Mercy Stroke pretty useless for WAR?

[TheodoreMcIntyre]

Tanks who turn their nose up at free damage must like getting pummeled longer.

To put it simply, specced correctly and played correctly, tanks can actually put out very good damage. This is in fact often needed in harder content, where every point counts. A DPS increase is a DPS increase no matter the color of the symbol next to your name.

There's zero downside to using Mercy Stroke, and plenty to gain.

I never said there was a downside, and never did I say you shouldn't use it. I've said and acknowledged plenty of times that it's a good skill for DPS, but it doesn't do anything for my ability to keep aggro or mitigate damage

Tanks who turn their nose up at free damage must like getting pummeled longer.

Was that really necessary? I never said I don't use it.

[Argyle_Darkheart]

Despite it's GCD, not gaining wrath, costing 80tp, and 20 potency tick; Fracture is the longest duration DoT (tied to Touch of Death, correct me if I'm wrong). For WAR off Defiance or Unchained using Berserk and Internal release provides your Fracture with a massive snapshot that will last 30 seconds. Even while in Defiance, Wrath crit stacks will once again make Fracture a valuable source of consistent damage. I see no reason (other than a WAR being unable to manage their TP) why any WAR shouldn't have Fracture up on a heavy monster or boss.

In Defiance, according to my math, Fracture amounts to a 2.23 potency/GCD increase. That's a DPS increase of about 0.9%, which isn't really that bad. NOTE: I normalized for persistent DPS increases/decreases for this calculation (i.e. Maim and Defiance), so other's numbers may vary slightly, but the relative difference should be the same.

However, using Fracture in this way increases the length of time between Storm's Eye reapplication. Practically speaking, this means that sometimes Storm's Eye will not be applied to the enemy for 2 GCDs instead of 1. This also means that fewer of your auto-attacks are augmented by Storm's Eye, as well as the other tank's attacks.
The original calculation I did does not factor in auto-attacks or the other tank's attack. If you factor those in, the DPS increase nearly vanishes, or may even become a DPS loss. Also, I did not calculate for decreased Wrath generation, which would amount to less overall crit%. However, the effect should be rather minimal.

All of this is compounded by the fact that Fracture: a) hemorrhages TP, b) slows Wrath generation, reducing IB's uptime, and c) complicates your rotation.

Using Fracture with buffs isn't a bad idea, though I've done no calculations to confirm whether it's truly worth it.

The only time Fracture is an assuredly consistent DPS increase is if you never have to worry about losing Storm's Eye for longer than otherwise, such as when:

1) you are off-tanking, using a modified rotation: SE > (FR > SE > BB > SE > SE) x N. You could also use a similarly modified rotation while main-tanking if threat and Wrath generation are of little-to-no concern (though you'll be doing even fewer BBs).
2) you have a WAR off-tank that is always maintaining Storm's Eye.
3) you are main-tanking, but only using BB > SP. However, your priority here is survival, so slowing Wrath generation may be counter-productive.
4) the enemy is going to jump long enough for Storm's Eye to fall, no matter what you do, and for your combo to break.

If I've overlooked some mathematical factor, please let me know; I would love for others to provide mathematical reasoning as to why I'm right or wrong.

TL;DR Fracture is a lot worse on paper than it might sound or feel, and it almost exclusively has to do with the duration of Storm's Eye. Until Fracture is made more powerful, or until Storm's Eye duration is increased, Fracture will remain a very dubious DPS increaser (at least while tanking).

[TheodoreMcIntyre]

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Fracture was always pretty iffy for me. I could never find a good place to slot it during a rotation and it always felt awkward to use. The only time I ever really use it is when I unequip my job crystal as MRD just to see how high I can get my DPS.

[BIRDMAN]

I apologize for veering off-topic.

To make sure I have have my numbers straight- Storm's Eye does 270, Storm's Path 250, and Butcher's Block 280 (when apart of a combo). Two of those skills provide debuffs (one lasts 20secs, the other 15secs), the latter provides a huge enmity gain.

