless you press the button 3 times, in which case it will activate all 3 skills.

[Corkafish]

Unless you press the button 3 times, in which case it will activate all 3 skills.

Provided that you can time it exactly right. A /wait 0.5 makes the execution perfect with no wasted button presses or time.