2.1 WAR PVE First impression

[Cessna]

One word, awesome.

Tanking cadeseus is now a cake walk with everybody doing their jobs correctly on turn 1. I can easily survive as a war up to 5-6 stacks as a Ilvl 83 war, before I would get oneshot at 4 stacks. I'm going to see in turn 4 if I have to kite anymore, but I probably won't.

There are some fights where I prefer to off tank like turn 1 ADS, but I'm no longer a healer nightmare to deal with.

Steel cyclone is awesome, It saves me TP when I really need to go to town on adds. And the new vengeance is totally worth it.

[Ipkonfig]

If your WAR tank was at 4 stacks, and was receiving a 5th, at 5 stacks that debuff is an auto kill, on Ultima that is. Cad is a pretty simple fight, but it was doable before with a WAR, just harder, now it's a joke. And actually on the first ADS the adds do more damage than the actual boss so if you are off tanking you are taking more damage.

[Kitru]

I have to disagree. While I won't say that WAR is a better MT in all situations on Titan I would think WAR is superior. For a fight where the only meaningful damage comes on a very specific timer, like Titan, having 30% DR is stronger on top of defiance is better than a PLD. WAR's have this for every single MB while a PLD has to use cooldowns if they want to have that mitigation.

This is pretty much it. The primary determining factor as to whether a PLD or WAR is better for a given fight is how applicable IB is; on a fight like Titan or Twintania, where damage is regular and spiky, WAR is the better option whereas on a fight like Garuda EX or Ultima Weapon, where damage is relatively constant and sustained, PLD is the better option. The other major factor is how necessary the PLD CD suite is to the OT role: the t4 strat that my group uses functionally *requires* that a PLD be on OT duty because our 5>6 transition involved the OT taking so much damage at the start of it that they *have* to use HG (Holmgang doesn't cut it, especially since you have to kite/joust to reduce incoming damage after establishing primary aggro and Holmgang gets in the way of that).

[Ledarius]

the t4 strat that my group uses functionally *requires* that a PLD be on OT duty because our 5>6 transition involved the OT taking so much damage at the start of it that they *have* to use HG (Holmgang doesn't cut it, especially since you have to kite/joust to reduce incoming damage after establishing primary aggro and Holmgang gets in the way of that).

The only thing I would argue here is that Inner Beast and Vengeance have a better uptime than Rampart and Sentinel (WAR has an equivalent 40% if you factor in Storm's Path in single target situations). That being said though you still can't forget the PLD's Blind from Flash and Shield blocking. I believe this puts them at a mostly equal footing. Certainly, Holmgang screws you over for mechanics like Pox, Slipstream, etc., which is unfortunate. I believe this is something that should be changed to make it a bit more versatile.

Also, from the sounds of it, it seems like your T4 strategy involves killing the DK that spawns in P5. Am I on the right track?

My group kills the Solider and Knight in P5, and then in P6 our priority is Rook->P5 DK->Soldier/Knight. This way, our OT (me in this case) isn't dragging around more than 2 Soldiers/Knights. When the P6 DK drops, our PLD pops HG and follows up with other CDs. This seems to more than get the job done.

[Kitru]

The only thing I would argue here is that Inner Beast and Vengeance have a better uptime than Rampart and Sentinel

Still not sure why people seem to think that IB should be compared to Rampart. The fact that they're both 20% DR really doesn't have any real impact upon *how* they're used, which is what is actually important. IB is a fundamental mitigation mechanism that you're supposed to use regularly while Rampart is an actual tank CD you're supposed to reserve for intense periods of high damage. Calling IB a CD is like calling Bloodletter for a BRD a CD: it's kind of true but the use paradigm is completely wrong. Another apt analogy would be comparing Maim to Fight or Flight.

The entire schtick behind the WAR CD suite is that it is (comparatively) low effect, low CD, high uptime. I did the math somewhere and found that WAR has something like 33% better comparative potential uptime on its CDs (ignoring IB since it's not a "real" CD and Bloodbath because lol) but, when you time average the effects of those CDs, the real contributions over time are effectively identical. The benefit of the WAR CD suite is that, over the course of long fights, it's going to be active for more time whereas the benefit of the PLD CD is that, *while* the abilities in it are active, it's going to have a much more substantial effect than the WAR CDs would. This gets evened out by the relatively constant value of shield blocking compared to IB, which can be used to reduce damage on a specific high damage attack.

That being said though you still can't forget the PLD's Blind from Flash and Shield blocking.

The Blind itself is often either over- or under-estimated in boss situations by a lot of people (it's nice but not really amazing for stuff like Mountain Buster for much the same reason that Featherfoot isn't: it's not reliable; on top of that, DR completely destroys the potential uptime; it still *does* provide a tangible benefit over time to your total damage taken), but anyone that attempts to deny its value in AoE scenarios is simply being obtuse.

Certainly, Holmgang screws you over for mechanics like Pox, Slipstream, etc., which is unfortunate. I believe this is something that should be changed to make it a bit more versatile.

The reason that Holmgang has the self-bind effect on it is because it also has the bind on the target. Much of the problem that I have with Holmgang is that it is an ability that really tries to do too much: in 2.0, it was a combination of bind utility and Tempered Will (it prevents you from being knocked around by forced movement effects while it's active) and they adds a niche survivability benefit on top of it in 2.1 so now it's a movement denial utility, a forced movement avoidance utility, and a survivability CD. It's kind of like if PLDs had Spirits Within, Tempered Will, and Hallowed Ground all on the same ability.

If they're going to have it continue to do everything (as opposed to splitting up the various capabilities into different abilities), I'd be incredibly happy for them to remove the self-bind effect (and possibly have it pulse the pull effect every second or so such that, if you *can* pull the target, you're dragging them with you but if you can't move, it's not going to screw you over and force you to stand still the entire time) and replace it with forced movement immunity like on Tempered Will.

Also, from the sounds of it, it seems like your T4 strategy involves killing the DK that spawns in P5. Am I on the right track?

Yes, we nuke the p5 dreadnaught so that we only ever have a single dreadnought out at one time. When p6 hits, after the rook is dead, we tell our monk to swap over to the dreadnought instead of trying to have her run around getting cleaved and trying to get off a few attacks on the knights/soldiers as they're being dragged around (our other DPS are 2 BRDs and a BLM, so they just nuke the rook and then start nuking the knights/soldiers). Oftentimes, we end up with a dead dreadnought before the knights/soldiers are all dead because of her DPS.

This seems to more than get the job done.

The single dread and double dread strats work equally well, and it really depends upon your specific group composition as to which is going to be the better option. My group(s) tried the double dread strat a few times but we've always had better luck with the single dread strat.

[Kuroyasha]

snip

I read some of the post. Then I scrolled down and was like "I'm not about to read this wall of text." Then I scroll some more and see your signature "Walls of Text? I *love* Walls of Text!" Made me chuckle ^_^

[Kitru]

I read some of the post. Then I scrolled down and was like "I'm not about to read this wall of text." Then I scroll some more and see your signature "Walls of Text? I *love* Walls of Text!" Made me chuckle ^_^

And yet people are surprised when I post walls of text sometimes, lol.