So what exactly IS the issue with Warrior?

[Judge_Xero]

Except that the game is obviously designed around a 1:1:2 ratio instead of the 1:2:1 ratio you're using thanks to the DF, as well as how the fights themselves are design (DPS races and whatnot).

There are no issues with Warrior in any of the DF Battles.

On top of that, there *isn't* any advantage when using that composition for a WAR compared to a PLD: you're sacrificing damage to increase survivability. Since WAR and PLD deal effectively the same damage, a PLD could get the exact same increase in survivability by going with your 2 healer composition and it would *still* be more survivable than the WAR while having the same damage output.

Warrior DPS = PLD DPS in Sword Oath - the extra Potency on PLD AA accounts for quite a bit on DPS. Switching both to Tank Stances, Warrior does ~20% more damage than Paladin in all DPS gear.

Also, as I pointed out last time you brought up that composition, you're not going to a perfect conversion with healer DPS. A healer that spends 40% of their time is not going to provide 40% of the DPS of an actual DPS. If they *could*, there would be no point in bringing DPS because healers in DPS stances could match them while also being able to swap to healing when needed. A healer in a DPS stance does roughly 75% of what a DPS does (a CNJ will manage ~200 mean magic potency per GCD whereas a BLM does ~270), so the comparative loss of DPS is actually 16% (40 * .75 + 100 + 50 = 210; 100 + 100 + 50 = 250; 210 / 250 = .84). Even if you only assume that they'll use attacks 40% of the time, they'll only get as high as 32.5% of what a DPS would manage in that same time frame, which is a 14% loss (32.5 * 2 + 100 + 50 = 215).

I actually played as White Mage to figure out a reasonable amount of DPS they can do while still healing. Because their DOTS provide great potency, with casting downtime for heals I was able to pull 60 DPS while still being a functional healer. This was with less than 400 MND and only a 58 Magic Damage staff, while switching to Cleric Stance. 70 DPS per healer is not that unreasonable as it's ~30% of an actual DPS.

So STR PLD vs STR WAR both in Tank Stance - with two healers
PLD 140 DPS - Healers 140 DPS - DD 200 DPS (480 DPS)
WAR 168 DPS - Healers 140 DPS - DD 200 DPS (508 DPS)
**VIT PLD - 110 DPS - DD x 2 400 DPS - (510 DPS)

So the STR Paladin doesn't do enough damage to warrant bringing two healers. There are only so many DOT's they can apply, so there are wasted heals. Bringing the extra DD is more effective for that party make-up.

Where are you getting *this* from? WAR doesn't generate more enmity than PLD. In fact, it ends up generating slightly less. It's also not like healers increase enmity generation or having more healers stops that 1 DPS from still putting out full numbers, so you can't argue that it's better comparative enmity.

I should have been more specific. It was STR War vs VIT Pld.

That's a complete and utter farce. Even if you average out the CDs rather than accounting for their burst contributions, they provide a lot more than 10.4% increased survivability: Rampart provides 4.44% over time, Sentinel 2.22%, Foresight 1.67%, Convalescence 5%, Bulwark 1.75%, and Hallowed Ground 1.39% (16.47%). Even if you factor in the WAR CD suite (Foresight provides 2.22, Featherfoot 2.5%, Convalescence 3.33%; ToB is a complete and utter joke because it's a 20% heal every 3 minutes), a WAR is going to be taking 91.95% of pre-CD damage and a PLD is taking 83.53%, which means that WAR is going to be requiring 110% of what a PLD is going to require. As such, you composition ends up providing WAR with, at best, *equal* survivability to a PLD and that's only if you're willing to treat the reactive and RNG mitigation provided by Featherfoot and Convalescence the same as the straight up static mitigation provided by 5/6ths of the PLD CD suite.

Put it all together and you get a composition that deals less damage and has no advantages. You really need to stop talking about your alternate composition as if it somehow *solved* problems rather than being completely and utterly absurd from the start (assuming you're capable of making simple logical leaps like "healers do less damage than DPS" and realizing that the PLD CD suite stops the living *hell* out of the WAR CD suite).

The reason I say with that setup that Warrior has better survivability is because it will be receiving 120% more healing with two healers. Add in the extra 15% with Infuriate and it's a total of 138% more healing received.

While it doesn't equate to Paladin's eHP value, as long as the Warrior doesn't get 1 shotted, then that alone will be equal to PLD CD suite.

[Zikh]

By far the biggest problems warrios have at the moment is the silly fact that the 15% healing bonus is tied to wrath stacks. This means that you can't really use any of your warrior skills effectively without screwing your healers, unless your Infuriate is off the cd. So in the end, all those fancy warrior skill have a cd of 1min. There's a limited amount of heals healers are able to cast, it all comes down to math.

