WAR raid "UTILITY" (Tank Balanced achieved?)

[Chrono_Rising]

Mmm you may be right. For O4s I haven't actually tried it as a DRK but even on PLD I feel like I barely have enough CDs and DRK seems to lack even more. And the tails of O1 are most definitely scarier than the TB. I am not arguing against DRK buff, I am just trying to make people give good points as to why it needs fixing....or maybe I just like arguing?

And WAR only having 20 secs every 2 mins is why WAR is hard to maximize dps. DRK gets 5 BW and WAR gets 1 IR window and if you mess that up you bleed dps, where DRK gets 5 chances and only loses a lot if it messes up all 5, which is highly unlikely. But as with every class, once you figure out the right places to use stuff in all the fights, every class is technically easy. But personally I find DRK far more forgiving than either tank. You do make somewhay good points though...

I agree I think arguing about which class is easier is pointless, none are particularly hard to play. However, I will say I disagree with one point, which is that you say we lose alot of dps only if you mess up all 5 blood weapon windows. Really if you mess up one your resource generation is messed up and your sustained dps drops, its not as huge as missing a warrior window but it is enough to mess up your run for the night. If you miss all 5... well yeah at that point I would lose all hope in the run for a week at that point I would feel like I might as well turtle and hope the healers can make up my missing dps. You also have to make sure you can actually get all 5, if you are delayed by a phase change or anything else you run the risk of loosing a blood weapon entirely, meaning you want to use these at a time when you will actually have all 5 blood weapons which means finding a time when all of them can more or less be used on cooldown. So the question becomes is it easier to fit 5 buff windows into a 2 minute interval or 3. But again, this is an issue of planning your cooldowns, which every class needs to do anyway.

As for reasons why dark needs buffing here are my big ones:

1) For our mitigation to equal paladin or warrior we need to use TBN, this is a dps loss out of tank stance. I'm not a fan of lossing dps to mitigate as a tank, and I enjoy not being in grit. I'm not saying this needs to be a dps increase, but its only 6 potency on bloodspiller to be a dps break even. All the tanks should be equal in mitigation imo.

2) We do less dps than both paladin and war. War is clearly at the bottom in utility right now and I think it should be at the top of tank dps to compensate. Paladin is at the top of tank utility and I think it should be tuned to have the lowest dps of the three. Dark should offer the middle ground.

3) In light of warrior getting a party utility I think dark should get a party utility to maintain is middle of the road utility option. I would suggest buffing sole survivor so that it converts party dps into an hp and mp refresh on the party by taking % of average party dps. For example if your party dps was 28k then your average per person is 28,000/8 = 3,500. I would return this at maybe a 50% rate regen for hp and 20% for mp to give 1750hp/700 mp for 15 seconds. This way paladin and warrior have shields and dark takes a regen and resource route.

4.1 changes threaten to make drk the bottom in all three of those options (mitigation/dps/utility once war gets it buff). This just shouldn't be the case since we would be stepping back into what was wrong with tank balance in 3.x jsut hte names would change.

[Aana]

Thanks for reminding me Chrono, I do wish more people understood what TBN being a DPS loss really means. Most just parrot "ITS A DPS LOSS" like its the end of the world. As you state, it is -6 potency per use. Considering 15 sec is roughly 1600 potency (6 gcds, avg 266ish) then you loose 6 out of 1600 potency if you use TBN on cooldown. That is 0.389%. A fraction of 1%. Another way, if you do 3000 DPS during a fight, use TBN out of grit EVERY 15 sec for the ENTIRE fight, your DPS would drop by a whopping 11.6. 11 dps per 3 THOUSAND. Technically it is a DPS loss in the most literal terms. But dear god it doesn't have any practical meaning. THIS IS NOT WHY DRK HAS PROBLEMS. Jesus. Its completely inconsequential to balance.

While were at it, lets clear up some other common misconceptions.

* "War does more damage and has best mitigation of all tanks" Sorta-ish. This takes a slightly more nuanced view.

