My Opinion on why WAR is the superior Tank.

[Danko]

Math has been done, in game tests have been done, etc. etc. WAR *does* do significantly more damage than a PLD. The only time damage is a wash is when offtanking because SwO is *amazing*.

Perhaps if OT was the only time a PLD is using sword oath. But there are certainly times during MT phases where SwO is safe and appropriate. WAR does not do *significantly*more damage than PLD over time. I'd still give WAR the edge, but "comparable" is an accurate description.

so it's not as if PLD is outright better than WAR (you don't have both tanks on the same target, so the "one of each" argument is only a factor as far as LB is concerned), but a WAR can survive the 4 wave spumes by using Holmgang as easily as a PLD can; it just requires a quick reaction by the healers

Exactly. Which is why I said This:

You can still handle those things without a PLD tank as a WAR, it's just easier with PLD.

[Kitru]

Perhaps if OT was the only time a PLD is using sword oath. But there are certainly times during MT phases where SwO is safe and appropriate.

And those are the same times that it's appropriate for a WAR to drop out of Defiance. WAR actually has an advantage in rapid stance swapping scenarios since Defiance is off-GCD whereas SwO/ShO are on.

WAR has an explicit and significant DPS advantage, in excess of at least 10% and, in my experience, often much more.

[Danbo05]

From what I've noticed, after maining a PLD for a good 2 months, and then working on WAR, WAR is a much more fun class to play, because of all the options available to you, not to mention maintaining hate and grabbing is much easier on WAR, as opposed to PLD, from my experience. Lose hate? Use OP/Flash, problem solved. Really, from what I've experienced, the only thing PLD has in their advantage is damage mitigation and proper cooldowns (And Hallowed Ground, obviously. ALTHOUGH, I hate it when you trigger Hallowed Ground because your healers are preoccupied, and it takes a second to go off, and you drop dead in that second). You can imagine the rage I felt when I realized my WAR wasn't going to get any LNC abilities. No Keen Fury, no Invigorate. *Cries*

[Illya]

Discussing changes to Holmgang is a can of worms that isn't really apt for this thread since there are so very many problems with it (it's a mediocre uber-CD, it tries to do too much, the range is too short, the duration is too short given the weak effects).

The reason Holmgang is so weird and broken is because it was hastily converted into the WAR "oh shit" button for 2.1. Before that it was just a utility skill, all it did was pull the mob and root both of you. Of course all bosses which mattered were always immune to it anyways, making it useless as a utility skill. The problem is they tried to make it like the WAR's Hallowed Ground but also kept some of the utility parts of it, making it the broken borderline useless skill it is today and vastly inferior to HG.

Holmgang combines a classic tank leash skill, a knockback immunity skill, and a death-prevention skill into one skill and manages to be poor at all of them.

[Megido]

And those are the same times that it's appropriate for a WAR to drop out of Defiance. WAR actually has an advantage in rapid stance swapping scenarios since Defiance is off-GCD whereas SwO/ShO are on.

WAR has an explicit and significant DPS advantage, in excess of at least 10% and, in my experience, often much more.

You will not be gaining wrath stacks when dropping out of defiance. This can be a real detriment to your tanking. Reapplying defiance also leaves you with a 75% hp pool, whereas pld does not have that issue. Pld can easily switch these two buffs and not lose anything.

But the advantage for warrior lies in the burst. A paladin can never catch up to you in berserk and unchained, critting your inner beast for 1k. We can for instance use maim on the boss and then storms eye on an add or conflag and get some very respectable damage going while popping cooldowns off gcd. Also, mercy strike. And with no enmity modifier on our debuff chains there isnt any danger of taking aggro while putting all of our crits and determinations to use.

[Danko]

And those are the same times that it's appropriate for a WAR to drop out of Defiance. WAR actually has an advantage in rapid stance swapping scenarios since Defiance is off-GCD whereas SwO/ShO are on.

This is true, but then you also have to consider that WAR sacrifices both its Crit rate buff from wrath stacks and Inner beast to drop defiance. Conversely, PLD sacrifices nothing at all and gains sword oath buffs.

But lets not misunderstand each other, I'm neither making an argument for or against either tank job. I consider myself a WAR main and prefer WAR's style of damage. I find their burst phase damage to be more useful at key points of the fight.

But I also have PLD for times where it's kit has advantages. But I agree, iIt's not NEEDED per se, WAR can get it all done.

[Kimura410]

This is true, but then you also have to consider that WAR sacrifices both its Crit rate buff from wrath stacks and Inner beast to drop defiance. Conversely, PLD sacrifices nothing at all and gains sword oath buffs.

But lets not misunderstand each other, I'm neither making an argument for or against either tank job. I consider myself a WAR main and prefer WAR's style of damage. I find their burst phase damage to be more useful at key points of the fight.

But I also have PLD for times where it's kit has advantages. But I agree, iIt's not NEEDED per se, WAR can get it all done.

Same could be said for warrior. not needed. this discussion could be brought up 100 more times, but the answer will always be: they're both good in different ways. neither is better or worse. a combo of both is best in 8 man groups

[Avenol]

I do love my warrior though. Hitting for 1200+ on inner beast crit w/ unchained/beserk/potion on a burn phase on a boss is just awesome.

[Kitfox]

IB is the WAR response to PLD shield block.

I've heard you say this on a number of threads and I'm kinda curious what makes you think this way. From limited numbers between me and my friend, PLD's parry+block rate seems to equal WAR's parry rate, at least to the degree that they're comparable. Just glancing over something I got from running brayflox HM: as PLD I was getting around 8% parry and 17% block, give or take RNG, while I heard from my raid tank doing some parry testing that he was getting around 25% parry rate. From this I'm assuming blocks are calculated before parry, and since you can't parry and block at the same time PLD's get a significantly lower parry rate.

Maybe I'm missing something really obvious here, but I don't really see how PLD's block provides any kind of advantage over WAR's parry.

[Kitru]

Maybe I'm missing something really obvious here, but I don't really see how PLD's block provides any kind of advantage over WAR's parry.

In all of the testing I've done, PLD has a significantly better chance to Block or Parry than a WAR has to simply Parry (to determine whether it's absolute parity for Parry, all you'd need to do is take the shield off of a PLD and make sure neither axe nor sword has any parry on it; if the numbers are not significantly different, it's identical), and Blocks are always bigger than Parries (in the same gear except for MH/OH, my WAR parries for 24% whereas my PLD with the Onion Shield blocks for 26%). I actually considered that WAR might have a higher natural Parry chance than PLD, but I've seen absolutely no evidence for this (and I've yet to see anyone else actually put up numbers to support it either).