Deliverance rant

[Bebekurenai]

I'm in need of venting and advice. I've decided to finally post about this matter because I'm starting to dislike the general warrior player base, and it shouldn't be this way. But it has come to the point where I've even set a search comment (not that anyone, specially warriors, would read) and lately very close to just quit the dungeon if I'm paired with a warrior.

This is from a healer and summoner point of view and it started back then when HW was fresh and we just got our first 60:

My first quit in HW, you can call it rage-quit, was the Library. I was whm, got paired with a blm, a brd and a warrior. It was the first time I got paired with a war on Deliverance and was curious and excited, I heard all sorts of goodies and how awesome wars were now with this new stance and it also was a refreshing change from all the drk wave. First pull, the very first room with a damselfly and two other mobs I can't recall now (was it even 3 monsters?) and this warrior guy just was almost dead and the dps didn't even engage yet. I thought "shit my gear must be broken", quick check, nope, all good. "Shit, the tank's gear must be broken", maybe. Then the dps engaged and hell was loose. I think, if my memory serves, the blm had two and the brd had the other one, but anyhow, the tank was mobless. My mp were already down to 3k and only Benediction was left. And the mobs weren't even 50% /cry.
So I typed as I could in party "please put defiance on" but no answer and no Defiance. Got this group eventually killed and we went to the next, didn't even have time to stoneskin. Hell goes loose again and I really got stressed out. The blm barely could cast since he was tanking again, and I repeated in party about please putting Defiance on, but nah. So once we kill those, I glue myself to the spot and let the war run ahead and repeat my plea again. He then says "I'm not gonna defiance for 3 mobs". I respond "Ok then", open the DF menu and leave. I knew it was gonna be pointless to make my point come across when he clearly didn't even care so I just left, I didn't fancy running the whole dungeon like this, stresses me out.

I then sought information with my friends on how exactly this stance works. When I told them what just happened my friend who mains warrior laughed and said I just got a very bad tank. That by no means he should have used Deliverance on trash, not just for the healer's sake (since he wouldn't benefit from the extra heal potency from Defiance) but also enmity wise. That was my point, since that guy only tanked until the dps layed hands on the mobs, then it was mostly the blm tanking.

So ever since then, when I got warriors with me, I have to cringe. Most are already harder to heal than any other tank job in my experience, and let me dps very little to nothing, but when they go with this silly (scuse me) stance dancing, I feel the urge to press "leave". I have come across only one or two remarkable warriors in DF (no I don't mean my friend) within maybe um... 100? And I have a friend astro who just loves warriors o_O; (what's wrong with me)

And as mentioned before, this also happens when I go smn. Hate is just everywhere and I either have to go nuts to finish off monsters hitting me or back the heck off and loose all my stacks. And no, I don't Raging Strikes at begining. I don't even Raging Strikes at all for trash, but Quelling sadly is always down when I'm with a Deliverance war.

Now this is the thing: Why? Why do you warriors have the need to stance dance? I get it on bosses, heck I'd expect a pld to be on sword oath and a drk to remove grit, but on trash??? When I see a pld going sword oath on trash it's mostly by mistake, a few seconds and he realizes and everything is fine again. Drk, same thing, but warriors still have a reason apparently to do this and I ask you as a community, why? DPS? Well, if you gonna do that you are making sure that I don't even see Cleric stance shine on my bar so in the end you wanna dps cause I don't dps and ugh....

[Ashelia_Ferron]

So, where's the rant? The only thing I can gather from this post is that you don't like when WARs tank in Deliverance.

[Mendalas]

If you are referring to the fact that a lot of "elitist" warriors thinks its okay to sit in deliverance the whole dungeon and not pop any c'ds on top of that, then I am right there with you. As a healer this drives me insane! I turn into a healbot because they take so much damage. I can't even get 1 aoe damage spell off before they are below half health.

I play warrior some too since 1.0. It's always been my go to tank job for doing dungeons. It's part of the reason why it's so frustrating because if played properly you can swap in and out both stances and still do similar damage with unchained and other cd's. But on large trash pulls.... it is so rude to just sit in deliverance and not pop a single cd. Warriors that do this are just the ultimate troll.

[Tyrial]

Your friend is correct and you're running into idiot WARs. A good WAR will swap to Deliverance for large trash pulls after aggro is established to help DPS down the pack. Defensive CDs should be popped and they should be able to keep themselves reasonably topped off and in no danger of getting killed if you're taking the proper precautions before you go full DPS mode.

Deliverance isn't only for bosses, it's for any time that we don't need the extra HP, enmity or skill sets that come with Defiance (Inner Beast, Steel Cyclone, healing from Equilibrium). Very rarely do I even touch Defiance in dungeons anymore if I'm running with my friends, but it's not something I do with DF groups unless I find that I can trust the healer and the DPS aren't complete garbage.

