A detailed Reaction to Warrior in SB

[Marxam]

WAR needs to return to its 'mitigation though damage" tanking style. They tried to make WAR a "safer" tank to play, ex removing pacify on berserk but they completely missed the point of WAR. We are supposed to tank "recklessly"! That was the whole lore behind WAR. They need to give war a better self sustain in any stance and not force them to Defiance just to self heal. The OP hit all the marks when it comes to issues with WAR currently prior to 4.05. I'm also curious as to why savage raids still have 2 tanks. If you have one tank main tanking the boss guess what the other tank is doing? They are dealing damage. Unless a fight has adds 100% of the fight duration the other tank will be in dps stance.

But SE didn't include tank damage calculation so in theory the OT only needs to be there for tank swaps and any other time that they are not tanking they can afk because their damage doesn't count towards the overall raid? A bit hyperbolic I know but the point is don't assume that tanks won't help the party with dealing damage when they aren't tanking and don't punish them for doing so. WAR is only trying to help in the only way they can and with the only skills you provided them in 4.0; and that's by acting as a dps.

[Umbeliel]

WAR needs to return to its 'mitigation though damage" tanking style.

This is an important point that doesn't seem to get brought up much. That is legitimately what Warriors identity is- or at least supposed to be. The IDEA is that our defensive capability is supposed to be tied directly to our offensive capability- which is why we had heavy lifesteal originally, and why IB is an offensive move, and... Bloodbath and... Everything. 3.0 moved away from this a little with deliverance, but the flowing nature of dancing meant that it was effectively the same. Given that warriors kit is built around having high HP instead of direct mitigation, the heals always were effectively the warrior equivalent of dark mind and other weaker but class specific CDs. You literally can not have a warrior not be overall poorly designed while actively removing the core concepts of its design and identity in the first place- hybridization of offense and defense. The self heals and stance dancing and high risk(relatively) high reward gameplay are absolutely essential, once you remove that it's just an entirely new class that we didn't sign up for.

[Marxam]

This is an important point that doesn't seem to get brought up much.

My point exactly. When WAR launched in 2.0 it was a mess but the idea was sound. PLD was the "safe tank", pop a cd here and there and presto instant mitigation. WAR was the "risky tank", high hp pool and no passive mitigation outside of increased healing when in tank stance and it was up to player to best utilize and mix their cool downs for effective mitigation and because it had no inherent mitigation it focused on self sustain. As noted by IB being originally a 300% heal. At the time it was pretty shitty since most tank busters could literally kill you even with the high hp and people not understanding the complexity of the class on launch which is expected. PLD/PLD comps were a thing. IB was changed afterwards to what it was in 3.0, being a 100% self heal with a 20% dmg mitigation for 6 seconds which I liked.

What I don't like is how the heal is now nerfed to 88.4% (IB) and 44.2% (SP) respectively. By doing so you are undermining the whole point of WAR's mitigation. WAR doesn't have an inherent 20% dmg reduction in tank stance like the other two so we have to rely on our self sustain which is directly teid to how much damage we can do, which is almost non existent as of 4.05. I don't even understand the nerf to healing when damage for tanks will inherently be lower than dps. This is one of the reasons why most WAR who have been with the job for a long time understand the idea and design of dealing damage = more mitigation value attack power. We aren't trying to be dps, we are just trying to keep up our mitigation because playing as WAR means that you have full control on how you mitigate.

Also SE made the class dumber to play. Any skill ceiling it used to have is now gone. Before we had to think, where do we Berserk?, should I use RI or Vengeance? Will I need any of those any time soon? How should I time Berserk so I can clip the last weapon skill before pacifying? Where should I infuriate? Two FC's at the start of the rotation or at the end? Questions like these made the class fun and exciting to play. Fast forward to 4.0 and there is only 1 rotation for 6 FC and one Upheaval when berserk + IR. I've played with this job for 3 weeks now did some ex primals, delta nm and playing this job has removed some of the excitement of being a WAR, which was flexibility, adaptability and impact. In 4.05 its static, monotonous, and mundane.

