5.0 WAR is a disappointment

[Nyxheart]

We used to have brutal swing, dot, and execute (it's been so long I've forgotten the names of these actions)

The dot was Fracture and I believe the execute that gave back health if it was the move that killed was called Mercy Stroke... I'll have to check my hotbar of unusable moves when I get home to be sure.

[NyneSwordz]

The dot was Fracture and I believe the execute that gave back health if it was the move that killed was called Mercy Stroke... I'll have to check my hotbar of unusable moves when I get home to be sure.

That's it. Been so long...

[cjparmen]

Was going to make a long post, but instead I think it's easier to sum it up as: Shadowbringers has been the straw that broke the camel's back for me, and if I were actually raiding this expansion I wouldn't be playing WAR. Not for DPS problems or balance problems, but just because it's now so far removed from the job I loved in ARR that I feel like it's not even WAR anymore. Some people might like the direction WAR has been headed in since Heavensward, but what made me love the job in ARR was the synergy between offense and defense. Slowly, over each expansion, that's been removed in favor of making WAR a DPS that happens to have defensive CDs. I hope the people who enjoy that have a good time with WAR, but it's personally really disappointing to see what happened to it.

i totally agree in some aspects, ARR WAR was pretty bad seeing as at the time the PLD had an tank and a dps stance but it took till HW for the WAR to get it. from HW till now WAR was pretty much the Beat class, you would get aggro the swap stance and reck shit. but now in ShB it feels kinda off, sure its more high risk/reward now and thats good makes me think GCD and CDs more often then i have been. but the thing that made the WAR what it was was also the fact it had the highest HP pool out of the tanks, and thats before it lost its tank stance bonus. i wanna say before ShB i was ilvl 386 and with out tank stance had about 99k+ HP with tank stance it was easily over 100k. i am currently lvl76ish and have about between 93 and 94k HP.

[whiskeybravo]

The dot was Fracture and I believe the execute that gave back health if it was the move that killed was called Mercy Stroke... I'll have to check my hotbar of unusable moves when I get home to be sure.

Was definitely Mercy Stroke. Better on melee DPS since it did more damage but was still super fun to use.

[BarretOblivion]

Either way, getting a DoT back that cost maybe 20 guage would mean alot to WAR and the slow pace of the class between Inner Releases.

[TouchandFeel]

I personally don't want to see WAR get more oGCD direct attack abilities outside of what it already has, at least not for now. To me WAR's style is more about empowering or enabling strong GCD attacks like Infuriate does with Inner Chaos and Chaotic Cyclone. I think the focus on oGCD attacks that directly do damage should be more of DRKs niche, while WAR does fewer direct attacks that are GCD based that are buffed by oGCDs to keep with the heavier hitting attacks theme. Lots of numbers vs. bigger numbers basically.

[Launched]

Nascent Flash feels really weird to me. It's obviously meant to be WAR's version of a single target support skill, but it feels like its best use is for healing on trash pulls. When it comes to using it on other people, the 10% feels low and the healing feels unnoticeable even if you use Inner Chaos during it. I dunno, maybe the healing actually is relevant but seeing the other tank's health bar barely move just feels underwhelming. It just seems worse than the single target support of the 3 other tanks, but I don't know what I'd do to change it because I wouldn't want to lose the dungeon self healing.

Overall WAR just feels good but doesn't have anything to make it stand out compared to the other tanks. It needs something to make it worth taking, and a small DPS buff is probably a good place to start because there's no way PLD should be ahead of anyone in DPS. No one wants to wait until the second or third raid tier for some crit scaling to possibly let WAR catch up.

[NyneSwordz]

To summarize, I think war issues are

(1) lower dps compared to other tanks
(2) onslaught costing rage
(3) nascent flash not being self targetable and impossible to use without a macro.

The lower dps is not a big issue for me. I hope (1) and (2) gets addressed in 5.05...

[MerlinCross]

Was definitely Mercy Stroke. Better on melee DPS since it did more damage but was still super fun to use.

And not every melee DPS had an execute. I think Ninja was the only one at first and then SAM came along but it was removed before that job hit.

I don't know why they removed that, just a little bit more damage to maybe get over the hump of enrage.

[whiskeybravo]

To summarize, I think war issues are

(1) lower dps compared to other tanks
(2) onslaught costing rage
(3) nascent flash not being self targetable and impossible to use without a macro.

The lower dps is not a big issue for me. I hope (1) and (2) gets addressed in 5.05...

DPS is only really noticeable at the extreme end of the spectrum due to padding. I occasionally play with one of the top GNB/PLDs on Primal DC and I only fall behind outside of burst unless I mess something up. Once burst is up we are even or I'm ahead.

As for Onslaught, there's little they can do that's going to "close the gap" on this ability. Perhaps if it was free and remained 10 sec recast it would, but then it really only puts us in the same situation where if we don't use it constantly on CD then we're losing potential dps. Onslaught "as is" is fine, it's really the other gap closers that are comparatively overtuned.

I use Nascent Flash just fine without macro, and on a controller. I agree that the 10% is pretty minuscule and the heal even more so unless it magically lines up with IC or IR (which it has a few times so far), but I don't see why it should be targetable on self unless we're going to get rid of Raw Intuition. Along those lines I'd probably prefer to have 1 ability with dual use instead of 2 abilities with different uses tied to the same CD (I would've thought they learned from Unchained/IR). But it seems silly to ask for both without a compromise on RI.