Do Warriors have any single disadvantage?

[Phoenicia]

Problem is, it IS ahead, even by "not so far".

Back when PLD was only 1-2-3n you could argue that WAR was far more difficult to play. Now that PLD has evolved and that DRK came up with its MP management, WAR is not that much more complicated to play.

So PLD "evolved" to occasionally apply Goring Blade while STILL maintaining the core of "press 1 button to survive x seconds". PLD is still by far the easiest class to play In the entire game.

WAR is "barely" ahead of the other tanks by design. WAR pays the price of relative mechanical complexity. WAR is "not that much more" complicated to play, but it is still "more". (hear this line somewhere before? lol)

Reskinned PLD-- err, DRK, MP management is a joke. It's literally use a Siphon Strike combo, which also happens to be your higher damage combo, to pump Dark Arts for more.... damage. There is no real complexity in its decision tree that throws you off balance. Hint: a DRK Pressing 1, 2, 3 (Power Slash combo) and popping CDs to mitigate damage does the exact same function as a slightly gimped PLD.

[Ditto]

In Deliverance, WAR loses ALL its defenses (read: Inner Beast).

'ALL of their defenses'

'Inner Beast'

9/10 made me chuckle. A good War will always know when they'll need to Inner Beast. Wars have the benefit of resource-less stance dancing on just a 10 second cooldown. And on top of that, any stacks are converted to the other stance.

War doesn't lose any more mitigation than a Drk or a Pld does when stance dancing, because Inner Beast is COMPLETELY situational. There is NEVER a time you should Inner Beast over a Fell Cleave unless a tank buster is coming in, or you're taking a lot of damage anyway, which if you are, you'd want to be in your tanking stance anyway.

If Fell Cleave were usable under Defiance, you'd STILL be Fell Cleaving instead of using Inner Beast if you don't need it. It's no different than any other mitigation CD, only difference is it has the shortest CD of them all.

And lets not just act like Wars don't have other CD's either.

[Phoenicia]

Snip.

While DRK frontloads its DPS with oGCDs, their DPS graph is far, and I mean way far, more linear than that of WAR. Ravana favors WAR far more than DRK. And the GCDs that the WAR lost in that fight can be counted with your fingers at most and are irrelevant especially with RNG factors existing like crit%. And let's say WAR didn't lose those GCDs, it only shows that DRK is on par with WAR. What is +/- 3% with human error and RNG?

There is not a single buff/debuff in this game that is a deal breaker on its own. It is the buffs of the entire raid that make them function so well. That is why I undermine Storm Path on its own.

About Storm Eye. SOMEONE has to provide the debuff. WAR having it doesn't break things. NIN wasn't in the game so WAR had to have it. What do you suggest here? Remove it from WAR since NIN has it?

BRD and MCN aren't crying about DRG being the far superior DPS class because it provides the piercing debuff while still being ~300 DPS ahead of them and providing a raid-wide crit buff. The fact that Storm Eye is NOT unique to WAR (NIN has the exact debuff) is what I am pointing out here.

WAR losing the cornerstone, the backbone, the bread-and-butter of their mitigation in Deliverance and Fell Cleaves is a weakness that is "unique" to WAR. WAR also unnecessarily pops defensives to add abandon for triple Fell Cleaves to push more DPS. Pushing their defense loss even further. Also going straight from Deliverance to Defiance doesn't directly give you the benefits of defiance. You do not "gain" 25% current HP (you need a heal) and if you blew Abandon beforehand, you won't have IB. PLD/DRK do not pay such a price. Deliverance/Defiance fluid transition is hardly there to make up for such. That is what I meant by WAR losing far more defense in Deliverance than the other tanks.

PLD and DRK ONLY lose advantage as MTs in a fight that is out of their field. However they can just go OT and do relative DPS to WAR. In a PLD/DRK combo situation or if you have WAR with one of the two that "can't switch" to the other, just switch out who MTs and who OTs and all those "disadvantages" are hardly relevant.

[BadRNG]

Man, I don't know how many times we have to go over this. It's not that WAR shouldn't have the debuff, it's that they have a huge advantage because they have it. That advantage isn't even an issue by itself, it's just that on top of all the other advantages they have (with no real disadvantage) an imbalance is created. It's an issue because PLD/DRK naturally NEED another class in their group before they can equal WAR. A WAR never needs anyone.

I mean, even with the weakness you claim they have with deliverance, they can still tank just fine in it. The other cooldowns they have still makes them sturdy. You didn't really comment on the other aspect of that, a DRK/PLD's weaknesses can prevent them from being ideal depending on the fight. The WAR is never not ideal. Even with the supposed weakness, they still have the best MT dps, and they still (when smartly played) have incredibly good mitigation. A DRK misusing MP for damage can lose a lot of their magic mitigation or mitigation in general (not having enough to switch back to Grit). A well played DRK won't run into these issues, but a well played WAR won't be using all of their stack building cooldowns for DPS if they need them later. You are basically saying WAR's weakness is that they can be played badly. So can DRK, hell so can PLD believe it or not. That's not a real weakness.

And your final line hilariously just further proves the point I'm trying to make. WAR is good in every single situation, PLD/DRK have situations where they are clearly inferior. That is the imbalance. That is the entire argument.

