WAR and Wrath: Important Mechanics Discussed.

[VahnValbosce]

WAR's Need to stop blowing their wrath every chance they get. IB is for when you have infuriate up. Use IB then pop infuriate to immediately gain 5 stacks of wrath again and HOLD it.

IB -> Infuriate -> IB is dumb and needs to stop happening. -15% healing and -10% crit for 5 GCD's is bad (Even if you blow Berserk and Vengence for a quick 2 wrath, still way too long to have your full wrath down). WAR's just need to know when to pop Convalescence and HOLD your wrath, which in turn will cause healing for +35% more and you'll still be criting 10% more often. +35% healing combined with Featherfoot, Awareness and Foresight is a damn good defensive rotation.

Turn 1 and 2 were nothing and I downed turn 2 last night, went on through to turn 4 and am working to have that down soon. I'm a WAR and not going to re-roll to PLD as I really don't see an issue. Turn 4 the only problems we were having is that the DPS was low, but otherwise I was tanking fine.

EDIT: Yoshi said it himself in the recent 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


...
I was right all along <3 Yoshi ~

[VahnValbosce]

Just going to expand on some things. Let's further discuss when to pop defensive cooldowns.

1. +15% Healing (Full Wrath Stack)
2. +20% Healing (Convalescence)
3. +20% Defense (Foresight)
4. +20% Evasion (Featherfoot)
5. Inability to get Crit (Awareness)
6. 7200~ HP Pool (Depending on gear)
7. Ability to increase HP Pool to almost 9000~ (Thrill of Battle)

It is possible to have ALL of this blown at once, with a window of about 15~ Seconds of it all being up at once. That is HUGE. Just look at all those defensive abilities. Healers will have a huge HP Pool comfort zone, especially if you decide to pop ToB and get 9000~ Health.

Example: Tanking ADS, I simply popped this during the period I had to tank on Allagan Rot phase due to increased incoming damage from ADS. It's all a matter of "when" you pop your defensive GCD's.

[Kitru]

It is possible to have ALL of this blown at once, with a window of about 15~ Seconds of it all being up at once. That is HUGE. Just look at all those defensive abilities. Healers will have a huge HP Pool comfort zone, especially if you decide to pop ToB and get 9000~ Health.

And a PLD can get more than that.

You're arguing that a WAR can do well when it pops nearly all of its survivability CDs simultaneously (which, btw, can't be activated simultaneously so, if you stop attacking, you'll take 3-4 seconds to get all of those up thanks to waiting for the animations to finish). A PLD can do just as well blowing a single tank CD. The WAR CD suite is not amazing. In fact, it's pretty damned terrible.

[HiirNoivl]

Just going to expand on some things. Let's further discuss when to pop defensive cooldowns.

1. +15% Healing (Full Wrath Stack)
2. +20% Healing (Convalescence)
3. +20% Defense (Foresight)
4. +20% Evasion (Featherfoot)
5. Inability to get Crit (Awareness)
6. 7200~ HP Pool (Depending on gear)
7. Ability to increase HP Pool to almost 9000~ (Thrill of Battle)

It is possible to have ALL of this blown at once, with a window of about 15~ Seconds of it all being up at once. That is HUGE. Just look at all those defensive abilities. Healers will have a huge HP Pool comfort zone, especially if you decide to pop ToB and get 9000~ Health.

Example: Tanking ADS, I simply popped this during the period I had to tank on Allagan Rot phase due to increased incoming damage from ADS. It's all a matter of "when" you pop your defensive GCD's.

Still good. Similar to what I do. Of course, Featherfoot doesn't quite work on ADS. And of course you should spread these out. Don't for get Foresight as well. nvm my eye skipped over it.

You need to also use Berserk often so that your cooldowns are the best they can be. If you try to use them all at once you'll be WAY too exposed. So spread them out. When the attack ball pops near the end he hits really hard so be sure your ToB is up at that time and use Convalenscence and you'll be fine. But the important thing is that when you're doing the ADS (speaking of Turn 2 here) the timers are actually synced with the mobs so use this to your advantage.

There should be a MNK in your party to use Mantra for more healing, if not, a sch should be using Eye for an eye on you.

[Gamemako]

4. +20% Evasion (Featherfoot)

15%, chief. You're also talking about a "rotation" of using all your abilities at once, then waiting 3 minutes for the cooldowns. That's not a rotation, that's a last-ditch hail mary for survival.

PLD has identical eHP, so HP is no advantage. PLD has better versions of Awareness and Convalesce as they are native to GLA. Foresight (which PLD also cross-classes) reduces damage by a piddly 5% or so. Foresight is just comparable to Bulwark. Thrill of Battle is a 20% boost, but Rampart is an effective 25% boost over the duration AND an additional 25% effective healing.

[Gangaloo]

Have you tanked 2x Dreadnaught yet on Turn 4?

[HiirNoivl]

People always hate on success that "shouldn't happen"

[Gamemako]

Protip: people are hating on the massive, glaring gap between PLD and WAR. WAR has no real advantages whatsoever over PLD right now. The most effective way to play WAR is as a gimped PLD. All you get out of WAR is a badge that says you could have used a PLD and gotten it done much more easily. This isn't good. This isn't fun. This isn't balanced. It needs to be fixed.

[Junk4Brains]

Protip: people are hating on the massive, glaring gap between PLD and WAR. WAR has no real advantages whatsoever over PLD right now. The most effective way to play WAR is as a gimped PLD. All you get out of WAR is a badge that says you could have used a PLD and gotten it done much more easily. This isn't good. This isn't fun. This isn't balanced. It needs to be fixed.

I have to say I disagree. I find WAR very fun. And very good. And I don't care that PLD can get it done easier. Easy is not fun for me. 98% of this game is already laughably too easy. I like that WAR offers some challenging and engaging gameplay in an other wise lack luster game with watered downed.... **coughcough* I mean 'streamlined' mechanics. Not everything needs to be balanced. Some people actually enjoy playing games on harder difficulty settings where they are at a disadvantage and have to rely on player skill to win rather than overly forgiving game mechanics.

[Gamemako]

I have to say I disagree. I find WAR very fun. And very good.

I see from your profile that you are talking about early-game, where WAR is really fine. That has never been the issue. As you get into endgame content, WAR suffers immensely. Review information on Titan HM and BC. There are quite a few good threads here breaking down the math of how WAR completely falls apart.

Also, everything does need to be balanced. Persistent games have persistent rewards. If you want challenge, there are difficulty settings and commensurate rewards. Furthermore, when you play a team game, your gimped choice doesn't require more skill on your part, it just requires more skill on the part of your team. That you can be carried does not speak to your skill at all, nor does it make anyone want to bring your gimpy arse to the difficult content.