Any near iLVL90 WARs here? How is it?

[Paikis]

Disclaimer: My FC is in turn 5, I have tanked everything in the game on my Warrior and Twintania is the only thing we haven't killed with me tanking it (or at all yet). I also have a 50 PLD.

A certain fact became transparent early on when our gear was lower, WARs couldn't easily deal with higher content as PLDs could. However, in proper gear (and I know you WARs are out there with maxed out characters), does this balance change?

Bad Warriors will never be able to tank things that bad Paladins can. They will try, fail, and then blame it on the PLD having better cooldowns. Good Warriors have never had an issue tanking the vast majority of content (Dreadnaughts are about it). At the end of the day, a Paladin will run out of major cooldowns (here I include Hallowed, Sentinel and Rampart) eventually and at that point it becomes effectively a Warrior that can't heal itself and has lower damage/enmity.

Mathematically, PLDs are better spike tanks with the Warrior being the better consistant tank. But the gap is no where near as wide as most people think. Both tanks need to know when the big hits are coming, and both tanks will need to have something available to deal with those hits. For a PLD, they use a mitigation cooldown before the hit lands. For the Warrior they heal themselves either before the hit, after the hit or both.

Let's take Titan for example (because most people have done it). Mountain Buster hits every 30 seconds. A Paladin will be rotating cooldowns for these hits, and will have a cooldown available for most of them. But the third (or 5th if you use Hallowed for the 3rd) will hit and the best cooldown you have is Convalescence. For that hit, the Paladin is a much weaker tank. This pattern continues, occasionally leaving the PLD 2 MBs in a row with nothing to use. Meanwhile the Warrior has Inner Beast available for every single attack, and twice on every other. Berserk, Featherfoot and Second Wind can be used for every third MB, with Internal Release being used (every second MB) on each of the double IBs. For the Titan fight at least, once you have a minimum amount of gear (lets say full Darklight) the Warrior is probably the better choice for that fight, as it handles the Mountain Buster damage spikes much better and everything else is trivial.

I expected people would have figured this out by now, but most people simply look at average mitigation over the whole fight, and if that is all you consider, then the Paladin wins hands down. In practice, there are periods where a Paladin simply has no cooldowns of note, and the Warrior becomes the better tank for that period. That amount of time can be up to a minute in length, depending on how good/bad your PLD is at rotating his buttons.

[Ruminate]

snip

All of Titans attacks can be blocked. A block reduces more damage than Rampart.

Flash improves evasion more than Featherfoot. It can also be used before every Mountain Buster, Rock Buster, and autoattack combo.

Rage of Halone's debuff reduces about as much damage as Foresight. It can be used before every burst combo.

Sentinel + Flash + Rage of Halone 1st
Rampart + Flash + Rage of Halone 2nd
Bulwark + Foresight + Flash + Rage of Halone 3rd
Invincibility 4th
Rampart + Flash + Rage of Halone 5th
Sentinel + Flash + Rage of Halone 6th
Bulwark + Foresight + Flash + Rage of Halone 7th
Rampart + Flash + Rage of Halone 8th

If the healers are bad, the PLD can do even more by watching for the landslide, count 2, then cast Stoneskin on themselves and partially absorb either the MB, or the previous RB. A 500 absorb Stoneskin(im undergearing the PLD) can increase eHP more than a 1500 Inner Beast(im overgearing the WAR) depending on which cooldown the PLD used.

If the group doesn't have a BRD, MNK, or they're bad/lazy/dont know, PLDs can even silence tumult after the third stomp, allowing the healers to focus more of their healing on the PLD instead of the raid.

....its interesting how the current belief is that PLDs are simple and therefore easy to play.
Are PLDs really simple, or do players simply not need to play one effectively to get through an encounter?

[Bigpurpleharness]

....its interesting how the current belief is that PLDs are simple and therefore easy to play.
Are PLDs really simple, or do players simply not need to play one effectively to get through an encounter?

I think they're suffering from snowflake syndrome. Since Warrior is bad you're going to have three types of people, people who accept that (They may continue to play WAR because it's fun, but know a PLD is better, or reroll) then you'll have people who swear PLD isn't and it's sooooo simple, even though they have more cooldowns by a mile to use effectively than a WAR who's cooldowns simply aren't capable of being an effective clutch save like a PLDs. Then you have the people who just swear WAR is as good (Or in some cases, better!) than PLD for everything.

Personally, I love WAR, but I would love it more if they made us as effective as PLDs, and we were more active. The fact that actually using our wrath without infuriate up is ineffective is stupid.

[Paikis]

....its interesting how the current belief is that PLDs are simple and therefore easy to play.
Are PLDs really simple, or do players simply not need to play one effectively to get through an encounter?

It's a bit of both. Your basic, entry level Paladin can be a complete idiot and still clear most content. Playing it well though does allow for a very effective tank, in most situations being more effective than the Warrior.

Personally, I love WAR, but I would love it more if they made us as effective as PLDs, and we were more active. The fact that actually using our wrath without infuriate up is ineffective is stupid.

Ah, another one who looks only at the averages. Using Inner Beast is trading some long-term healing for some right-now healing. This is important to surviving damage spikes. Extra healing is great and all, but you have to be alive to receive it. There are several cooldowns you can use to make up some of that 15% difference as well, convalescence being the major one.

There are problems with the class, sure. Paladin is a better tank, sure. But it isn't the best by such a large margin that Warriors cannot complete content.

[Ehayte]

Sure. Paladin is a better tank, sure. But it isn't the best by such a large margin that Warriors cannot complete content.

Good job. For reals, you are actually being of service to this community. Keep posting and helping people understand WAR strengths and mechanics. Theorycrafting is poisonous for WARs, and specific rotation strategies are great for new tanks or prospective tanks to hear and understand.

I play PLD (after many weeks of self-deliberation) because I believe that the damage reduction tank is going to be the mainstay "Main Tank," I could be wrong in the end, but that is my conviction. I still keep my WAR geared up and relic'd and all that because I find it endlessly useful to help new players with my WAR, especially helping new FC members in NM primals, where I can go the last 15-20% of the primal with the WAR without external heals, where-as a PLD would flop on his face and eat dirt in 10 seconds.

[Bigpurpleharness]

Ah, another one who looks only at the averages. Using Inner Beast is trading some long-term healing for some right-now healing. This is important to surviving damage spikes. Extra healing is great and all, but you have to be alive to receive it. There are several cooldowns you can use to make up some of that 15% difference as well, convalescence being the major one.

There are problems with the class, sure. Paladin is a better tank, sure. But it isn't the best by such a large margin that Warriors cannot complete content.

Not really what I said, but you can use me to vent, that's fine. :P