Warrior, whats your best advice?

[Exodus_Kenpachi]

Best advice? Hmmm...

Learn, memorize, and ALWAYS do triple zerk Fell Cleave + 2 Fracture combo.

Push your DPS always. That is your main utility as WAR...

Never drop Eye, maim, or Fracture.... Ever.... For any reason.

Use Equilibrium on CD while OTing.

Don't forget that you have defensive CDs while OTing that double as DPS tools. If you dont need them use them to increase your DPS.

[Merkava]

meh. Raiding as a WAR is "use all your CDs for the tank buster and never leave dps stance"

Proper raiding with WAR is understanding the enemies rotation, stance dancing into defiance and Inner Beast + a Cooldown whenever the tank buster (or high damage phase) gets in the way. Being a good WAR requires you to have a certain degree of knowledge of the fight, hence why its probably the most difficult tank class to master. But a WAR that just stays in DPS stance and never changes back to defiance at ALL? If we assume this is a difficult raid then that's bad tanking. If its some of the easier encounters and cooldowns are used properly then there is nothing wrong with this.

In dungeons, CDs are useless as soon as you have 15 ilevel more than the minimum to enter. Unless you do the "all room pulls" but they usually aren't the fastest ones anyway as you give up a lot of tank and healer dps.

Actually no, WAR is easily the sturdiest tank when dealing with large pulls (far more than Paladin or Dark Knight) as he can almost freely DPS while remaining in DPS stance and heal himself at the same time (I'll elaborate on that later).

We're no tank anymore. We're glorified dps.

WAR is not only a good DPS but also a great tank in the hands of a capable player. There is a good reason people are crying out "WAR OP!" people who think that WAR is less sturdy just don't know how to use them properly. WARs sinergy with its own skills is just too darn good atm.

In regards to the original TCs question, I'd like to offer up a few advice as well:
- Bloodbath + Berserk is an incredibly broken Combo. This is specially true during large pulls. Once you hit level 52 (and gain Deliverance) you can activate the following skills: Bloodbath, Berzerk, Inner Release, Infuriate (for extra critical hits) and switch into Deliverance and proceed to just SPAM overpower. You will easily heal yourself 2k+ HP every swing (on top of any regen and fairy heal) allowing a properly geared warrior to practically take care of themselves for the 20 seconds berzerk is activated. The raw amount of mitigation this offers easily outclasses what any of the other two tanks can do. Healers will easily find themselves with enough time to DPS, save only for the more extreme pulls. You should be able to easily break the 1K DPS mark, keep the healer DPS healty and, assuming the DPS are doing their job, easily clear most mobs by the time zerk runs out (or at least near death). Using Decimate (level 60 skill) before berserk expires is just the cherry on the top.

- Every pull should START in Defiance, only switch to Deliverance once you've established emnity and are confident in your healer vs the current damage you're suffering (this takes practice).

- When in dungeons use your cooldowns, don't just wait until you get to the boss as you'll probably have them back by then anyway. Your first pull? Pop in Bloodbath + Berzerk, Next pull? Vengeance, Next one? Raw Intuition + Awareness. Next One? Thrill of Battle + Convalscene, etc. Rotate them, don't just let them rest in your hotbar without use.

- Unchained is INCREDIBLY good when trying to establish emnity against bosses, always start a boss pull in Defiance with Unchained activated, you're never going to loose emnity even to the best DPS.

- Raw Intuition (level 56 skill) and Awareness (level 34 Paladin Cross skill) have incredibly good synergy, it's a great idea to use them together during large pulls (when other cooldowns aren't available).

- Inner beast is an insanely useful skill but requires you to know the bosses rotation when trying to properly use it. A good WAR will know when the tank buster is coming BEFORE it comes in order to prepare stacks, switch to Defiance and pop in Inner Beast + a cooldown whenever the tank buster hits, mitigating massive amount of damage every single time.

- Always use Mercy Stroke when its available, its hard to get the kill hit with it (don't rely on it) but its a DPS gain, so just pop it when you can.

- Same goes Brutal Swing, as long as stun is not needed against the mob or boss.

- Thrill of Battle + Convalscene is 20 seconds of Defiance without having to be in defiance (hint: Deliverance) or double defiance when you're in a pinch.

- Vengeance and Raw Intuition give a stack for your currently active stance, this can be important when trying to get the most out of berzerk as its possible to unleash a Triple Fell Cleave by burning one of them. If you burn both in one go you can Triple Fell and pop it up with Fracture. This is probably only a good idea when OTing or during 4 man dungeon runs (as bosses are really gentle in those).