* War does the most damage if all tanks live in tank stance.
* War does the most damage if all tanks are NOT in tank stance.
* War has the most mitigation in tank stance (though hinging on pld passive shield procs Pld could be here. Either way higher than Drk)
* War is the SQUISHIEST tank NOT in tank stance by a HUUUGE margin.

The 4th point is the often overlooked part. In this current meta it is a very important thing to keep in mind.

War has 1 more CD than Drk without an equivalent (ToB). Pld does too (only if you use passage as a personal mitigation tool instead of raid mitigation which is debatable itself. I don't see it used that way.) So yes, in tank stance, war has the most personal mitigation CDs and is the toughest to kill between that bonus, equilibrium, and IB generally being a smidge better than both TBN/Shelltron for mitigation while doing excellent tank stance damage (upheaval, IB ignoring penalty, Unchained+zerk etc). However, the point is generally to AVOID tank stance in the current meta so being the best tank in tank stance isn't all its cracked up to be.

Similarly, war does the most damage in OT position. (Theres a reason war is always the OT, this is half of it). Great. Whoo. However it is also monstrously squishy in deliverance. Which is the other half.

Pld/Drk retain their entire defensive kits outside of tank stance. War (with its 1 extra CD while in defiance) looses IB, the single best, most frequent CD in the game. Drk/Pld retain shelltron and TBN. Imagine tanking outside grit WITHOUT TBN. It would be shit. Just like war without IB. I would trade my 'extra' CD every day of the week to maintain access to IB outside tank stance (and it would be more than a 6 potency loss mind you). Pld is even better off as they have a shield that randomly reduces damage on top of their entire kit in either stance.

This is why I don't see any great imbalance. On paper War is the end all tank. Most mitigation in tank stance. Most damage in tank stance. Most damage out of stance with the minor trade off of being squishy as shit in deliverance. But the way this game is played that is a SIGNIFICANT detractor.

This is why war is the 'OT' all the time. Because we cant MT in DPS stance nearly as well as either pld or drk. Please remember these points before parroting out for the millionth time that "War has the best mitigation so drk needs buffs" as justification. The way the game is played war has the least mitigation. Who the hell sits in tank stance for fights? The entire goal of the last few years of tank meta has been to get OUT of tank stance. I'm not trying to 'woe is us wars' or anything. But I do want people to at least see the whole picture. Deliverance tanking is REALLY painful, yet there is a persistent idea that war has all this mitigation, but its completely locked behind defiance. War deliverance tanking is a serious liability to the group pld/drk do not share.

[Claire_Pendragon]

* War is the SQUISHIEST tank NOT in tank stance by a HUUUGE margin.

Imo, WAR's less squishy, if we're talking about continuous dmg, rather than TBs. If we're talking about TBs, then thats also debatable. Holmgang does line up with most major TBs, leaving more CDs for other spots. (Though holmgang can be viewed as squishy too, dependent on perspective.)
For the filler auto attacks, Raw Intuition helps a ton compared to DRKs options for filler/cleave dmg. (more so cleaves, as they are min busters and hit more often)
DRK does make up for it, with some of its light self healing per Soul Eater. (and if DA is saved for soul eater more, then it will heal a small % more)

As for the -6% on TBN, technically its lower, but thats a whole 'nother argument (along side factors of comparing MP to CnS to basic DA)
(I forget the number, but I think it was 32 potency. I'd have to go searching around for how they came up with this number, as it makes sense when looking at the math, but I forget the process on how they figured it out, and what most ppl were forgetting when doing the math)
but the main thing to consider, SE didnt want TBN to be used on CD like plunge, they wanted it to be for actual emergencies, and a means to "Catch up" the dmg, so it has to be a loss. (just how little the loss is, is of course the argument, and even 30 potency isnt world shattering.)

