is WAR the best MT now?

[winsock]

Or they could just go ahead and allow for the HP to recover when WAR's enter into defiance and the just take grit and ShO off GCD. Sounds like a easier fix.

^ this would put WAR leagues ahead of DRK and PLD.

status off defiance, then activate defiance.
Heal 25% HP every 10 seconds.

You also need to remove HP on exit, which would make for some weird mechanics like heals being more effective if followed by a stance change.

I don't see what all the fuss is about. The action of switching to defiance does not impact your survivability on activation, it requires a follow-up action, such as IB, which is on gcd.

What is the end goal of wanting the stance off gcd?
Shield Oath + Grit are already offer superior survivability at activation.

[Syzygian]

snip

They already technically can lose 25% HP when they drop Defiance, if they're topped.

Getting 25% of their max HP back would just make it like Thrill, which doesn't necessarily top them off. Its the same kind of instant effective mitigation that ShO/Grit would get if they where off GCD, so it wouldn't actually make anything OP at all when you consider that then PLD and DRK would have oGCD Inner Beasts that they can take up and down whenever they want. I'd be totally cool with having Defiance heal WARs if that's the tradeoff they'd demand for us to finally get rid of the only two perma-buffs in the game right now that are on the goddamn GCD.

[winsock]

snip

Not quite....
For easy numbers, let's say I have 16k HP
Activating defiance puts me at 20k HP
If I status off defiance at 16k, I'll be at full HP.
Then I instantly reactivate and would be at 20k again.
In this scenario, it's up to a 4k heal every 10 sec.

Shield oath/grit is different in that when you turn it off or on, the indirect effect to ehp is based on current, not max hp

Out of curiosity why do ppl want them off gcd so bad? QoL?

[Violette]

Also how would giving it a cast time be anything but a hinderance?

It's simple.

I turn on ShO/Grit, I immediately have an extra 20% eHP.

I turn on Defiance, I have to wait to be healed, meaning there is a gap in tankiness that an Equilibrium heal can no longer fill.

As such, we can all agree that ShO/Grit are better "cooldowns" per say, as they activate immediately.

Having them still have a cast time is simply to balance out the game play of ShO/Grit vs Def.
I turn on Def and the healer doesn't top me up, I'm still just as tanky as I was before (give take 0-10% parry).

It's clunky, but for the power it gives it should have some drawback. Reducing the gcd recast timer (emp arrow, meditate), is something SE has doneand could be applied here to take out some of the clunk while respecting the power of the stances.

Not quite....
For easy numbers, let's say I have 16k HP
Activating defiance puts me at 20k HP
If I status off defiance at 16k, I'll be at full HP.
Then I instantly reactivate and would be at 20k again.
In this scenario, it's up to a 4k heal every 10 sec.

Shield oath/grit is different in that when you turn it off or on, the indirect effect to ehp is based on current, not max hp

Out of curiosity why do ppl want them off gcd so bad? QoL?

People don't appreciate that ShO/Grit is a superior stance upon entry.
QoL would be reducing cast time.
Silly would be taking it off the GCD.

Want a quality of life fix? Learn the fights and turn the tanking stances on/off when needed. My only issue with stance dancing is with Grit's stupidly high mana cost.

[Syzygian]

snip

Yes most of us know Grit/ShO have the advantage of being "instant" mitigation and Defiance has the advantage of being oGCD, which is why I said in reply to Winsock that if Grit/ShO did go off the GCD it would only be fair to have Defiance heal the HP towards the +25% max in much the same way ToB does. That way they are all oGCD, they all provide instant mitigation in eHP terms, and none of them are clunky for no justifiable reason or a pain in the ass to use.

Yes, as you become familiar with fights you plot out your GCDs for swaps and such when on PLD/DRK. But on WAR, you can yolo it. Sometimes it pays to be able to yolo it. Like when your MT dies (or OT, if you've swapped). The lack of Defiance's instant mitigation is much easier to work around and more forgiving during progression because its oGCD. So many comments I see don't take progression into account, its like everyone lives in a perpetual farm party. In progression when shit is hitting the fan having abilities that aren't clunky like this can make the difference between a wipe and a clear, and more commonly, the difference between a premature wipe and progression to a new phase or set of mechanics to practice.

So yeah, Oaths/Grit should be oGCD, and Defiance should heal for an amount equal to the max HP increase. Then you have no weak links in these abilities other than "QQ I'm not dealing as much DPS" and they can work as intended, as Yoshi loves to say.

Also no MP cost of a DRK ability is "stupidly high"; its all easily manageable. Grit's MP cost is the least of its problems and probably the easiest to work around. Although if I were to agree with you on that, I'd say the MP costs of the Oaths/Grit would be their "drawback", and that having them on the GCD is just a kick in the face.

