Minor tank balancing ideas. (WAR & PLD)

[eagledorf]

If they are so equal why do people prefer Warriors for Twintania?

99% percent of the time in PF, you will see 1 PLD and 1 other tank (either PLD or WAR) or sometimes 1 of each tank if they have specified which tank job they want at all. I have never once seen 1 WAR and one open tank slot. This is for...all of coil including t2 on the off chance they actually are going to go with two tanks.

Why? Shield Bash, Spirits Within, Tempered Will, Hallowed Ground, Cover. There are no WAR abilities that can compare with these. (That's not to say WAR isn't a great tank job by any means and I'm leveling it right now, but anybody who thinks PLD needs a buff is delusional.) Dreadknights, Snakes, Divebombs, Liquid Hell, double Dreadnoughts, the swarm at the start of t4 p6 going straight for the WHM, High Voltage...for every one of these mechanics, PLD is the preferable tank. Death Sentence is the one mechanic in Coil that WAR does better than PLD, and thank goodness it's there.

What? SE actually designed an encounter that brings out the best in both tank jobs?! Impossible.

Incidentally, I do coil on PLD. There's...much more demand for it than any other job (except maybe Scholar...oh and turn 2 is a ***** to pug a group for unless you're a healer)

[o3o]

If they are so equal why do people prefer Warriors for Twintania?

Spreadsheet theorycrafting vs actual play.

this is just plain false. Especially considering how pre 2.1, WAR were discriminated agenst in coil and yoshi admiting pld's mitigation was a bit too strong.

Left the masses thinking you need a pld for the real tanking.

[Giantbane]

That still doesn't make things equal considering overpower has an enmity modifier... Damage-wise, a full CoS does twice as much damage as overpower, so you would also have to get rid of the DoT effect to keep things balanced (and probably add TP cost as Nate mentioned)

Or, you know, just give PLD cross classed overpower. I don't see any problem with that and it would balance out the AoE threat (PLD is definitely lacking in comparison here). I'm sure PLD would also appreciate a cross class skill that isn't just marginally useful.

[ess-vid]

If they are so equal why do people prefer Warriors for Twintania?

Spreadsheet theorycrafting vs actual play.

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...nt/detail/747/

Seems a poor choice of words, considering.

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...nt/detail/680/

ಠ_ಠ

[Giantbane]

If they are so equal why do people prefer Warriors for Twintania?

Spreadsheet theorycrafting vs actual play.

Preference is not always the same across servers. However, in the specific instance where you have an ability (like death sentence or Titan HMs Mountain Buster) that trigger every 30 seconds, the WAR will have Inner Beast always available to mitigate this (in addition to other cooldowns they can stack to further mitigate the hit). The PLD on the other hand will always run out of cooldowns at some point and will need some additional outside help to mitigate a hit every so often (virus, e4e, stoneskin, etc).

That's the one specific benefit of WAR tanking. But Inner Beast only lasts 6 seconds, so it's only better when you can accurately predict when you'll need it. PLD cooldowns tend to be longer in duration and are very potent. PLD also have a shield for blocks, shield oath is slightly better, and PLD can even stoneskin themselves if needed. PLD mechanics are also very simple, which allows the tank to focus more on the fight than his rotation of abilities. This can lead to a preference for the tank class that is more idiot proof on some servers.

[Ricky]

If they are so equal why do people prefer Warriors for Twintania?

Spreadsheet theorycrafting vs actual play.

Actually you want both for both damage reduction debuffs, because contrary to your belief this game is actually well balanced

[ReiszRie]

Man, why don't you see that your 20% Damage reduction is effectively 25% extra HP AND 25% extra healing. Here's a simple example anyone can understand: Say PLD has 7k HP, WAR will have 8.75k HP. Something that does 6k damage to WAR will do 4.8k to PLD. That means PLD is now at 2.2k HP or 31.42% HP while WAR is at 2.75k HP or also (surprise!) 31.42% HP.

I'm not even sure why you have to get so riled up over a discussion.

you can talk about eHP but you're not taking into account the ability to perpetually have SP on, or, for hard-hitting content, the ability to have SP and IB on. PLD does not have this luxury of a perpetual damage mitigation.

So in essence, a WAR not popping CD with Storm's Path and just Defiance is THE SAME as a PLD not popping CD with Storm's Path and Shield Oath. Why can't you see that and keep blabbering about 25% extra HP???? I don't get it. PLD doesn't have access to HP recovery skills because they are the tank that mitigate BEFORE the damage is dealt. Sure WAR can do it now too but not to the extent that PLD can. Somewhere on the forum if you dig up, you'll find that overtime PLD's CD is still slightly better than WAR. PLD is just as capable to tank turn 5 as WAR. Many people have done so unless you're spewing this because your OT is also a PLD then well, it's your setup that is the problem.

