Getting refused to EX groups as a DRK

[Ditto]

No, that's not how math works. Healers don't look at numbers, they look at a bar and your % of the HP you have left. Between DRK & PLD with grit/shield oath vs. WAR with defiance, it's mathematically almost the exact same. All 3 tanks take the same amount of damage to die, exactly the same amount. The only difference is that the WAR requires about ~4% more healing than the other two tanks. With all the over healing that goes on in raids, in addition to the self heals from frequent inner beast usage, that 4% is pretty negligible.

WAR can feel a little squishy compared to PLD because they don't have a shield, and don't get free blocks. But other than that, a WAR should only feel squishy if they're not using their strong and relatively low cooldown mitigation abilities (inner beast, ToB, vengeance, storm's path), or not using them effectively. It's probably a bit more prevalent than it used to be due to easy stance dancing and using fel cleave instead of inner beast for MOAR DEEPZ! There's no reason a WAR concentrating on mitigation should feel squishier than a DRK.

I was making a comparison to Drk. Both tanks are squishier than Paladin overall. Also no, plenty of healers look at numbers, hell healers SHOULD be looking at numbers because numbers are what make up damage, and your HP. If a healer is looking at HP based only on percentages, then there is a serious problem.

But what you said is basically what I'm saying. Warrior tanking stance is like a high risk high reward type of thing. If they know how to use their CD's, IB included, they can be a tanking machine ontop of the mitigation they get, and the bonus healing. If you take 'squishy' in a literal sense, sure Warriors HP jumps around a lot, they obviously get hit harder when they do not have a CD going because they do not have a 20% damage reduction tank stance like Drk does.

Warriors being 'squishier' is an illusion created by large chunks of HP leaving their bar, in return for larger chunks being added to it.

This is no longer correct, as far as I've seen. I have yet to see a WAR with more than maybe 5% more HP than me, and most of the time they've been about equal with Defiance on. Of course I'll need to find a WAR with the exact same gear as me to test it accurately.

If WARs did have 25% more HP than PLDs or DRKs, then you'd be correct that it all "comes out in the wash" mathematically. But that doesn't appear to be the case.

I'm sorry but I'm beginning to question why you even tank to begin with.

If a War does not have 25% more HP than you, it means he has less Vit than you. Defiance does not scale off of others HP< it scales off fo their OWN HP. In equal gear, equal vit numbers, a Warrior will have 25% more HP than the other two tanks.

More often than not, those Warriors you're seeing are wearing full slaying accessories, and are STR attributed.

If the WAR chooses to equip gear in such a way that he doesn't have 20-25% more HP than me, then he doesn't have that mitigation, proving my point.




Yes, and if a WAR doesn't have 20%+ more HP than me, then Defiance is not a match for Grit. In that case, Grit = IB, in which case Grit is better because it's always on.

And if he doesn't have that HP, that means he's probably dealing more damage than you will ever deal as a MT. You only need so much HP before anything over it is wasted.

And a strong offense is the best defense. That is basically what Warriors have ran on since 2.0.

[dragoelete]

. That is basically what Warriors have ran on since 2.0.

key word (err.. number) is 2.0 in 2.0 STR increased parry strength therefore added to your defense.

[Ditto]

key word (err.. number) is 2.0 in 2.0 STR increased parry strength therefore added to your defense.

The amount of parry strength actual strength gave you was laughable. That was never the reason a War built on damage.

Inner Beasts, and just the satisfaction of hitting like a truck full of truck parts, as well as the unreliability of Parry (The only other build they'd be able to go) is why they did.

The more damage you do, the more you self heal, and the faster the fight ends. The shorter phases are. The harder bosses are pushed. The faster adds die. etc. etc. That is the ultimate defense.

[Kaedan94]

If a War does not have 25% more HP than you, it means he has less Vit than you. Defiance does not scale off of others HP< it scales off fo their OWN HP. In equal gear, equal vit numbers, a Warrior will have 25% more HP than the other two tanks.

More often than not, those Warriors you're seeing are wearing full slaying accessories, and are STR attributed.



And if he doesn't have that HP, that means he's probably dealing more damage than you will ever deal as a MT. You only need so much HP before anything over it is wasted.

And a strong offense is the best defense. That is basically what Warriors have ran on since 2.0.

*sigh*

You do realize that Defiance reduces damage by 25%, right? And that DRK's damage is only reduced by 5% in Grit due to Darkside. So no, WARs even with STR spec are not doing "more damage than we'll ever deal". Because we have a 20% buffer (though some of that is admittedly reduced by other damage buffs WAR has).

And yes, precisely. If he has less HP, even in Defiance, he has less VIT. That's precisely the point.

If a WAR has equal to or less HP than me in Defiance, he is a worse MT. In that case he has FAR less mitigation and might do marginally more damage, not at all enough to make up for it.