Fracture is a 100 potency attack that deals 20 potency roughly every 3 seconds for 30 seconds- totaling ~300 potency (not part of a combo).

Assuming the WAR is 'comboing', their 3 attack variations will add up to 590, 610, and 630. Assuming the WAR does not break their combo and they have a GCD of about 2.5 or less, that combo will take about 7.5 seconds to complete. Meaning, After the warrior has applied Storm's Eye they have approx. 6 GCD's to reapply (realistically meaning: 3 GCD's). On the other hand, Storm's Path allows for 5 more seconds; therefore 2 more GCD's (8 total, realistically: 5).

[BIRDMAN]

If you're thinking of only DPS gains, then stay out of defiance and after every 3 GCD's start up a Storm's Eye Combo. Even if you've spoiled another combo Fracture is the highest potency dealing attack the WAR has (outside of Inner Beast).
If tanking- you can't maintain Storm's Eye at all times. Somewhere in the middle you'll have to Inner Beast, you'll have to begin a Butcher Block Combo, or you'll have to Steel Cyclone. Your priority debuff will be Storm's Path, and even then it allows ample time to Butcher Block Combo (or Storm's Eye), Inner Beast AND apply fracture before having to reapply Storm's Path.

simply put, Fracture (and Inner Beast) compared with all other GCD's possesses the most potency of any WAR skill. As such, it is far from detrimental, especially when tanking. You may aswell tell me what a 10% slash resistance reduction actually amounts to for EVERY skill a warrior has, because I doubt +1GCD and 1ish autoattacks before reapplying SE will amount to more than 300 potency.

[Argyle_Darkheart]

If you're thinking of only DPS gains

What else is there to consider with regards to Fracture? It's a pure DPS skill.

then stay out of defiance and after every 3 GCD's start up a Storm's Eye Combo. Even if you've spoiled another combo Fracture is the highest potency dealing attack the WAR has (outside of Inner Beast).

Breaking combo to reapply Storm's Eye early is a DPS loss compared to all the other alternatives. You either let Storm's Eye fall off, or you do another Storm's Eye combo. Breaking combo would also increase your TP consumption.

Your priority debuff will be Storm's Path, and even then it allows ample time to Butcher Block Combo (or Storm's Eye), Inner Beast AND apply fracture before having to reapply Storm's Path.

I've already acknowledged that scenario as being a valid time to use Fracture in my previous post. But, like I said, you still face the issue of slowing down Wrath generation. If you're prioritizing Storm's Path, then it stands to reason that you should be prioritizing Wrath generation as well.

simply put, Fracture (and Inner Beast) compared with all other GCD's possesses the most potency of any WAR skill. As such, it is far from detrimental, especially when tanking.

You don't seem to understand opportunity cost. Just because Fracture is one of WAR's highest potency skills doesn't automatically make it worth using. As for Fracture being better while tanking: it's the opposite. The reality is that you impede your other options whenever you use Fracture. That is, every time you use Fracture, you could've been starting another combo. In effect, you reduce: the up-time of Storm's Eye, Wrath generation, and enmity generation. The question is: "is it worth it?" I don't think so--not while tanking, anyway.

You may aswell tell me what a 10% slash resistance reduction actually amounts to for EVERY skill a warrior has, because I doubt +1GCD and 1ish autoattacks before reapplying SE will amount to more than 300 potency.

I've already told you what Fracture was worth. You don't seem to understand how to calculate the potency of a rotation. You have to examine the entire rotation with and without the element in question (in this case, Fracture), and calculate the differences in potency/GCD.

TL;DR I wrote a lot of words, but Fracture is still terrible. Yoshiplz.

[BIRDMAN]

Your rhetoric is astounding but you're still wrong about the general effectiveness of fracture.

You're saying you've told me what fracture is worth, yet your comparatives are baseless and lead others to assume leaving fracture off is a good thing. I know what fracture is worth, comparatively with other skills- but frankly I'm unclear as to how much of a benefit -10% slashing resistance is. Apparently not good enough to reapply immediately, but good enough to phase-out a high(est) potency attack from rotation.

