WAR and Wrath: Important Mechanics Discussed.

[Viridiana]

Yeah, actually i wondered: what does that mean exactly ? That now the racial differences are gone at last ?

That would be my assumption. The discrepancy in the original report would've been a bug, so I assume they caught it and fixed it.

[Terabyt3]

Grrrrr I do hate ninja patches! If it was a problem the least they could do was acknowledge it!

[Casper]

Truth be told, as a lalafell pld, i was worried sick by the news that race played a part in enmity generation and that i was on the loosing side. So good riddance, i don't care they hid it under the carpet as long as it's gone

[Hachiko]

Sword Oath provides a whopping 2-3% increase to enmity generation. If Shield Oath provides anything *remotely* close to a visible increase in enmity generation over the baseline, it's going to do more than Sword Oath.

What you seem to be confusing is that they had to deal with the random differentiation in baseline before they actually started testing the stances. It was the hidden X factor that screwed things up, not the stances themselves. When they accounted for the X factor, they found exactly what I've been describing.

Nope, I've actually tested it multiple times. Shield Oath doesn't do what you think it does, and Sword Oath will always generate more enmity. Last night I did an informal test. I was in a party with another paladin and we were doing the final step in the DD chain with the single boss. The other PLD was 46 and I was 48, but we were both in shield stance and the other tank had a slight lead on me (maybe 3-5%, just a sliver) which I could not close. This is despite using Fight or Flight, and Spirits within on cooldown, along with the full Rage of Halone combo (did 5 halone combos without catching up). So I'm going to assume the other PLD wasn't screwing something up. (The reason I was behind was probably because I'm using a lvl 41 weapon at level 48).

So I went through 5 Halone combos, and I just kept falling further and further behind. So I decided to see what would happen if I swapped to Sword Oath. Within 3 Halone combos I was at the top and tanking the boss. I may have gotten a Spirits Within in there but that's neither here nor there. The other PLD didn't stop tanking the boss, I could clearly see them and their enmity didn't just fall off, each halone combo only put me a sliver closer and it only took 3 to close the gap.

This is pretty much anecdotal "Testing" but I've been in situations like this several times, this was just the first time it was PLD vs PLD. And every time it ends with the Sword Oath Paladin pulling.

Moral of the story: Shield Oath does not work the way you think it does and Sword Oath generates more enmity than being in shield oath. It makes sense, too. If you look at Enmity per global it's more than a 2% increase. It works out to ~54 enmity-potency per global. While Auto Attacks are 83, and Halone combo is 683. (Circle and Spirits are close to 25 each, you know this). so you have 816 baseline, and 870 in Sword Oath. That's a ~6.7% increase, which is noticeable.

[Tanaya]

My big revelation to Sword Oath/Shield Oath is when I was the offtank in CM, and the MT Paladin had 9 more STR than me, and Curtana+1. I had Garuda's Gaze.

When we were both in Shield Oath, he had a comfortable lead, even if I was going all out. When I switched to Sword Oath, I slowly crept up and overtook the MT PLD despite having less STR and a much weaker weapon. And you can't tell me that tank was bad because if he was, I would've pulled aggro when I had Shield Oath up. I had similar cases to these before, but that was the biggest observation.

Ancedotal is Ancedotal, but sometimes observation is all it takes to show the theory doesn't work in practice.

Moral of the story: Shield Oath does not work the way you think it does and Sword Oath generates more enmity than being in shield oath. It makes sense, too. If you look at Enmity per global it's more than a 2% increase. It works out to ~54 enmity-potency per global. While Auto Attacks are 83, and Halone combo is 683. (Circle and Spirits are close to 25 each, you know this). so you have 816 baseline, and 870 in Sword Oath. That's a ~6.7% increase, which is noticeable.

Could you elaborate on this? I'd like to know the math.

[Kitru]

So I went through 5 Halone combos, and I just kept falling further and further behind. So I decided to see what would happen if I swapped to Sword Oath. Within 3 Halone combos I was at the top and tanking the boss. I may have gotten a Spirits Within in there but that's neither here nor there. The other PLD didn't stop tanking the boss, I could clearly see them and their enmity didn't just fall off, each halone combo only put me a sliver closer and it only took 3 to close the gap.

