The Bottom Feeders: Moves You Never Use and Why.

[Reynhart]

Naw Amigo, Hood Swipe was Un-survivable without the i90 chest as a 2.0 Warrior

Yes, a 2.0 WAR.
But the idea that WAR was squisher than PLD remained even after 2.1.

[SpookyGhost]

Speaking of 2.0, Steel Cyclone was extremely useless then (trade all your +healing for equal enmity to OP with no TP cost). I'd say Unchained as well but it still had the same use as is it does now and there were a lot of tricks you could incorporate back then, like the OT opener where you got a free 1-2 IBs. Path was largely useless, Eye -> BB/Eye -> Eye was more damage and the heal was too minimal to care about. Vengeance was surprisingly pretty useful - it didn't have the damage reduction it does now, but it had the reflect which made it strong on trash packs and good for +DPS during Unchained + Berserk on bosses.

But from 2.1 on and in 3.0 now, WAR has no useless abilities outside of cross class choices.

[Februs]

The vertical/horizontal hotbars are almost a necessity for DRK. They really help.
Yes I took these on my phone. Don't you judge me.

LOL... err... I mean. I'm not judging... lol (seriously, though. Not judging. Taking screenshots on Ps4 is easy, but getting them off to your laptop is a pain... )

Back on point: I had never even considered the use of vertical/horizontal hotbars... I actually re-arranged my Drk hotbar just tonight and I think I finally got it in a place that I like it, but there are still some moves that I think would benefit from me keeping an eye on them. This might do the trick... If i can figure out how to do it, that is.

[Februs]

That's funny because it has always been the contrary to me. I always felt tankier as WAR than PLD, especially when levelling

I'm not surprsied lol. You're not the first to have said this to me, but for me it was precisely the opposite.

I think the difference was that Pld felt incredibly controlled and precise to me. Everything was scripted. There is a strict formula that you can use for pretty much every single pull in the game (with minor tweaks here and there), and every single boss fight can be planned down to the very second for CD usage. If you rotated the Pld CD's accurately, there is literally never a time a Pld's doesn't have some kind of decent-strong mitigation up, and that's excluding their strongest CD's of Sentinel and Hallowed Ground which are easily saved for Tank busters. On top of that, the ability to borrow Stoneskin from Whm meant that extra mitigation was never an issue if it was needed. Dps checks weren't as obnoxious back then, so it was really no skin (see what I did there?) off of anyone's nuts for a Pld to take a couple seconds to buff themselves with SS mid fight in preparation for incoming Tankbusters/AoEs/Cleaves.

By comparison, War's needed a much keener eye to detail. Given that Wrath (outside of the use of Infuriate) was not an immediate "at the ready" use for Defense, and IB has a substantially smaller (and thus much tighter) timer, a small mistake in War's defensive line up could leave the Warrior in a world of hurt. Mismanaging your wrath stacks meant risking additional dmg during Tank busters. There was also the nature of War's mitigation. War spent a lot of time making back hp that they lost... meaning you had to take the hit first. In that regard, Tank busters were far more alarming to see on a War than on a Pld, because the Dip in Hp was greater (even though your hp bar itself was much larger). You still survived and made back your Hp fairly easily, but if you were used to completely mitigating dmg(Pld) over soaking it(War) and making it back, you felt decidedly squishier as War than you did as Pld (keep in mind that with certain Pld Cd combinations could essentially turn any Tank buster pre-3.0 into a tiny boss fart, especially if coupled with Stone Skin. Even Figths like T9 were no big deal for a Pld, because you could time your SS cast to go off right after Raven's beak and almost completely nullify the dmg caused by Raven's ascent, which most people considered notorious because it was magic). War was fun, obviously, but by comparison, Pld felt safer and more adaptable regardless of the situation.

To be fair though, I had some bad experiences with MRD back in 2.0 (during the Beta phase), and it felt incredibly broken. It left a bit of a stigma with me, so it took me a long time to come back to War when I got full copy of the game. I don't think I finally gave it another chance and finished leveling it until Leviathan came out in the "through the Maelstrom" patch. Since then, War has undergone even more improvements, which have made it into the seemingly flawless tank that it is today. By comparison, SE has given Pld almost no love at all, and that's kind of sad since Pld was an amazing asset once upon a time.

[Februs]

But from 2.1 on and in 3.0 now, WAR has no useless abilities outside of cross class choices.

Very true. In the history of Tanking in FFxiv, Warrior has, by far, been the tank that has seen the most adjustments and ability tweaks. Pld had a few here and there (mostly enmity scale adjustments which always fell short), but none of them were nearly as substantial as War's. The result is that War has been finely polished to the point of being near infallible (save for pilot error). By comparison, Pld has been almost completely ignored, and the result is that it has essentially been eliminated from the Tanking Meta (not quite, but it's definitely taking a back seat to Drk and War). Yet, sadly, SE seems to think that "everything's fine." Truly is a shame.

[Neophyte]

As a SMN: Tri-Bind, except for PvP.

Blizzard 2 has

• more potency (50 instead of 30)
• a shorter cast (2,5s instead of 3s)
• is an 5y area-effect (instead of only 3y tri-bind) and
• costs less mana (707mp to 884mp)

"Downsides" are only that it binds for 8s (instead of 20s) and that it's not a ranged attack.
But since your close anyway on big pulls for miasma 2, so... yeah.
I think the only time I use this skill is, when everyone died except me in a dungeon and i start running towards the new spawned tank.. swiftcast+tri-bind+sprint and go.

