war nerfs(srs bznz pls)

[Brian_]

As a DRK and PLD, let me pat you on the back for having to choose to refill a good chunk of HP or TP every minute.
For the sake of balance, I think all tanks should have such a skill. It's not fair for WAR to be the only one to suffer such a huge burden.
I suppose that's the only difficult choice you have to make.

But if that's the case, maybe you should stay away from PLD and DRK, no ?
After all, having to chose to do damage or apply an additionnal effect, where to spend your Dark Arts on, should you pop sheltron to use Swipe on CD or should you save it, how many GCD I have before needing to reapply my tank stance...all of these might just blow your mind.

Right, just like WARs have to choose whether to apply Path, Eye, or just push more potency and enmity with BB. Or, if they should just Infuriate on CD rather than hold it for Berserk due to alignment and up-time issues. Or, if they should fracture for the potential small potency gain despite the GCD and stack mapping issues if can create or solve. Or, if they really need to eat the huge penalties of Defiance to survive something.

I've played more PLD than WAR. WAR is by far a more complex and decision based job. Aside from the moments where you are trying to fit in a 9 GCD triple FC while juggling movement mechanics, DRK is a more challenging mechanical job but it's not some puzzle of decision making or GCD optimization like WAR is. If you think MP management is actually a thing on DRK, you don't play the job well enough to comment on it.

Being able to refill a lot of HP is not a "minor" survivability boost. Nor being able to pop 3 Fell Cleave during berserk a minor DPS increase.

The difference you get from using Equilibrium / Blood Bath / Path / IB while Berserked vs. not Berserked is small. At best, you might give your healer 1 GCD that they might not've had if you didn't sync those things with Berserk. So, your original statement touting the survivability bonus of WAR's offensive buffs is blatant exaggeration. Berserk syncing is not going to save you from anything that would normally kill you.

And really, 1 stack every 90/120 seconds that might not even matter. That is the only difference between the offensive potential of the defensive CDs between the three tanks. That's hardly a big deal.

But fights are scripted, so you'll know when you can stay in Deliverance and when you need to switch back to Defiance. So, depending on the situation, you can have enough mitigation, then switching to a huge DPS burst on the fly. As a job design, you're not denied one because of the other.

And your overall DPS will still be mediocre because you are trading it off for mitigation while in Defiance.

And Berserk, Deliverance and Storm's Path are just for show ?

I suppose no Fell Cleave, then ?

Ok ok, you're right. If a WAR stays 100% in Defiance, so no Fell Cleave, and never use Unchained to negate its penalty, yes, its damage will be lower than PLD...

I compared their basic combos to show the fundamental gap in potencies and why Maim exists.

Yea, I didn't include Berserk or Deliverance. I also didn't include SwO's AA bonus or Blood Weapon. Yea, I didn't include FC. I also didn't include the massive DoT potency DRK gets from Salted Earth and Scourge or their numerous oGCDs vs. WAR's single oGCD. Those are not directly relevant to why Maim is balanced.

It's really interesting because, you'll either side with "Look at how WAR is awesome" or "WAR is just ok" depending on if people praise or look down on it.

Oh, and by the way, OF is not the only place where WAR is considered better that the other two tanks. It's also like that in the dev team.

WAR is obviously a really strong tank. If you were actually providing facts about WAR rather than spewing lies and misinformation, I would have nothing to say. But, you are just saying a bunch of exaggerated or incorrect garbage again.

[DaulBan]

To be fair here;

w/o Maim

BB : 150 / 200 / 280
SE : 150 / 190 / 324
SP : 150 / 190 / 300

Eye and Path are always going to have the maim buff if they are combo'd since you can't wait 25 seconds to cast the next hit. That's also assuming you never use the stacks for fell cleaves down the line. I made a google doc laying out the 'best case' potencies for the WAR class and assuming all goes well they have some insane per-GCD gains which aren't really reflected by listing the base potencies.

ie:

Maim Buffed ppGCD factoring in stacks:

BB : 348.6
SE : 336
SP : 327.6

And again with SE and Maim

BB : 383.5
SE : 369.6
SP : 360.4

Just in terms of numbers, the ppGCD is going to vastly overtake those of a Paladin in particular. It's worth noting that if you waste stacks during this process you can lose about 1/3 of your potential DPS which is punishing, but it is pretty hard to actually lose stacks over the course of a fight if you know when the jumps are.

[Reynhart]

But, you are just saying a bunch of exaggerated or incorrect garbage again.

