A few questions about Warrior.

[Merkava]

1. While leveling, when is the "best" time to use Thrill of Battle? I ask this because I typically just treat it as a, "Oh, got a good amount of mobs on me. I want moar HP!" kinda thing. I know it's a nice thing to use for tank busters in Extreme Primals or raids (not that I've done any as a tank yet), but what about dungeons?

Just treat Thrill as you would Rampart (Gladiator) or Shadowskin (Dark Knight), it's roughly 20% damage mitigation on a longer CD. As people have mentioned you should combine Thrill with Convalescence, they share their recast timer and synergize perfectly with each other. Do note that Convalescence does NOT boost the healing power of Thrill of Battle itself, so always use it right after using thrill.

2. I'll probably be stoned to death for this one, but... Should I really use Fracture while leveling? I think that, since I got it, up until I hit Lv. 50... I've used it... 4 times? And that wasn't even until Cutter's Cry... I used it so rarely that I even decided to take it off my hotbars entirely. If I should be using it, where do I apply it? During Berserk, just before it ends, after Storm's Eye?

Before lvl 50 Fracture is without a doubt a DPS gain, you should strive to keep it up as much as possible. Re-apply it when it falls off but do not allow your combo to be interrupted (ie. NEVER use it after Heavy Swing, Maim, nor Skull Sunder). This is pretty much true until level 54, when you gain the almighty Fell Cleave, at this point Fracture usage becomes a bit more... complicated. I have heard people claim that 100% uptime is still a DPS increase but from personal experience this really hasn't been the case. This doesn't mean that Fracture becomes useless, it should still be used in a Triple Fell Cleave combo if your Skill Speed is high enough, but that's a more advanced conversation and doubt it's something you want to dig into now.

3. This one is a bit more difficult; How should I rotate my defensive cooldowns depending on the number of mobs on me? Like if I have 4 mobs on me, I start with Vengeance then Bloodbath. When Vengeance wheres off, I go for ToB and when BB wheres off, I got for Foresight. I usually throw IB in when I can/if I don't need aggro generation on other mobs (a.k.a. I don't need SC), and Convalescence and Second Wind as needed. I know it's a case-by-case thing, but is there some kind of rotation for cooldowns in situations like these? Or do I just go full #YOLO and wing it? (Probably a God awful idea, but... it works... some times...)

One thing to understand is that there is absolutely no point in not using cooldowns during dungeon runs. Think about it for a second, altho Vengeance has a cooldown of 120 seconds each mob pull will easily take you somewhere between 40 - 100 + seconds to clear (depending in the size of said mob and your group DPS), you will have some sort of cooldown available every other pull, there is no point holding onto them as tank busters don't really exist in 4 man content (sure cleaves, but nothing that REQUIRES a cooldown). I'm not saying you shouldn't use cooldowns against bosses (use them) but saving them is a complete waste of time. In my case I tend to just handle cooldowns in this sort of way...

Pull Mob A -> Use Cooldown A -> Kill Mob A -> Pull Mob B -> Use Cooldown B -> Kill Mob B -> Pull Mob C -> Cooldown A is probably Available Again, use it (If not use Cooldown C) -> Kill Mob C -> Pull Mob D -> Cooldown B is probably Available Again, use it (If not then A is definetly Available) -> Kill (Mob D) -> Repeat.

Don't burn them in ONE pull but be sure to simply spread them out, use one cooldown per pull and you should have them back regularly. This becomes easier as you level and you gain access to more and more mitigation skills. But in the case of WAR it is worth also understanding how well some skills synergize with others, as to vastly improve their utility. A good example that has been stated was Thrill + Convalescence but it doesn't end there for WAR, here are some other REALLY nice combinations....

