WAR and Wrath: Important Mechanics Discussed.

[Hachiko]

A competent tank will be able to keep enmity off of an equally or marginally better geared offtank. The problem is that there are a *lot* of incompetent tanks out there. PLD need only spam their Halone combo and use Spirits Within/Circle of Scorn along with Fight or Flight. WARs should use the BB>BB>SE rotation and learn to use Internal Release + Berserk whenever it's feasible.

This is absolutely not true. A PLD in Sword Oath spamming Rage of Halone combo will ALWAYS pull off of any tank in the game assuming relatively equal gear. It is the highest enmity generation per second in the game. As a WAR there is no way you could hold aggro off of a paladin in sword oath spamming RoH.

In fact, this is the only reason PLD Dps isn't very viable as an off-tank: they can't do it without pulling aggro.

[PessimiStick]

Over a minute FoF adds 15% damage. Over a minute Berserk adds 16.666% damage, but you get pacified. This is assuming 50% increased attack power is the same as 50% increased damage. Anybody know for a fact if it is? I'd love to know.

It's not. 50% damage would be much stronger than 50% AP. 50% AP is essentially 50% STR, it doesn't affect weapon damage. FoF and 'zerk are roughly equal in actual damage boost ('zerk is probably 5% better in raw damage, give or take), but FoF has 50% higher uptime and no pacify. It's strictly better.

[Viridiana]

Main tank turn 1 and 2? Do you even know what Tanking those turns consist of? LOL

Yep, I'm sure you can tank Caduceus after the split dies.

[Amyas]

it's 100% the healers keeping me up.

So do plds not rely on healers 'keeping them up' now?
Damn those OP paladins!! Oh, how I hate them!

This is absolutely not true. A PLD in Sword Oath spamming Rage of Halone combo will ALWAYS pull off of any tank in the game assuming relatively equal gear. It is the highest enmity generation per second in the game. As a WAR there is no way you could hold aggro off of a paladin in sword oath spamming RoH.

In fact, this is the only reason PLD Dps isn't very viable as an off-tank: they can't do it without pulling aggro.

I want to test this out now. I thought the sword oath only buffed auto-attacks too, how would that help your combo out? Would it really pull off a pld in equal gear with shield oath spamming RoH combo? Or a war in defiance spamming nothing but Butcher's block combo? I need some tangible answers D:

[Leiron]

I want to test this out now. I thought the sword oath only buffed auto-attacks too, how would that help your combo out? Would it really pull off a pld in equal gear with shield oath spamming RoH combo? Or a war in defiance spamming nothing but Butcher's block combo? I need some tangible answers D:

Its because a Pally in shield Oath takes a hit of 20% to their damage output, or a 25% overall damage loss.
So a Pally in sword oath isn't suffering the 20% damage loss, and because the enmity multiplier supposedly, is equivalent to a 20% damage boost, a Pally in sword oath/ Warrior not in defiance can generate greater enmity.

[Hachiko]

Its because a Pally in shield Oath takes a hit of 20% to their damage output, or a 25% overall damage loss.
So a Pally in sword oath isn't suffering the 20% damage loss, and because the enmity multiplier supposedly, is equivalent to a 20% damage boost, a Pally in sword oath/ Warrior not in defiance can generate greater enmity.

The difference isn't as big for a WAR outside of defiance.

A PLD in shield oath v. a PLD in Sword Oath is something like going from 80% of "base" dps to 118% of "base" dps. It's roughly a 43% increase in damage dealt. For a WAR, simply dropping Defiance is effectively less than a 25% increase, because you lose access to Inner Beast, and you lose your 0-10% bonus crit chance. So it's more like a 20-21% dps increase to drop Defiance. This, plus the way Fight or Flight and Berserk work puts the PLD in sword oath even further ahead.

So basically a WAR in Defiance can compete with a WAR not in defiance for enmity, it will be close and most likely depend on gear + rotation. But for a PLD the difference is massive because they have sword oath, which makes it very hard to compete even if the tank has better gear.

WAR are better at off-tank DPS primarily because Storm's Eye is a pretty decent combo in terms of potency (only 20 behind BB combo for the whole thing) but it doesn't generate any enmity or drain TP too quickly. For PLD, Fast Blade -> Riot Blade is a decent combo too, but you're talking about 160 enmity every 5 seconds, which will run them dry very quickly.

[Kitru]

This is absolutely not true. A PLD in Sword Oath spamming Rage of Halone combo will ALWAYS pull off of any tank in the game assuming relatively equal gear. It is the highest enmity generation per second in the game. As a WAR there is no way you could hold aggro off of a paladin in sword oath spamming RoH.

In fact, this is the only reason PLD Dps isn't very viable as an off-tank: they can't do it without pulling aggro.

Your entire premise is predicated upon the idea that the enmity generation increase from Defiance and Shield Oath is only enough to offset the reduction in damage dealt, which is not true. It may not be 2x like it used to be, but it is most definitely more than enough to offset the reduction in damage dealt. I know this because I've tanked while in Defiance and while outside of Defiance; I generate noticeably more enmity while in Defiance than while outside of it.

Sword Oath equates to, roughly, a 17.5% increase in total DPS without it active. If Shield Oath provides a 50% increase in enmity generation, it would equate to generating 20% more enmity than capable while outside of it. And that's a conservative estimate, honestly, because the enmity generation increase that I've seen is definitely more than a 2.12% increase. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it were actually a 2x multiplier still, because that would be a 36% increase in total enmity generation. A 75% increase in enmity generation is a 19.1% increase.

I can tell you that even a PLD spamming Halone can't pull off of me while I'm playing a WAR or PLD, and I've seen them try. If the tank actually knows how to maximize their enmity generation rather than just doing barely enough, like spamming BB or not using CoS/SW, a tank playing DPS isn't going to be able to pull off of them. A bad tank is going to get a dps PLD ripping off of them insanely easily.

[Hachiko]

Your entire premise is predicated upon the idea that the enmity generation increase from Defiance and Shield Oath is only enough to offset the reduction in damage dealt, which is not true.

It's been demonstrated to be true. Shield oath is not a 2x or even 1.5x multiplier on enmity.

[RapBreon]

It's not. 50% damage would be much stronger than 50% AP. 50% AP is essentially 50% STR, it doesn't affect weapon damage. FoF and 'zerk are roughly equal in actual damage boost ('zerk is probably 5% better in raw damage, give or take), but FoF has 50% higher uptime and no pacify. It's strictly better.

I thought AP was literally the sole stat that affected your damage? Oh it is, it's just weapon damage is factored isn't factored in on the stat, DERP go me. Thanks for the response.

[Tenebrisme]

Do you guys think he (Yoshi) could be implying WAR isn't being played right execution wise? Like skill usage, combos, situational reaction, etc. Obvs. devs know something we don't unless he's just trolling.

-Just realized I posted in wrong thread..derp-