Thread: How are warriors after 2.1?

Originally Posted by Zoomie

And if the WAR wasn't in defiance... How is sword oath even in your thought process when we're talking about threat gen. Threat gen = tanking = use shield/defiance.

Because with the patch 2.1, the enmity buff that was applied to Shield Oath was ALSO applied to Sword Oath.

I realise Sword Oath wasn't flagged as such in the patch notes, but this increase has been noticed and demonstrated pretty thoroughly by myself and others.

Prior to the patch, a PLD using the RoH rotation in Sword Oath generated slightly more threat than the same PLD in Shield Oath, and this is STILL the case after the patch. The only difference is with Flash - because Flash has no damage component, Shield Oath is better for generating AoE threat.

I actually had a genuine encounter where this issue cropped up on Monday when clearing Turn 4 - the other PLD was ripping threat off me on the Phase 3 Dreadnaught, despite being slightly lesser-geared and using exactly the same rotation. The difference? I was MTing in Shield Oath, he was DDing in Sword Oath.

The same threat multiplier does NOT appear to be in effect (or at least not to the same degree!) when no Stance buff is active, which would be the case whenever a WAR disables Defiance.

A War naturally generates higher ST damage on a target than a PLD does, but this is primarily due to the Storm's Eye debuff (which WARS inflict, but which also affects PLD's attack damage). If both tanks are focussing on the same target, it's pretty even with equal-gearing.

Originally Posted by Maelwys

SNIP

Again I fail to see the relevance of any of this. You were addressing WAR/PLD threat gen and started talking about sword oath. If either tank is competing for aggro then sword oath is completely off the table....

Second if a PLD is dpsing it seems moronic to spam ROH while in sword given the changes. Its the same as a WAR not in defiance spamming BB. Its just not smart. Use as many RoH as you can but choosing to continue to do so at the risk of aggro is just silly.

Originally Posted by Zoomie

Again I fail to see the relevance of any of this. You were addressing WAR/PLD threat gen and started talking about sword oath. If either tank is competing for aggro then sword oath is completely off the table....

Second if a PLD is dpsing it seems moronic to spam ROH while in sword given the changes. Its the same as a WAR not in defiance spamming BB. Its just not smart. Use as many RoH as you can but choosing to continue to do so at the risk of aggro is just silly.

And the alternative for a PLD is... riot spam? They don't have a low threat combo option like WAR does. And even their "DPS stance" (sword oath) now has an increased enmity component (god only knows why).

Almost positive his context for Sword Oath is WAR MT (defiance) vs. PLD OT (sword oath) for threat. In that scenario the WAR may run into some issues, and very likely won't be able to hold threat with just SP->SE->BB. Which is a valid point.

Originally Posted by Leiron

Odd.
I've had the opposite scenario.
I've been seeing Paladin in Shield Oath being equal to or greater than that of a Paladin in sword oath during t2.
Wasn't seeing them creep up in terms of agro like they used to.
Is there a way to see the actual enmity numbers?

Flash (and to a lesser extent Spirits Within) were used way back to get raw enmity comparisons between two tanks - it's how we figured out something was wrong with Lalafel threat. But if you want to compare threat generation between Oaths it'd probably be better to have two tanks equip equal gear/stats (raw AF and a level one sword is useful) and use the same potency ability (e.g. "Fast Blade") a set number of times to test the raw enmity... and then an enmity-multiplier combo (like Fast Blade-Savage Blade) to test the multipliers. Unfortunately this method will not be as reliable due to random damage variance, so the sample size would probably have to be quite large.

Also, I noticed in testing Cover mechanics that there is a discrepancy sometimes in WHEN you triggered your Oath. If one PLD has Shield Oath up BEFORE going into a new instance, and another PLD puts their Oath up AFTERWARDS then it may also make a difference (sounds stupid I know, but it happens with Cover).

My suspicions are that both Oaths generate roughly the same level of raw threat on each swing and weaponskill, but the more frequent Autoattacks in Sword Oath put it slightly ahead.

Originally Posted by Giantbane

And the alternative for a PLD is... riot spam? They don't have a low threat combo option like WAR does. And even their "DPS stance" (sword oath) now has an increased enmity component (god only knows why).

If you're OTing and cannot spam RoH without pulling aggro... then YES, use Riot blade as often as needed.

I guess what I fail to see is why this is even a discussion. If you're doing meaningful content then someone has been assigned MT and has been assigned OT. Meaning who can steal aggro from who is pointless as its the OT's job to NOT steal aggro just like any other dps class. If someone is abusing sword oath to steal aggro in CT or wherever else we're likely to encounter moronic behavior then they're just failing to understand that their epeen is less important than the stability of the fight.

The Op asked how warriors are in 2.1 and this devolved into a "who could steal aggro from whom given some random circumstances".

Originally Posted by Zoomie

Again I fail to see the relevance of any of this.

Then you didn't read the post I was originally replying to.

Namely:

Originally Posted by ZeroRains

Best thing with war is when I do primal fates I know at some point I'll become MT. Gotta love War threat, nothing beats it ^>^

The point I was making is that it doesn't matter if both tanks are in "Tanking Stance" for a difficult primal Fate boss (when BOTH pull extra enmity and PLD wins solely due to the attack chain mechanics), or if they are both in "DPS Mode" - WAR with defiance off and PLD with Sword Oath on (when PLD wins again, but this time largely due to the extra enmity generation provided by Sword Oath).

The only times a WAR should pull more ST threat is if they are spamming Butchers Block or the PLD is purposely avoiding using the RoH combo.

Don't get me wrong, if the WAR is better suited to MT something then the PLD can certainly hold back in terms of enmity generation (though sadly the Riot Blade combo drains your TP a lot quicker then the RoH combo does) but the bottom line is that whilst WARs have substantially higher "spike" ST and AoE enmity generation, they have lower "sustained" enmity generation over the course of a standard fight than an equally-geared PLD. For AoE threat, this is because they will run out of TP and MP quickly. For ST threat, this is because of the rotating attack chain mechanics and additional stance enmity I have described above.

To bring the thread back on topic, it is PRECISELY because of these differences in styles that having both tanks in a party is so desirable. WARs make a perfect OT (they can pick up adds securely and quickly) and PLDs make a perfect sustained MT (they can still weather prolonged periods of heavy damage noticably more easily than WARs). Their buffs/debuffs compliment and stack with each other. Their traditional roles as MT and OT even swap occasionally whenever the party encounters something that deals short bursts of heavy spike damage on a predictable timer (Turn 5!) since WAR's New Inner Beast allows it to have a short burst of reliable damage mitigation every ~25 seconds. THAT is the state of WARs in 2.1 - a valuable member of the party that can tank practically anything in the game if it needs to.