[Galgarion]

I've seen multiple of you "stance dance masters" eat a crit to the face while you're in deliverance and hit the floor, then bitch at the healer for not keeping you up.

Heh, that's pretty funny.

What? It was funny!

[winsock]

snip

Im really trying to understand where you're coming from, but defensively Grit and Shield Oath are superior in every way compared to defiance. Defiance being off GCD does not offer a defensive advantage over Grit / Shield Oath:

* Defiance must be activated before Shield Oath / Grit, so that IB lines up with Shield Oath / Grit
* Defiance is weaker than Shield Oath / Grit both at activation and while active.
* Poor stack management has higher defensive penalties than poor MP manage.

If you cannot 'yolo' it on PLD because Shield Oath is on GCD, a WAR's defiance certainly isnt going to save you. It must be activated earlier than shield oath and you must ensure you have the stacks to IB.

The suggestion of defiance healing like ToB would be OP. Imagine how defensive WAR could be if equilibrium had a 10 sec cooldown. Defiance working like ToB would be better than that. (Before considering stacks)

[Reynhart]

You're missing one thing about Defiance, the healing boost.

Suppose you're in Deliverance, but under 80% on you max HP. Taking a hit after that, wether you stay in Deliverance of switch to Defiance, is the same.
After the hit, you switch to Defiance and the healing boost will help you compensates for the hit you received previously.

On the other hand, if you take a hit out of your tank stance in PLD or DRK, you have no mean of mitigating its effect afterward.

So, in the end, ShO and Grit are only proactive mitigation, while Defiance is both proactive (with the HP boost), and reactive, hinting again that WAR is more "supposed" to switch stances (Which is pretty much confirmed by the wrath/abandon convertion)

[Ragology]

You're missing one thing about Defiance, the healing boost.

Suppose you're in Deliverance, but under 80% on you max HP. Taking a hit after that, wether you stay in Deliverance of switch to Defiance, is the same.
After the hit, you switch to Defiance and the healing boost will help you compensates for the hit you received previously.

On the other hand, if you take a hit out of your tank stance in PLD or DRK, you have no mean of mitigating its effect afterward.

So, in the end, ShO and Grit are only proactive mitigation, while Defiance is both proactive (with the HP boost), and reactive, hinting again that WAR is more "supposed" to switch stances (Which is pretty much confirmed by the wrath/abandon convertion)

Aren't Paladin's easier to heal though? by 4% or something if I remember correctly?

..

Okay I've found an old post from reddit and will bold the the relevant portion:

Shield Oath is a flat 20% damage reduction. Defiance is a flat 25% health increase, plus a 20% healing increase.
Assume a PLD and WAR have the exact same stats, and both have exactly 5000 hit points. If an attack with a raw damage (before mitigation) of 3000 damage hits the Paladin, it is reduced by 20% from shield oath, so the paladin only takes 2400 damage. The paladin is now at 2600 hp, 52% health. If that same attack were to hit a Warrior, it would do 3000 damage, but because the Warrior has defiance, he has 6250 health instead of 5000. After the attack the warrior has 3250 health, 52% health.
Notice that the health percentage for both tanks is exactly the same after the attack. If the same attack were to hit again, the Paladin would be down to 200 health, 4%, and the warrior would be down to 250 health, 4%.
In terms of ability to take damage, they're the same.
Let assume, after these two attacks, both tanks are healed by a divine seal + crit cure 2 for 4000 health. The paladin goes from 200 to 4200 health, and is now at 84% health. The warrior gets healed for 4000+20% for a total of 4800, bringing his total hp to 5050, 80.8% health. If another heal were cast for 800, the paladin would be at 5000 heath, 100%, and the warrior would be at 5050 + 800*1.2, 6010, 96.16%.
Conclusion
In terms of ability to take damage, Shield Oath and Defiance are exactly the same. In terms of recovering from that damage, Shield oath is slightly better, but only slightly. To say that Paladins are better because they have a 20% constant increase in damage mitigation is a fundamental misunderstanding of Defiance in light of the built in healing increase, which functions to make Defiance and Shield oath almost exactly identical in terms of effectiveness, with only a very slight advantage going to Paladins in terms of health recovery.
tl;dr - Shield Oath and Defiance are almost exactly identical in terms of effectiveness, with a (very) slight advantage going to Paladins in terms of health recovery.
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[Reynhart]

Aren't Paladin's easier to heal though? by 4% or something if I remember correctly?

Mathematically, yes.

But in the heat of the fight, those 4% are totally irrelevant considering WAR's additionnal toolkit when it comes to healing.
The other slightly more relevant gap is the fact that Defiance doesn't work with abilities...which is still weird, on top of totally arbitrary.