[Ayuris]

*sigh*

You do realize that Defiance reduces damage by 25%, right? And that DRK's damage is only reduced by 5% in Grit due to Darkside. So no, WARs even with STR spec are not doing "more damage than we'll ever deal". Because we have a 20% buffer (though some of that is admittedly reduced by other damage buffs WAR has).

Right, and warrior does have the maim buff that grants 20% extra damage, and they have unchained and berserk that scales incredibly togheter, and not to mention the 10% from storms eye.

Or am i missing something here?

[Kiteless]

*sigh*

You do realize that Defiance reduces damage by 25%, right? And that DRK's damage is only reduced by 5% in Grit due to Darkside. So no, WARs even with STR spec are not doing "more damage than we'll ever deal". Because we have a 20% buffer (though some of that is admittedly reduced by other damage buffs WAR has).

That's not how that works... at all. First of all, the damage multipliers of Darkside and Grit are multiplicative, not additive. That means that a DRK under Grit/Darkside is operating with 92% damage output, not 95%. Additionally, if you're going to make inclusions of Darkside for DRK's damage, you have to include Maim's modifier for WAR. Both should be up at all times anyway. That means that DRK operates at 92% output, and War operates at 90% output. Not a huge difference, until you factor in abilities like Berserk (+50% attack power), Unchained (+33% damage output) and Storm's Eye (-10% target slashing defense), which cause WAR's output to soar, far higher than anything DRK's oGCD attacks can even hope to match.

But hey, making incredibly poor, biased arguments is easy.

And yes, precisely. If he has less HP, even in Defiance, he has less VIT. That's precisely the point.

If a WAR has equal to or less HP than me in Defiance, he is a worse MT.

Um... no. Serious question, do you know much about tanking? The worse MT is the one who dies. If an MT has enough health to keep themselves alive, it doesn't matter if they have ten or a million HP. More importantly, the better MT will keep themselves alive while supporting the party more or doing more damage. Both things that WAR does better. And if they don't have to invest in vitality accessories to do it, even better.

In that case he has FAR less mitigation and might do marginally more damage, not at all enough to make up for it.

Um... no, they more than make up for it. There's a reason why no serious tank uses vitality gear right now. It's not worth using.

[Giantbane]

That's not how that works... at all. First of all, the damage multipliers of Darkside and Grit are multiplicative, not additive. That means that a DRK under Grit/Darkside is operating with 92% damage output, not 95%. Additionally, if you're going to make inclusions of Darkside for DRK's damage, you have to include Maim's modifier for WAR. Both should be up at all times anyway. That means that DRK operates at 92% output, and War operates at 90% output. Not a huge difference, until you factor in abilities like Berserk (+50% attack power), Unchained (+33% damage output) and Storm's Eye (-10% target slashing defense), which cause WAR's output to soar, far higher than anything DRK's oGCD attacks can even hope to match.

Ehhh, DRK's have a LOT of powerful oGCD abilities compared to the WAR's comparitively weak brutal swing. DRK's average potency for their GCD attacks is also higher than what the WAR has. That stuff adds up fast. Probably going to have to wait for someone to math the whole thing out and get a lot of parses to verify before we have a clear winner between the two. Sure the WAR's damage is going to skyrocket for 20s every 2min, but the DRK is the clear winner for the other 100s. So there's a good chance the DRK will end up on top in terms of damage done while MT. Although I'm almost positive they're both better than the PLD in terms of MT damage.

[Kiteless]

Ehhh, DRK's have a LOT of powerful oGCD abilities compared to the WAR's comparitively weak brutal swing. DRK's average potency for their GCD attacks is also higher than what the WAR has. That stuff adds up fast. Probably going to have to wait for someone to math the whole thing out and get a lot of parses to verify before we have a clear winner between the two. Although I'm almost positive they're both better than the PLD in terms of MT damage (although the PLD *did* get some new toys they can use as MT, so who knows).

From what we know so far, at least for OT damage (we can't really parse DRK MT damage too effectively, at least on dummies, because we can't actually maintain our damage while MT without taking damage), WAR has a pretty clear lead on DRK and PLD, who both end up coming up pretty even, up until DRK runs out of TP after around the 2:15 minute mark, at which point PLD starts to beat DRK by a fairly sizeable margin (until the point where PLD also runs out of TP, but when the dust settles, PLD will have done more damage, as well as still have the ability to support their party with Clemency and Divine Veil, where DRK can... pose... or something).

