how do you maximize storm's path?

[Shuon]

after getting inner beast, i was really looking forward to SP for it's healings, but it feels a little underwhelming i.e. i'm probably not using it right.

please note i'm talking about 38 to 50 so I'm not going into the whole warrior-is-inferior-for-endgame area at all.

anyhow, here is my basic 'rotation'

1. i basically activate bloodbath and berserk tgt whenever they are ready, and i do get a nice bit of hp back from them
2. i use inner beast whenever it is available and if i'm being attacked. this heals me for almost 1/5 of my hp, and since i religiously maintain my combos, i get wraths pretty fast, so i honestly doubt i'm missing much of the extra healings as just because i'm not infuriated does not mean that i do not have wrath bonuses - i still do, only slightly lesser. bottomline: i could heal myself quite well with inner beast
3. i try to pop second wind tgt with berserk if i'm being attacked, but if it is at an easy phase, i save it for later.
4. generically, i use thrill of battles when second wind is cooled down to halfway point, esssentially to maintain a constantly amoutn of healing i can do to myself.
5. if i expect spike damage, i save the second wind and thrill of battle for that.

now to SP - i just feel that it is not healing enough. i usually pick a monster about 5 to 7 levels above me, summon my chocobo and try to fight it to emulate tanking in a party. i could pretty much stay at 90% all the time with inner beast and all that, so i was thinking maybe SP could help me to maintain my hp even if i become thrifty with IB, but it wasn't really the case as it just wasn't healing enough. I have leveled via dungeons only thus far for both pld and war (except 35 to 38, where parties for temple and qarn are kinda rare and not all of them were viable). I am about to go into cutter's cry where I am expecting a lot of incoming damage, so I wanna figure this out before proceeding, and no I dont wanna fate because i wanna 'master' all the dungeons.

Any advise on how to best use this?

[JormungandrVanagandr]

The best advice for using Storm's Path is to not use it at all. It's worthless. The TP cost is absurd for what it gives. If, for some reason, you're desperately clinging to life it may be worth using, but those opportunities are few and far between

[Shuon]

But not using it seems counter intuitive.

First, it combos off Maim (a buff I believe should always be up), and stopping at Maim to go back to Heavy Swing means that I am wasting a Wrath, as the Wrath I could be getting from that SP must now be obtained from a HA > SS. If we really are going to self-heal, getting back as much Wraths as possible should be the priority imo?

Secondly, there must be a reason for it to exist. Or at least I believe there should be lol.

[calamityz]

It's best if you just maximize your DPS. Whatever the 20% damage you get from Maim and resistance debuff from SE will outweigh the heals from SP when you need to use IB. Other than that maybe pray for lucky crits when you blow berserk + inner release.

[Lhun]

But not using it seems counter intuitive.
Secondly, there must be a reason for it to exist. Or at least I believe there should be lol.

OMG. Can I give you some kind of prize for being the first player on this forum so far who actually GETS IT?!

The best use of it currently, according to all the data I have to go on is:

With or without internal release (release is better).

Use it as the first, at the start of your 3 bloodbath combos, when you don't have Infuriate and you need to build wrath. It gives 50% damage as health. Maim reduces the damage penalty and BloodBath's bonus stacks with Storm's Path's bonus to give you 75% as health. This is a respectable number already, crit it and you're laughing.

I follow up with Vengence, then a butcher's block. 5 stacks of wrath, Inner Beast with a lovely 25% bonus on top of it's 300% bonus, WHICH ALSO STACKS. yay.

[Ninjiitstu]

It gives 50% damage as health. Maim reduces the damage penalty and BloodBath's bonus stacks with Storm's Path's bonus to give you 75% as health. This is a respectable number already, crit it and you're laughing.

That isn't how math works.

[Lhun]

That isn't how math works.

Storm's Path
Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
Combo Action: Maim
Combo Potency: 250
Combo Bonus: Absorbs 50% of damage dealt as HP.
Grants Wrath when used with Defiance.
Duration: 30s

Bloodbath
Converts 25% of physical damage dealt into HP.
Duration: 30s

Assume you do 185 damage with Storm's Path (that's what I get with defiance on). With your magic math that somehow works differently then actual math, how much health do you get back?

Lol he's trying to justify it with math. No matter what you do Maim+SE debuff IB > Storm's Path. Learn to manage infuriate.

You're the one who doesn't know how to manage infuriate.

You missed the part where you do 3 total combos during blood bath's duration. Yes, the Maim+SE debuff is awesome. That's why you do it as the SECOND COMBO, or, if you've already got SE debuff up and running, you do heavy->sunder->BB, THEN heavy->maim->SP because your maim just ran out.

If you pay attention, the game practically tells you how to play Warrior for maximum damage and health back. (you're basically doing combos to make sure Eye and Maim are always on) Also, SP generates wrath. using that combo with berzerk and venge and bloodbath is the fastest PATH to Infurate. Get it?

IB is great always. Maim + Eye debuff is great too. Path + Eye debuff + bloodbath is GREAT and nobody uses it.

Shuon:
the maths is correct.
1. start with maim combo ending with SE (for buff and debuff) (2 wraths)
2. blooodbaths + berserk
3. BB combo (4 wraths)
4. HS - maim (infuriated) - IB - SP
5. BB combo (blood bathe and berserk should end sometime in this phase) (3 wraths)
6. stun during pacification
7. BB combo (infuriated) - IB

This is one way of weaving it, yes. I save Berserk for Second Wind personally. in step 5 you assume bath wears out at this point (it doesn't) And you missed vengeance In there, which can skip the second (redundant) maim in step 4, making you infuriated sooner, and you're not using maim on top of itself. Avoid that. I do the butcher's block combo after Eye in the beginning of the chain.

Hate will absolutely not be a problem at all, your best tool for holding hate (butcher's block) has been hit 3 times by the end, on top of all the massive damage you're doing. Also, Vengeance is great damage. I would toss a fracture after SP usually too.

I find the amount of HP that SP returns hardly earns it a space on my shortcut bars.

Only because you're not comboing it with bloodbath. It should be run after Eye debuff is up, when you're building wrath (it has a wrath modifier), and used to reset the maim timer.

[calamityz]

Lol he's trying to justify it with math. No matter what you do Maim+SE debuff IB > Storm's Path. Learn to manage infuriate.

[konflikti]

You get 92.5 HP back, from three GCD rotation. GCD ~ 2.5, so: 92.5HP / 7.5s which equals around 12.27 HP/s (I am not counting Bloodbath, because you can get more Bloodbath HP gain from doing other WAR combos, than doing Path-combo). This is in the extremely optimist situation that you can just spam SP combo and not worry about anything else. It doesn't really matter, considering you are also denying yourself SE debuff and more damage through BB combo.

IB is good because you can use it as massive burst heal, my WAR has far from perfect gear but I can still crit over 2k heal from IB, which is far more useful than ~100HP every 7.5s.

[AridElf]

I find the amount of HP that SP returns hardly earns it a space on my shortcut bars. The time it takes for you to get to the combo stage of using it the damage you've sustained is likely far higher than what you get back from it. It may seem good now but later on it's borderline worthless against HM primals and higher level dungeons. You're better off with your enmity combo until you get Storm's Eye, even then that's just for a short dps buff/debuff combo.