Defensive ability, WAR VS DRK

[Lazka]

Can you share your cooldown rotation, please ?

well.. im just using the same rotation when im play PLD... but with extra dark mind and dark dance.. remember.. u can use that skill every 60 sec...
and if u calculation.. with 1 cooldown shadowskin u can use 2 dark dance/mind... (3 if shadow wall)

[Ditto]

I think it's good enough to practice CD rotation and see how many times you'd get caught off guard.
Something like "Without the Echo, this Flatten would have killed me since all my buffs are on cooldown"

But you wouldn't know if it did unless you went back to your logs after the fight and looked at every single time you took damage, how much you took, did all the math of what was mitigated from your stats, the Echo, what your HP was left at after the hit, what level of HP your healers decided to let you get to before spamming their heals on you, etc. etc.

There are just far too many changes in play for someone to gauge that correctly.

And lets not forget, tank busters can be paced apart different depending on the encounter. I mean sure it'd be good for practicing what buttons to hit after another, or while another one is down, but that's about it.

[Reynhart]

well.. im just using the same rotation when im play PLD... but with extra dark mind and dark dance.. remember.. u can use that skill every 60 sec...

True...so much topic about PLD and WAR shine with Sheltron and Raw Intuition that I start to forget you wouldn't have them for lvl50 content.

[Sleigh]

FCoB has 20% Echo, and I'm fairly sure the stat scaling puts you at the absolute highest possible stats for the instance, same as it does in other instances when it level syncs you.

It isn't really a good place to determine a classes worth when you're 20%+ overtuned for the encounter.

You can click off echo, and if so inclined, can click minimum iLVL.

It might not be a great comparison to do old content, true, but currently there's nothing in 3.0 that requires a strong tank including Bismark/Ravana EX. I feel like Phoenix bopping you for 1/3 your HP on a crit auto, and having to actually plan a timeline (without echo) is the closest thing we've got!

[Xariann]

I have done this VERY quickly just before going to work so I almost certainly missed something. EDIT: I forgot Vengeance... so changing these calculations again as below.

Talking of tank busters, I decided to try and compare some hypothetical numbers. It doesn't matter if they are accurate in this case, as it's pure theory, as long as they start from the same premise.

If a DRK has 1000 health than the WAR would have 1250 with Defiance on. In here I presume that WAR has Defiance and the DRK has Grit.

WAR : 1250 health (Defiance up) - 800 hit = 450 (36% remaining life)
DRK : 1000 health - 640 hit (Grit up) = 360 (36% remaining life)
(Thanks Reynhart)

WAR Health 1250 +20% Thrill of Battle = 1500 - 800 hit (-80% Raw Intuition, Storm's Eye and IB, Vengeance) = 1340 + cure 300 (+25% Defiance) = 1715 (114% of health before Thrill of Battle wears off)
Total effective health output: 250 from Thrill of battle + 640 from mitigation + 375 from Cure with Defiance buff = 1265

PLD Health 1000 - 800 hit (- 70% Grit, Shadow Skin, Shadow Wall) = 760 + cure 300 = 1060 (106% of health - 60 overhealing)
Total effective health output: 560 from mitigation + 300 from Cure - 60 overhealing = 800 (860 if you count overhealing as health pools are larger than 1000)


(This was before EDIT: Therefore I do not think that WAR are WAY ahead of DRKs from a defensive point of view.) AFTER EDIT: WAR has about 32% more effective health when the conditions above are met.

Magic VS Physical Damage
Let's presume that there is a new tank buster in Heavensward, which is magical. Let's repeat the calculations above.

WAR Health 1250 +20% Thrill of Battle = 1500 - 800 hit (-60% Vengeance, Storm's Eye and IB) = 1020 + cure 300 (+25% Defiance) = 1395 (93% of health before Thrill of Battle wears off, some of which effectively becomes overhealing)
Total effective health output: 250 from Thrill of battle + 480 from mitigation + 375 from Cure with Defiance buff = 1105

PLD Health 1000 - 800 hit (- 85% Grit, Shadow Skin, Shadow Wall, Dark Mind) = 880 + cure 300 = 1180 (118% of health - 180 overhealing)
Total effective health output (including overhealing): 680 from mitigation + 300 from Cure = 800 (980 if you count overhealing)

But DRK has Delirium (-10% INT) and I don't know how much mitigation that is.

WAR is ahead of DRK even in tanking magical damage without counting Delirium, but Delirium will not make up for the gap, although it will bring them closer.

Extra Considerations

After the hit WAR could use Equilibrium (1200 potency) to heal (if the tankbuster happens less often than every 60 secs) VS DRK's use of several Souleaters (260 potency without DA, and 400 potency with DA) to heal.

IB is up way more often than Shadowskin or Shadow Wall, but DRK has 20% from Grit. So compare IB to Grit, DRK has the advantage.

Raw Intuition has a CD of 90 seconds SAME as Shadowskin and they both offer 20% damage reduction, but Shadowskin has no need for Awareness (I know RI is bugged, but I am not going to factor that in, I also know that with good position you can use it without Awareness, but it will prove clunky with a lot of mobs).

