These warrior changes are great

[Reynhart]

WAR in 2.0 was definitely weaker than its 2.1 counterpart, but it was still able to do the content, like PLD could do HW, and DRK can do SB.

Wrong, WAR wasn't able to tank Twintania.

Coils didnt have tank busters u would need to use a CD on.

Yes it did, it's called Death Sentence.

You would use Inner Beast to heal the damage back, so TBs werent really a threat

Yes, they were, especially because once you healed back the damage of Death sentence, you lost the healing bonus of Defiance, which paired with Infirmity, made WAR a wet noodle.

EDIT: Forgot that Storms Path lowered a targets damage by 10%, which was in 2.0, and a way to help the WAR survive "tank busters" back then.

No, it was in 2.1. In 2.0, WAR had no damage reduction skill. Holmgang didn't even prevent you to die.

[Claire_Pendragon]

counter

WAR did tank Twintania, as I remember evidence being proven back in 2.0 it could, as WARs were defending their ability to tank her.
Death Sentance could be survived w/o a CD, so imo, I barely call that a tank buster. (Thats why I put it in quotes)
(And PLDs did NOT have a CD for every Death Sentance, it was impossible w/o how often she used that attack. They can survive the attack, but were likely to die right after the attack.)

The amount of HP healed was to make up for the lack of bonus healing, though of course, her next attacks werent so bad, but were definitely easier on a PLD than WAR. Damage in general was more middle ground, rather than the low dmg, mixed with high spike dmg of current endgame.

I'm struggling to find information on Storms Path from 2.0, but I remember plenty of arguments of what should WAR do as OT, which included the idea of alternating between Path and Eye, when not MTing. (Instead of BB for the higher DPS)
Path did offer support to the rest of the group, but if it wasnt -10% dmg, I'm fairly sure it helpped do something to lower dmg, otherwise it had no use.
(Mainly because WAR didnt use "stances" the same way PLD did, since Eye was its DPS stance, and Path was its Tank stance in concept.)

EDIT: Struggling to find the old conversations after all these years, but I'm fairly sure tank swapping didnt really pick up in popularity till 2.1, and even then WAR was even better at it for the obvious -20% dmg taken, but yeah trying to find anything from 2.0 is hard, as most stuff is 2.1 or older.

[Aana]

WAR did tank Twintania, as I remember evidence being proven back in 2.0 it could, as WARs were defending their ability to tank her.
Death Sentance could be survived w/o a CD, so imo, I barely call that a tank buster. (Thats why I put it in quotes)
(And PLDs did NOT have a CD for every Death Sentance, it was impossible w/o how often she used that attack. They can survive the attack, but were likely to die right after the attack.)

The amount of HP healed was to make up for the lack of bonus healing, though of course, her next attacks werent so bad, but were definitely easier on a PLD than WAR. Damage in general was more middle ground, rather than the low dmg, mixed with high spike dmg of current endgame.

I'm struggling to find information on Storms Path from 2.0, but I remember plenty of arguments of what should WAR do as OT, which included the idea of alternating between Path and Eye, when not MTing. (Instead of BB for the higher DPS)
Path did offer support to the rest of the group, but if it wasnt -10% dmg, I'm fairly sure it helpped do something to lower dmg, otherwise it had no use.
(Mainly because WAR didnt use "stances" the same way PLD did, since Eye was its DPS stance, and Path was its Tank stance in concept.)

EDIT: Struggling to find the old conversations after all these years, but I'm fairly sure tank swapping didnt really pick up in popularity till 2.1, and even then WAR was even better at it for the obvious -20% dmg taken, but yeah trying to find anything from 2.0 is hard, as most stuff is 2.1 or older.

Pld didn't have a CD for every death sentence. But it did have a tank stance that fully mitigated and shield for all of them and CDs for most of them besides.

I was there at 2.0. On war. Tanking 1st coil. Path just healed HP. IB only healed HP. Defiance was a permanent ToB. Bonus healing per stack of wrath. Max wrath = current defiance. Using IB removed that. No passive parry bonus. Vengence didn't mitigate any damage. Holmgang wasn't an immunity, just a mutual root. IB had no mitigation. War had no mitigation except foresight.

The only way war survived was by standing there, and waiting for the entire rest of the party to virus, stoneskin, adlo etc and you had to have lv 90 gear for vit. The damn snake in T1 was REALLY rough as a darklight war. I just stood their and hoped my sch had enough lustrates while the pld was over their with sentinel and hallowed so his assigned healer could spend more time helping me with my snake.

War in 2.0 had virtually no mitigation whatsoever. Stacking every party buff/debuff in the game on you to survive ONE death sentence doesn't make it ok while pld just pops sentinel all by himself. 2.0 war was terribad.

FFS people played maurauder instead on a regular basis to truly make it just a blue DPS whenever possible because its tanking was crap.

War has been doing very well since 2.1. But whitewashing history does no one anygood. 2.0 was utterly terrible. It couldn't speed run in dungeons like pld, it could only tank raids in max ilvl gear with 100% party support, it was often excluded from content all together and people ran 2x pld (there was no limit gauge punishement for duplicate jobs then). This game is all about mitigation. War provided none for itself or others. The only mitigation tool it had was foresight.

[Claire_Pendragon]

Darklight geared WAR just couldn't survive Twintania. At i80 their kit was more effective I imagine, but at Darklight gear tier PLD/PLD was just so much safer. there was also TW/HG to cheese divebombs & snakes. Devs confessed they didn't expect people to clear T5 until i80 was released. But PLD/PLD let it happen before.

I liked the HP manipulation of 2.0 WAR too, but it was too ilvl dependent.