If you were behind for 37.5 seconds and it took 22.5 seconds with a 6.7% increase in enmity generation, the other tank would have had to have been generating only 2.5% more enmity per GCD than you. At margins that small, a single crit on your end or a miss on his/her end would be more than enough for you to pull ahead. Since the level difference at that point is more than enough for there to be a not-insubstantial chance to miss, I'm more than willing to bet it was the RNG that made you pull ahead.

As for more anecdotal testing, I've run Garuda HM loads and loads of times where the OT runs in DPS mode and spends the entire first phase beating on the boss (tank damage on the adds is negligible so I generally tell the OT to not even bother). Not once has the OT even gotten *close* to my enmity on the boss, even when it's a PLD in Sword Oath who's only real option is Halone spam. Even accounting for the slight aggro advantage gained with the Shield Lob pull, the OT would *have* to at least make some strides on closing the enmity gap and, no matter what, that gap either gets larger or stays exactly where it is.

Even when I was leveling my PLD, the same thing happened: I never had anyone that *wasn't* in a tank stance get close to pulling enmity off of me. I ran Svara *so* many times it approached the disgusting and the only time that I was ever *not* the one tanking her was when there was a WAR that was 2 levels higher than me running in Defiance and we spent a lot of that time trading enmity back and forth, which suggests that we were matched and RNG variations like crits and misses were making the difference.

Much of the problem I can see with this debate is that the only real evidence is anecdotal and much of that is contradictory, in no small part thanks to the utter inability to actually control a *lot* of important variables (gear, skill, stat allotment). The rigorously tested stuff hasn't been able to come to a reasonable conclusion because it's apparent that there are some unknown variables involved (it might just be that I'm a Miqo'te and you're a Roegadyn; the Ventus test surmised that there might be some hidden racial mod where Miqo'te generate a lot more enmity), and it's been impossible to find any solid numbers.

If you look at Enmity per global it's more than a 2% increase.

Yeah, I was dividing the enmity generation by the per-combo rather than by the per GCD, which is why it was roughly 1/3rd of what it should have been. My bad on that.

[Hachiko]

If you were behind for 37.5 seconds and it took 22.5 seconds with a 6.7% increase in enmity generation, the other tank would have had to have been generating only 2.5% more enmity per GCD than you. At margins that small, a single crit on your end or a miss on his/her end would be more than enough for you to pull ahead. Since the level difference at that point is more than enough for there to be a not-insubstantial chance to miss, I'm more than willing to bet it was the RNG that made you pull ahead.

It was a small margin which is why I decided to try. I was very close, but gradually going down (losing about a single sliver on the enmity bar every 2-3 rotations. After I took the boss though, she didn't go back. I was losing ground, slowly, to the tank in shield oath, and then I was gaining in sword oath. It wasn't rng or a fluke unless it was 30-50 seconds worth of flukes after I took the boss.

It's easier to judge in this situation, because when you are in a situation where you are already ahead, seeing the difference between ahead and more ahead is difficult, and seeing the difference of behind and less (or more) behind is also difficult.

[VahnValbosce]

Well apparently I got suspended for "being rude" not sure how that works, but yea.

Said I would post a screen of turn 4 and I have it, just couldn't post before.

Also an update on what Yoshi said himself on the live letter.



y; people also are testing rath and use gensho (english?? the healing one)
y; You should wait for heal before using gensho as you get more heal
y; PLD has high VIT but with WAR you can heal about same amount and if you have rath on you’ll take much more.
y; if you heal after rath the buff is gone so you’ll get lower hp
y; how you run through the pattern is really hard
y; for healers if the WAR uses gensho it’s hard to heal
y; for that reason people think WAR is softer tank than PLD
y; so we think this is bit too hard so we’ll be making changes in 2.1

[EddieFong]

WAR is not going to be changed, this has already been confirmed. You guys should just quit whining about it and learn to deal with the fact that you're not going to b playing a PLD tank if you equip an axe. Get over it.

Another wannabe pro here.. Sad case he don't know what is going on.. And keep talking =( warior not going to change? I don't see he know what the problem here... Please post ur coil video how u tank 2 dreadnaught.

[Hitokirinomad]

Vahn,

Just curious, since I was impressed and wanted to see your gear, but you had your monk up. When I went to check out your other tank, I noticed that everybody was on a different server from you. Why did you end up leaving an FC that was willing to take you into Turn 4(and able to complete it with you there)? Not entirely relevant, I guess, but it did seem odd. I'd want to keep that group of people close to me.