Don't forget, PLD has an incredibly impressive tool in the form of Fight or Flight. That's an overall increase in damage of 10% (30% for 30s every 90s) that applies to ALL of their damage dealt, including DoTs and autoattacks (this means crazy stuff from shield oath), something DRK's blood weapon can't even come close to attesting to.
While MTing, I imagine that the damage situation between PLD and DRK will be quite close, with WAR edging them both out by a considerable margin with smart play. Keep in mind that WAR can stance dance far more easily as needed than the other tanks, and the way Wrath/Abandon work implies that it was even meant for this.

[Giantbane]

Honestly, Giantbane, you're under rating Inner Beast, even for as highly as you're already considering it. That 6 seconds of reduction is up more like every 15 seconds, not including the use of skills like Vengeance, Berserk, and Infuriate; and being able to activate it more frequently is worth a hell of a lot more than the longer duration of Dark Mind, since it means that you can use Inner Beast to block way more individual tankbusters.

You could probably have Inner Beast fill in for several of those DRK cooldowns, even.

You're right, I was being very conservative in my comparisons.

From what we know so far, at least for OT damage (we can't really parse DRK MT damage too effectively, at least on dummies, because we can't actually maintain our damage while MT without taking damage), WAR has a pretty clear lead on DRK and PLD, who both end up coming up pretty even, up until DRK runs out of TP after around the 2:15 minute mark, at which point PLD starts to beat DRK by a fairly sizeable margin.

Don't forget, PLD has an incredibly impressive tool in the form of Fight or Flight. That's an overall increase in damage of 10% (30% for 30s every 90s) that applies to ALL of their damage dealt, including DoTs and autoattacks (this means crazy stuff from shield oath), something DRK's blood weapon can't even come close to attesting to.
While MTing, I imagine that the damage situation between PLD and DRK will be quite close, with WAR edging them both out by a considerable margin with smart play.

Problem is that the WAR & the PLD both is that I think they lose more when going from OT > MT. In addition to the damage penalties of the respective tanking stances, PLD loses sword oath and WAR loses deliverance and fel cleave. Now WAR does gain some of that back with unchained. The DRK loses blood weapon, but I don't think it's as big a loss as the equivalent DPS stances of the other tanks. Blood price will help regain some of the lost MP from blood weapon, and as a MT, the DRK will now have access to reprisal and having the low blow cooldown reset. So I think it's possible for the DRK to pull even or end up on top.

But, like I said, I don't think it's that straightforward and will need more investigation.

Lets not just act as if War's don't have a 1200 potency heal every 60 seconds that scales off of their AP. (Which is a lifesaver if healers are unable to prep you for a tank buster for whatever reason, or your HP is critically low and you need quick instant heal to not get mauled by an auto attack)

And Magic cannot be parried, thus Reprisal isn't even an option in pure magic fights. It shouldn't even be listed as one if Raw Intuition isn't.

And though some may say it's trivial, War's have a constantly fluctuation Parry boost that will be anywhere from 2% - 10%, growing at whatever speed they're stacking wrath at. They may not be sitting on that parry rate at 5 stacks, but that is still an advantage in parry over a Drk. That is up to left side gear piece worth of parry they are constantly hitting, assuming I'm understanding how parry percentage boosts work. (Consider this grabbing at straws if you want, but it's an advantage nonetheless. Though I guess you could argue Dark Dances 30 second shorter cooldown would change that)

I did not consider this to be a fully exhaustive comparison between the two classes. It's more high concept using Kaedan's original method. This time with all (I think) of the major cooldowns hit. I didn't include second wind, evasion or dark passage's potential blind effect either as long as we're pulling everything out.

[Giantbane]

I was making a comparison to Drk. Both tanks are squishier than Paladin overall. Also no, plenty of healers look at numbers, hell healers SHOULD be looking at numbers because numbers are what make up damage, and your HP. If a healer is looking at HP based only on percentages, then there is a serious problem.

But what you said is basically what I'm saying. Warrior tanking stance is like a high risk high reward type of thing. If they know how to use their CD's, IB included, they can be a tanking machine ontop of the mitigation they get, and the bonus healing. If you take 'squishy' in a literal sense, sure Warriors HP jumps around a lot, they obviously get hit harder when they do not have a CD going because they do not have a 20% damage reduction tank stance like Drk does.

Warriors being 'squishier' is an illusion created by large chunks of HP leaving their bar, in return for larger chunks being added to it.

It's still silly.

A WAR has 10000 hp (8000 hp + defiance), and gets hit for 2500, he now has 7500 hp.
A PLD or DRK has 8000 hp, and gets hit for 2500, this gets mitigated to 2000 so he now has 6000 hp.

If you look at the bar to see how much % hp is left, the result is exactly the same, there's 75% of their HP left no matter how you look at it. If you look at the numbers, the WAR has more total HP left. So you'd think the healer should "feel" safer with the WAR (even though it's actually exactly the same). I have no idea how someone could look at this in action and say the WAR "feels" squishier.