This is my Favorite large pull Rotation (Click here): Basically you change to Defiance before the pull, Infuriate in order to gain max stacks, proceed to pull as many mobs (within reason) as possible. As soon as you decide you're going to stop Immediately use Vengeance (do not wait to get hit as you will get hit by a large number of enemies and this will destroy you if you wait any longer) followed right away by bloodbath. This will offer you some HP regen on top of extra enmity from the vengeance counter. Proceed to get Maim'd up, switch to deliverance (yes DELIVERANCE), pop in Berserk and Internal Release then proceed to spam the hell out of Overpower. The amount of self regen Berserk Bloodbath gives is pretty insane. Not only will you have massive mitigation but you will be delivering a LOT of damage. Once berserk is about to run out switch to Defiance and finish it off with a Steel Cyclone. This is useful up to level 60, where you should just switch up Steel Cyclone for Decimate. If your party is good then stuff should be dead by then, if not then proceed to use another cooldown (if the pull is large) or just stay in defiance past this point until stuff is dead. If you feel unsafe doing this in Deliverance then just stick to Defiance during the entire thing, it's still a kick ass combination.

Berserk + Bloodbath + Internal Release + Overpower: These should always be used together, Vengeance will not always be up but Bloodbath and Zerk share the same recast timer, treat them as one big cooldown.

Thrill of Battle + Convalescence: Two other Cooldowns that work together like Bread and Butter, you should always use them together.

Raw Intuition + Awareness: Another awesome combination of skills that work better with WAR than they do with PLD. Awareness cancels out the penalty of Raw Intuition so they should be used together when possible, sadly Awareness has a long cooldown so it might not always be possible. This is only a real issue if you're doing a large pull, during small and medium pulls it shouldn't be an issue unless the enemies you're fighting are large and can't overlap with each other well, you can use Raw Intuition alone just fine with small group of mobs. Do note that this is physical only so it will not be useful against every group of mob.

Foresight: ... Don't forget this exists. Be aware that 20% Increases defense does NOT mean 20% Damage Mitigation (the actual number is MUCH lower, something around ~8%) so do not depend on this cooldown but if you have nothing else it is still better than nothing. This + Defiance is ... better than 0% mitigation. This only affects physical damage as well, so no magic mitgiation.

With that you have 3 cooldown combinations you can rotate with in a dungeon. Use Berserk + Bloodbath in one pull, use Thrill + Conva in your second pull, use Raw Intuition + Awareness in your next pull. Rinse and repeat. You will have some sort of mitigation up every pull, your healers will love you... Just don't save them until the boss and don't burn them all in ONE pull (unless its a large pull).

...Hope this TL;DR helped.

[AriKitae]

Thrill of Battle + Convalescence: Two other Cooldowns that work together like Bread and Butter, you should always use them together.

Might I ask why these are always to be used together? Convalescence doesn't buff the extra HP given by Thrill of Battle, so unless you are taking so much damage that Thrill doesn't mitigate it enough, it seems like a waste of two long CDs that work fine solo.

I know that Convalescence will allow the healer to more easily fill the gap in HP created by Thrill, but that HP is essentially wasted when Thrill of Battle ends.

(Apologies to OP if this discussion is unwanted in your thread. Merkava, the other info you included was great so I wanted to know if there was something I might not have thought about.)

[Merkava]

Might I ask why these are always to be used together? Convalescence doesn't buff the extra HP given by Thrill of Battle, so unless you are taking so much damage that Thrill doesn't mitigate it enough, it seems like a waste of two long CDs that work fine solo.

I know that Convalescence will allow the healer to more easily fill the gap in HP created by Thrill, but that HP is essentially wasted when Thrill of Battle ends.

(Apologies to OP if this discussion is unwanted in your thread. Merkava, the other info you included was great so I wanted to know if there was something I might not have thought about.)

Pretty much what FeliAiko said. The thing about Thrill is that without conva it's just kinda a small HP boost, it does pretty much nothing in terms of direct mitigation (not saying it's bad but its not as effective as Shadowskin nor Rampart in that regard). You don't use it to boost Thrill's HP recovery but in order to boost whatever Regen/Fairy Heal is on you in order to take advantage of the extra HP. Using them together basically grants you Defiance for 20 seconds and since they share a rescast timer it just seems like a natural choice. In most dungeons runs having 3 sets of Cooldown Rotations (as I mentioned above) is usually enough as mobs tend to die quickly and the time between pulls is usually long enough to rotate between them easily.

Granted tho, I'm talking dungeons. In raids it's not ALWAYS a good idea to pair them as you might need Conva for certain situations where Thrill isn't needed (ie. When needing to spread Aldo via Deployment Tactics right before an ultimate). But ultimately if you choose to use them separate that works, 4 man content isn't hard enough to really matter THAT much anyway.