war nerfs(srs bznz pls)

[ArdorGrey]

so, I'm sure this isn't going to be a popular topic amongst drks/plds who already have a very obvious incentive to agree with the devs, so this topic is ideally aimed at other warriors out there in hopes of prompting a legitimate discussion about the classes current balance.


I won't deny that WAR is a strong class at all, but am I the only one that thought the vit "adjustments" already nerfed us hard? we went from being able to zerk self heal a respectable chunk of our hp during bloodbath FC bursts to healing amounts that frankly felt inconsequential compared to healers "already-scripted-despite-the-specific-tank" amounts of healing.

I'm not saying pld and drk couldn't use some utility buffs to compete with eye/path, but if war damage-to-hp ratio or self healing are nerfed any further I feel like playing a war over some other class will lose it's identity entirely, and the tone with which I interpreted the comments about warriors and scholars in the recent live letter they're being compared as equivalently overpowered, when personally scholars seem ludicrously versatile in ways that the other healers simply cant be brought up to par with, while War-though again, in a good spot- is not at all so head and shoulders above all other tanks that it needs one or more of its properties to be brought down to par.

I guess another way to put it is a lot of people won't care since war had its time in the limelight and Drks/plds are the kewl kids anyways, but am I the only one getting the vibe that WAR will be almost back at 2.0 status again come next patch? I get the war-sch parallel, but at the same time when you actually break it down the magnitude of difference between the two and their competitors, war merely compliments other classes while doing good dps. Sch has been admittedly op when used at the peak of its learning curve by most of the player base since way back in 2.x and things have only gotten worse. some people claim war has been in the same situation and people didnt notice, but if people didn't notice back in 2.x isn't it far to say the the disparity isn't nearly as great?

Late 2.x most raiders favored bringing another dps over bringing a warrior in most raids where tank swapping wasn't a necessity. The "offtank" role is always a precarious one and most experienced players acknowledge what makes WAR strong conceptually is that it has the OT role on lock while also being a strong MT contender.

While most mid/hardcore players cringe at the idea of it, I still know a lot of players that are locked into the concept that pld(shield)=MT, *PERIOD*. We're currently in a position where a lot of casual players are really salty about this because it flat-out isn't true, but I'm also worried that if the game shifts a hair back in these sort of players favor, we'll be confronted with the same sort of issues again.

TL;DR:regardless of "objective" class design WAR was kinda a dark horse class all through 2.x, and it sorta carried the same unpopular status into 3.x, but for being "too strong", instead of "lol who needs a wannabe tank/deeps". It just seems like no matter what sort of balance the devs strive for this class while never be happily accepted by most of the player base, in which case, yes I would rather be shunned for "lolOP" while most fail to actually understand the classes strengths while calling it OP as opposed to just being the new "LOLdrg".

[ADVSS]

Better yet try SSS with tank stance on 100%, and the vit nerf affected drk and pld self healing as well, it was a smack to the tank role in general, over complaints from dps and healers alike. Not saying tanks should be dealing as much boss dps, but you nerfed their mitigation and survival as well, also warriors were a dark horse in 2,0, the rework is what made them "op" but theyre not, the other two need to be brought up or balanced to where theyre just as good, theres been many suggestions between giving a debuff, more utility during ot, as well as other things. WAR is good, so good ive seen vids of it soloing the final boss of weeping city, i highly doubt either of the other tanks could do this for more than a half a minute to minute tops. But to me THAT is what a TANK should be able to do period. SCH getting the same honorable mentions as well. I dont think WAR is getting nerfed, we all believed fell cleave was getting reduced in the vit changes patch they said nope.

[Reynhart]

I won't deny that WAR is a strong class at all, but am I the only one that thought the vit "adjustments" already nerfed us hard? we went from being able to zerk self heal a respectable chunk of our hp during bloodbath FC bursts to healing amounts that frankly felt inconsequential compared to healers "already-scripted-despite-the-specific-tank" amounts of healing.

Considering that this adjustement allowed you to retain 90% of your DPS while giving you a shitload of HP, you know the thing which your tank stance is based off, calling it a nerf is pretty bold...

Late 2.x most raiders favored bringing another dps over bringing a warrior in most raids where tank swapping wasn't a necessity.

That was because people still feared that WAS was squishy like it was in 2.0, which was far far from the truth.

Even if it's nerfed, WAR will never come back to this state, because it was completely broken at that point. Remember that, by that time, WAR has no mitigation whatsoever. Not on Vengeance, nor Inner Beast, nor Storm's Path...Holmgang didn't event prevent you from dying...

[SpookyGhost]

iirc the adjustments they're looking to make are based on the utility WAR/SCH bring to a group, so that (to me) means they'll be looking into Path and Eye. Which is fine imo as those are the two big things that make DRK + PLD non-viable. Unpopular opinion but I actually preferred 2.1-2.55 WAR over 3.0 WAR, RI + Equilibrium made tanking everything a joke and a half. Maybe if Gordias became the standard for raid difficulty I could feel more justified in having this insane CD suite, but idk. I could understand them nerfing us a bit, but I do hope that WAR retains its overall feel of synergy.