The other problem is that for example Inner Beast heals a quite a bit, but it usually ends up being overhealing. It would be more useful if it gave you a shield for that amount.

There are other problems as well, but in my opinion those are the biggest ones.

[Hitokirinomad]

So STR PLD vs STR WAR both in Tank Stance - with two healers
PLD 140 DPS - Healers 140 DPS - DD 200 DPS (480 DPS)
WAR 168 DPS - Healers 140 DPS - DD 200 DPS (508 DPS)
**VIT PLD - 110 DPS - DD x 2 400 DPS - (510 DPS)

So the STR Paladin doesn't do enough damage to warrant bringing two healers. There are only so many DOT's they can apply, so there are wasted heals. Bringing the extra DD is more effective for that party make-up.




I should have been more specific. It was STR War vs VIT Pld.



The reason I say with that setup that Warrior has better survivability is because it will be receiving 120% more healing with two healers. Add in the extra 15% with Infuriate and it's a total of 138% more healing received.

Gonna break down my problems with your logic. First, I get your comparison of 1:2:1 may put the WAR slightly ahead (even though these numbers are extremely rough). However your VIT PLD for some reason ignored the DPS contribution of the Healer you used as a given for the other examples. So the VIT PLD composition would provide (using your own numbers) 580 DPS, utterly blowing your WAR comp out of the water.

Second...STR Warrior VS VIT PLD means 4 mans, or heavily outgearing the content. Otherwise the WAR just won't have the HP to survive the hit to use the IB. The extra STR brings extra DPS, it doesn't bring *that* much extra damage from IB to bridge the heals received gap.

Also, saying that bringing two the healers means an increase in survivability over one healer doesn't really...well of course it does. Does that make it the optimum group composition? As evidenced by Titan, you bring the least number of Tanks and Heals you can get away with so you can meet the DPS check. Why exactly would you start trickling back in Heals to make up for inefficient tanking, when you can just get an efficient tank?

[Exstal]

He's basically saying STR War + Healer = 1 DPS, so it's better to just have 2 healer, 1 dps and STR Warrior.

Whereas the Paladin doesn't need as much heals and the healer can be in cleric stance the entire time except for some boss fights. PLD team is effectively 3 DPS and 1 tank.

[KrenianKandos]

The op is like 4lv's away, I don't really see the point of this post considering all the info/posts/rants over "War vs Pld". People can try to use math to defend war all day. If you have both just try them both, you might like war's style better that's fine play a war. Then by having both you can clearly see the healers working a lot harder to keep you up, if you don't care about healers stay on war. Both can hold hate just fine, 1takes a lot more damage but they can self heal(assuming you can get it off, cause the healers are spam healing you anyways).

I think a lot of people like the -idea- of war being some kind of higher dps tank that even has more HP, then playing a turtle tank. While in reality all they have is more hp and less dmg migration. Then at the end of the day Pld still brings silence and a better stun, and can recharge one of it's own resources.

It's Simple for me.
1#MT'ing?: Pld
2#OT'ing? Need something stunned or silenced, Or Will your job invole OT'ing something that hits hard/will be alive for a while.: Pld
3#OT'ing? Easy trash. :War
Sadly 90% of where #3 becomes a yes, there's no reason to even bring a OT.

So because I was four levels away from max, and trying to get information regarding the class I was working for future reference in dungeons and maximizing my potential for smooth progress in dungeons, this thread is completely pointless?

No offence but that's exactly what has made a lot of tanks pretty bad in most MMOs: no research on their pros and cons. I rather be ready for whatever situation that may arise by doing my research. Pardon me for posting a thread about such in the TANKING section of the official forums. I forgot this forum is more for bitching and complaining than constructive informational gathering purposes.



To everyone else, thank you for the slew of information. I can see that Warriors would have to gauge themselves far more in these situations and that they have to be smart on using Inner Beast. It almost sounds like IB is meant to be one of those "OSH*/(%&" CDs to help your healers out so you don't hurt your healers too much in the healing dept. I've started doing the relic quest for my Paladin so I'll stick with the PLD until Warriors get a look at in 2.1 (If it does) and re-evaulate. Either way, I'm working on CNJ to get Stoneskin so I got some time for things to settle down in this dept.

On another note: With World of Warcraft, there was a few sites like Tankspot and ElitistJerks that had theorycrafting going on in a much bigger detail. It was also a source of information gathering done in one specific website such as what we're seeing in this thread with the theorycrafting with numbers. Does one site exist like that? Have we established a website yet regarding this?)

