Current/Upcoming War changes and current tanks, let's talk about that.

[Stalkster]

This is not war vs. pld or not trying to be informational. More of peoples thoughts/concerns.
Am I the only 1 who thinks like this?
With that in mind read at your own risk.

First a little about me, I been playing mmo's for a long time. I've always preferred DPS or DPS orientated tanks, but lv'ed/played every role to best suite my team/guild/LS/etc as needed.

After lv'ing my 1st job Drg in 2.0(loved Drg and war late 1.0). I could clearly see the demand for tanks, even more so one's that could actually tank. After lv'ing war to 47, I could see the impact it brought apon healer's. So I decided to try Pld, as I could see it didn't make much difference lower lv, and mid lv things seemed to lean towards warrior.

So I kept pushing pld to get shield oath there actually tanking stance. Apon getting Shield oath i could clearly see the difference and kept progressing on my Pld. After obtaining DL I went back to finish war to see @50 with about the same gear if it made a difference, Pld was the clear winner without a doubt.

To be more effective as a team member and tank, I thought I would lv some more DPS jobs to see what there capable of. Also the healing jobs to also see what there capable of and there perspective on healing war and pld from healer/my pov. It made the choice more of not even a choice from my pov. So all tho War would be better suited for my play style it was not effective.

Now let's talk about that.

[Current War and Pld perspective imo(prepatch/changes).]
Right now I really don't see a point to play War outside of trying to see if you/it can be done as warrior. We can tell that Pld is more effective at the role of tank.

[Why War?]
If we look at it in a team/tank perspective why do people really play warrior right now(outside of the above)?
Dose it take more skill? No.
Dose it do more damage to make the trade off worth it? No.
Do people like playing the non effective class for the role? Hmm.
Do people not care about healer's/team play? Hmm.

[So warrior is a off tank?]
So War is not the better tank, where dose it fit. Ok, so warrior can increase a Pld's damage via slashing resistance.
So is it better to bring a war over another dps? Not really.
By increasing a Pld's damage it dose also bring better enmity.
Dose Pld need the extra enmity? Nope.

So when off tanking something that matters Pld is still the better off tank? Yes.
So when off tanking something that dose not matter, Is it better to bring a war or another dps and solo tank? Solo tank.

[[So let's look ahead, assuming the dev's make war effective after patch]]

[So now War?]
So we can see that war will be effective at tanking on paper via release notes.
Will 1 be better then the other like before? Far as i can tell no.
So will having both tanking jobs be valuable? yes.
Will it be better to have both jobs geared and bring the proper 1 to the proper situation? yes.

[The bandwagon]
I see massive amounts of people lv'ing/preparing/asking questions on warrior. Also people trying to put a point of view that war will be the better tank, and pld wil su*k.
Imo they will both be effective and fit different needs/situations.

With all the people going to jump on war i can see it having a negative impact after the patch for awhile, that "Pld is better" due to more people trying to play war and doing it badly. All tho it will still help dps/healers que time with DF if they even do DF. The influx of tanks joining shouts will put the real tanks on standby for longer. All tho the reputation that you gained from pugs and FC/LS will still make you the go to tank.

[So am I on the bandwagon?]
Imo no, as i said previously I like to be effective and war will just be another tool in the tanking toolbox.

[My hope]
I hope War will take a more skilled player to play it correctly. And it make the people that think war is going to be better by default realize quicker. That both tanks will be good and 1 will be better under certain circumstances over the other.

[So lets close this with]
A skilled tank can manage Pld and War.
Example: We see decent pld's currently and great Pld's. I think the great Pld's will be able to jump on war and learn to play it effective, while the decent pld's will be more looking at war buffs and think it will make them a better tank overall. I have a hard time seeing this. I think it will be worst for them and they maybe better off sticking to just Pld. But it is possible for the decent pld to become a great war, just lower odds.

If you managed to read all of this, and like to reply feel free to do so.

[MarkR171]

I've run both PLD and WAR through coils. Currently, PLD is easier for everything but I prefer WAR as OT in Turn 4. The extra damage, especially with berserk and unchained helps clean up all the enemies as quickly as possible.