In 10 all the stack and spread mechanics were magic based. 11 Had the hawk eye thing... I forget what it was but it put a massive circle around you and hit fairly hard and since your healers were far away it needed cooldowns in prog with autos. Also the dash mechanics were magic based but I doubt anyone mitigated for this. On this subject we have the 11 killer of pld on this turn, which was that you could holmgang and living dead through almost all of the actual tank busters and never do the mechanic where as pld at 7 minutes could not cheese as many. Though this issue went away as people got faster the stigma remained.

Stack and Spread? you mean the traps? Fairly sure they were physical, except the ice spikes, and even then u cant lower thier dmg with delirium. just dark mind. (plus u shouldnt be getting hit by this)
As for 11, i have no idea what u mean about hawk eye, other than the OT being hit by a proximity attack, which im fairly sure raw intuition worked on. (The dash mechanics were going to have everyone hti by an AoE heal, so mitigating it was a waste of a CD. If everyone is hit for 5k dmg, and everyone gets healed for 5k, taking 3k means u get over healed by 2k.)

[Chrono_Rising]

Stack and Spread? you mean the traps? Fairly sure they were physical, except the ice spikes, and even then u cant lower thier dmg with delirium. just dark mind. (plus u shouldnt be getting hit by this)
As for 11, i have no idea what u mean about hawk eye, other than the OT being hit by a proximity attack, which im fairly sure raw intuition worked on. (The dash mechanics were going to have everyone hti by an AoE heal, so mitigating it was a waste of a CD. If everyone is hit for 5k dmg, and everyone gets healed for 5k, taking 3k means u get over healed by 2k.)

I've forgotten too much of a10s to remember the stack/spread mechanic. I call it that because thats how you handled it and it was magical in nature.

A11s Optical sight aoe damage (the unavoidable kind not the center mechanic) was magical as well as whirlwinds, and especially double whirlwinds, also if you weren't skipping lapis phase the ending mechanic to that phase was also magic in nature and delirium would help. There are actually a ton more aoe magical mechanics in a11s than there were physical tank busters. Spin crusher was physical but completely avoidable and the stack one was physical but we could use our ultimates through it. What made a11s hard was definitely not the tank busters, but part of the difficulty was high magic raid damage following eachother or worse following 1 HP attacks. Of course a11s was hard for groups for other reasons too but it had nothing to do with the classes.

[Claire_Pendragon]

I've forgotten too much of a10s to remember the stack/spread mechanic. I call it that because thats how you handled it and it was magical in nature.

A11s Optical sight aoe damage (the unavoidable kind not the center mechanic) was magical as well as whirlwinds, and especially double whirlwinds.

I think you're refering to near the end, with the buzz saws, and ppl take magic dmg there.
(not the MT, other than auto attacks. Storms Path was better for that, followed by the possibility of Reprisal, though I tend to use reprisal as a CD, so i hardly used it for raid dmg, except when we struggled on some early on)
Though if thats wrong, Im out of ideas as to what u mean.

For A11S, the dmg that goes evenly to everyone is very minimal, like 10% of their HP minimal. Wasting a CD of GCD on that seems a bit overkill. (Plus isnt a MT thing.)
Whirlwinds, which I did forget about, was definitely something was difficult w/o some raid wide mitigation. I usually was only able to get a single reprisal up for a single whirlwind the whole fight, even with an attempt to bait a parry with dark dance. (since the auto attacks were so few and far between, right before a whirlwind) So it was definitely better to have a WAR for Storms Path on that.

When comparing PLD to DRK as MTs, I still see PLD better for those fights, more so A11S. I do agree hallowed is far worse for solo tanking the shared TB, but most groups had WAR OT, and most groups just had the WAR solo it with holmgang.
By the time you're at the end, and might need to solo it again, not that you need to, DRK and PLD can use their invincibles.

So I think PLD still lined up for having more CDs for more TBs, while having more filler CDs foir autos.

All of the magic dmg was AoE, and therefor, mitigating it for yourself was pointless. (To avoid over healing)

EDIT: forgot delirium, that would help on Whirlwinds.