[Judge_Xero]

However your VIT PLD for some reason ignored the DPS contribution of the Healer you used as a given for the other examples.

The reason I didn't include healer DPS in the case of Paladin is because in endgame content the Paladin would require near 100% healing. Saying that Paladin can survive with only 60% healing in any content that a Warrior would have eHP issues with would be a bit excessive.

Second...STR Warrior VS VIT PLD means 4 mans, or heavily outgearing the content. Otherwise the WAR just won't have the HP to survive the hit to use the IB. The extra STR brings extra DPS, it doesn't bring *that* much extra damage from IB to bridge the heals received gap.

Using Titan as an example, PLD (VIT) vs WAR (STR) in Darklight + Garuda Weapon - the Warrior would have ~5700 HP, the Paladin would have ~5300 HP. Mountain Buster @ 4400 HP (3500 on PLD) - Inner Beast would heal for ~1300 HP (average) - only needs to be used on the MB prior to Tumult followed by Infuriate.

*** Also interesting for that fight is that the average MB + Average Inner Beast (equal gear for equal content) = 5700 HP, so if you are between 4400-3200 HP and there are no incoming heals - you will live by using Inner Beast.

Also, saying that bringing two the healers means an increase in survivability over one healer doesn't really...well of course it does. Does that make it the optimum group composition? As evidenced by Titan, you bring the least number of Tanks and Heals you can get away with so you can meet the DPS check. Why exactly would you start trickling back in Heals to make up for inefficient tanking, when you can just get an efficient tank?

In a short answer, it's because of Warriors design. From other discussions it seems that HP Absorb Tanks are difficult to balance. If the HP absorb scales the same as Damage then Warrior would be OP. Why bring Paladin, when Warrior has the same mitigation and more damage right? You could just increase the potency of Warriors self heals right, then it wouldn't need to deal as much damage and could just stack HP. But what if you did stack STR anyways, so that every 20 seconds you could self heal 4k HP. *** still wouldn't scale with damage the same way PLD does.

Stacking just VIT on WAR, as others have said, requires your party to have some really good healers, who would have an easier time just using a Paladin. So it seems SE in an attempt to balance the HP Absorb style of Tank to the traditional Mitigation Tank, based it around party composition and DPS.

From my estimates given the current skillset - Damage wont scale higher than 120% HPS (equal gear for equal content to Healers).
So if a single healer can do 1000 HPS - DPS would be 1200.

It would be relative to the fight of course too. If for some reason SE does a fight that requires 3 Healers 100% to keep a Paladin alive, then it would take 3 100% Healers and 1 60-40 to keep a Warrior alive.

[Exstal]

The reason I didn't include healer DPS in the case of Paladin is because in endgame content the Paladin would require near 100% healing. Saying that Paladin can survive with only 60% healing in any content that a Warrior would have eHP issues with would be a bit excessive.

Aren't your examples based on 4 man content though? Full VIT PLD needs ~83% less healing than full VIT Warrior, so probably less than full STR Warrior.
So you have a situation where

Warrior
Healer 0% DPS
Healer 60% DPS
DPS 100% DPS

vs

Paladin
Healer 20% DPS
DPS 100% DPS
DPS 100% DPS

I fail to see how those even remotely match up

[Stalkster]

So because I was four levels away from max, and trying to get information regarding the class I was working for future reference in dungeons and maximizing my potential for smooth progress in dungeons, this thread is completely pointless?

No offence but that's exactly what has made a lot of tanks pretty bad in most MMOs: no research on their pros and cons. I rather be ready for whatever situation that may arise by doing my research. Pardon me for posting a thread about such in the TANKING section of the official forums. I forgot this forum is more for bitching and complaining than constructive informational gathering purposes.

Actually I did provide some information in my post. Topics regarding war vs/or pld are abundant. The only new information I seen in all this, is a debate about bringing 2healers with a war and 1healer for a pld and that makes up for war. Hmm. Maybe because I did my "research" anyways Id like to see some info or something with war doing 20% more damage in tanking stance. Both Vit spec'ed only difference is relic +1pld/nq war my parses show it pretty close. 2dps in favor of pld In offensive stance . 5dps in favor of War in tank stance. Are you saying a fully str/melded war dose 20% more dmg then a full vit pld? I could see that possible but if the war is using a dps set then the pld might as well be using 1 also.

[Maelwys]

That's why in my comparison I take the party composition as a whole. The only combination that seems to match perfectly is Warrior with two healers vs Paladin with one healer and one DPS. Things I looked at are, Party DPS, Tank Survivability, and class mechanics.

Without going back (again!) over the reams of math... exactly how "endgame" are we talking about?