[Poison_Rose]

I don't really have much to add to this conversation other than that I agree with all of the points brought up in the OP.

[Kabooa]

What I don't like is how the heal is now nerfed to 88.4% (IB) and 44.2% (SP) respectively. By doing so you are undermining the whole point of WAR's mitigation. WAR doesn't have an inherent 20% dmg reduction in tank stance.

Warriors get 25% more health (Allowing them to 'take' the same raw damage as any other tank with the same baseline tank stance) and 20% more healing (which gets them to about the same ease of healing). The healing bonus doesn't apply to draining effects. They 'passively' mitigate as much as any other tank. Paladins get the addition of a shield which is what Innerbeast effectively puts on demand.

I'd argue as far as outside solo play, the self healing on Storm Path is negligible at best while on Innerbeast, was effectively unchanged (350 potency from 300 is a 16.6% boost. 88% healing on IB is a 12% loss. 1.16 * .88 = 1.02)

[Umbeliel]

IB was changed afterwards to what it was in 3.0, being a 100% self heal with a 20% dmg mitigation for 6 seconds which I liked.

I remember. Old IB was my lifeblood tbqh- It's almost the entire reason I started tanking in the first place. Early on, with full darklight or AF+1 if you knew -exactly- what you were doing, it allowed for almost complete healer independence in WP and AK. It was great. I of course realized right after 2.1 hit that I wouldn't have been able to even do EX trials much less continue with Coil(We had a static, but never got past t2) with how old Warrior was, but I'm still sore about losing the freedom that old IB gave me.

Eh, it was brought up by a really good tank mentor here. I do agree they gutted the identity of the job. Combining offensive tools with defensive tools was really fun.

Not that no one brings it up, just not brought up as often as I'd like.

Having thought about it a bit more, there's few things I'd want for WAR. Increased self healing on IB, perhaps 150%, and SP restoring some 75% of its done would make the job feel a tad better, IMHO. Cut the gauge cost to a flat 20-30, and for Upheaval to have a bit more of a burst to it. I still like Onslaught's trading some gauge for a quick rush in to reposition or pick up adds, but a small buff to 110pot wouldn't be poor.

The self heal on path always felt completely pointless to me. The amount is way too low considering you can use it only once every 3rd hit in a combo at absolute best. Regardless, I love you for supporting a buffed IB heal. I'm on the side that dancing just shouldn't cost anything at all and neither should Onslaught, though. Actually, Onslaught should actually GENERATE gauge, to me. Considering how much we actually use and depend on it compared to everyone else, the speed of our gauge generation just isn't high enough at all.

Warriors get 25% more health (Allowing them to 'take' the same raw damage as any other tank with the same baseline tank stance) and 20% more healing (which gets them to about the same ease of healing). The healing bonus doesn't apply to draining effects. They 'passively' mitigate as much as any other tank. Paladins get the addition of a shield which is what Innerbeast effectively puts on demand.

I'd argue as far as outside solo play, the self healing on Storm Path is negligible at best while on Innerbeast, was effectively unchanged (350 potency from 300 is a 16.6% boost. 88% healing on IB is a 12% loss. 1.16 * .88 = 1.02)