Also...

- Use and refresh Fracture. The trait makes it pretty powerful on WAR

I kinda half agree and disagree with this. Up until level 54 (when you get Fell Cleave), keeping fracture up is without a doubt a DPS gain. When you, however, gain Fell Cleave fracture is easily a DPS loss since you are delaying Fell Cleave and fracture "only" has 300 Potency (with trait) versus Fell Cleaves 500 potency. This doesn't mean that Fracture is entirely useless. It should still be used when you use Berzerk (always use it when you have max stacks of Abandon) since you're trying to squeeze as much DPS as possible within that window and Fracture becomes a DPS gain. If I'm wrong feel free to correct me.

Edit: I might be wrong about this, reading the post below mine.

Aside from that Freyyy's post is pretty much spot on.

...That's what comes to mind atm.

[Donjo]

I kinda half agree and disagree with this. Up until level 54 (when you get Fell Cleave), keeping fracture up is without a doubt a DPS gain. When you, however, gain Fell Cleave fracture is easily a DPS loss since you are delaying Fell Cleave and fracture "only" has 300 Potency (with trait) versus Fell Cleaves 500 potency. This doesn't mean that Fracture is entirely useless. It should still be used when you use Berzerk (always use it when you have max stacks of Abandon) since you're trying to squeeze as much DPS as possible within that window and Fracture becomes a DPS gain. If I'm wrong feel free to correct me.

Actually, people have done the math and Fracture is still a DPS gain when used in Deliverance. It's just a much smaller DPS gain than it is in Defiance. This renders it vitally important for you to get the most out of Fracture every single time you use it. Only use it if you will get all of its ticks, and never let Storm's Eye fall off as a result of its use. This will require that sometimes you do two consecutive Storm's Eye combos, but this does not stop Fracture from being a gain.

Screwing up Fracture in either of the two above ways may result in a net DPS loss over a rotation that ignores the skill entirely. It's another one of those skills that gain effectiveness in accordance to one's comfort level in a fight.

[Merkava]

Actually, people have done the math and Fracture is still a DPS gain when used in Deliverance. It's just a much smaller DPS gain than it is in Defiance. This renders it vitally important for you to get the most out of Fracture every single time you use it. Only use it if you will get all of its ticks, and never let Storm's Eye fall off as a result of its use. This will require that sometimes you do two consecutive Storm's Eye combos, but this does not stop Fracture from being a gain.

Screwing up Fracture in either of the two above ways may result in a net DPS loss over a rotation that ignores the skill entirely. It's another one of those skills that gain effectiveness in accordance to one's comfort level in a fight.

Ah, Thank you for the input. I'll try it out and see how it works for me.

Edit: Would you have any source for the math? If possible I'd like to check it out myself out of simple curiosity.

[Donjo]

Ah, Thank you for the input. I'll try it out and see how it works for me.

Edit: Would you have any source for the math? If possible I'd like to check it out myself out of simple curiosity.

I don't remember the exact source, but it was simple average potency calculations. Fracture is, when all of its ticks come through, a 300 potency attack. Fell Cleave is the only attack Warrior has that exceeds this number, but it cannot be used very often. This means that the average potency per minute of a Warrior's rotations is always below 300 even though Fell Cleave exists. Adding the 300 Potency Fracture will therefore raise the average ppm, thus proving it to be a DPS gain.

And that's the short-form proof :P

[Ralvenom]

meh. Raiding as a WAR is "use all your CDs for the tank buster and never leave dps stance"

If you don't understand how to read a boss encounter and how that caters to raid experience, that's your fault. It is NOT JUST about that. There's more to it than that, so stop oversimplifying things in a thread where the OP was asking tips to help him/her learn.

[Merkava]

Before I forget, every topic like this should probably include A link to Xeno's Tanking guide (click me).

[Freyyy]

Before I forget, every topic like this should probably include A link to Xeno's Tanking guide (click me).

There is one on the first page lol

[Kuwagami]

snip.

heh, what do I know ? I have only been up to AS3 after all. The only times I ever had to switch to tank stance (besides helping healers to have more dps than what I could do in the 10 seconds of stance CD) were AS2 last wave (double widow + doll) and AS3 hand phase.

Because when you "learn" those fights, you quickly figure that the damage you take is ridiculously low.

Even in 2.X, as a war you were hardly using your tank stance, if at all.