A little tip for a WAR trying to learn

[iridemyunicorneverynight]

While insignificant, Tank stance does raise some really trivial stuff like the amount of HP you get from your passive in combat regen (2% of max), the amount in which benediction heals you for, and the bonus HP you get healed back for. (Technically makes thrill of battle heal you a tiny bit more as well)

But if anything, Tank stance should be used for the HP multiplier, not the parry from beast guage.

The bonus of Thrill of Battle is primarily used (when against bosses) to increase enmity/aggro while in Deliverance. For the most part it remains on CD.

I don't think Defiance is useless; if anything the changes have brought it up more significantly in comparison to its previous uses (thanks to IR and Unchained sharing a CD)

Even were that not the case, it'd be a lie to say there weren't any uses for Defiance prior to this buff.

[Galgarion]

Hey. Graigy. The best time to switch over to deliverance IMO, is whenever you have a high enough threat lead that you won't lose the boss's attention without defiance on. After that, just stay in your dps stance and rotate cooldowns. All warriors ever get from defiance is extra health and threat, so you're really not missing much by staying in deliverence. Pop back into Defiance whenever you want to use equilibriam, but aside from that, just get comfortable smashing bosses face first instead of from behind. We're at a point in gearing that if you die because you were in deliverance, it's because you had a terrible healer, not because you're playing wrong.

[Hierro]

As far as dugneons go, my tip is to stack cooldowns and plan ahead for which cooldowns you'll stack for certain pulls. I aggregate my CDs into two groups, each for a wall-to-wall pull, because that's about how many there are between bosses in a dungeon setting. For one group I might use unchained with rampart, ToB and conva, and on another group i'll IR steel cyclone and deliverance with more vengeance and RI+awarenes, as an example. In both cooldown groups, my damage output is good while tankiness is optimized.

Sometimes there are common settings where you're gated and force to pull 3 mobs at a time, and for that I'll more than gladly tank said group in deliverance with limited cooldown usage, so long as aggro is managed.

However, you'll learn that being able to put out a lot of dps depends a lot on your party. If your healer knows how to AoE and use their cooldowns to buff their HoTs to keep you healthy, and your DPS know how to use their cooldowns accordingly, then you know mobs will melt and your cooldowns will suffice so you can go HAM. However, if your healer is strictly a curebot, and your dps don't know what an AoE is, your damage output won't see it's true potential because your cooldowns will run dry, and dpsing could mean unworthy risk.

[Graiggy]

Unlike PLD & DRK tank stances, Defiance doesn't actually affect your damage intake in any meaningful way. It gives you a slight amount of parry rating based on your beast gauge (up to 10%) and more hp and that's about it. Mainly the reason to go into defiance is either for higher enmity or access to inner beast / steel cyclone (self healing) but rarely for reduction to dmg taken (outside the 20% dmg reduction for 6 seconds from inner beast for tankbusters).

See this i was not aware of. that is a huge help. my guess is i thought the difference was because of increased dmg resist. but must be it was the self heals. Ill have to have a talk with my healer. and see if i cant get him to get a better heal rotation.

[Graiggy]

Hey. Graigy. The best time to switch over to deliverance IMO, is whenever you have a high enough threat lead that you won't lose the boss's attention without defiance on. After that, just stay in your dps stance and rotate cooldowns. All warriors ever get from defiance is extra health and threat, so you're really not missing much by staying in deliverence. Pop back into Defiance whenever you want to use equilibriam, but aside from that, just get comfortable smashing bosses face first instead of from behind. We're at a point in gearing that if you die because you were in deliverance, it's because you had a terrible healer, not because you're playing wrong.

This is pretty helpful honestly. I plan on spending some hours on a striking dumby to get my rotation fluid.

[Thela]

See this i was not aware of. that is a huge help. my guess is i thought the difference was because of increased dmg resist. but must be it was the self heals. Ill have to have a talk with my healer. and see if i cant get him to get a better heal rotation.

No worries, many healers are not aware of this either and think you are a bad tank taking unnecessary damage for not staying in defiance which is just not the case. That being said, there are of course situations where being in defiance is helpful. You do gain a larger hp pool and thus can survive longer if taking heavy damage, plus you get access to self healing for the same scenario. And of course the 20% damage reduction from inner beast is very good for tank busters, but if you can survive it with other means its generally preferable because every time you use inner beast is 1 less fell cleave

[ItaruKarin]

I'm fairly certain Defiance grants you a 20% boost to received healing too, which is like a permanent Convalescence. Saying it doesn't help the healer is misleading.

[Graiggy]

I'm fairly certain Defiance grants you a 20% boost to received healing too, which is like a permanent Convalescence. Saying it doesn't help the healer is misleading.

It does help the healer that is true. which i believe someone brought up. however if your not struggling for health and the healer is able to keep up then I can see why people are saying that you dont have to stay in Defiance the whole time. If you are getting slammed pretty hard then yes staying in defiance would be advisable. But im starting to understand how to get the most out of the WAR. I am going to have to go through my rotation and get something down and get it so its fluid. This is probably where its going to take awhile.

[Braven]

Actually warrior tank stance is almost exactly the same effectiveness as paladin’s shield oath. It is not just extra hp, it is the 20% healing modifer that increases survivability and healing efficiency and effectiveness. 20% healing boost (and more hp) provides basically the same benefit as 20% mitigation. What makes it worse than paladin is the fact the damage hit is 20% instead of 15%, though this is offset by abilities that ignore the damage penalty. Another downside is that it takes at least one heal to start being as effective (to fill up the higher max HP) so the benefit is effectively delayed a bit. This is to balance the fact it is oGCD, unlike paladin. You are basically using a healer GCD to activate while paladin uses their own to activate (when switching mid-battle). If you start out a battle in defiance, this is not really a downside (just like the GCD isn’t a downside for paladin out of combat).

The main argument for not using tank stance is that tank DPS is better than healer DPS. As a result, if you are not at risk of a wipe from the lost mitigation, it is better for the healer to be healing more and DPSing less, than for the warrior to DPS less by staying in tank stance. The trick is knowing if the healer is capable of keeping up (and if they happy with healing more often and DPSing less).

I think the vast majority of players are not measuring precise damage output. However, they will notice if your a pain to heal or you get KOed. Unless you are sure there is no risk involved or you need defiance for a specific beast ability or burst phase, it is probably better to stick with defiance most of the time when tanking. The actual DPS advantage, when factoring lost healer DPS, is quite small between the two and really not worth the additional risk for most players.

[Launched]

I'm fairly certain Defiance grants you a 20% boost to received healing too, which is like a permanent Convalescence. Saying it doesn't help the healer is misleading.

At level 70 healers can do a ton of their healing through abilities, which aren't buffed by Defiance or Convalescence at all. If I'm using almost no Cure/Cure II/Regen, Defiance isn't really helping.