About that- it was years ago now, but I'm pretty sure someone on the forums did the math if you wanted to dig that up. IB itself was never actually meant to be used as a defensive cooldown- I mean it works great as one of course, but it's net benefit was roughly the same as that that a paladin has always gotten simply by holding a shield and standing there.
On top of that, Defiance itself is and always has been worse than shield oath/grit in terms of defensive capability. Though after a Warrior has been healed (after initial activation) and assuming identical healers are constantly healing the Warrior as they would a Paladin, Defiance and Shield Oath are effectively identical (there's an EXTREMELY small eHP difference between the two- Shield Oath is on top but it's completely negligible.) yes, but Shield Oath has always come ahead even after the buff because of how it interacts with other cooldowns. I don't remember the exacts(the math, again, is from like 2.1 or so. It should be on the forums though if you were interested.) but essentially it came down to cooldowns being more effective across the board in terms of eHP granted, even before the shield was accounted for(which has always made Paladin flat out better at not dying.) Not to mention Warrior specific CDs(Bloodbath, Holmgang, Thrill, Veng) have always been 1:1 worse than their Paladin equivalents. I'm not going to pick apart individual skills here though since that's something that people who are smarter than me will do.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Regardless, I love you for supporting a buffed IB heal. I'm on the side that dancing just shouldn't cost anything at all and neither should Onslaught, though. Actually, Onslaught should actually GENERATE gauge, to me. Considering how much we actually use and depend on it compared to everyone else, the speed of our gauge generation just isn't high enough at all.

Eh. I don't think a lack of cost is a good thing. It dumbs down the gameplay, IMHO. I find a reasonable cost a lot more fun. Ironically, though, SAM and WAR generate gauge at around the same rate. Actually, I'd say WAR generates it a twice as fast! Which is amusing to me, because SAM uses their gauge a lot more than WAR. Maybe that's why it doesn't really bug me. I like the Onslaught cost, and all I'd want is for the beast gauge cost to drop to a reasonable 20.

Incidentally, in 9 GCDS, SAM generates 55 of their gauge. WAR generates 80.

[Umbeliel]

Eh. I don't think a lack of cost is a good thing. It dumbs down the gameplay, IMHO. I find a reasonable cost a lot more fun. Ironically, though, SAM and WAR generate gauge at around the same rate. Actually, I'd say WAR generates it a twice as fast! Which is amusing to me, because SAM uses their gauge a lot more than WAR. Maybe that's why it doesn't really bug me.

Kind of. Samurai uses it more but the amounts are much smaller. One ogcd that costs 50(on a 2 minute cd) and the rest is 20. Also, faster attacks due to Kasha and also Hagakure is on a shorter CD than Infuriate. Meanwhile, Warrior's two most important skills all cost 50, stance dancing halves it(though it just shouldn't, regardless of if you're in the no cost camp or the fixed/capped cost camp), our two gauge AoEs also cost 50, Onslaught is basically useless in most circumstances because of how it'd screw up our rotation due to the cost, and our answer to Meikyo Shisui(Inner Release) also costs 20 for some reason.

...Upheaval is basically perfect to me though. :>

Regardless, it's totally possible to have complexity come without hindering adaptability. Removing costs on Onslaught and stance isn't necessarily dumbing it down at all.

[testname]

I could not write it better, good job in making this thread.

I played as war in HW, and I agree 100% with you.

Normally I never voice up my thoughts, but I am so so utterly disappointed.
I mean, do they not play their own game?
The whole experience in game play as war, changed.

How is it even possible.....

[YitharV2]

This is an important point that doesn't seem to get brought up much. That is legitimately what Warriors identity is- or at least supposed to be. The IDEA is that our defensive capability is supposed to be tied directly to our offensive capability- which is why we had heavy lifesteal originally, and why IB is an offensive move, and... Bloodbath and... Everything. 3.0 moved away from this a little with deliverance, but the flowing nature of dancing meant that it was effectively the same. Given that warriors kit is built around having high HP instead of direct mitigation, the heals always were effectively the warrior equivalent of dark mind and other weaker but class specific CDs. You literally can not have a warrior not be overall poorly designed while actively removing the core concepts of its design and identity in the first place- hybridization of offense and defense. The self heals and stance dancing and high risk(relatively) high reward gameplay are absolutely essential, once you remove that it's just an entirely new class that we didn't sign up for.

Eh, it was brought up by a really good tank mentor here. I do agree they gutted the identity of the job. Combining offensive tools with defensive tools was really fun.