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

[Tanaya]

The best part of the WAR buff is actually the new Defiance. Since the healing effect is no longer tied to wrath stacks, Warrior's abilities can now be used far more liberally.

This is why Inner Beast got changed, because it's no longer needed as a desperation ability. You can essentially use it once every ~20s, and save Infuriate in case you need extra healing really fast. This also allows Steel Cyclone to actually see the light of day as well.

[C-croft]

My constant 20% is your defiance, healing abilities and maxHP. The OP thing is you will be able to use Inner Beast on every big hitting move any boss does in this this game. Paladins would not be able to do so.

Ok, but what about everything in between the big boss moves that hits like a truck? You are acting like a WAR only has to tank in 6 seconds spurts. Not to mention there is still a mana deficiency to be concerned about. As well as a TP deficiency over time. We can't flash spam infinitely and regen our own mana.

[Lex_Luger]

Ok, but what about everything in between the big boss moves that hits like a truck? You are acting like a WAR only has to tank in 6 seconds spurts.

Asides from tanking double dreads on turn 4, what large spikes of damage in this game are so unpredictable, that a WAR wouldn't be able to pop their mitigation to alleviate the huge burst?

[Ladon]

Ok, but what about everything in between the big boss moves that hits like a truck? You are acting like a WAR only has to tank in 6 seconds spurts. Not to mention there is still a mana deficiency to be concerned about. As well as a TP deficiency over time. We can't flash spam infinitely and regen our own mana.

Warriors are basically getting 1:1 mitigation to Paladins based on the preview notes. Basically the new IB is supposed to be comparable to rampart. The problem is in practicality the new IB is immensely more powerful and useful than rampart is when applied to the mechanics of the end-game. In fact the new IB would be immensely more useful than every single current PLD cooldown because end-game tanking in this game is pretty much all about managing spike damage in often set intervals. This inherently makes a short duration, short cooldown mitigation skill far more desirable to any long duration, long cooldown skill.

[C-croft]

Asides from tanking double dreads on turn 4, what large spikes of damage in this game are so unpredictable, that a WAR wouldn't be able to pop their mitigation to alleviate the huge burst?

It's not so much the large spikes, but tanking anything as a WAR costs a healer more mana. Especially once you start looking 3+ mobs. An easy way too look at it is all the PLD bragging about their easy WP SR's, I don't think WARs could pull it off like a PLD could even with these buffs. Even with holmgang at the end, its not an answer, because you still take dmg to 1 hp. The only difference is you can't die for so many seconds but once that is over there isn't much to keep you nearly as healthy.

[TouchandFeel]

I have mixed feelings about these changes.

On one hand I feel that the Devs have rightly made changes to WAR to provide them with the ability to take hits better by providing them with some better damage mitigation and being less of an MP drain on the healers. This is where PLD definitely had a noticeable upper hand and steps to bring basic survivability in high level group and raid content was needed and so the Devs took steps to make the classes more equal in this aspect, or at least closer, I'll leave my judgement to who now is better until the changes are live and can be put to the test.

On the other hand, they seemed to have completely ignored the other aspects of the classes where they were not equal by design, mainly WAR having the upper hand for AoE enmity generation and DPS. The higher DPS was most likely designed so that WAR would be better at healing themselves by doing better damage, but with the changes this is no longer relevant as they will now rely on others healing them instead.

I'm all for making both classes equal in their most important aspect, survivability, but if they are going to be made actually equal all aspects of the classes need to be looked at and adjusted in order to make them balanced, not just one part.

[ZReport]

Yoshi-P is now the Based God.

Thank you Based God!

[C-croft]

On the other hand, they seemed to have completely ignored the other aspects of the classes where they were not equal by design, mainly WAR having the upper hand for AoE enmity generation and DPS. The higher DPS was most likely designed so that WAR would be better at healing themselves by doing better damage, but with the changes this is no longer relevant as they will now rely on others healing them instead.

WARs already had to rely on extra healing from others and the extra DPS was an illusion.

[Warrlordd]

I believe IB was changed in order to pre-emptively prevent solo-ing of easier dungeons, without reducing its usefulness. From what i read now a warrior would not be able to solo/self heal through any environment where avoidable mechanics make up most of the damage output (Chimera, obviously).

That being said I would rather have seen our 20% defense buff(or, rather, waste of clicking energy) changed to increase HP, or heal some damage taken. Then IB could be adjusted to not be a PLD buff (maybe, 100% of dmg is a heal, +50% increased healing taken for 6 seconds). <== don't lol at the numbers, just keep in mind the theory of what i suggested. Would that not seem more berserker/warrior tanking style than 20% damage reduction for 6 seconds, available every 7.5 second? comments please

[Lex_Luger]

That being said I would rather have seen our 20% defense buff(or, rather, waste of clicking energy)

Waste of clicking energy? You mean as in, clicking to activate an ability? You mean, as in, not having it hotkeyd? My god please tell me this not what you meant. If you are clicking abilities to use them, (again, I'll reserve judgement until you respond) then you have no business discussing high level tanking.