Do top WAR use Fracture?

[TheodoreMcIntyre]

I don't really use it when tanking, and I don't really plan to. Since it doesn't generate wrath, each use is one potential stack of wrath lost. Which means every five uses is a potential Inner Beast lost. Each fracture has 220 potency of damage in it, assuming you don't let it clip. Five fractures is 1100 points of damage potency. However, this is severely impaired thanks to Defiance, whereas 5 skills in your 1-2-3 combo and the accompanying Inner Beast results in 1280 potency ((150 * 2) + (200 * 2) + 280 + 300), 300 points of which is not impaired by Defiance's damage debuff. It also heals you, decreases incoming damage, and requires no TP to use.

So, while tanking, no, I pretty much never use Fracture. Maybe if I'm doing damage with defiance off, sure, but never while I'm tanking.

[Kuwagami]

snip

fracture has a potency of 300 as a WAR. Not 220.

In your calculations, you'll get 1500 potency with the fracture, which gives 1125 potency under Defiance.

The counter part is "only" 1035 potency under defiance, so from a strict dps perspective, using fracture is better than not.

That said, it's not factoring the potential need of the damage reduction, nor the TP loss. If you know you'll be short on TP, fracture becomes a bad choice as once you're TP starved, you loses a lot more.

In short :

As OT : yes

As MT : depends. If you know you won't need the damage reduction or if the fight is short enough that you won't be TP starved, use it. If one of those situations is likely to happen, don't use it until you know for sure it's safe

[TheodoreMcIntyre]

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My mistake, I forgot Fracture had a trait. I don't actually know how potency correlates to damage (If Defiance nerfs the potency itself or if it nerfs the resulting calculation after buffs and debuffs have been accounted for) but assuming that it nerfs potency directly like you're saying, that would result in:
(((150 * 2) + (200 * 2) + 280) * .75) + 300 = 1035
As opposed to five Fractures over a period of about two and a half minutes:
(((20 * 9) + 100) * 5)) * .75) = 1050 for 9 ticks per fracture
(((20 * 10) + 100) * 5)) * .75)= 1125 for 10 ticks per fracture.
I'm not sure how the game does DoTs specifically, whether the first tick occurs 3 seconds after you first apply it or the moment you hit with it, and I can't log in to check right now.
The difference in either case is less than a Heavy Swing.
More to the point, you're not gonna be wanting to use it in mitigation heavy fights. If you're just off to the side, like in some solo tank fight such as Ifrit/Titan HM, or you're just not doing anything at the moment, go for it. A couple heavy swings worth of DPS, though, isn't really worth the damage that the healers need to heal up in more intense fights. Frankly, if you're looking to just put out some big burst DPS and high numbers with an axe, try just going MRD and using all those wonderful cross-class skills. That's what I do when I know I'm not going to be tanking anything intense.

[Alistaire]

fracture has a potency of 300 as a WAR. Not 220.

This really needs to be corrected. DoT ticks from physical skills do not benefit from their damage type debuff. Storm's Eye/Dancing Edge in this case.

So for WAR, the initial 100 potency is really going to be 110. Then 10 ticks of 20 each for 310 total.

This is important because if you compare it to Butcher's block, which starts off as 280 potency, is actually going to be boosted to 308 unless you've made a mistake and let your debuff drop. So you can't talk about your skill potencies and compare a straight hit to a hit+ dot without considering the slashing debuff because it skews the comparison.

Fracture is not as much a dps increase as you'd think, partly because of that and partly because of keeping your buffs up.

So as MT, most definitely not. As OT, if the stars line up perfectly you need something like a 0.3% dps increase but if not, in most cases it's a loss.

[Grahf4441]

I'm no math whiz so this might be a little off; Alistaire is comparing the third hit of a combo to a single attack that can be used at any time. HS(150p) >> SS(200p) >> BB(280p) = 630p * 1.1 = 693p with SE applied. 693 / 3 GCD = 231p per GCD whereas fracture still remains 310p with SE applied for 1 GCD. I've spent substantial amounts of time on the target dummy and I can say without a doubt using fracture correctly will be more than a .3% DPS increase.