War's a bit squishy?

[Jscagg]

Firstly I just want to thank everyone for their responses, it has given me quite a bit of insight into warrior as a class! Now to answer some questions: Someone had asked if I'm pairing Raw Intuition with Awareness, and I am in fact doing just that. I will admit that I actually have the two moves macro'd to avoid any blunders of accidentally hitting one and not the other. Whenever I use that macro I always check my buffs and make sure both are up, and not just one. So no extra squishiness comes from accidental crits due to Intuition. Caitlinzulu also mentioned pairing an Beserk with an AoE for healing, but since Beserk doesn't offer healing anymore, we can't do that, sadly! I also failed to realize that the war tank stance doesn't give damage reduction, it just gives an HP increase. Don't ask me how I didn't notice that...

I also believe that what vVAstrAVv said might be true, drk has two CD's for normal use, and one that is very situational for magic. Coming from that onto War, which has so many CD's, some of which need to be paired with others to be fully effective, like Thrill of Battle paired with Conv, I think I'm not popping things correctly and so I feel much squishier than I am. I start fighting a group of things and pop Rampart and Vengeance and that's it, when I have a few other CD's I can be using but I don't think of. That actually brings another question to mind, does Rampart and Vengeance stack together? I'm just curious if they're worth stacking together, or if I should use them separately.

[Megguido]

I would suggest to not macro your defensive skills. You want to activate those at a precise moment, you need it to be as responsive as possible. Macros aren't responsive. Also sometimes you want to use Raw Intuition without Awareness (to boost Shake it Off shield for example), or just to mitigate a guaranteed critical hit (like Shinryu ex' or Halicarnassus' tankbuster). You don't have that much buttons to deal with as a warrior, I'm sure you can do great with Raw Int and Awareness on a separate button

On the WAR vs DRK topic, a common mistake is thinking "more cooldown" = "better". For example, WAR has a 20% HP boost on a 120s cooldown, DRK has a 20% HP shield on a 15s cooldown. Also a warrior has to sacrifice its own damage output to use on-demand mitigation (Inner Beast), whereas PLD and DRK can use Sheltron or The Blackest Night without any drawback. What makes WAR's defensive kit OP isn't its 3782 defensive abilities, it's Holmgang.

Also, while pulling several mobs in dungeons, you want to cycle through all your cooldowns, starting with the most powerful. For example, start with Vengence, then Rampart, then Awareness + Raw Int, then Thrill + Convalescence. Rampart and Vengence stack together, but in a multiplicative way (it's not 20%+30% = 50%, it is 20%*30% = 44% damage reduction).

[Tex_Mex]

Also, while pulling several mobs in dungeons, you want to cycle through all your cooldowns, starting with the most powerful. For example, start with Vengence, then Rampart, then Awareness + Raw Int, then Thrill + Convalescence. Rampart and Vengence stack together, but in a multiplicative way (it's not 20%+30% = 50%, it is 20%*30% = 44% damage reduction).

Megguido nailed it here. Proper cooldown cycling is incredibly important for large pulls in SB dungeons. The layout and order he listed are exactly what I use as well. And considering how short all the CD's are, you will just about always have some of them up for the next pull. No 3 minute CD's here! (F-YOU Sentinel)

[HyoMinPark]

Caitlinzulu also mentioned pairing an Beserk with an AoE for healing, but since Beserk doesn't offer healing anymore, we can't do that, sadly!

You can still heal yourself in Berserk/Inner Release in large packs: Berserk/IR > Steel Cyclone. Steel Cyclone has a passive healing attached to it.

EDIT: TouchandFeel explained it.