Warrior "buff" in 2.1: not what we are expecting?

[Dorion]

Depending on the durations and other non-specified numbers for these changes WAR may very well end up being the new OP tank. I certainly hope SE isn't being overly reactionary and just skewing things the other way. Also it seems like WAR is just becoming more PLD instead of balancing them based around their self healing shtick. Giving them all that mitigation just seems like a lazy fix to me. That said I'm not overly concerned as I am already leveling WAR anyways and currently main PLD.

[Chapulin]

Sorry for the long post :x

Since the warrior buffs have been announced I see a lot of posts on how warriors are going to be OP now. I do not see how warriors will over shadow paladin, but maybe somebody can show my the flaw in my logic. Below I posted what I looked to in each class so any help seeing the errors and flaws in my method/thoughts will be greatly appreciated. I also want to say my main is a warrior , but I also have a relic paladin too which I play almost as much. I have not done coil so I make no assumptions on content in there.
Effective health:
Assuming both have 5500 HP before stances
Warrior: 5500 * 1.25 = 6875
Paladin: 5500 + 20% dmg reduction = HP/(1 – 0.2) -> HP = 5500/0.8 = 6875
So without heals the effective health is the same, but things change once healing is taken into account. Tanks take 5k dmg over time and need to healed.
Paladin: 5000 * 0.8 = 4000 dmg to be healed
Warrior: 5000 dmg to be healed
Even with the warrior buff it is still a bit harder to heal the warrior. Paladin requires 4k to be topped off, if the warrior got 4k heals, with its bonus it would get healed for 4800 hps , 200hp short to be back up max. For the warrior to be healed to full with the same heals the paladin requires it would need a 25% healing buff instead of 20. Both tanks get parry, so that’s a wash. Paladins do get block which warriors do not. My paladin has a 25% chance to block 25% dmg I believe, which averages out to about 6.25% extra damage reduction. So on base mitigation a paladin seems to be ahead of a warrior, but of course this has not taken into account any skills at all, so warriors might be able to close the gap.
I decided to compare the skills and cooldowns with similar ones when possible to get a good picture of things.
PLD- Rage of Halone – Reduces str by 10%
Warr- Storm’s Path – TBD
Cant say which is better since we do not have specifics on Storm’s Path, but regardless it would make having both tanks in a raid better, unless the skills do not stack.

PLD- Rampart – 20% dr for 20 seconds/ 90 sec CD
War – Inner Beast – 20% dr for 6 seconds also heals for 100% dmg done
On a single target fight where you can keep a good rotation for builing max stacks they can use IB 5 times during the 90 seconds (this is including using infuriate once) which will provide 20% dr for a total of 30 seconds. Also taking the healing on inner beast into account IB seems to be the better of the two.

PLD – Sentinel – 40% dr for 10 seconds 180 sec CD
War – Vengeance – 30% dr for 15 seconds 150 sec CD
This is a toss up in my opinion, Sentinel provides more DR for a shorter period, but when you take into account for the longer duration it averages out to about 26.67% DR over 15 seconds. Vengeance also does dmg to mobs. Either one can be better than the other depending on the situation.

PLD – Sacred Ground – 10 second dmg immunity 7 min CD
Warrior – Holmgang – Pulls mobs to you and you cant fall below 1 hp for 6 seconds 3 min cd.

I would have to play with this live to see how well it works in practice. I see sacred ground being better as the healers don’t have to worry about you much for 10 seconds and have an easier time topping you off. Holmgang you will still be taking all the dmg mobs are inflicting and if the healer has problems keeping you up it might not be enough to have you a decent level of hps after it fades, or he could. Again would like to actually see it in practice.

PLD - Bulwark 60% block rating for 15 seconds / 180 sec cd
With relic shield this averages to about 15% damage reduction increase for the duration. (0.6 * 0.25) = .15

War – Thrill of the battle – 20% heal + 20% more hps for 20 seconds / 180 cd
Nice insta heal and 20% more hps works nice with lustrate or stoneskin if used on those times

These two are tricky to compare since one scales with tank hp and improve some healer skills, and the other with incoming dmg. There will always be a point where if enough dmg is taken, bulwark will surpass

Both: Covalesence – PLD has an additional 10% healing recieved

Both: Foresight – warrior version has 30 second shorter cooldown

Both: Awareness – PLD version lasts 10 seconds longer

Both: Mercy stroke – Meh that’s all I gotta say about this skill

Maybe I did something wrong the way I compared it, but comparing the cooldowns things seem pretty even now and I just don’t see where warriors will be overshadowing paladins. The new IB definitely seems to be quite a bit better than rampart but maybe it just closes the gap with the paladins better base mitigation.At the end of the day I am not looking for any class to be better than the other, so any mistakes or bad assumptions I made please let me know

[Seraphix2407]

I'm a pld myself and the reason why I did it, was because I was a pld myself on XI. However I think these buffs are cool and to me its awesome they buff warrior. One of the reason is because:
1: There are so many sucky warriors out there who can't do their shit propely, and they love playing warrior so this buff will make up for their shitty tanking.

