Thread: Warrior "buff" in 2.1: not what we are expecting?

Originally Posted by Amas

lolwut?

WAR...
-Takes more damage
-Requires more healing
-Does comparable damage & threat on a single target (generally within 10%)
-Has a much harder time of sustained AoE threat generation
-Has far worse CDs (and still will)
-Has less utility (and still will)

WAR still will...
-Have a more complex core rotation to maximize threat, DPS, and buff/debuff uptime. It will be less forgiving of errors for optimal play, and even with optimal play will yield basically equal results to PLD as it is now.
-Have inferior baseline mitigation, which should be balanced by a more usable Inner Beast.
-Require more external healing, before accounting for Inner Beast.
-Suffer from inferior burst mitigation.
-Have a less user-friendly AoE threat generation tool.
-Have inferior CDs.
-Lack a Silence ability.
-Remain on par with PLD, by and large, for DPS whether main tanking or not.

Quite honestly I'm excited, as I'll actually have a reason to play WAR instead of PLD 24/7. Both classes will be useful and have their own advantages and disadvantages. The balance will be much closer than it is currently.

My biggest concern is the relative uptime of -20% DR buff from Inner Beast vs. Rampart. With optimal play WAR will have a considerable advantage, although the nature of the mechanisms does help counterbalance that. WAR will not be able to gain its DR buff prior to an alpha strike, and requires much more precise timing to use IB for burst mitigation compared to PLD with Rampart.

The devil will naturally be in the details, but at the end of the day PLD will still be far easier to play optimally, have better utility (on-demand Stun + a Silence), have much better burst mitigation, have more usable AoE threat generation, and instead of just outclassing WAR at all times in all situations, you'll have a compelling reason to consider using both tank classes depending on the situation.

You're correct that WAR takes more damage per GCD, however it does not require more Healing per GCD.

The passive mitigation will be approx. a flat 7~10% thanks to Storm's Path and Inner Beast.

Complex? No. Use Butcher combo until "safety-net" threat achieved, then use Storm's Path combo. Inner Beast at 5 stacks. That's it, that is not complex.

Inferior CDs? Yes, but superior active mitigation in the form of Inner Beast and Storm's Path.

Suffer from burst? No. Holmgang. Smaller CD, cannot die.

Silence? Irrelevant from a Tanking perspective.

Originally Posted by Garnatian

You're correct that WAR takes more damage per GCD, however it does not require more Healing per GCD.

The passive mitigation will be approx. a flat 7~10% thanks to Storm's Path and Inner Beast.

Complex? No. Use Butcher combo until "safety-net" threat achieved, then use Storm's Path combo. Inner Beast at 5 stacks. That's it, that is not complex.

Inferior CDs? Yes, but superior active mitigation in the form of Inner Beast and Storm's Path.

Suffer from burst? No. Holmgang. Smaller CD, cannot die.

Silence? Irrelevant from a Tanking perspective.

I specifically said "before Inner Beast" when it comes to healing per GCD. In theory, the point of the healing on Inner Beast is to address the delta between -20% damage taken and +20% healing received (they are NOT equivalent). Tanks requiring equivalent external healing is a major component of overall balance.

Incoming damage is not flat, so looking at flat mitigation doesn't tell the whole story. A truly excellent tank will actually get more distance out of Inner Beast with fight knowledge than simply looking at the flat case, while most tanks will generally get less (more major spikes will slip between IB buff windows).

Complex? Yes, but not always. Storm's Path combo does not generate threat faster than competent DPS classes playing properly, so managing buff uptime while using BB combos for additional threat will still require more attention than just mindlessly spamming Halone combos. Inner Beast at 5 stacks? Mostly yes, but knowing when to use it or delay it based on the fight at hand will be one thing that separates a competent WAR from a great WAR.

Superior active mitigation? Yes, but not by a major amount. A group with WAR+PLD means you can effectively remove Storm's Path from comparison as either tank would benefit from it equally. It's only relevant in the case of 2x WAR vs. 2x PLD, which will seemingly be inferior to a mixed pair but 2x PLD will still surpass 2x WAR because of things like Spirits Within and Hallowed Ground.

Suffer from burst? Yes. Very much yes. Hallowed Ground = zero damage taken. Not only can't you die, you require precisely 0 MP for its duration. Holmgang, not so much. You still eat the burst and have to be healed up from it, you just can't die from it. On top of that, Sentinel shames any other tool in WAR's arsenal for burst mitigation. Can die, but unlikely as hell. PLD CDs are straight-up better for mitigating burst, especially in windows longer than 6 seconds.

Silence... Irrelevant? ADS in Turn 1 + all of Turn 2? Sure, you can just 2x BRD everything, but BRD is getting nerfed in 2.1 (as it needs to be), and once that happens the prevalence of 2x BRD groups will drop like a stone. We already prefer to run with 1 BRD so that we can pack in more DPS, which means a tank that can silence High Voltage is an incredibly useful thing.

Originally Posted by Tiggy

Clearly you've never seen a proper Overpower spam. It isn't that difficult to run in, flash, coral them in front of me and spam overpower like mad. Not only do I get ridiculous threat, but I'm doing damage. Sure it's a cone, but it's not like it's difficult to do the job at all. Now with a defiance and a overpower enmity boost this will become even more effective. I have to disagree that I can't sustain it, and that it isn't user friendly.

And then you run out of TP and have no MP for flash and the next wave of adds spawns and you shout for TP song and then can't figure out why dps is so low when bard 1 lost 20% on tp song and bard 2 lost 20% on mp song. So you ask bard 2 to remove mp song, then you die because the whm wen't oom because they had to raise to dps early on in the fight and it was all for nothing.

Meanwhile a pld can run in that trash pack on turn 4 in BCB and spam 10+ flashes and circle of scorn, hold them all threw aoe dmg and single target riot blade to keep regenning enough MP for flash spam, proceed to phase 2 and pick up the night and solider and get mana back before phase 3. Oh and pld does all that without losing any TP because the regen rate on savage blade and riot blade is > what it uses with the flash and circle spam weaved in the rotation.

If I run my war on turn 4, I basically just stand there single targeting unil the night and soldier comes out. Then I flash them both for snap agro and pull back for 1 overpower, then I combo the soldier before the blm pulls it and flash to hold the night (thats 2 flashes), then I switch to combo the night and flash (last flash now Im oom), and pray the BLM doesn't crit. Because if I blow all my TP here... I have nothing for phase 3 where I need to overpower spam 1 rook and 5 spiders so the pld can have their rook killed and pick up the 2nd dreadnaught.