[Launched]

WAR is fine and doesn't need nerfs. It's one of the best designed jobs in the game because every skill is useful and they all work together. PLD/DRK don't have that (and they're way too similar) so the problems with tank balance are down to them, and mostly DRK. Instead of nerfing WAR's contribution through Path and Eye SE should be looking into removing useless skills from PLD and DRK and adding unique ways for them to mitigate/boost dps/help the party. Ways that aren't "let's give Eye to all tanks and remove the proc from Reprisal".

[ADVSS]

. I could understand them nerfing us a bit, but I do hope that WAR retains its overall feel of synergy.

I'm normally a pessimist but my interpretation of the interview sounded more like they want to work on balance in a different manner, stop homogenizing jobs in roles, and give them their unique feel too. I think warrior has been fleshed out quite a bit, and that i doubt theyll do to much to change out the gameplay, ie:deliverance: pro warriors in 2.x were dropping defiance anyway in some cases. Maybe, for instance pld will get a spell to debuff for when they ot, instead of having to have it as part of a combo for instance.

[Aurius]

Considering that this adjustement allowed you to retain 90% of your DPS while giving you a shitload of HP, you know the thing which your tank stance is based off, calling it a nerf is pretty bold.

It dropped damage by 20% role wide, which made all 3 tanks lose a good chunk of self sustainability. We needed a dps nerf though, we were becoming dps with high up pools. I don't think war needs a nerf. Its very well designed, and should not be punished for it. The other tanks need some reworking to improve their synergy. If I have a fully functional car, and two cars that are problematic, i don't break my functional car, I fix the problematic cars.

[Reynhart]

The problem with WAR is that is has no tradeoff. You don't lose any meaningful utility by bringing a WAR over a PLD or a DRK.
Without a WAR, you lose Storm's Eye, which is a very powerful DPS increase for all tanks, and for Ninjas too. You lose Storm's Path, an on-demand raid wide 10% damage mitigation...on top of that, it generates the highest enmity of all tanks when doing its optimal combo, it can't run out of TP, it can instantly refill a large part of its HP, and have the highest DPS of all tanks, thanks to its smooth stance dancing.

And I don't see how you could bring PLD and DRK on par with all of that at the same time. If you increase their DPS, you'd still Storm's Eye to buff it even more, if you increase the mitigation on RoH or Delirium, Storm's Path will still affect both pysical and magical, and stacks upon them...

It dropped damage by 20% role wide, which made all 3 tanks lose a good chunk of self sustainability.

Self sustainability is not that big of a deal when you gave healers such a huge leeway to heal you. You didn't suddenly took more damage, but you received a huge HP pool.

Its very well designed, and should not be punished for it. The other tanks need some reworking to improve their synergy. If I have a fully functional car, and two cars that are problematic, i don't break my functional car, I fix the problematic cars.

In reality, you can't have a car that beats every other car in power and fuel consumption at the same time.

[ArdorGrey]

Considering that this adjustement allowed you to retain 90% of your DPS while giving you a shitload of HP, you know the thing which your tank stance is based off, calling it a nerf is pretty bold...

It reduced our actual dps while increasing our hp pool and tankbusters were of course adjusted to compensate, so the "hp gain" was completely superficial. Meanwhile bloodbath was actually nerfed, and our self-heals were not only actually nerfed but further effectively nerfed by increasing our hp pool massively while reducing their actual healing.


So yes, I daresay if you understood what actually made warrior in 3.0 strong as opposed to being one of those people who just rolled it because your static heard they were OP and made you, or rolled deliverance 24/7, it was already a huge nerf to our self-sustainability.

I'm not saying it was unmerited, but it did kill a bit of my enjoyment for the role, and it *absolutely was* a nerf to all tanks, not just WARS, though WAR felt it more since it was more than just a dps nerf. The "hp buff" was compensated for across the board with increased incoming damage so no tanks really gained anything from this. Except ones that were already rolling vit...gross...

and now hearing further nerfs are incoming has me wondering if I'll lose interest in the only class I really enjoy playing.

That was because people still feared that WAS was squishy like it was in 2.0, which was far far from the truth.

Even if it's nerfed, WAR will never come back to this state, because it was completely broken at that point. Remember that, by that time, WAR has no mitigation whatsoever. Not on Vengeance, nor Inner Beast, nor Storm's Path...Holmgang didn't event prevent you from dying...

Except now we have a third tank. Possibly a fourth as of 4.x. It doesn't have to reach 2.0 status to become completely unuseable in a game centered around 8-man raids with only two tank slots.

In any case thanks everyone for the responses. I do agree that path/eye are problematic for the OT role and the RI did a way too good of job shoring up the only "hole" in our defenses. I wouldn't mind utility nerfs but I'd hate to see War become the ninja of tanks, or nerfed beyond use because we were strong for 3.x, and I loved the skill synergy and how FC made us feel like a little bit of a "blood" tank again- 2.1-2.55 War felt really lacking in that department.

[Aurius]

We did suddenly take more damage, 3.2 mobs and bosses had a significant damage spike to compensate for our larger hp pools. I agree warrior stance dancing is easy, but that's because of how its tank stance works, it'd be op for dark and pally to stance dance ogcd (sword oath should be ogcd though). As far as the analogy, we're not talking about every other class, but the 2 other tanks. With that being the case, they should get similar mileage and power. Right now one gets better, so i should fix the other two to either get very similar or change how i use them (utility) to further their usefulness.