2: Shitty warriors will look even more shittier now, trust me it will.

3: And since I know some good and skilled warriors already, I'm happy for them. Because this will make their tanking even better!

These abilities wont make warrior over PLD, it never will. This is all a test atm for their 2.1 update, so some of you guys need to chill out, some of it might not even be released for 2.1.

But yes most of the warriors in here who are super happy are most likely the shitty ones lol.

Ive had 2 warriors tank in coil from 1 to 4 without any problem. My rl friend tanks 1-4 every monday on his warrior without any problem. Sooo yeah...

[Tano]

Holmgang

- Range will be increased from 3 yalms to 6, to make the skill more effective.
- This skill will now pull enemies toward your character.
- When using this skill, a player's HP cannot be reduced lower than 1.
- The animation for this skill will be revised. (See screenshot above)

Will this replace Tomahawk? Or is it a new skill?
How does this "When using this skill, a player's HP cannot be reduced lower than 1." work? You use it on an enemy and you gain the buff?

[Amas]

Will this replace Tomahawk? Or is it a new skill?
How does this "When using this skill, a player's HP cannot be reduced lower than 1." work? You use it on an enemy and you gain the buff?

... you already have Holmgang. You probably just forgot because in its current state it's utterly useless.

And how it will work is very simple. If something were to cause your HP to drop below 1 while Holmgang is active, your HP will stop going down at 1.

[Bigpurpleharness]

Well it will probably be if the target will get the effect of holmgang which its not possible on most bosses

Dunno if someone pointed this out, but if you use holmgang on bosses, YOU still get holmganged, and thus I would assume the >1HP thing would kick in. The boss will still resist though.

[Edgedy]

I think the argument about survival is immaterial, what it boils down to is which class does more DPS, and how much threat will it hold.

From what I can see, from everything is that paladin still has superior threat generation and dps.

Not to mention a superior mana pool, and flash to go along with it.

[Tano]

... you already have Holmgang. You probably just forgot because in its current state it's utterly useless.

And how it will work is very simple. If something were to cause your HP to drop below 1 while Holmgang is active, your HP will stop going down at 1.

Lol, I had removed this from my hotbar since August and completely forgot.

[Gilthas]

I think people need to wait for patch 2.1 and actually test the changes before deciding that Warrior is now overpowered. Its actually a definite possibility that Warrior will continue to be a subpar tank:

- So many people are acting like the new Holmgang is Hallowed Ground. As several people have mentioned already the mechanics of the abilities are very different and Hallowed Ground is still way better. In fact, I'm expecting the "invincibility" of Holmgang to have a very reduced effective use. It actually sounds like this ability may be better on Marauder's second job when that comes along than on Warrior.

- Inner Beast's changes are very nice. Again, some people are acting like you'll constantly have the 20% incoming damage reduction, but that's not actually true. The ability is still tied to Wrath and lasts only 6 seconds. People won't be spamming this but rather using it when they know a big attack is coming. Still, the ability sounds fantastic at least.

- Defiance granting automatic healing bonus. Not sure why some people are complaining about this change since it was a glaring problem of the current mechanic. This was an obvious change that most people were expecting.

- Defiance and Overpower have increased enmity. Some people are saying that this makes Warriors way overpowered in hate generation (though from what I can tell, gaining enmity has never been a problem on either Paladin or Warrior), but I think its fairly obvious that they did this mainly due to the changes to Storm's Edge and Storm's Path. They want Warrior's to use SE and SP more, can only do that if they have more wiggle room with stacking hate at the beginning of a fight.

Regardless, we need to see the changes in action before we can be certain that Warrior's are balanced or if they are superior/inferior.

[Delnoir]

Producer and director Yoshi-P here.

I understand that all our warriors out there are eager to know what patch 2.1 has in store for them. While we’re still in the testing stages, I’d like to give you a preview of what we have planned. Please keep in mind that warrior is still being tested in all encounters available in 2.1, and the following information is subject to change.

Yoshida-san, I cannot put into words how happy you and the rest of the dev team have just made me.