(Though my stance on PLD still remains, solely from having healed them for it, and my healers saying it was easier when i was PLD for A11S, than DRK, though my DRK was easier for them on A12S, etc, but i will agree the AoE dmg being lowered for less raid wide dmg does make things easier for the group, and not just to heal the MT)

[Chrono_Rising]

I think you're refering to near the end, with the buzz saws, and ppl take magic dmg there.
(not the MT, other than auto attacks. Storms Path was better for that, followed by the possibility of Reprisal, though I tend to use reprisal as a CD, so i hardly used it for raid dmg, except when we struggled on some early on)
Though if thats wrong, Im out of ideas as to what u mean.

For A11S, the dmg that goes evenly to everyone is very minimal, like 10% of their HP minimal. Wasting a CD of GCD on that seems a bit overkill. (Plus isnt a MT thing.)
Whirlwinds, which I did forget about, was definitely something was difficult w/o some raid wide mitigation. I usually was only able to get a single reprisal up for a single whirlwind the whole fight, even with an attempt to bait a parry with dark dance. (since the auto attacks were so few and far between, right before a whirlwind) So it was definitely better to have a WAR for Storms Path on that.

When comparing PLD to DRK as MTs, I still see PLD better for those fights, more so A11S. I do agree hallowed is far worse for solo tanking the shared TB, but most groups had WAR OT, and most groups just had the WAR solo it with holmgang.
By the time you're at the end, and might need to solo it again, not that you need to, DRK and PLD can use their invincibles.

So I think PLD still lined up for having more CDs for more TBs, while having more filler CDs foir autos.

All of the magic dmg was AoE, and therefor, mitigating it for yourself was pointless. (To avoid over healing)

EDIT: forgot delirium, that would help on Whirlwinds.

(Though my stance on PLD still remains, solely from having healed them for it, and my healers saying it was easier when i was PLD for A11S, than DRK, though my DRK was easier for them on A12S, etc, but i will agree the AoE dmg being lowered for less raid wide dmg does make things easier for the group, and not just to heal the MT)

This is my last post on this as we are debating something which is widely agreed upon, and is no longer a question since we no longer have some of the skills which made a difference, and has nothing to do with current tank balance. Delrium should have been kept up 100% for dark knight dps rotation. It's mitigation was a fact of life with a dark in the party and was always refreshed whether needed or not, then we had reprisal which with the bosses physical autos could be maintained with dark dance. Further the cycling of magical aoe attacks and physical attacks meant we could mitigate about 90% of the fight with down times. As far as tank busters were concerned the favorite strat of many was to simply tank ultimate through them, meaning mitigation was unnecessary and could be more effectively used elsewhere.

I am not talking about the saws in a10s. The bomb stack and spread mechanics happen periodically though out the fight in a10s were magical in nature. Any small difference in mitigation for the main tank could be easily over come with damage mitigation for the party as a whole.

[Shinkyo]

* War is the SQUISHIEST tank NOT in tank stance by a HUUUGE margin.
The 4th point is the often overlooked part.

This is quite an over statement.
While I would agree that WAR loses more defensive option in DPS stance by not having IB, the combinaison of their long duration, short CD mitigation, and frequent invul make up for it.
They are more squishy but certainly not by a huge margin. Block is the main feature that puts PLD on top for passive mitigation.

I don't think WAR even needs IB to have their CD toolkit compete with PLD/DRK in actual fights.

And WAR is actually a pretty bad OT compared to DRK/PLD because of their lack of utility. If you ain't sharing MT responsibility across both tanks to maximize CD uptime, then main reason to have WAR OT is because they are really good on adds.

[Aana]

This is quite an over statement.
While I would agree that WAR loses more defensive option in DPS stance by not having IB, the combinaison of their long duration, short CD mitigation, and frequent invul make up for it.
They are more squishy but certainly not by a huge margin. Block is the main feature that puts PLD on top for passive mitigation.

I don't think WAR even needs IB to have their CD toolkit compete with PLD/DRK in actual fights.

