XIV WAR Tanking - Baseline Mitigation and PLD comparison

[Hachiko]

There has been a lot of stuff flying around after YoshiP’s semi dismissive “L2P WAR” answer during the live letter (assuming it is was interpreted properly in the context, and I have the utmost confidence in Reinheart).

The point of this post of this is to show that when it comes to the job of tanking, in terms of surviving while a boss beats on them, Warriors simply are significantly an inferior tank. Many people seem to be fundamentally missing some things about Warriors. I want to use this to make the following points:

1. WAR has the same Effective Health as a PLD before counting things like Rage of Halone or Cooldowns.
2. All forms of healing are more effective on a PLD
3. Damage (and % based heals) shields are equally effective on both tanks
4. Inner Beast does not close the gap between Defiance and Shield Oath, and provides only mediocre mitigation as damage increases.

For the purpose of this analysis, I will assume that there are no crits for either job, that the Paladin is not using a shield (no blocks), and that the Rage of Halone debuff is never up. Also we assume equal base stats, and equal base armor. (yes, WAR will have ~100 more effective health at 50, but this works out to ~1-2% more hp in high end gear, and can be ignored.)

1. Effective Health

Warrior Effective health is easy to calculate. Of course health will differ depending on the gear you have, but since both have access to the same gear we can hold that constant, as well as stat points assuming both put all stat points into VIT.

Warriors get 25% additional health, while Paladins get 20% damage reduction. This leaves them at the same effective health.

For a WAR in Defiance effective health = Base Health * 1.25.
For a PLD in Shield Oath, effective health = Base Health / .8

So, if a WAR has 4000 base health, and a PLD has 4000 base health, both will end with 5000 effective health.

Another way to think about this is to look at a WAR with 4000 base health and a PLD with 4000 base health. Assume a monster does a baseline 1000 damage per attack to both (and that the PLD is just standing there with no shield on) and neither parries.

The WAR in defiance will die in 5 hits. The PLD in shield oath will have each hit reduced to 800, and die in 5 hits (5x800 = 4000).

Thus, it should be obvious that WAR has no “hp advantage” over the PLD.


2. Healing Efficiency

It’s often claimed that heals are “more effective” on Warriors. This is not true. Warriors are at ~9% disadvantage when it comes to the amount of healing they need to top them off. This is because % damage reduction works effectively as % increased healing.

Again, let’s look at a PLD and WAR with 4k base HP each.

Suppose a boss just did a huge 4,500 damage (Base) attack and neither blocked or parried it, or use any other skills.

The WAR would be reduced to 500 / 5000 hp.
The PLD would be reduced to 400 / 4000 hp.

At this point both tanks have 10% of their HP remaining and are on completely equal footing.

Now, for a PLD to be healed to full they need to receive 3600 healing.
For a WAR to be healed to full they need to receive 4500 after the 15% bonus, or 3913 healing. (4500 = x * 1.15, solve for x).

This is a difference of 313 healing, which is a ~9% more healing. This is because the damage reduction reduces the amount of heals required to mitigate the damage.

If it wasn’t obvious enough, we can calculate the amount of healing bonus that -20% damage recieved works out to. 3600 * y = 4500. Solve for y, y = 1.25.

Thus, PLD effectively have 25% bonus incoming healing at all times.

This ~9% difference means that WAR will require, at a baseline, at least 9% more healing than the PLD, and this is ignoring the fact that the PLD can block, as well as ignoring the -10% STR debuff from Rage of Halone.

3. Damage Shields

Often people want to throw out the idea that damage shields are more effective on a WAR, usually because WAR has more HP and stoneskin #’s are based on max HP. This is not true though and they are equally effective on both a WAR and PLD

First, Stoneskin.

For a PLD with 4000 hp, stoneskin will grant 720 HP for a total EHP of 5900.
For a WAR with 5000 hp, Stoneskin will grant 900 HP for a total EHP of 5900.

It’s worth noting that this actually is significant, because unlike heals, at least stoneskin is equally effective on both tanks. Unfortunately, due to the long cast time of Stoneskin and the fact that it is so mana intensive, healing primarily or entirely through Stoneskin is not ideal. And furthermore, stoneskin is not improved by the healer’s gear and can not crit. So relying on it 100% would be unwise.

It’s also worth noting that Lustrate is effectively the same as Stoneskin. It’s % of health based, and gains no increase from increased healing (or decreased healing) effects, which makes it equally effective at healing a PLD and WAR.

For Adloquiun (and to a lesser extent, succor) the situation is slightly different. Since the shield is based on healing done, the same applies here as the Healing Efficiency above.

To illustrate the point, let’s go back to a hypothetical situation where a boss is hitting for 1000 and the WAR / PLD have 4000 HP baseline, and we have a Scholar using only Adloquium to heal them, and Adloquium is healing for 500.

After boss hit #1 (assuming no pre-cast shield):
WAR at 4000 HP, (80%)
PLD at 3200 HP, (80%)

After Adloquium #1:
WAR at 4575 HP, 575 HP shield.
PLD at 3700 HP, 500 HP shield

After Boss hit #2
WAR at 4150 HP (83%), 0 Shield
PLD at 3400 HP (85%), 0 shield

After Adloquium #2
WAR at 4725 HP, 575 shield
PLD at 3900 HP, 500 shield

After Boss hit #3
WAR at 4300 HP (86%), 0 shield
PLD at 3600 HP (90%), 0 shield

After Adloquium #3
WAR at 4875, 575 shield (5450 Effective Health including the shield)
PLD at 4000 Health (100 overheal), 500 shield. (5625 Effective Health including the shield)

What this is meant to demonstrate is that Adloquium is simply more effective on a PLD than it is on a WAR. A paladin will be at full health after the 3rd cast, while a WAR will not hit full health until the 4th cast.

There is a slight residual benefit of Adloquium for a WAR is that is not pure healing power, but the fact that it makes it easier to correctly use Inner Beast. Because Adloquium is less likely to overheal than say, Cure 2, it means that using Inner Beast is less likely to overheal as well, which can make a SCH a slightly more efficient healer on a WAR, when compared to a WHM. But this doesn’t mean a SCH is more efficient on a WAR than they are on a PLD.