No, I'm still only saying that WAR is "better". What bothers me is that WAR skills were arbitrary made different compared to every other job in the game, just to push it a little further.

[Brian_]

Actually, making the warrior meta a "thing" to begin with is very stupid. The 3.0 additions really didnt pillage warriors gameplay style as horribly bad as some other jobs, and good for it. They were dropping defiance and capping their dps well before the expansion hit, this other stance allowing them to do it without losing all their stacks, was gorgeous. If you ask me, where they "went wrong" was actually pushing warrior meta on the other tanks. But you can assume whatever. There is no sane reason a mt should have to drop tank stance just cuz they need mp or wont be able to pop cooldowns, or to compete with stance-dancing tank on the other end of the spectrum. Yes the warrior job has eyes on it like scholar, its literally written in the interview, as per the OP. You look at jobs like bard, who had their whole gameplay style transformed overnight, to deal more damage, and warrior gets an actual REAL stance instead of havin to risk losing stacks, which seemed to be fine enough 2.0. I applaud the additions to the job, they were what i consider good additions, and synergized well, but as far as pushing the other two tanks to have to play like a warrior, even though they can never be a warrior? Thats probably what I would consider, the wrong way to balance things.

Er... PLDs were tanking in SwO and dropping ShO for DPS efficiency well before Deliverance was ever a thing.

The tanks aren't trying to play like WAR and aren't being forced into some WAR meta. They are playing like tanks play in this game.

[Reynhart]

Er... PLDs were tanking in SwO and dropping ShO for DPS efficiency well before Deliverance was ever a thing.

Yes, they were. But it wasn't required for early clearing like it was in Gordias.
Yes, we all know that Gordias was a very bad designed raid for tank balance...

[DaulBan]

Er... PLDs were tanking in SwO and dropping ShO for DPS efficiency well before Deliverance was ever a thing.

The tanks aren't trying to play like WAR and aren't being forced into some WAR meta. They are playing like tanks play in this game.

Agreed. The so-called 'war meta' isn't really a good way of describing the current state of affairs. The issue isn't that a PLD is being forced to play like a WAR, it's that there is no benefit to bringing a PLD over a WAR. Even assuming the meta wasn't 'maximize dps' that tangible reason would there to be, all things being equal, to bring a PLD? The simple existence of a slashing debuff means that for any party with a NIN you want a WAR to make their life easier. Do you just remove SE from the game to make it so that NIN have just as terrible a time with WAR as with Pally? Why not just get rid of AE since in a raid scenario unless there are 2 NIN there aren't going to be all that many times to use it.

[Reynhart]

The issue isn't that a PLD is being forced to play like a WAR, it's that there is no benefit to bringing a PLD over a WAR.

What I feel is that it would have also been the same in 2.x if we already three tanks.
Even before the "shifting" in raid requirement, WAR would already have a secured spot while PLD and WAR would compete for the remaining spot.

[Brian_]

No, I'm still only saying that WAR is "better". What bothers me is that WAR skills were arbitrary made different compared to every other job in the game, just to push it a little further.

No, you have said on multiple occasions that WAR has no trade offs. That is wrong.

And, you've spoken about the defensive synergy of WAR's offensive buffs like it's actually something that really matters. It's not. And, like I already explained, the only difference in the offensive synergy of WAR's defensive buffs is that you get 1 stack every 90/120s. That is hardly something to call foul over.

[Duelle]

Let's not do that, we're struggling enough with individuality, I'd rather not have 3 clones with slight variation.

I'm going to name three jobs with a summary. Your assignment is to tell me how they're clones of each other.

PLD: A knight that uses sword & shield. Mitigates damage via straightforward defensive cooldowns and passive shield block mitigation.

WAR: A brute with a big axe. Mitigates damage by ignoring pain and making themselves keep going where others would have fallen/given up.

DRK: A knight of darkness that uses a great sword. Mitigates damage by draining the life of their enemies, parrying damage and converting some of the damage taken into HP.

Note: this is not how our tanks are currently designed.

[Sarcatica]

Yes, they were. But it wasn't required for early clearing like it was in Gordias.
Yes, we all know that Gordias was a very bad designed raid for tank balance...

Gordias was just a piece out of so many other problems. Even in 2.x, there were already so many glaring problems for PLD. It was a ticking bomb that only exploded in 3.x.

You can't deny that PLD was suboptimal in a4s and it's not just because "oh it's because of Gordias".