And WAR is actually a pretty bad OT compared to DRK/PLD because of their lack of utility. If you ain't sharing MT responsibility across both tanks to maximize CD uptime, then main reason to have WAR OT is because they are really good on adds.

War without IB is flat out worse than Drk or Pld in overall mitigation. Wars kit doesn't compete at all if you take out IB. That would be just like comparing Drks kit without TBN, or pld without shelltron. They are the cornerstone of their mitigation. Ive done this in more than a few posts, but here we go again.

Regarding mitigation:
* Tank Stance: General parity.
* Role skills: equal (obviously). Rampart/conv etc.
* Immunities: 'rough' parity. They are all good in distinct ways with their own pros and cons. This can be a thread unto itself so I will consider them roughly equal as they are all quite different and hard to quantify, but effective at their job. I don't want to side track into a war of immunities.
* 'Always up' CDs. Shelltron/TBN/IB: Again 'rough' parity. They are a little different with some pros/cons but fill the same functional role adequately as a frequent mitigation tool vs all damage types with near zero costs. (war locked behind defiance, but slightly better in a vacuum).
* 'big' CDs. veng/wall/sentinel. rough parity. (drk a smidge behind. 10% or timer. Your choice)
* 'other' CDs: Bullwark vs Raw Int vs Mind. Asymetrically balanced. 2 short CD, high uptime split between Phy and Magic (war/drk) vs a LOONG CD, less reliable (60%) but blocks all damage. I'd consider this 'rough' parity. The individual fights would determine whos is better here, but they are all pretty good in their own way.

Drk Stops here. Leftovers are:
Pld: Passage of arms. Super bulwark. Could be a CD, but I only ever see it actually used as raid mitigation so Ill ignore it for the purposes of personal mitigation.
Pld: Shield. Nuff said.
War: ToB. Fairly week skill for 2 min CD. Never used alone. Always paired with something. This is the 'extra' mitigation war brings over the other tanks and it is a fairly weak one. Its more often used to buff upheaval or 'oh shit' heal. But it is here and counts none the less.

Drk has a slightly weaker 'big' CD (30% vs pld 40% for a whole 10 sec) and no equivalent to ToB. War's trade for this is their best CD (IB) is inaccessible outside of defiance.

Would Drks be happy to lock TBN behind grit but get ToB in exchange? Heck well even throw in Pld 40% instead of 30% sentinel for that 10 seconds every 3 min. If you are trying to stay out of grit, is that a trade you would make? ToB for TBN? Absolutely not. Youd be crazy to give up an 20% HP boost every 15 sec for a 20% HP boost every 2 min. Sure youd be extra tough IN grit, just like war is super tough IN defiance. But dps tanking would take a serious hit.

TLDR: War isn't this bastion of defense its made out to be if you actually play it the way people play tanks in this game.

[Chrono_Rising]

War without IB is flat out worse than Drk or Pld in overall mitigation. Wars kit doesn't compete at all if you take out IB. That would be just like comparing Drks kit without TBN, or pld without shelltron. They are the cornerstone of their mitigation. Ive done this in more than a few posts, but here we go again.

Regarding mitigation:
* Tank Stance: General parity.
* Role skills: equal (obviously). Rampart/conv etc.
* Immunities: 'rough' parity. They are all good in distinct ways with their own pros and cons. This can be a thread unto itself so I will consider them roughly equal as they are all quite different and hard to quantify, but effective at their job. I don't want to side track into a war of immunities.
* 'Always up' CDs. Shelltron/TBN/IB: Again 'rough' parity. They are a little different with some pros/cons but fill the same functional role adequately as a frequent mitigation tool vs all damage types with near zero costs. (war locked behind defiance, but slightly better in a vacuum).
* 'big' CDs. veng/wall/sentinel. rough parity. (drk a smidge behind. 10% or timer. Your choice)
* 'other' CDs: Bullwark vs Raw Int vs Mind. Asymetrically balanced. 2 short CD, high uptime split between Phy and Magic (war/drk) vs a LOONG CD, less reliable (60%) but blocks all damage. I'd consider this 'rough' parity. The individual fights would determine whos is better here, but they are all pretty good in their own way.

