Maximizing DPS as a Warrior

[Kitru]

I don't have any numbers for the damage formulas, but for healing 1 det is slightly more useful than 1 crit (roughly 1.33 crit = 1 det for overall output).

Det is also itemized heavier so that you get less of it, roughly 66-70% of what you'd get if it were any other secondary stat. As such, if you really want to get down to brass tacks, crit is still the stat you want to have on all of your gear, as opposed to determination (1.33 * .67 = .89). The only time you'd want to take det over crit is when you're forced to choose between equal numbers of both, which almost never happens unless you're dealing with a disparity in ilvl (which is going to choose for you anyways since mainstat trumps all) or secondary stat (wherein you have to start looking at stuff other than crit and det).

As such, when given the option, go with the crit: you get more of it such that, even though it's valued for less on a point-for-point basis, you still get more out of it.

[ManaKeKz]

Snip

That's nice to know. For healers, a 1:1 choice between crit and det isn't very unusual (i90 necklaces, i110 robe/boots and other instances), but crit is less of a debate there - scholars have vastly improved gains from crit while white mages usually do well to avoid the unreliable nature of crits. For dps, crit reliability is less of an issue and the overall dps increase is usually greater, but I wasn't certain that it would be worth it on a 1:1 trade. Thanks for the info!

[Kitru]

For healers, a 1:1 choice between crit and det isn't very unusual (i90 necklaces, i110 robe/boots and other instances)

Those aren't cases where you're comparing equal crit to equal det because you're not comparing the values of the two stats in a vacuum. In the i90 necks, you're not comparing 11 crit to 11 det; you're comparing 11 crit and 12 PIE to 11 det and 8 PIE. This is what I meant by the disparity in ilvl or secondary stat: you have to gauge the value of the item as a whole and not just individual aspects of it. At that point, you have to weigh the marginally higher value of det to the additional value of the other secondary stat. Unless that other secondary stat (or the difference between the two) is significantly less valuable than the det, it's better to go with the crit.

Healers get kind of wonky, though, because crits are generally viewed as somewhat wasteful unless you get some secondary bonus out of it (since crit heals often turn into overhealing) so determination has a greater practical value even if it's got lower theoretical value, and there are loads of opinions governing PIE depending upon your personal playstyle (I actually love PIE because it means I can use the less efficient cost efficient heals, like Adloq more often).

An example of a purely equal comparison where you only have to consider "1 det = 1.33 crit" is the i90 WAR pants (24 parry, 24 det) versus the allagan pants (24 parry, 34 crit). In any purely equal scenario, where the other secondary stat is equal, crit is always better.

For straight up damage, none of the healer considerations are deciding factors. The reliability argument *could* be made for enmity generation, but enmity generation is so easy now that I would say it's nowhere near being an issue to consider. As such, it's like I said before: always take crit rather than det if you can.

[MythToken]

Thanks Kitru

[Jaeral]

A lot of useful information, Kitru. I have to admit i never put that much thought into the warrior rotation (I'm mainly a paladin )
Gonna try out what you posted there, sounds great

[HakuroDK]

snip

I never said that was the "right" way, I just said it's the way I do things. And to be honest, what I do works perfectly for my playstyle. The only time I have ever had enmity pulled off me was before I got my Relic Zenith weapon. I was merely trying to help as best I can.

You could be a little less mean and backhanded about it. I get you're trying to stroke your ego and prove so badly that you know more about the subject than I do, but that's not much of an excuse to openly insult me personally for trying to help because it's not the best way of doing things.

That being said, I didn't actually know that Pacification could be Esuna'd/Leeched off me (honestly because I don't trust most healers to remove any debuffs off me that they can remove off me) and I operate under the assumption that everyone can pull enmity off me if I don't generate a proper floor of enmity under me before I do anything else so I don't feel comfortable using a DPS combo before an Enmity-generating combo in fear that someone's going to pull something off me.

Maybe I just don't trust people in my party most of the time, and that's why I've developed the way I do things. But I will be taking some of your advice, because it is good advice, even though you were particularly rude about it.