Taken in a vacuum, PLD needs less healing when taking prolonged heavy damage.
WAR can self-heal medium spike damage and be pretty much immortal versus light damage.
They both do very similar DPS (assuming identical gear + stat distribution) but WARs are more self-sufficient than PLDs when geared for +DPS.

Taken in a Party context, the ideal endgame 8-man raid group has two healers: one SCH and one WHM.
Amongst other things, a big reason for this is because SCHs shields don't stack. It basically gives the best balance of damage prevention before a big hit and ability to top-up HP again after that big hit.

----------------------------

+ SCH gameplay allows them to deal high DPS (via DoTs) alongside high Healing Output. In extreme situations they can go full healing and micromanage their fairy and just ignore DPS, but for the most part they can get by in Cleric Stance (for DoTs) using Lustrates and their fairy.

+ WHM gameplay requires them to choose a focus: ST damage via light DoTs and AoE Damage via Holy, or Healing (they can still do a little DPS when healing, and a little Healing when DPSing; but it's largely one or the other - aside from "Benediction" which recovers the same HP even when Cleric Stanced, and "Regen" which can be cast before stance swapping).

Taken together, you're virtually always going to have the equivalent potential of EITHER 1 Healer + 2 DPS or 2 Healers + 1 DPS (via your Healing Classes, in 8 man groups).

----------------------------

That's where the issue lies - PLDs generally require lower healing due to their mitigation cooldowns, so for easy or medium difficulty content the WHM can switch to DPS mode. For HARDER content like bosses, the WHM can run in Healing mode and give the party maximum capability to "Turtle Up".

For WARs, they require virtually no healing on "Easy" content due to self-heals, and on medium difficulty content they are roughly on par with PLDs, but for Harder content the Healers won't quite be able to keep a WAR up for as long as they could keep a PLD up (so if the brown stuff REALLY hits the fan, the WAR party has less capability to completely Turtle up).

Therefore, for your comment "The only combination that seems to match perfectly is Warrior with two healers vs Paladin with one healer and one DPS": the average 8-man party with a WAR can already have "two healers and one DPS" - with both SCH and WHM in Full Heal mode - but they can effectively swap a Healer for a DPS on demand via the WHM swapping to Cleric stance. Conversely, the average party with a PLD can already have "one healer and two DPS" - with the WHM in Cleric stance - but they can effectively swap a DPS for a Healer on demand via the WHM swapping back out of Cleric stance. Now... at endgame, what situation is more likely: suddenly needing the equivalent of another Healer, or suddenly needing the equivalent of another DPS? (And bear in mind that the Tanks can ALSO swap out of Tank Stance to contribute more DPS in certain situations!)

Yes, you could bring another WHM. But even if the two WHM work together perfectly and the tank is never overhealed, the DPS tradeoff hurts the average party way too much - the optimal 8-man team healer combination is widely known to be 1 SCH and 1 WHM (or if you're really stuck, 2x WHM - but there's less effective HP without the SCH and thus less margin for error).

If you're talking about 4-man dungeons, then PLD + WHM is virtually always going to be the better option than bringing a SCH or a WAR from an efficiency viewpoint, purely because of Mob herding + Holy Spam... but realistically unless you're speedrunning, none of the classes should struggle in the slightest...

[Judge_Xero]

Aren't your examples based on 4 man content though?
I fail to see how those even remotely match up

It does get a bit confusing. My example is based on 8 man content, because in 4 man content the damage is so low that Warrior's self heals work great. It's because my party composition is only based on 4 players, as the rest of the members will just be DPS. I will do an 8 man example to show it better, using DPS values based on Darklight + Relic.

WAR - 170 DPS
Healer - 100% Healing
Healer - 70 DPS - 60% Healing
Healer - 70 DPS - 60% Healing
DPS X 4 - 800 DPS

Total - 1110 DPS
***War will receive 253% Healing with Infurate

PLD - 110 DPS
Healer - 100% Healing
Healer - 100% Healing
DD X 5 1000 DPS

Total - 1110 DPS
*** Because PLD takes 20% less damage it will in essence, receive 240% Healing under Shield Oath.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@ Maelwys - you bring up some very good points, about there being situations where you need less heals and more DPS. I'll plug in the values to see how it compares.

WAR - 170 DPS
Healer - 100% Healing
Healer - 175 DPS
Healer - 175 DPS
DPS X 4 - 800 DPS

Total - 1320 DPS
*** War will only receive 115% Healing with Infuriate

PLD - 110 DPS
Healer - 100% Healing
Healer - 175 DPS
DD X 5 1000 DPS

Total - 1285 DPS
*** PLD will receive 120% Healing in Shield Oath.

I'd think WHM, SCH, SCH would be the most optimal for Warrior.