Making WAR More Diverse/Fun Again

[Gamemako]

I thought it was because Maim.. Effectively makes Defiance penalty only 5%. Fight of Flight is a good offensive buff, but can't be kept up 100% of the time.

MRD has higher damage in general than GLA. The class has higher potency, a 20% buff, and a 10% debuff. It seems to me that this was done in preparation for a DPS job. MRD originally fell fairly close to LNC, and your MRD DPS job would be more about the utility and/or damage offered by the abilities and less about disruptive mechanics. By contrast, any other GLA job needs a highly disruptive mechanic like Darkside to shift roles. Sword Oath exists to maintain balance between WAR and PLD in off-tanking situations, so there are really two possibilities here. First, they have a mechanic in mind and are willing to sacrifice a job slot for tank-specific balance; or alternatively, they wanted to cram as much tank into the class as possible and finding room for DPS abilities was too limited to justify not just throwing it onto the job.

As for Sword Oath mechanics, at least from my phase 3 data, it adds a 50 potency attack to each autoattack (was 25). This is greater than a 50% autoattack damage buff.

[Kitru]

As for Sword Oath mechanics, at least from my phase 3 data, it adds a 50 potency attack to each autoattack (was 25). This is greater than a 50% autoattack damage buff.

It still does. It adds an extra attack with every auto-attack you make. Auto-attacks are 83.33 potency per GCD over time, so, with a swing speed of 2.32 (Curtana's; keep in mind, that's *slow* for the swords; Allagan and Break Blade are both 2.16), you're getting an extra 53.9 potency per GCD from Sword Oath, which is a ~65% improvement in total damage from your auto-attacks.