WAR changes update?

[Devils]

After reading this I am dying for more info, they literally only talked about 3 changes when they are contemplating up to 7?

A:
Warrior
We're hearing a lot of talk saying that warrior is weak compared to paladin, but there are a couple of points I'd like to go over, so I'll go over them one by one.

First, I'd like to talk about the boss monsters in the Binding Coil of Bahamut Turn 1 and 4. We designed them so that even tanks could not withstand their attacks when they have buffs stacked; however, at the moment only paladin is able to survive through a method we had not thought of. Our original vision for this was that players would clear these encounters by properly removing enemy buffs or kill them all before it got to the point where they would one-shot players.

Since this is content that has already been released and strategies have already been established, we won't be making adjustments to these encounters. Instead we'll be looking into making adjustments to warrior so they can withstand this like paladin is able to.

Next is the matter of warrior's stun. Unlike the paladin's stun, which is tied to the global cooldown, warrior can use stun at any time, which helps maintain stacks of wrath. However, there are times when you need to use stun consecutively, or the timing is difficult due to its activation time. Because of this, it would seem that players have a negative impression of warrior's stun. We'll be making adjustments in patch 2.1 so that warrior's stun is more useful, which should help address the disparity between warrior and paladin.

There's also the matter of Wrath and the use of Inner Beast. I believe that a lot of players are using Inner Beast to self-cure when taking a large amount of damage, but after becoming infuriated with five stacks of Wrath, players receive a 15% curing bonus, so instead of using Inner Beast right after taking heavy damage, I think it would be better to wait for heals from a white mage or scholar.

In addition to the curing bonus, Wrath has other benefits as well. For example, while Paladin certainly has high vitality and HP, we've worked to balance them with Warriors based on the amount of damage they take and the amount of HP they're healed for. However, we've made these adjustments bearing in mind that warriors have Wrath active. This is what makes the job difficult to use effectively. Using Inner Beast spends all stacks of Wrath, which makes it difficult to use Inner Beast right after a combo, and then build the stacks back up with the following combo. With that said, from a healer's perspective, although warriors can heal themselves right after taking heavy damage, once they use Inner Beast they don't heal themselves well, giving the impression that they lack defense.

These are a few of the factors contributing to the problems we've seen with warrior. While we'd like you all to continue experimenting with uses for Wrath up until patch 2.1, we feel effective use of this skill is a bit difficult, so we'll be making adjustments in patch 2.1. There are several other aspects of the job that will be adjusted, but rest assured that warrior will become stronger come December.

[ReiszRie]

After reading this I am dying for more info, they literally only talked about 3 changes when they are contemplating up to 7?

What they're saying is that players are playing WARs wrongly thus giving the impression that WARs are gimped.

[Devils]

What they're saying is that players are playing WARs wrongly thus giving the impression that WARs are gimped.

Guess I didn't get that impression. I know lots of WAR's will use their wrath stacks when they shouldn't. I pretty much just hold on to mine until I need an emergency heal from IB then just use infuriate to get them back. I haven't really experienced anything yet worth losing the 5 stacks over on a regular basis. Which based off what Yoshi said below it sounds like I am doing it right.

There's also the matter of Wrath and the use of Inner Beast. I believe that a lot of players are using Inner Beast to self-cure when taking a large amount of damage, but after becoming infuriated with five stacks of Wrath, players receive a 15% curing bonus, so instead of using Inner Beast right after taking heavy damage, I think it would be better to wait for heals from a white mage or scholar.

I personally think they will making some big adjustments to how wrath works and what we use it for based on this:

These are a few of the factors contributing to the problems we've seen with warrior. While we'd like you all to continue experimenting with uses for Wrath up until patch 2.1, we feel effective use of this skill is a bit difficult, so we'll be making adjustments in patch 2.1. There are several other aspects of the job that will be adjusted, but rest assured that warrior will become stronger come December

I can't think of an instance in any MMo where self healing on this type of scale worked out. The closest would be Dark Knight from WOW but there was pretty much constant self heals and a blood shield for overhealing. Nice when you knew something was coming and just pop a big hit for the shield and ride it out.......

[Kitru]

I can't think of an instance in any MMo where self healing on this type of scale worked out. The closest would be Dark Knight from WOW but there was pretty much constant self heals and a blood shield for overhealing. Nice when you knew something was coming and just pop a big hit for the shield and ride it out.......

The reason that self healing worked/works on Death Knight is because it *scales with incoming damage*. The problem with 99% of self healing mechanisms is that they don't. The biggest problem with self-healing as a major mitigation mechanism is that it *doesn't*. Of course, DK is more of an absorb shield tank since you use Death Strike more for the absorb shield it generates that's way bigger than the heal itself; DK ends up being less of a self healing tank than an absorb shield tank with a bit of healing on the side, which solves the other major problem with self healing as mitigation: it's reactive, which makes you liable to fall over dead to the increasingly popular burst damage mechanisms that content.

[Devils]

The reason that self healing worked/works on Death Knight is because it *scales with incoming damage*. The problem with 99% of self healing mechanisms is that they don't. The biggest problem with self-healing as a major mitigation mechanism is that it *doesn't*. Of course, DK is more of an absorb shield tank since you use Death Strike more for the absorb shield it generates that's way bigger than the heal itself; DK ends up being less of a self healing tank than an absorb shield tank with a bit of healing on the side, which solves the other major problem with self healing as mitigation: it's reactive, which makes you liable to fall over dead to the increasingly popular burst damage mechanisms that content.

Well put, I wish they would just move us to an absorb based tank. I personally LVOED the play style of DK.

[Zakalwe]

[snip] I can't think of an instance in any MMo where self healing on this type of scale worked out. The closest would be Dark Knight from WOW but there was pretty much constant self heals and a blood shield for overhealing. Nice when you knew something was coming and just pop a big hit for the shield and ride it out.......

The Warden in LotRO also comes to mind. Wardens (soon to be disfigured beyond recognition) have been medium armoured, lower-hp, self-healing, self-buffing tanks using a unique 'gambit' method for launching skills (not through clickies). The class has worked pretty well but it has had the same problems of other self-healing tanks.

Self heals didn't scale with damage, so with every cap rise the class had to be carefully rebalanced. And even so it was always careening from ghod-like OP to broken. And even when it was gotten about right it would be excessively powerful in small group content but a little weak in tougher raid content -- relative to the standard mitigation sword and board tank known as the Guardian.