Warrior Tanks: Maximizing DPS Output

[BushidoMP]

Lots of good points, allow me to contribute.

For the sake of not relying on Lodestone's snapshot, I'll state my credentials and stats. Firstly, I played +30VIT warrior for a long time, and then I got bored of it and decided I wanted to see how hard I could hit. Since I've gone +30STR I would never EVER go back. Before I go any farther, let me state that I agree with OP in saying that I believe REAL BiS Warrior for any encounter is a healthy mix of VIT and DPS accessories to maximize the balance between Parry Rate and Parry%(the amount mitigated).

As it currently stands I wear full i90 dps accessories to ALL encounters in the game save Ifrit EX, for reasons that have already been stated by OP. In my current build, (I'll be changing 1 accessory today after some research), I'm weighing in at 469 STR, 416 VIT, 479 ACC, 424 CHR, 299 DET. However, I will be switching to 413CHR and 207 DET for a *marginal* increase in dps.

Moving on. At the current level of gear Full i90 + Allagan axe ... tanking in this game is pretty much a joke if you and your healers have some skill. I'll reiterate, I use my current build in all Extreme Primals except Ifrit, and in Coil 1-5. I do not main tank Twintania in my static, but I've had to take over after the first round of Twister and finished the fight no problem. The obvious weakness of this build it that I lack that extra HP buffer that's nice for tanking, but the DAMAGE is insane. Throwing some numbers out there: My highest Inner Beast crit has hit 1302 damage. I couldn't believe it. After that my upper end BB's hit for 1200+. Warrior is the class I've played from launch and I've had a lot of time to get comfortable in the class and change rotations etc. This is undoubtedly the most fun way to play warrior. While I'm sure it mostly speaks poorly of the DPS involved, I've been in EX Primal farming parties where I was doing top damage in the whole group. That being said, in a good group of DPS I can still keep up. I float between 4th/5th on the charts, but in my coil static I'm never gonna beat them in dps. I don't want to ramble, so if you have questions about specifics I will answer them.

As far as the enmity discussion goes, you can't argue with math. There will always be optimal rotations and the BEST way of doing things, however, that can't always be practically applied to a real scenario. At the end of the day it's going to come down to player skill and group cohesion. If everyone is "doing it right" then enmity shouldn't be an issue anyway, and furthermore using an all STR build you will hit so hard you shouldn't have problems regardless. I OT GarudaEX with Defiance off the whole time and the only time I have problems is when someone doesn't pop Quelling Strikes and start landing ridiculous crits. On the topic of tank swapping, again, group cohesion: your counterpart should know when to stop going buck wild so you can take over. The only time I've ran into problems during tank swapping is during IfritEX with an equally geared Paladin (Allagan blade) who kept spamming RoH combo. Most of the time, regardless of what the other tank does I can pull hate. I have noticed that while playing warrior this way, even with Defiance off, you must be careful to control your enmity, most of the time I have to spam Storm's Eye/Storm's Path because Butcher's Block just generates too much threat. That being said, I still hit like a truck and it's hella fun to play.

Fracture: I use it. It's definitely not the make or break it ability in terms of damage, but I feel there's plenty of benefit to using the move. Furthermore, I try to use it at strategic points in my rotation such that I maximize it's effectiveness and it doesn't interfere with my current optimal rotation for a given scenario (missing 1 GCD attack to place Storm's Path before a big attack, etc.) If you look at the numbers (in my case anyway), the DoT adds up, but the attack itself more-or-less adds up to the total effectiveness of Brutal Swing over the course of a battle; to corroborate Kitru's argument.

Rotation:

I've been experimenting, but usually as an opener I'll do something like this:

Defiance on
HS > SS > BB > HS > Bloodbath > Maim > SE > Berserk + Unchained > HS > IR > SS > Vengeance > BB > HS > Maim > Storm's Eye > Fracture > IB or Steel Cyclone || At this point Berserk and Unchained fall off.

Don't hold me to all the cooldown placements cause I'm just throwing that in off the top of my head and I can't say I don't switch it up. Also I throw in Brutal Swing whenever it's off cooldown. After that I just rotate between SE, SP, BB as I see fit to make
sure that I'm keeping debuffs going. I may or may not throw an extra fracture in there too, I forget, but I usually don't use Fracture when I have Defiance up, and I also ALWAYS save Berserk for pairing with Unchained. When I know I'm going to have that pair together I save IR for it as well, but if not I just use IR whenever it's ready, the cooldowns usually gel.

When I'm off tanking, it's an all you can Berserk, all you can Storm's Eye, all you can fracture-fest, and jut let loose. In the beginning of a fight you have to be careful of BB, but after the tank has established decent enmity you can pretty much do whatever you want. This is how I'm able to really push the numbers with warrior. It's a beautiful thing. Obviously in scenarios when I need to tank swap I Defiance dance accordingly and try to have Berserk+Unchained ready for when I need to take over so that I can maximize my dmg output while I'm MT.

tl;dr. Spec +30STR, wear Full i90 DPS accessories, Get allagan Axe, Hit things hard, Profit.