Quote Originally Posted by Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam View Post
The two tank classes are no longer unique or offer any interesting differences.
There is so much wrong in everything that you've been saying that it's nearly causing me physical pain (it *is* causing me physical pain if you count all of the headdesking and facepalming).

First off, Inner Beast is *reactive*. It's healing. You can't use it proactively because that would mean using it at full hp right before you get walloped by a big attack like Mountain Buster. If you *are* using it proactively rather than right after a big hit, you're doing it wrong. The way that you're describing it as "proactive" isn't proactive: it's reactive to the first hit.

Secondly, in 8 man or high damage content, if you're using Inner Beast outside of Infuriate, you're decreasing your healing efficiency substantially. Just because Yoshi said in his first letter that we were playing WAR wrong does not mean that we were playing WAR wrong. The very fact that his *second* live letter apologized and admitted that they got it wrong kind of proves that.

Third, as to the "having to decide right when to pop it", you're *already* using Inner Beast in that exact scenario. The only difference is that, right now, you pop it *after* Rock/Mountain Buster and, after 2.1, you will blow it *before* Rock/Mountain Buster so that you take less damage. The only "loss of identity" that you're going to experience is not seeing 2-3k self heals right after Inner Beast. You no longer get to see massive bursty self heals on yourself. The contributions you provide are now going to be less visible.

Furthermore, WAR *does* need to reduce required healing by as much as PLD does. WAR is a *tank* class, which means that a *vast* majority of incoming damage is going to be directed at them. Doing 10% more DPS (which isn't even true, actually) isn't going to make up for the fact that they're taking 10% more damage because tanks are the equivalent of half of a DPS, at best. Your "WAR deals more damage and requires more healing" concept is increasing total healing required by anywhere between 5-10% but only increasing damage by 1-2%. Tanks do not contribute enough damage to have DPS increases act as justifiable reasons to mitigate less damage. On top of this, WAR does *not* deal appreciably more damage than a PLD does. The only examples that anyone has been able to show supporting this claim either have the PLD playing like a complete idiot (not using CoS or SW) or have the WAR in full STR gear and the PLD in full VIT gear which is *obviously* going to favor the WAR. A WAR and a PLD in the same gear will do within 5% of each others damage. Any advantage that a WAR might have in damage is, at best, made up for the PLD in utility. Mitigation will *always* be the main focus of tanks and, if there is an imbalance between them, it will *always* be bad.

In 2.1, WAR is going to be *all* about leveraging Inner Beast properly, which is exactly what is happening right now except that Inner Beast sucks because it doesn't scale with incoming damage like it should. The identity remains but the mechanic change so that they actually *work*. PLD doesn't really have *anything* that it has to leverage properly, with the possible exception of its CD suite, but WAR has a CD suite as well that, honestly, requires more thought in how to use it because of the lower CDs/durations/magnitude of effects.

Anyone complaining that WAR is going to be just like PLD has no idea what they're talking about. The only real difference in playstyle being implemented is the removal of healing from Wrath stacks, which is less about Inner Beast and more about Steel Cyclone and Unchained. If anything, WAR now has *more* viable options because you won't be monumentally penalized for using Steel Cyclone.