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  1. #1
    Player

    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Posts
    94

    IS WAR as hard as it seems?

    So up unto this point i have always played PLD, which i enjoy the looks of more then anything. But recently i have wanted to level drk and war and am currently working on war. I watched Xeno tanking guide and...wow it seems difficult lol

    is it really as complex as it seems on paper?
    (0)

  2. #2
    Player
    Kumori_Kumo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2015
    Posts
    222
    Character
    Kumori Kumo
    World
    Gilgamesh
    Main Class
    Warrior Lv 70
    I wouldn't say necessarily harder. It is very different though. Like Paladin is really all about watching out for specific things and doing specific reactions to them, whereas Warrior is kinda like working on an assembly line. You have to keep building and using stacks as you fight while keeping an eye out for situations where you might find it more advantageous to do things a certain way at certain points. It seems a lot more complicated than it really is- if you actually use it, it's much more intuitive in practice and you can see how beautiful the system is. It's just a really well-built class.

    And don't worry if you're not blazing through like Xeno at first. They've got the advantage of a lot of experience that one can then put more theory-craft onto. What I'd suggest is just to use analogues well (Unchained like Fight or Flight, Vengeance like Sentinel, etc.) until you've got the feeling; then you can really start mixing it up as you get better at spinning the plates.
    (0)

  3. #3
    Player
    SpookyGhost's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2013
    Posts
    3,403
    Character
    Kori Fleming
    World
    Cerberus
    Main Class
    Marauder Lv 80
    Min/Max, yes.

    Otherwise, no. About the same as the other 2.
    (0)

  4. #4
    Player
    Ashkendor's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2014
    Posts
    4,659
    Character
    Ashkendor Zahirr
    World
    Balmung
    Main Class
    Paladin Lv 90
    It's really not as complex as it sounds when it's explained out. Honestly, going out and toying with your skills to see how they synergize with each other (and they do so friggin amazingly) is a really fun way to learn just how everything fits together.
    (2)

  5. #5
    Player
    Jim_Berry's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2013
    Location
    Bloomington, Indiana
    Posts
    1,595
    Character
    Jim Berry
    World
    Malboro
    Main Class
    Ninja Lv 90
    I'm not sure how it is since Heavensward. Back when I leveled WAR to Lv50, I had fun with it until I tried endgame content. Found out I had a higher survival rate as PLD instead. I have no intentions to take WAR past Lv51 lol...
    (0)
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Quote Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor View Post
    My post reduces more damage then parry does.
    {http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/3089119/}

  6. #6
    Player Februs's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2015
    Location
    Ul'dah
    Posts
    1,927
    Character
    Februs Harrow
    World
    Diabolos
    Main Class
    Paladin Lv 90
    No. I actually find War easy by comparison to the other two.

    Aggro is a non-issue for War's (you don't even have to think about it). Dps is a non-issue for Wars (only getting slightly complicated if/when you start trying to learn to stance dance). Healing is almost a non-issue for Wars (because their Self-healing allows them to solo content that Drk's and Pld's cannot).

    The only thing that seems even remotely difficult is planning War CD's for Tankbusters, since Inner Beast can be difficult to time correctly (though with practice it's not. Same as any Pld or Drk CD. You just need practice in the encounter to know when and where to pop your CD's), and War's mitigation is fundamentally different than Pld's and Drk's. You're gonna find that you take bigger hits and make back the difference with active mitigation (Hp restoration via Bloodbath, Equilibrium, Thrill of Battle etc) rather than passive mitigation (like poping Rampart/Sentinel and not even worrying about it). Though, honestly, I probably only find this "difficult" because I'm less experienced with War. People who main the job or have more practice with it probably don't find this difficult at all. I've actually met a lot of people who find Pld CD's more difficult to work around... Though I have no idea why.
    (0)

  7. #7
    Player

    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Posts
    644
    it's easy

    but inner beast, need some practice, it's a defense GCD, and GCD is not instant, you need to anticipating it earlier than the defense CD, you can use for tank burster, and also you will get in back very fast, all the 30 seconds, so you can even inner beast in almost all cleave from a boss, like you would do with schiltron with PLD but you need to do it earlier cause it's not instant and you need GCD to be free when you want to use it.