Healing a WAR is a little different too. 18% WHM Stoneskin does wonders on a WAR with 8k+ HP. Other than main tanking turn 4, I can't think of anything a PLD can tank that a WAR cannot, currently... but PLD's defense cool downs just make it that much easier. Next patch, WAR will get some nice changes to balance it and I'm excited to play my WAR a lot more than my PLD for a change.

[symba]

Healing a WAR is a little different too. 18% WHM Stoneskin does wonders on a WAR with 8k+ HP

I honestly hate seeing this, stoneskin is as effective on paladin as it is on warrior.

[MarkR171]

WARs benefit more because of the increased HP. About 30% more HP than PLDs with comparable equipment. Of course, it's essentially the same effect as WAR's increased benefit from healing.

Vengeance is going to be great for WAR in 2.1. 30% mitigation buff so it isn't as good as sentinel, but its recast is much shorter. Inner beast's new 6 seconds 20% mitigation buff will be up for about 1/4 of the time when cycling combos efficiently to compare with Rampart.

Maybe the storm path damage debuff to target will be able to kept up full time to get close to shield oath's permanent mitigation.

[Vortok]

WARs benefit more because of the increased HP. About 30% more HP than PLDs with comparable equipment. Of course, it's essentially the same effect as WAR's increased benefit from healing.

Except the reduced damage taken from Shield Oath means a Stoneskin on a PLD is roughly as effective.


I think it's a bit hard to discuss the tank situation with the patch so close (currently don't know what, if any PLD changes will occur + if WAR changes got tweaked from when Yoshi made his post).

The planned Storm's Path change (debuff that lowers damage an enemy does) will make having a WAR desired for 'content that matters' as either OT or MT. By the same token, the constant STR debuff Rage of Halone applies (assuming the two stack with each other) means a PLD will also be desired. Everything after that is gravy.

[Zoomie]

WARs benefit more because of the increased HP. About 30% more HP than PLDs with comparable equipment. Of course, it's essentially the same effect as WAR's increased benefit from healing.

Oddly enough Stoneskin is exactly the same on a PLD vs WAR. Their eHP is identical given the same VIT and the 20% DR from Shield Oath makes Stoneskin worth exactly same same eHP as it does on WAR.

As far as the healing goes warriors actually lose out to PLD's in that regard by 5%. 20% DR > 25% hp + 20% healing bonus.

[symba]

Paladins have 20% damage mitigation which is the same as that +25% hp.

edit: i'll personally be rerolling to war next patch, although i've got near enough all of my paladin gear anyways so can switch between.

[MarkR171]

That's a good point, never really gave it much thought. I just keep hearing healers toss the idea out there.

[Paikis]

These threads amuse me.

[Why War?]
If we look at it in a team/tank perspective why do people really play warrior right now(outside of the above)?
Dose it take more skill? No.
Dose it do more damage to make the trade off worth it? No.
Do people like playing the non effective class for the role? Hmm.
Do people not care about healer's/team play? Hmm.

You answered every one of these questions incorrectly.

[symba]

It doesn't take more skill to play warrior (I suppose skill is subjective, however the game is fairly easy from a tanking point of view) or should I say the skill required is very minimal on both tanks realistically. The damage difference between tanking war/paladin is pretty big (30%~?), however that damage isn't entirely amazing if your main priority is tanking. For trivial content both tanks can realistically tank using either non-defiance or sword oath(although for MTing twin i'd rather play warrior next patch). Do people like playing the 'non effective class for the role?' It's a game, you're supposed to have fun, if you're not having fun because you're not playing what you want to (warrior), what the point of playing in the first place? The same goes for healers/teamplay, if you're in a super serial progression raiding fc(going for world firsts) then you're going to stack whatever's strong and stick with it (EG 2 PLD/4Range dps for twin setup). If you're a group of competent players then realistically the only thing creating a barrier for warrior in turn 5 is gear, since I'd argue that warrior needs gear a lot more than paladin does for turn 5. Even then, warriors aren't holding back people from content as they're perfectly viable in turn 5 as offtank/dps I guess, with turns 1-4 not being too hard (other than dreads in turn 4, which requires gear for a warrior to tank). The reason I'm personally switching to war next patch is so we have a warrior/paladin setup for tanking, the warrior mitigation buffs plus the damage debuff will add greatly to the group. I honestly don't understand why warriors are so 'skill' based, they're not.