Help Required: WAR PvE Equipment Properties and PVP Abilities

[Sir_Sylkis]

I'm currently lvl 38 WAR, aiming for an almost full VIT WAR (would have been full VIT but I put a couple of points in STR before seeing the figures for VIT v STR WAR stats).

Could someone give me advice on the following:

1. Which stats should I look for on equip? Obviously STR and VIT will help but which others? I'm assuming parry, crit hit rate and determination are the others but I'm not sure if this is correct.

2. As there are only 30 ranks on wolves den it is impossible to level up everything which would be relevant to WAR for PVP. I have purchased Purify with my first 3 points but I have no idea what to purchase after. Should I go for Mythril Tempest or Thrill of War? Are Full Swing and Enliven worth investing in and to what extent? Should I max out Purify? Should I bother with any of the enhanced traits? Should I even max out anything or go for a mixture?

All help is appreciated

[Maqaqa]

About PVP: Mythril tempest and Thrill of war both suck. Not only Full swing is worth, its the best pvp skill we have and should be maxed. Everyone in your party benefits from your full swing.
Enliven gives you the ability to sprint and still hit your target, its good. You can alternate it with Invigorate (by playing MRD) and sprint every single minute for the first three.
Atm i dont advice you to max out purify, most of the matches are too short to use that two times, and lvl 1 is enough for now.
Basically i would advice you this priority: purify 1, enliven 1, max out full swing.
Not having Bravura that somewhat forces you to play WAR, you should play MRD in pvp. Forget about tanking, go full STR and kill softies, or at least put pressure on them :P
MRD gets Raging strikes, Blood for blood (to use with vengeance), Invigorate and why not... Feint? I also think Hawk's Eye can counter Blind.
WAR gets... pacified after berserk >.<

About everything else PVE related you will find plenty of informations around the forum (too lazy now :P).

[EpicEmpyrean]

There is only "some" merit to the post above me. I have played over 500 matches with over an 85% win ratio playing only as MRD and WAR this is my take.

1. First of all you want as much STR as possible. In most matches you should be 2nd on total damage done and only if you have a SMN or a really good DRG. As for sub-stats get as much morale as possible, then crit > det, but det is not bad by an means.

2. Having 30 ranks this allows you to get 10 abilities.
--Purify 1 (just one is fine, nobody focuses you 9 out 10 times anyways)
--Full Swing 3 (only get the increased % damage at first then come back later for the duration.)
--Mythril Tempest 1 (this ability not only stuns and knocks everything back, GREAT for peeling off your healer to give them a second to get back on their feet, but it great to add to your burst combo as its off GCD)
--STR 3 (this one is gonna cost you 15 ap, but its really the only other place to put the points in my opinion.

That is all of your points spent.

3. Yes you should be going MRD. Not only does MRD get B4B, Raging Strikes and Invigorate you get access to Straight Shot (10% crit for 20s) but you also get E4E and Virus, both VERY important in peeling high damage dealers off your squishies.

All the extra damage cooldowns MRDs pump out some serious damage in PVP, most of which is burst, which is the type of damage you want!

Maim 20% damage for 24 seconds
Raging Strike 20% damage for 15 seconds
B4B 10% damage for 20 seconds
Berserk 50% attack power for 20 seconds
Straight Shot 10% crit for 20 seconds
Internal Release 10% crit for 15 seconds

Full Swing 10%(20%) increased damage debuff on target for 15s(25s)
Storms Eye 10% reduced slashing resistance debuff on target for 15s

Just to throw some numbers out there, I regularly crit BB over 1k and have hit 1.2k, Mercy Stroke crits for another 600-800 and Storms Eye crits for roughly 700-1k. Mythril Tempest I have seen crit for upwards of 500-600. Throw all that out together and you can hit for roughly 2k-3k in roughly 4 seconds. It is hard for a healer to react to that in a lot of games.

Any other questions just ask!