So what exactly IS the issue with Warrior?

[Necaust]

Hey all,

Leveling my WAR and already got PLD at level 50 and I'm failing to see what the issue is. This is probably due to the fact I haven't done much endgame but I'm trying to prepare myself for when I start on what issues I would run into when tanking as a Warrior. To me, it feels like they play like DKs in World of Warcraft and as such, should be sustaining themselves and helping WHM/SCH mana pools (That's their mitigation)

So could someone kindly tell me what 'issues' i'd run into that people constantly state Warriors are weaker than Paladins for tanking purposes? I'm not exactly seeing the problem here.

Main tanked few years on the DK. War doesn't feel anything like it.

[Eclipsed]

I'll share some observations of war tanking from my own experience as the pld in a pld/war team in coil currently working on t4 :

Turn 1 :

We constantly struggle with Caduceus. After the split the warrior is constantly getting destroyed after even 2-3 stacks of the boss buff. We have had far too many wipes because he gets near 1 shotted even at low stacks. His add usually dies with him lying on the floor and someone kiting it. I can take up to 6 stacks without issue as a pld and even take 8 for the duration of hallowed ground. Even with their massive hp warriors just don't have what it takes to survive the hits on this fight.

Turn 2 :

Same thing as T1 really. On ADS if I have to dodge a mechanic and am a second or two late on the tank swap as a result it almost always ends up with the war dying even at 3-4 stacks. I have held it with no problems at 6 stacks when the situation is reversed without Hallowed Ground.

Turn 4 :

Having a warrior tank here just makes this a terrible unorganized mess. Sure he can pick up the adds real good. But the healers gain so much aggro because he needs a ton of healing. As well as many dps die because he has to kite due to the massive amounts of incoming dmg, making his aggro low. Quite often he drops like a stone when picking up his adds due to unlucky high hits from the mobs.



Sure if everything goes perfect he can tank, but there is no room for luck or error with a warrior tank.

[Maqaqa]

cut

This is unfair... and not true.
While Caduceus hurts a lot, its nothing that a good war/sch duo cant handle.
ADS never have been an issue, not even in i70 gear. I remember having 6 stacks on me.
Finally, a war/pld setup is the best for both turn 4 and 5.

[Eclipsed]

This is unfair... and not true.
While Caduceus hurts a lot, its nothing that a good war/sch duo cant handle.
ADS never have been an issue, not even in i70 gear. I remember having 6 stacks on me.
Finally, a war/pld setup is the best for both turn 4 and 5.

Just stating my experience. Experiences may differ you know... All I really know is the second anything is even slightly off our warrior is lying on the floor and I am left holding the ball wondering why we even bring him. Maybe it's the healers... who knows... But I do know that they keep me up just fine and constantly complain about the truckload of dmg the warrior is taking.

[ZDamned]

Just stating my experience. Experiences may differ you know... All I really know is the second anything is even slightly off our warrior is lying on the floor and I am left holding the ball wondering why we even bring him. Maybe it's the healers... who knows... But I do know that they keep me up just fine and constantly complain about the truckload of dmg the warrior is taking.

Most healers complain about the truckload, even though Warriors don't look like they take any more damage than a paladin. When the heals go off, it's still very balanced as you can see from my example above which uses very close to reality numbers. it sounds to me like your warrior is a terrible player.

EDIT! I added %'s after the initial blow, and we actually take less damage % based initially, so unless a Pally Cooldown is in play, we still LOOK like were taking less damage overall. Emphasis on look like... hehe

[Eclipsed]

Most healers complain about the truckload, even though Warriors don't look like they take any more damage than a paladin. When the heals go off, it's still very balanced as you can see from my example above which uses very close to reality numbers. it sounds to me like your warrior is a terrible player.

Possible as well, can't really say myself. I jumped ship even though warrior was my first 50 at launch and leveled pld with only having ever did hard mode primals as a warrior. I love playing warrior but fully realize I take far less damage as a pld from my own experience. But I would not say I have enough experience at it to judge his skill.

Your example on a single hit does theoretically say that things are basically close on a single hit. The difference comes in when you start thinking about it in terms of multiple hits. Every single hit and heal rotation he is 2% further behind. 1st 2%, 2nd 4%, etc.. Where eventually it becomes an issue is that the healer needs to cast many extra heals for the warrior over the course of a long fight like a raid boss. Throw in pld's cooldowns and the pld needs 20-70-100% less healing for significant periods throughout the fight. It is not nearly as simple as comparing it on a base level as that.

[Kitru]

When the heals go off, it's still very balanced as you can see from my example above which uses very close to reality numbers. it sounds to me like your warrior is a terrible player.

WARs get 92% of the effective healing that a PLD does (PLD reduces damage by 80%, WAR increases it by 15%; 1.15 * .8 = .92), which means that WAR will require 8.7% more healing than a PLD over the same amount of time. It plays out with your numbers as well (2200 / .8 = 2750; 2530 / 2750 = .92). It might not seem like much when you factor in a single heal, but it does add up over a 10 minute fight.

Even if you factor in IB, there's still a loss: I manage roughly 1.2k with Inner Beast using Relic and 3/5 AF2; a similarly geared WHM is going to manage at least 1000 per Cure; assuming 1 Cure every 3 seconds to account for downtime and use of other more powerful heals, that's 60 Cures for the given time frame; 60 * 1000 * .087 = 5220 compared to 3 * 1200 = 3600 for 1620 more healing required.