SP has no CD, its just a combo chain, PLD's CD are well, CDs. PLD's CD cannot possibly ensure a consistent popping of Rampart and Sentinel, a PLD only has 2 effective DM CDs and they don't CD fast enough to enable you to use them for every incoming big hits.

I'm spewing this because I've played both for T5 and I've experienced with and without WAR's difference so don't keep going round with your "there is no difference" talk, groups would rather do T5 with 2 WARs than with 2 PLDs these days simply due to WARs being easier to keep alive for DS and DK stunning can be done with just 1 WAR + Slow or Stun from another DPS.

Inner Beast cannot be kept up perpetually (never ending). It lasts only 6 seconds and takes 5 Wrath stacks to use. In the best case scenarios, it'll still be down a couple seconds. Storm's Path can be kept up 100% but again, a WAR off-tank can keep it up just as good AND Storm's Eye. If you're refusing to use WAR+PLD, well it's your problem since that is supposed to be better than WAR+WAR and PLD+PLD.

IB can be kept up perpetually for DS, any WARs that have done T5 knows this.

If you have 2 WAR for content, you can have SP + SE constantly applied, what I'm saying is that you could easily run content with 2 WAR and currently, there is little that PLDs bring to the table.

Don't tell me about the long casting animation of Hallowed Ground like Holmgang doesn't have it. I play both too and the animation last equally as long. If you can time Holmgang, you can time Hallowed Ground and come out very far ahead since you're taking no damage compared to be left at 1 HP.

The cast animation for Hallowed Ground reduces its effectiveness as an "oh shit" button and often isn't a requirement to be used to defeat an encounter, I'm not saying that Holmgang doesn't have a cast animation, you simply assumed it as such because you mis-construes my comments for being "anti WAR" and asking for nerfs.

Sure Bulwark increase block rate and not guaranteed mitigation but it's just like Featherfoot, slightly better in fact considering Featherfoot for WAR only increase dodge by 15% compared to Bulwark increasing block by 60%.

You're now comparing things that doesn't really matter, Bulwark and FF isn't significant enough to make any effective difference but I'd rather have DM + FF than DM + Bulwark simply because FF gives a chance to entirely mitigate an incoming damage.


Ultimately, I'm not even sure why you're delving into a PLD vs WAR argument when all I'm saying in my initial comment is to have PLDs have more crowd control skills, don't worry, I'm not saying WARs needs a nerf, so you can rest well knowing that.

99% percent of the time in PF, you will see 1 PLD and 1 other tank (either PLD or WAR) or sometimes 1 of each tank if they have specified which tank job they want at all. I have never once seen 1 WAR and one open tank slot. This is for...all of coil including t2 on the off chance they actually are going to go with two tanks.

Why? Shield Bash, Spirits Within, Tempered Will, Hallowed Ground, Cover. There are no WAR abilities that can compare with these.

Seems like mileage differs, for T2 Enrage, there is no reason not to solo-tank with a WAR when they output higher DPS, almost all the LS groups i Know of switches to WAR for T2 Enrage tanking.

Shield Bash, replaceable with Brutal Swing albeit with a CD but off-GCD. Spirits Within, I'm not sure why you're having the tank do the silencing but if thats your setup then yeah. Tempered Will can prevent a wipe on Titan if you mess up but if you don't, you wouldn't need to use it, the only other time you'd use Tempered Will is on T5's DB but even then, that is assuming DB targets you for its last DB and you couldn't dodge that. Cover, well, barely used and barely useful.

[eagledorf]

PLD does not have this luxury of a perpetual damage mitigation

PLD has two forms of perpetual damage mitigation. First is the -10% STR debuff from Rage of Halone and second is the fact that you can equip a shield. Blocking will mitigate significantly more than parrying for any physical attack (so you know...almost everything Twintania does to you). Since PLD has the same parry rate as WAR, this is pure extra mitigation that a WAR does not get. Furthermore, you can blind a lot of things in t5 (I've never tried, but I strongly suspect you can't blind Twin...), so you effectively have increased evasion almost half the time if you time your Flashing correctly.

Seems like mileage differs, for T2 Enrage, there is no reason not to solo-tank with a WAR when they output higher DPS, almost all the LS groups i Know of switches to WAR for T2 Enrage tanking. [snip] Spirits Within, I'm not sure why you're having the tank do the silencing but if thats your setup then yeah. [snip] Cover, well, barely used and barely useful.

For the record (and because I cut it out of the quote) I don't need Tempered Will for Divebombs either, but it's nice that you can use it if you want.

WAR doing higher DPS is (largely) a myth. The tanking stance penalty for WAR is 5% more than the tanking stance penalty for PLD to make up for things like Unchained. I remember seeing somebody somewhere suggesting a WAR in Defiance could do like 10-20 DPS more than a PLD in Shield Oath if they really tried, but that both were too pathetically low to be worth consideration. I don't think these people even took into consideration Shield Swipe which is a DPS increase for PLD (though, obviously, not available in t2).