[Ditto]

I'm sorry I cant take this person seriously anymore and I just got here.. lol

[Tila]

Man, I don't know how many times we have to go over this. It's not that WAR shouldn't have the debuff, it's that they have a huge advantage because they have it. That advantage isn't even an issue by itself, it's just that on top of all the other advantages they have (with no real disadvantage) an imbalance is created. It's an issue because PLD/DRK naturally NEED another class in their group before they can equal WAR. A WAR never needs anyone.

I mean, even with the weakness you claim they have with deliverance, they can still tank just fine in it. The other cooldowns they have still makes them sturdy. You didn't really comment on the other aspect of that, a DRK/PLD's weaknesses can prevent them from being ideal depending on the fight. The WAR is never not ideal. Even with the supposed weakness, they still have the best MT dps, and they still (when smartly played) have incredibly good mitigation. A DRK misusing MP for damage can lose a lot of their magic mitigation or mitigation in general (not having enough to switch back to Grit). A well played DRK won't run into these issues, but a well played WAR won't be using all of their stack building cooldowns for DPS if they need them later. You are basically saying WAR's weakness is that they can be played badly. So can DRK, hell so can PLD believe it or not. That's not a real weakness.

And your final line hilariously just further proves the point I'm trying to make. WAR is good in every single situation, PLD/DRK have situations where they are clearly inferior. That is the imbalance. That is the entire argument.

Sounds like your argument is that PLD/DRK should be balanced around solo play. You in a long winded way are complaining that WAR doesn't need anyone to be effective, when this is a discussion all about group content.

PLD and DRK needing someone isn't imbalance. Many classes shine with specific others. Its classes having differences.

[BadRNG]

Sounds like your argument is that PLD/DRK should be balanced around solo play. You in a long winded way are complaining that WAR doesn't need anyone to be effective, when this is a discussion all about group content.

PLD and DRK needing someone isn't imbalance. Many classes shine with specific others. Its classes having differences.

Needing someone is an imbalance when you need someone just to be equal to someone who needs no one (try saying that ten times fast). What other jobs suffer from that? The disembowel argument is poor, because the only competition BRD/MCH have is each other. One is not better than the other without the DRG buff. It's going to be about the same.

The complaint is that WAR is good at everything, bad at nothing, and needs no support to be good at what it is good at. If that is supposed to be class differences, you are basically saying being naturally superior is WAR's difference. Ideally differences should be what they bring to the group, not the basic aspects of the class being handicapped unless you bring another.

I should also say again that I am fine with WAR being the best DPS tank, it's just that PLD/DRK should get something universal to make up for the fact that they lose that damage.

[Tila]

Needing someone is an imbalance when you need someone just to be equal to someone who needs no one (try saying that ten times fast). What other jobs suffer from that? The disembowel argument is poor, because the only competition BRD/MCH have is each other. One is not better than the other without the DRG buff. It's going to be about the same.

The complaint is that WAR is good at everything, bad at nothing, and needs no support to be good at what it is good at. If that is supposed to be class differences, you are basically saying being naturally superior is WAR's difference. Ideally differences should be what they bring to the group, not the basic aspects of the class being handicapped unless you bring another.

I should also say again that I am fine with WAR being the best DPS tank, it's just that PLD/DRK should get something universal to make up for the fact that they lose that damage.

Well DRK doesnt, their damage is fine in comparison even if their DPS rotation is boring as sin. At most I say that reprisal needs to be changed to be a simple cooldown based ability: essentially a limited time double storms path that you use when you need. I feel that'd keep it distinct enough from Warrior and Storms Path.

PLD has the same issue as BRD had. They are partly a support, and a very safe class to play (like how BRD was the mobile dps with no real rotation) and pay for what they can do with something that isn't exactly wholly in the meta. The only way to fix Paladin is to redesign. If they get buffed with what they have they'll end up being over done. That's the real core of the PLD issue. The complaints aimed at them mirror the old BRD ones.

The game can't be based around each class being a self contained bastion that doesn't need others. Some can be like that, but if they all are then we get to homogenization, and no one wants that. Its a class based game, many aspects will be based around having other classes.

[Reynhart]

WAR is "not that much more" complicated to play, but it is still "more". (hear this line somewhere before? lol)

Well, WAR is just switching between two combos over and over, while popping Inner Beast exatcly when you want.
In fact, I don't see what makes WAR more complicated than PLD now.

It's literally use a Siphon Strike combo, which also happens to be your higher damage combo, to pump Dark Arts for more.... damage. There is no real complexity in its decision tree that throws you off balance.

If that's what DRK is for you, you obviously don't push it very far.

Hint: a DRK Pressing 1, 2, 3 (Power Slash combo) and popping CDs to mitigate damage does the exact same function as a slightly gimped PLD.

Hint : A WAR pressing 1, 2, 3 (Butcher's Block combo) and keeping Wrath stacks at full for popping Inner Beast (With or without Vengeance) to mitigate damage does the same function as a not at all gimped PLD.

[BadRNG]

The game can't be based around each class being a self contained bastion that doesn't need others. Some can be like that, but if they all are then we get to homogenization, and no one wants that. Its a class based game, many aspects will be based around having other classes.

Homogenization isn't necessarily evil, WAR is only as good as it is because they homogenized it massively with PLD in 2.1. Sometimes being unique doesn't work in the overall balance.

I think NIN is perfect model to fix DRK/PLD. They do less damage than MNK/DRG but bring excellent utility. WAR actually manages to have it all right now; great mitigation, damage, and best tank utility.