[Eisengrim]

Why do you as Whitemage stance dance with Cleric's Stance? Surely it'd be better if you just kept it off so your healing potency is always at max. On bosses, sure, but on trash?

[Mendalas]

Your friend is correct and you're running into idiot WARs. A good WAR will swap to Deliverance for large trash pulls after aggro is established to help DPS down the pack. Defensive CDs should be popped and they should be able to keep themselves reasonably topped off and in no danger of getting killed if you're taking the proper precautions before you go full DPS mode.

Deliverance isn't only for bosses, it's for any time that we don't need the extra HP, enmity or skill sets that come with Defiance (Inner Beast, Steel Cyclone, healing from Equilibrium). Very rarely do I even touch Defiance in dungeons anymore if I'm running with my friends, but it's not something I do with DF groups unless I find that I can trust the healer and the DPS aren't complete garbage.

I wish it was you that I run into in expert roulette. You are actually smart. The ones that I get stay in deliverance, loose aggro, and never pop a defensive cd.

[SpookyGhost]

Few things:

1.) First off, you're in the right. Some tanks are bad and when those bad tanks get behind the wheel of WAR, they start cruising around like a taxi driver in New York. There's no fixing that level of bad (at least not within the time limit of the dungeon), so you're better off just leaving and re-queueing when you can. You can stick it through, but it's going to be a painful run.

2.) Deliverance is actually amazing for trash when used correctly. Ideally you start off in Defiance - this gives you a stronger Adlo/WhateverAstroDoes and/or a stronger Stoneskin. Initial enmity is very important as well, so you definitely want to gain that lead before switching stance. Usually what I'll do is use my 5 stacks from Infuriate on Unchained if it's available, pop my offensive buffs + Bloodbath and then switch to Deliverance. When I'm in Deliverance I'm 24/7 spamming OP, this makes my health bob up and down a bit but due to the low damage each mob does vs how much I'm healing for on each mob. I'm basically not even in need of any healing outside of a Regen or fairy heals, it's pretty ridiculous. On top of this, I've got CDs like Vengeance, Thrill + Conv, Foresight, and RI + Awareness to smooth damage out with when I'm not in my tank stance. However, sometimes certain CDs won't be up, and in those cases you need to stick to Defiance - it's a very delicate balance.

3.) Deliverance tanking being amazing doesn't mean it's always the best option for your group. If your healer tells you to turn on Defiance, turn on Defiance. There is absolutely no sense in being stubborn about that, you're in a party, you're part of a team, you want to work together and the best way to do that is to listen to your team members. Not everyone can pull off Deliverance tanking either, it takes understanding of your job and how all your skills function together in conjunction with your healer's spells.

I'd say you have an understandable worry when paired with a WAR that goes Deliverance. If I were in your shoes, I'd worry too. I suppose the best thing to do is just hope and pray you don't get a bad tank, unfortunately.

[Freyyy]

The problem isn't "stance dancing". Stance dancing is actually a really good and optimal playstyle if done correctly as a WAR. It's where the job shines. The problem you have here seems to lie in terribad WARs who are just pulling and sitting in Deliverance while not using any defensive tools to compensate. It results in terrible threat generation and paper tank. A good WAR will be in Defiance to first gather mobs and establish aggro, then switch to Deliverance, with defensive cooldowns running, pop Bloodbath, Internal Release and Berserk, and unleash hell on everything (What I usually do is 2 Overpower, preparing my 5 stacks with a SE combo while weaving in Vengeance and Raw Intuition, switch to Deliverance, OP, Bloodbath + Berserk, Decimate x2, spam OP till pacified getrekt). A WAR doing that will barely need any form of healing since he's doing monster AOE damage and self-healing from it + has CDs such as Raw Intuition/Vengeance and/or Thrill of Battle running. An atleast average WAR would just sit in Defiance during AOE pulls and use Steel Cyclone and that's perfectly fine to do. A terribad WAR will sit in Deliverance the entire time and forget to pop CDs or maybe use Raw Intuition while not facing the mobs in order to help them kill him or some shit like that.

[Mendalas]

Usually what I'll do is use my 5 stacks from Infuriate on Unchained if it's available, pop my offensive buffs + Bloodbath and then switch to Deliverance.

You do wait until after unchained is over to switch to deliverance right?

I agree with everything else you said though. At least some people have a brain.

[Isius]

You can blame the current meta where several people new to tanking in this game worry about being a dps more...then actually tanking. This whole idea of tanks needing to max out thier dps came from Savage raiding. Where dps is necessary from all classes dps/healer/tank to clear that content. Newer tanks look at that, and try to mimic it, but also forgot about the basic fundamentals of tanking...holding aggro, staying alive, and positioning.

But yeah you had a bad tank player.