I agree WAR coudlnt at i70, though odd they expected i80 to do it, since i80 gear didnt have the needed accuracy (or at least I sure as heck coudlnt land hits in i80 tank gear)
But yeah, farmed up i90 gear from coils was a massive upgrade, and plenty possible in i90 if u were lucky enough to get the gear.

Pld didn't have a CD for every death sentence. But it did have a tank stance that fully mitigated and shield for all of them and CDs for most of them besides.

I was there at 2.0. On war. Tanking 1st coil. Path just healed HP. IB only healed HP. Defiance was a permanent ToB. Bonus healing per stack of wrath. Max wrath = current defiance. Using IB removed that. No passive parry bonus. Vengence didn't mitigate any damage. Holmgang wasn't an immunity, just a mutual root. IB had no mitigation. War had no mitigation except foresight.

The only way war survived was by standing there, and waiting for the entire rest of the party to virus, stoneskin, adlo etc and you had to have lv 90 gear for vit. The damn snake in T1 was REALLY rough as a darklight war. I just stood their and hoped my sch had enough lustrates while the pld was over their with sentinel and hallowed so his assigned healer could spend more time helping me with my snake.

War in 2.0 had virtually no mitigation whatsoever. Stacking every party buff/debuff in the game on you to survive ONE death sentence doesn't make it ok while pld just pops sentinel all by himself. 2.0 war was terribad.

FFS people played maurauder instead on a regular basis to truly make it just a blue DPS whenever possible because its tanking was crap.

War has been doing very well since 2.1. But whitewashing history does no one anygood. 2.0 was utterly terrible. It couldn't speed run in dungeons like pld, it could only tank raids in max ilvl gear with 100% party support, it was often excluded from content all together and people ran 2x pld (there was no limit gauge punishement for duplicate jobs then). This game is all about mitigation. War provided none for itself or others. The only mitigation tool it had was foresight.

Besides my poor memory of path, I also went WAR and PLD, and agree with most of what u said, though as long as u had the gear, u could still survive with "almost" similar effect as 2.0 WAR, the only exception being u might not have a healing bonus right away. (unless ur next skill was going to get u 1 stack of wrath)
Back then having 20% more max hp, wasnt as effective, but was nearly as effective as relying on TBN to survive a TB.
Not as good as mitigation, but if u survive, u survive.
(Though I woulda used blood bath to help heal up some of that dmg, since its such a short CD, with thrill/foresight/convo as fillers. (obviously inferior to PLDs options))

Also dont disagree with its inability to speed run dungeons, and its superior mitigation it got in 2.1.

(also not trying to say which was better)

[Shinkyo]

Sure you could survive while overgearing but at what price? The whole party had to babysit you...
Plus there was always the dilemma of IBing before or after the TB which often was wasted in over heals. It was overall better to not IB and keep the 25% healing bonus since at least it was always useful.

[Claire_Pendragon]

It was overall better to not IB and keep the 25% healing bonus since at least it was always useful.

Honestly a pretty good point my group didnt even think about lol

[Aana]

(also not trying to say which was better)

The 'idea' of 2.0 war was nifty. Pld was the defensive tank. Sword n board. Mitigation. War was the Barbarian style. Massive HP pool, stayed alive by swinging that axe in a berserker rage really hard (all the HP healing via Path/IB/Bloodbath damage and the 'thrill of battle' etc). But it just didn't work out. Sadly they had to gut war's theme so it would perform better.

In some ways they have just been slowly returning war to its roots. Equalibrium (atk power heal and TP to never stop killing). Upheaval (HP based damage). Deliverance as a whole. Red Eye Glowing IR preventing crowd control in a zerker rage. And now the hyperZerk+IR which can be used in defiance to get that oldschool surviving via rage feeling or just unleash the beast in FC mode.

I don't disagree thematically with what SE has done to war. It really brings back some of those early days chunking down the enemy while chunking up your HP battle of wills kinda feeling. But the technical side is just bleh. War had become a pretty nuanced job over the years imo, but they lost all that.

So ultimately im still really torn about these changes. There is some good feels that really embrace the fantasy of being this warrior struggling to balance contain the beast vs unleashing it. But on a technical level im disappointed with just trashing the fluid "best designed job" they crafted from 2.1 on.

[Reynhart]

I'm struggling to find information on Storms Path from 2.0, but I remember plenty of arguments of what should WAR do as OT, which included the idea of alternating between Path and Eye, when not MTing. (Instead of BB for the higher DPS)
Path did offer support to the rest of the group, but if it wasnt -10% dmg, I'm fairly sure it helpped do something to lower dmg, otherwise it had no use.

You can check the patch notes directly at the lodestone, it's baffling how much WAR was buffed at 2.1. Frankly, I think they overdid it and WAR was OP since then. But since we only had two tank jobs and frequently two tank spots, it didn't really click during ARR.

(And PLDs did NOT have a CD for every Death Sentance, it was impossible w/o how often she used that attack. They can survive the attack, but were likely to die right after the attack.)

At 30s between each Death Sentence, you can use Rampart for the 1st, Sentinel for the 2nd, Hallowed for the 3rd, Rampart for the 4th, Bulwark+Fortress for the 5th. And if your group faces more than 5 Death Sentences, you'd probably die of enrage anyway.

[Aana]

Nostalgia Lulz

Extra note for more nostalgia lulz:

If a pld with no CD was 'likely' to die right after a TB with tank stance on and no CD, then war was essentially that every time but worse lacking 20% mitigation and shield. War then needed more HP refilled than pld due to higher HP and no tank stance mitigation mitigation, but.....kicker! Death sentence reduced heals on the target dramatically for a duration afterwards. Guess what a tank that had zero mitigation and only heals does after being smashed in the face with a healing reducing tank buster?

2.0 war was the worst job at its role to ever exist. 2.1 couldn't come fast enough lol.