Drk Stops here. Leftovers are:
Pld: Passage of arms. Super bulwark. Could be a CD, but I only ever see it actually used as raid mitigation so Ill ignore it for the purposes of personal mitigation.
Pld: Shield. Nuff said.
War: ToB. Fairly week skill for 2 min CD. Never used alone. Always paired with something. This is the 'extra' mitigation war brings over the other tanks and it is a fairly weak one. Its more often used to buff upheaval or 'oh shit' heal. But it is here and counts none the less.

Drk has a slightly weaker 'big' CD (30% vs pld 40% for a whole 10 sec) and no equivalent to ToB. War's trade for this is their best CD (IB) is inaccessible outside of defiance.

Would Drks be happy to lock TBN behind grit but get ToB in exchange? Heck well even throw in Pld 40% instead of 30% sentinel for that 10 seconds every 3 min. If you are trying to stay out of grit, is that a trade you would make? ToB for TBN? Absolutely not. Youd be crazy to give up an 20% HP boost every 15 sec for a 20% HP boost every 2 min. Sure youd be extra tough IN grit, just like war is super tough IN defiance. But dps tanking would take a serious hit.

TLDR: War isn't this bastion of defense its made out to be if you actually play it the way people play tanks in this game.

I don't think warrior is that much ahead of us in terms of mitigation unless TBN remains the way it is. I think dark is only behind in mitigation because TBN usage without grit is minimized. I think warrior is a smidge ahead of the other two currently, but I don't think its huge.

[Aana]

I don't think warrior is that much ahead of us in terms of mitigation unless TBN remains the way it is. I think dark is only behind in mitigation because TBN usage without grit is minimized. I think warrior is a smidge ahead of the other two currently, but I don't think its huge.

Again, the unwillingness to use TBN because of 'DPS' reasons outside of grit is really not true and absolutely not a reason (by itself anyway) to rebalance drks CD suite.

That 6 potency per use (considering a 15 second window is ~3000 potency in GCDs alone ignoring Auto attacks, Blood weapon multipliers etc etc) shouldn't stop anyone from using it. People have just made a mantra of 'TBN is a DPS loss out of grit' and never use it. Its in your mind. They could buff bloodspiller from 400 to 406 pot out of grit and it wouldn't make a lick of practical difference. Think of it as 'TBN is a sidegrade shift in my damage' and suddenly using it out of grit isn't so unpalatable. But that's what it actually is. The DPS loss is virtually nonexistent and shouldn't stop anyone from using it ever.

The thing TBN needs to be effective is to more reliably give the refund so the risk in using it is lower, not a DPS buff to using it effectively. Adjustments to the duration and/or refund requirements is all the buffs. This reminds me of the onslaught stuff when it came out. Everyone dismissed it as a 'never use' skill because it 'lowered' DPS, but its in truth a sidegrade most of the time in deliverance and a buff if used in certain scenarios, but the myth of a 'dps loss' still exists so people don't use it as often as they should. Same for TBN out of grit. Theoretically its a miniscule irrelivent level dps loss. In practice it is a DPS gain unless you end the fight with zero blood. Its a dps gain until you account for the SE blood gain and TBN>Spiller delays that 10 blood gain by 1 gcd. ie: 3 TBN>BS removes 10 blood. If you use TBN 3 times but have 10 blood at the end of a fight it was actually a DPS gain because that blood never got used to realize the DPS loss from TBN. Its only a loss in theory over a VERY long period of time. In reality, it will not affect your parse at all unless your TBN prevented you from a natural BS. EG: you have 40 blood after a fight and used TBN 3x. Very specific scenarios.

Just use it outside grit. Eat it like candy. Stop the mental block of 'its a dps loss'.