    Jim berry : the war get a strong selfheal and raw intuition to make procc parade in heavensward but still take damage like before.
    If you know when the damage come and use inner beast just before, the war is realy Tanky, and was already since 2.1
    but at 2.0 it was a real mess war was not able to tank T5 if i remember fine. (maybe you tried the war in 2.0?)
    War was already very good before heavensward
    (1)
    Last edited by kensatsu; 12-28-2015 at 09:57 AM.

  8. #8
    Player
    AI_wass's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2015
    Posts
    80
    Character
    Ire Works
    World
    Balmung
    Main Class
    Dark Knight Lv 60
    Mostly just remembering when to use Inner Beast instead of Fell Cleave, and knowing your opener. None of the tank jobs are particularly difficult.
    (1)

  9. #9
    Player
    Bashum's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
    Location
    Alberta, Canada
    Posts
    106
    Character
    Bashum Gudd
    World
    Gilgamesh
    Main Class
    Warrior Lv 66
    In many ways it's easier than the PLD, especially when it comes to holding aggro on groups. Overpower ftw.

    To become a solid warrior, with solid dps, and solid tanking skills isn't hard.

    If one wants to become an exceptional warrior (which I don't believe I am yet), there's some extra effort involved. parsing yourself ahem.... er... i mean trying to gauge your dps without the use of third party tools, reading up on fights, figuring out the most optimal way to use cooldowns not just for tank busters, but for dps.

    Prime example, in the Thordan EX fight as the offtank.

    I've probably ran the first part, up to where he disappears well over 100 times, and just now I finally feel like my opening rotation is as good as I can get it. Add in trying to do that while main tanking, and stance dancing, and it gets pretty involved.
    (0)

  10. #10
    Player Brian_'s Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Posts
    710
    Character
    Graylle Celestia
    World
    Tonberry
    Main Class
    Warrior Lv 70
    You can't say that things are non-issues or easy and then go on to specify that you're basing such assessments on a very low performance standard.

    Is it easy to be bad at your job? Yea. It's easy to be bad at any job. If all you want from your job is to get by, then all the tanks are easy to play. The skill-floor for tanking is very low by design.

    But, if you want more, WAR is the hardest tank to play at a high level. The reason is because of how complete the WAR skill-set is. The result is summarized in the current tanking meta where min-maxing is about meeting the survivability thresholds and then contributing as much DPS as possible.

    All tanks essentially have a shared resource between their offensive and defensive capabilities. As a PLD, you can't be in Sword Oath and Shield Oath at the same time. You can't have the Rage of Halone debuff up if you are only using Royal Authority. As a DRK, you can't have Grit up and not have Grit up at the same time. You can't Blood Weapon with Grit on. You can't Dark Arts everything all the time.

    In order to maximize your DPS, you have to make defensive sacrifices. In order to maximize your survivability, you have to make offensive sacrifices.

    And, of the tanks, WAR has the most nuance in playing within that balance of offense and defense because of how well their skill-set connects the two things. For example, on PLD or DRK, if you are sitting on your defensive cool-downs long enough to lose an activation, it's not really a big deal if you didn't need them. For WARs, it's a different story because of their stack management and skill synergy.

    For WAR, if you are sitting on Raw Intuition or Vengeance for long enough to lose an activation, you are losing stacks. If you use Berserk, Raw Intuition, or Vengeance actively but do so while at max stacks, you are also wasting stacks. But, If you sit on Berserk for too long, you lose effective up-time. At the same time, if you use Berserk off-CD without proper planning, you will mess up your combo-finisher / stack spender usage within your 9 GCD window. If you line up Blood Bath with your Berserk windows, you are also losing survivability due to your loss in damage.

    And once you have worked out all your stack management, you then have to properly plan your stack usage. For every Inner Beast you use, you lose the better damage (and sometimes even better survivability) from Fell Cleave or Decimate. So, it goes back to the meta where you only want to use Inner Beast when you absolutely have to and want to push DPS otherwise. And, if you need to save stacks to Inner Beast an upcoming tank buster, every stack builder you use while sitting on 5 stacks is a wasted stack you could avoid by tweaking your earlier GCD usage.

    So, in order to be a good WAR, you really need to be good with long-term resource and overall GCD planning. DRK also has their own resource management to deal with but theirs is much more in the moment and they have less stuff to micro-manage.
    (5)
    Last edited by Brian_; 12-28-2015 at 04:43 PM.

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