[Illya]

The Pacification from Berserk can be Esuna/Leeches off if need be. I use Berserk when I'm helping with DPS bursting and IDGAF.

[bokchoykn]

snip

Kitru was completely right when he said:

If you seriously want to give advice to people, make sure you actually know what you're talking about. Pretty much all of the advice you provided was wrong (beyond the whole "turn off Defiance" derp, because, you know, it's not as if it never occurred to anyone else to turn off the stance that reduces damage by 25% when they don't need to tank).

You know how many people go to these forums for advice and info on how to play their class properly? Maybe 10% of the people who read these forums actually post here. Also, there's no way for them to know who is knowledgeable and who is not.

"Advice" posts should be held to a higher standard, because people depend on forums to help themselves understand their class and improve. Misleading advice makes the community worse.

I really hope that nobody took your post as good advice and is now starting fights by spamming Butcher's Block combo for 45-60 seconds and took Berserk off their hotbar.

[Kitru]

(honestly because I don't trust most healers to remove any debuffs off me that they can remove off me)

I don't expect to get Pacification esuna/leeched off of me and only recently added a Berserk macro that warns my party when Berserk is about to end and I'm going to get pacified (and the only reason I did that was because the healers I regularly run with kept asking me to make one) so I understand the instinct to say that a tank can't, or at least *shouldn't*, expect it to be cleansed. It's still factually wrong to say that it can't be removed. It's also nowhere near the handicap you make it out to be. The impact of the Pacification is less about how you simply can't act for 2 GCDs since the chances of you needing to act within those 2 GCDs, assuming you're using it intelligently, are negligible and more that, because you can't act, it dramatically cuts down the value of Berserk over time (since you're getting ~40% increase to all damage for 20 seconds and a ~75% reduction in damage dealt, since that's about what your special attacks make up, for 5 seconds afterwards; it basically translates into 25% increase to damage over the entire 25 second period Berserk is doing anything to you, which is a reduction to only 62.5% of it's potential effectiveness).

and I operate under the assumption that everyone can pull enmity off me if I don't generate a proper floor of enmity under me before I do anything else so I don't feel comfortable using a DPS combo before an Enmity-generating combo in fear that someone's going to pull something off me.

If you go back and check the post, I only said that the SE>BB>BB>BB rotation is the highest enmity rotation WARs have. I never said that's what you should start off with. In fact, if you check the explicit starting attack string I laid out, you'll notice that it starts off with a BB combo to establish the cushion required to be able to use SE afterwards specifically *because* I know that, if I don't, people will pull off of me. If you want to be especially paranoid about people pulling off of you at the start, you could add an extra BB combo to the start (and don't use Vengeance; the reason for the Vengeance is the 5th Wrath stack to let you move into the Unchained>Berserk>IR CD use string after the 2nd full combo; if you start with 3 combos, you don't need Veng for the stacks).

even though you were particularly rude about it.

If you hang around on these forums long enough, you'll soon realize that I'm not being rude. I'm being curt and direct, which you then interpret as being rude because you're not used to people not treating you as if you were fragile. Nowhere in there did I directly insult you. The closest I got to insulting you was pointing out that virtually everything you said was wrong, which was a factual observation. Don't confuse being told that you're wrong when you're wrong with someone being rude to you.

[ZDamned]

Theoretically, Kitru, since I'm not as good with math as you are, I pose a couple questions for a scenario that is likely unobtainable. =P

First question: What is the Base Crit chance for a Warrior at level 50?
2nd Question: How much % to Crit is each point worth in secondary stats?
3rd Question: At what point would your crit chance become so much more reliable, that it WOULD be worth using IB only as mitigation?

I did a Gear calcualtion and found that IF sacrificing ilvl, you can get to 553 Crit Rating. I don't know what your chance to crit is with that number, AND 10% from 5 Wrath Stacks.

But I would like to know how much +212 Crit Rating is actually going to give, and how beneficial it could theoretically be to Warrior DPS.

This scenario is totally Unrealistic, and impossible! So, Theory time. =P