The gap shrinks a lot when you use Inner Beast more than once per minute. Using Inner Beast at every possible interval will net you only 7% average +healing, which means that WAR is getting only 85.6% of a PLD's healing efficiency, so, unless 8 IBs every 3 minutes is equal to 17% of what a healer is capable of dumping into someone without any +healing mods over that same time frame, WAR is *still* a good deal behind PLD on healing efficiency: using the same healing numbers as before, 60 * 1000 * .17 = 10200 compared to 8 * 1200 = 9600 for only 600 more healing required. However, all of this is assuming only 4 man content. As soon as you hit 8 man content with 2 healers, the required healing reverses: double the healing provided by the Cures and you end up with deficiencies of 6840 and 10800, respectively.

So, basically, a WAR is never going to be able to close the gap to actually meet with a PLD, but if it uses Inner Beast near perfectly on CD, it can get pretty close. In 4 man content, a WAR can manage, at best, 99% healing efficiency (.83 + ((60 * 1000 + 8 * 1200) / (60 * 1000) - 1))). In 8 man content, a WAR can manage 95% (.92 + ((60 * 2000 + 3 * 1200) / (60 * 2000) - 1))). This groks with the anecdotal evidence most people bring up: WAR is perfectly fine in 4 man but falls behind in 8 man content. They *still* require more healing and that 5% in 8 man content is going to add up, and it only really gets close when you're using IB as efficiently as possible.

Of course, this is ignoring the monumental discrepancy between the CD suites, which just pushes that WAR healing requirement *way* down, where the discrepancy between the two tanks *really* lies.

[Gooner_iBluAirJGR]

Most healers complain about the truckload, even though Warriors don't look like they take any more damage than a paladin. When the heals go off, it's still very balanced as you can see from my example above which uses very close to reality numbers. it sounds to me like your warrior is a terrible player.

EDIT! I added %'s after the initial blow, and we actually take less damage % based initially, so unless a Pally Cooldown is in play, we still LOOK like were taking less damage overall. Emphasis on look like... hehe

Your example above leaves our Rampart / Sentinel / Chance to block AND parry

Compare that to Foresight / Unchained / Infuriate / inner beast and you'll notice that Huston has a problem. Warriors cooldowns arent as strong.

[Paikis]

I'll share some observations of war tanking from my own experience as the pld in a pld/war team in coil currently working on t4 :

Turn 1 :
We constantly struggle with Caduceus. After the split the warrior is constantly getting destroyed after even 2-3 stacks of the boss buff. We have had far too many wipes because he gets near 1 shotted even at low stacks. His add usually dies with him lying on the floor and someone kiting it. I can take up to 6 stacks without issue as a pld and even take 8 for the duration of hallowed ground. Even with their massive hp warriors just don't have what it takes to survive the hits on this fight.

Turn 2 :
Same thing as T1 really. On ADS if I have to dodge a mechanic and am a second or two late on the tank swap as a result it almost always ends up with the war dying even at 3-4 stacks. I have held it with no problems at 6 stacks when the situation is reversed without Hallowed Ground.

Turn 4 :
Having a warrior tank here just makes this a terrible unorganized mess. Sure he can pick up the adds real good. But the healers gain so much aggro because he needs a ton of healing. As well as many dps die because he has to kite due to the massive amounts of incoming dmg, making his aggro low. Quite often he drops like a stone when picking up his adds due to unlucky high hits from the mobs.

Sure if everything goes perfect he can tank, but there is no room for luck or error with a warrior tank.

Turn 1: I've tanked the combined Caduceus at 3 stacks without dieing. My add has also been up to 7 stacks (which is where I died). Our first kill was the 7 stack death where my add ran back over to his other self, re-combined and then was kited around the room for about 20 seconds and died to DoTs from our Summoner.

Turn 2: This is a joke right? ADS is literally the easiest turn in coil in terms of tanking it. The Paladin has very limited advantage in this turn, as none of the attacks can be blocked and the damage is minor anyway. Most failures in this turn come from standing in bad stuff. As a Warrior I ignore repelling cannons anyway. Killed mini-ADSs at 8 stacks and have tanked the main guy up to 7 before I missed a dodge from repelling cannons and got insta-gibbed.

Turn 4: You're citing AGRO as an issue for a Warrior? And what is this 'kiting' you speak of? Stand there and tank that shit like a Warrior you big princess. You have cooldowns, make use of them. More often than not, our MT PLD is dead before I am.

[Cessna]

Turn 2: This is a joke right? ADS is literally the easiest turn in coil in terms of tanking it. The Paladin has very limited advantage in this turn, as none of the attacks can be blocked and the damage is minor anyway. Most failures in this turn come from standing in bad stuff. As a Warrior I ignore repelling cannons anyway. Killed mini-ADSs at 8 stacks and have tanked the main guy up to 7 before I missed a dodge from repelling cannons and got insta-gibbed.

Pretty much this, Turn 2 is all about mechanics and not our cooldowns.

The ADS is a status boss, without those status effects it hits for garbage damage, infact its so little sometimes I can actually inner beast that damage away entirely on my own, its pretty neet when I get the chance to do that.