I can't agree with removing fracture from rotation. I can understand that it'd be easier on the WAR to do so, and if easy and simple are something you're striving for then by all means don't use fracture and run your rotation.

[BIRDMAN]

Your claim that fracture impedes enmity is an outright lie. As with any other attack while in defiance it generates enmity with the initial hit and since its a DoT every 3 seconds after. IT HELPS GENERATE ENMITY. Also, the idea you want to get to 5 wrath stacks as soon as possible is conditional. Maybe we're using IB differently, I use it to mitigate upcoming damage- if you're rushing to cycle IB as soon as possible... maybe you should consider dropping defiance, or maybe drop WAR altogether for a melee dps?

As for Storm's Eye, if you want to try keeping that skill up 100% of the time while tanking be my guest.

I don't want to disturb this topic anymore with my defense of fracture; it's a great skill and if WARs decide not to use it that's their choice.

[TheodoreMcIntyre]

-.

He never said it doesn't generate enmity. But it does impede possible enmity. That is, you could be doing other skills instead and generate much more enmity than fracture ever will.
Let's say you need to generate several points of enmity in an eighteen second period. Okay, so it's enough time for two combos. We'll say that Heavy Swing generates 10 points of enmity, so that would mean fracture generates 2/3rds the enmity of Heavy Swing just from the initial hit as neither have an enmity bonus. So we'll say fracture generates about 6.66 from the initial hit, and the DOT would generate 13% of the hate that Heavy Swing does, or about 1.3 points. The Fracture DOT hits 10 times, so it brings the total enmity generated by one fracture to about 19.66, or just a little under what two heavy swings would get you. So let's say you fracture once at the start of the 18 seconds. You use fracture and lead into your 123 combo, generating a particularly high amount of hate which I can't really express in numbers because I don't know the real correlation between potency and how the enmity bonus of the skill affects it. You lead in to another combo, get to Heavy Swing, then Skull Sunder, but then the 18 seconds is over and you can't use your combo butcher's block. So you gain a little under a heavy swing's worth of enmity but lose a whole butcher's block worth. And that just increases the more you use it

[Argyle_Darkheart]

You're saying you've told me what fracture is worth, yet your comparatives are baseless and lead others to assume leaving fracture off is a good thing.

"Baseless?" Spare me; my conclusions are based entirely in mathematics, and the priorities of WAR, a TANK.

Maybe we're using IB differently, I use it to mitigate upcoming damage- if you're rushing to cycle IB as soon as possible... maybe you should consider dropping defiance, or maybe drop WAR altogether for a melee dps?

Let's take T9, for example, solo-tank first phase. My rotation is optimized down to every single GCD; Fracture cannot fit anywhere in there. If I slow down Wrath generation by even 1 GCD, I have to hold onto IB needlessly (i.e. I could've used it to mitigate a cleave and have it ready again for Ravensbeak, but instead I just have to hold onto it). A pathetically low DPS increase of, at best, 2% (if I ignored SE, which I don't) just isn't worth it. Not to mention, in this scenario, I wouldn't be gaining anywhere near as much DPS from Fracture since I end up losing out on an IB.

As for playing a melee DPS instead? Just wow. You're the one advocating for a PURE DPS skill, as if it somehow helps you TANK. Here's the short of it: it doesn't.

Your claim that fracture impedes enmity is an outright lie.

If you use Fracture, then you're doing proportionally fewer Skull Sunders and Butcher's Blocks than you would otherwise, period.

I don't want to disturb this topic anymore with my defense of fracture; it's a great skill

This thread is already done, so we might as well talk about this. You don't have any argument or any mathematical basis for saying that I'm wrong. You just keep insisting Fracture is good and that I'm somehow wrong (even going so far as to claim that I'm lying).

Fracture is woefully mediocre. The sooner that you admit this, the sooner that it can be improved.