[AlexiIvaniskavich]

A lot of people echo that sentiment, but I find most people who get interrupted using Clemency are using it spur of the moment rather than for planned executions. I have almost never been interrupted in a Clemency cast, but that's because I time my casts for Tank busters and Boss AoE's. Between the two, the AoE's are more difficult to time Clemency for because the boss often continues their auto attacks or there is some other form of incoming dmg, and can interrupt your cast if your timing is off, but you can still get the cast off for most of them. Tank busters are typically easy to Clemency your way through (A4 being an exception, given that the Tank Buster is actually multiple smaller hits in rapid succession). Short of canceling the cast or not casting it early enough, I have never been interrupted on a Clemency cast during a Tank Buster.


The issue with the long cast timer (which is a little long) is the heal potency. A well timed Clemency that hits right after a tank buster can outdo the potential self-heal of a War in a single burst, especially if used when under the effect of Convalescence. If you get a Crit, the healer can outright just ignore you and heal the party. I don't think they wanted Pld throwing around that kind of power at the drop of a hat. If they shortened the cast timer for Clemency, they'd probably have to reduce the potency as well to compensate for Pld's who use it in ways that it was not intended for.

I have said this before on other threads. You have said this before on other threads. I have commented on you (and me) saying this on old threads, while on other threads.
You bring this up in this thread, because of another blanket clemency is awful statement on this thread.

I am repeating the cycle for one specific reason. Clemency has a specific design and use for the class and the present content, IF YOU KNOW WHEN TO APPLY IT. Yes, it requires the tank buster to be on a visible cast time. The majority of raid content presently has this. There are several dungeons that come to mind as well. When you time Clemency correctly, it is actually a really potent skill. I would argue that it is one of the few skills for “active” mitigation in the game, because, if timed correctly, your health, in essence dropped 5-8k less than it should have dropped on the gcd just after the tank buster landed.

As for the topic and “least useful” button, I have to lean to Tempered Will, aka knockback mechanic cheese. If there is no knock back, it’s only benefit is to build LB. woohoo.

[Februs]

Clemency has a specific design and use for the class and the present content, IF YOU KNOW WHEN TO APPLY IT. Yes, it requires the tank buster to be on a visible cast time. The majority of raid content presently has this. There are several dungeons that come to mind as well. When you time Clemency correctly, it is actually a really potent skill. I would argue that it is one of the few skills for “active” mitigation in the game, because, if timed correctly, your health, in essence dropped 5-8k less than it should have dropped on the gcd just after the tank buster landed.

Agreed. I find Clemency to be one of the most amazing abilities in a Pld's roster for the simple fact that it's active mitigation on both you and your party can almost nullify the dmg caused by Tank Busters and Raid wide AoE's.

If there's a single one "problem" with the move itself, I would say that the problem isn't even with Clemency, but the current meta design of most HW fights. The high Dps checks and the already abysmally low Dps output of Pld's means that each and every cast of Clemency lowers the overall raid dmg and ability to meet those Dps checks, even if it does save someone's ass. This means that Pld's become even more dependent on finding a Dps team that is absolutely amazing at their jobs in order to clear end-game content whilst taking full advantage of their kit in the fight ... which we all know is about as likely as winning 4 lotteries at the same time. Basically, SE has designed fights that encourage the Pld's to play their jobs badly just to keep up with an obnoxious Dps check. Not cool.

I guess a second "problem" (more of an inconvenience, really) would be that some Tank busters can interrupt the cast bar. Thor Ex's Heavenly Heel, for example, can and will interrupt Clemency, which is a little annoying. It's not a deal breaker though, because Pld's can still cast Clemency post Sacred Cross without any risk (allowing the healers to completely ignore them), as well as through all of the AoE casts in that fight. Given a Pld's Tp consumption issues, it's actually preferable for Pld's to use Clemency in such instances in order to conserve Tp... or rather, it would be if they manage to find 4 Dps that know how to meet the checks.

[Iagainsti]

Speaking of 2.0, Steel Cyclone was extremely useless then (trade all your +healing for equal enmity to OP with no TP cost).

Back 2 Back Steel Cyclones with IR+Berserk+BloodBath was pretty potent in WP speed runs, and any other speed run I guess where you pull the whole place to the boss room(Keep in mind it negated the Defiance penalty where OP does not)Wrath stacks used to give % to crit b4 3.0, so you could just rip 20%increased crit chance OPs till you were ootp, then follow up with 2 SC right before the pacify. Now Decimate nullified that, so imo SC is less useful now than it used to be previously.

[Reynhart]

Back 2 Back Steel Cyclones with IR+Berserk+BloodBath was pretty potent in WP speed runs, and any other speed run I guess where you pull the whole place to the boss room(Keep in mind it negated the Defiance penalty where OP does not)Wrath stacks used to give % to crit b4 3.0, so you could just rip 20%increased crit chance OPs till you were ootp, then follow up with 2 SC right before the pacify.

If you do 2 Steel Cyclone, it means you use Infuriate. Thus, you can use Unchained to negate Defiance damage penalty, and you spam OP during Unchained for a lot more damage than 2 SC.