Personally I've always gone with PLD for t2. There's the fact that you can escalate your cooldowns without holes if you get stacks of the debuff where a WAR cannot, can use HG to reset the stacks to 0 if the healers aren't keeping up, can just wait for all your cooldowns between every encounter since you're waiting for enrage anyway, and the fact that I almost always do the silencing in alternation with a Bard since Spirits Within is off GCD. SCH or MNK can do it too, but often they would rather not so I just do it.

Cover+Hallowed Ground is a really great skill on p6 of t4. Everything (except maybe the rook, I don't know since a DPS always gets it) does pDPS there and you can just let the WHM gather all the mobs in the room to the middle for you to pick up without any worry at all. You can also use Cover on the other tank in some encounters to circumvent some mechanics or save them from a bad healer (sometimes it just doesn't matter at all if OT dies and matters a LOT if MT dies)

[ReiszRie]

PLD has two forms of perpetual damage mitigation. First is the -10% STR debuff from Rage of Halone and second is the fact that you can equip a shield. Blocking will mitigate significantly more than parrying for any physical attack (so you know...almost everything Twintania does to you). Since PLD has the same parry rate as WAR, this is pure extra mitigation that a WAR does not get.


For the record (and because I cut it out of the quote) I don't need Tempered Will for Divebombs either, but it's nice that you can use it if you want.

WAR doing higher DPS is (largely) a myth. The tanking stance penalty for WAR is 5% more than the tanking stance penalty for PLD to make up for things like Unchained. I remember seeing somewhere numbers being thrown around suggesting a WAR in Defiance could do like 10-20 DPS more than a PLD in Shield Oath, but that both were too pathetically low to be worth consideration. I don't think these people even took into consideration Shield Swipe which is a DPS increase for PLD (though, obviously, not available in t2).

Personally I've always gone with PLD for t2. There's the fact that you can escalate your cooldowns if you get stacks of the debuff where a WAR cannot, can use HG to reset the stacks to 0 if the healers aren't keeping up, and I almost always do the silencing in alternation with a Bard since Spirits Within is off GCD. SCH can do it too, but often they would rather not so I just do it.

Cover is a really great skill on p6 of t4. Everything (except maybe the rook, I don't know since a DPS always gets it) does pure pDPS there and you can just let the WHM gather all the mobs in the room to the middle for you to pick up without any worry at all.

-10% STR does not affect a number of boss's attacks, but -XX%damage mitigates all incoming damage. There is no doubt that PLDs are "harder" but for big attacks such as DS, you'll find that a WAR with SE + IB to be significantly more survivable than a PLD.

WAR does do approximately 40-50 more DPS over a PLD, that is around 30-35% more damage, this is of course with the WAR using Unchained + Berserk + IB, the DPS difference is from 3 separate parses of equal duration on training dummies.

PLDs is certainly easier to play and easier for healer's to heal in T2 Enrage but assuming that you have competent healers, WARs are the better choice simply due to their ability to off Defiance and being able to output respectable amounts of DPS

in P6 of T4 we have always went with the OT gathering all the mobs, Cover is useful in situations where the OT fails to gather and hold all the mobs but I wouldn't use that as a primary strategy.

What i'm trying to say here is that some of PLD's skills are so situational that it is only useful for very specific situations or if you use an unorthodox strategy that uses those skills.

[eagledorf]

I believe that the -10% STR and extra shield mitigation effect everything Caduceus, Twintania, or the Dreadnoughts do to you directly (so...everything in coil that is hard). I also believe Liquid Hell is an exception, but might be mistaken and chain-Liquid Hell is a mechanic in t5 where a PLD MT will probably just pop Hallowed Ground anyway. Yes, IB+SE is better and easier to get off than Halone+SS, but PLD is perfectly viable as MT for Twintania (hell, I've tanked all 4 of the opening mobs until the start of p2 when RNG decided all the Liquid Hells should go for the MT right as Death Sentence was coming with little difficulty)

I (everybody?) also do(es?) with OT gathering all the mobs in t4. Cover is a handy trick for if the OT is also a PLD (obviously, MT is usually too far away to cover the healer and probably worried about other things when the second Dread drops) or if the healer doesn't understand the concept of stacking.

[edit: snip] If the maximum DPS difference is 50, its doubtful you'll be contributing significantly by switching to WAR. Shield Swipe is a DPS increase for PLD and withholding IB or choosing to save Wrath by not using Unchained are both DPS losses for WAR that aren't accounted for on a dummy. In any case, these numbers are not in line with what I've been shown. That's neither here nor there.

The real point being, the tanks are really well balanced now. You shouldn't be having trouble finding parties on PLD unless you're...doing something mean to people or something.