DRK has a 30% damage reduction every 180 secs (Shadow Wall), WAR has Vengeance on 150 secs CD.

DRKs -10% damage from Reprisal might be up sometimes, but as it's RNG, I didn't factor it in.

DRK's Dark Mind is a trap, since it's "extra magic damage" but actually, it isn't extra when you add it all up.

Dark Dance gives you an extra 30% parry chance, add it to the 20% parry chance, it means you have 50% parry chance. That is a 50% chance that the buster will be mitigated by 20% IF it's physical. Dark Dance is more effective against groups. You can give it extra evasion if you use Dark Arts. You can dodge spells (I dodged an this morning Ice Sprite), Dark Dance with DA makes sense only if you use it against magical damage.

Damage Considerations

These are not proper calculations just a "off the top of my head" thoughts.

Damage wise, WAR gets a DPS stance that gives them 5% extra damage and crit depending on stacks, they also get Maim (20% damage), Berserk and Inner Release. But they have attacks with considerably lower potency. They also get Fel Cleave and Decimate with 5 stacks of Abandon.

DRK keeps 15% from Dark Side, plus Blood Weapon (attack speed) attacks with considerably higher potency and enhanced Souleaters with DA, which with Blood Weapon can be executed quite often.

The WAR might pull slightly ahead here but I don't think it's trashing the DRK.

[Reynhart]

IB is up way more often than Shadowskin or Shadow Wall, but DRK has 20% from Grit. So compare IB to Grit, DRK has the advantage.

You can't compare "Grit to Inner Beast". The WAR equivalent of Grit is Defiance.
In your example, withtout any active mitigation :
WAR : 1250 health (Defiance up) - 800 hit = 450 (36% remaining life)
DRK : 1000 health - 640 hit (Grit up) = 360 (36% remaining life)

Raw Intuition is the same as Shadow Skin regarding mitigation and cooldown, and against a boss, you shouldn't be hit from anywhere but the front.
Vengeance is the same as Shadow Wall for damage mitigation, but as a shorter cooldown.

That leaves Inner Beast for WAR and Dark Dance, Dark Mind for DRK.
Dark Mind is magic only, and most of tankbusters are physical (for now), so it's situational at best.
And for Dark Dance, it has more than twice the "cooldown" of Inner Beast (The time to build wrath, Infuriate apart), and is far less reliable.

Damage wise...It needs far more calculations, and since I don't play WAR post 50, I won't talk about it.

[Xariann]

Why can't you compare Grit to Inner Beast? The point is that one has 20% mitigation all the time, the other one doesn't. The 25% healing increase relies on the healer actually healing the tank, and in the calculations that is taken into account, the higher health pool is also taken into account. I get it about Raw Intuition, and it IS counted in the calculation.

But I did forget Thrill of Battle and I should probably add Storm's path in the calculation, so I am going to edit that now - once I add those things up, my thoughts might change.

Damage wise it does need more calculations, I am just making some general considerations.

[Reynhart]

Look at my example, I did not take any healing into account.
"Reducing damage by 20%" is the same as "having 25% more HP AND receiving 25% more heal". So, in fact Defiance is slighty behind Grit or Shield Oath, because it only provides 20%, but in the heat of the battle, it's not a really big difference.

If you don't want to take healing into account, just count how many hits it'd take to kill a WAR, a DRK or a PLD. You'll always end with the exact same number of hits between the three tanks.

Besides, in your example, what happens if another exact hit happens 30 seconds later ? The DRK will only have Grit, while the WAR will have Defiance still up AND can pop another Inner Beast.

[Faytte]

I find all these posts of drys trying to convince themselves of their 'equal' mitigating pretty amusing. You guys do the most damage while tanking, and there is a cost for that and its called mitigation. Certainly they can buff you but I doubt you will ever touch war mitigation (let alone paladin). If you did you would need a damage nerf.

[aerolol]

And you try to convince me that you can heal more than a 1200 potency spell that can be boosted by 30% with, at best, a 300 potency skill, even with 80% more damage...
And forgetting that all your healing skills need at least 3 GCD to pop...time during the PLD can cast Clemency several times.

It's becoming really funny for all WAR lovers to claim they can deal faaar more damage than others tanks, and heal faaaar more and take hits faaaar easily.
Live in your dream, buddy, and cringe while everyone will still prefer PLD as a main tank.

What is funny is how you have no clue about what you are talking about.

WAR can self heal for 7k+ in 2 seconds
Thrill of Battle for max HP increase + heal of that amount (3k+ at 60), new skill which is INSTANT CAST and also has 1200 cure potency (Equilibrium) for another 3k+, Second Wind as cross class for 1k+

I'm not even taking into acount double inner beasts, which heal for 1k+ each... over 3k total heal with berserk+bloodbath...

So a WAR can self-heal themselves for 10k in 3-4 seconds if you use the instant skills during/between inner beasts...

How many Clemency can you cast in 3-4 seconds, again??