PLD first strike. Am I Pld'ing wrong?

[Wadoka]

This is the biggest issue with most tanks. They think they are there to do damage. You are there to tank the boss, not to damage it. Your job is to create maximum emnity as soon as possible so the real dps can do their job. After you have a decent lead in enmity you're safe to use any skills you wish.

This. DD in other threads like to complain that being a Tank is so easy - "All they have to do is stand there and take a beating" - and there are times that is exactly what I am doing, when I have full hate and no one else is close.

I stand there and let autoattack do the work while I take a few precious seconds to look at the big picture - check CD management, look around, maybe even pop off a few of my puny 200-point Cures (I don't have Stoneskin yet) if it's a better use of my abilities than tossing another RoH combo at that moment.

Or I'm standing there because I'm anticipating the cast of a major interruptible attack and I want to be sure I'm not on GCD and Shield Bash is ready to go as soon as I see the cast begin.

Sometimes it's better to be deliberate and perfect than be high-twitch and choose poorly

[JeTaisNoobie]

I think you're spending too much time looking at your skill CDs! Even before the fight started, you should've already noticed your skills and their cooldowns, the state of your healers and dps, as well as the boss/mobs in front of you. My skills are positioned in a paired method so as to allow myself to pop the most effective cooldowns as well as know what I've popped even without looking because the latest position of my fingers tells me what I've popped.

[Wadoka]

I think you're spending too much time looking at your skill CDs! Even before the fight started, you should've already noticed your skills and their cooldowns, the state of your healers and dps, as well as the boss/mobs in front of you.

Uh... what?

Before the fight, nothing is on cooldown; all buffs are refreshed, all party members are back at max HP, MP, TP... unless someone is rushing the Seven Hells out of the fights/pulls? I never do...

Also I have an input/output problem in that I know where my CDs are keyed, but sometimes I key for a CD and they don't trigger; then I have to key again PDQ. Something probably in the aether between my system and the server, because I have a mechanical RAZR keyboard which doesn't cause me any problems with delayed response, playing SWTOR.

[Menae]

It is a cross class skill, it doesn't have to be part of a normal rotation to not be worthless, like you said anytime you have a drop in combat spamming, King Behemoth in CT, hit it before you run and hide, situations like that give it uses, and it's not like it is taking the place of another more useful skill, stoneskin mitigates more damage than cure heals for, so not much need for cure, protect and raise are not worth while, you have already said in other posts foresight is useless, so that leaves skull sunder, mercy stroke, and bloodbath. If it's not taking the place of a more useful skill, and has use, no matter how limited, it isn't worthless.

It's not useless, but it sure as hell isn't going on an easy-to-hit button combination, either. It's such a marginal dps increase (it's like an extra fast blade every 3:45) that I really don't care for the extra mental overhead, not to mention it's a HUGE enmity hit. On a ten minute encounter, it would literally be a larger dps increase to convince your WHM to stand in melee for the first minute of the fight so they can Fluid Aura three times than it would be to work in Fracture for the ENTIRE fight. And that's WITHOUT Cleric Stance.

But it's not worthless. Just ALMOST worthless.

[Amas]

2.1 made threat a joke, so there's no reason not to look to maximize DPS as a tank, which means Fracture is valuable. It's not going to see 100% uptime in longer fights due to its TP cost, but it's hardly useless.

Optimal opener on a single target is:

Fast Blade > Savage Blade > Fight or Flight > Rage of Halone > Circle of Scorn > Fracture. Spirits Within can be tossed between Fast Blade and Savage Blade, or delayed until after Fracture to take advantage of Fight or Flight.

This permits 2 uses of Circle of Scorn and Fracture before Fight or Flight ends, and maximizes the number of Rage of Halones that benefit from the DPS buff.

Shield Lob is a waste unless you need the enemy to come to you, and popping any buffs before engaging is wasteful. The first hit of every single boss in the game is laughable and lost CD duration is far more of a detriment than taking the first auto attack without a CD up.

I'm surprised no one's pooh-poohed on Shield Swipe to this point (yes, it could probably stand to get some tweaks, but the quickest way to spot a bad PLD is to see who doesn't use Shield Swipe as often as possible, provided it won't cause them to lose threat on a target), but I guess in fairness it's far less marginal than Fracture, so it makes sense that it's not facing anyone's ire this second.

[SpookyGhost]

words

I think what you're missing is that the OP is talking about an AOE threat rotation on trash. The DoT of Fracture is likely not going to last long enough to matter as far as DPS increase goes. Also you're in tanking stance while tanking so any increase in DPS is so super marginal that you really shouldn't be bothering with it, especially at the cost of extra TP. Your job is to hold threat, if you're comfortable on threat your next job is to survive. If you want to start DPS tanking dungeons then you'll need to overgear it by a lot, turn on Sword Oath, equip your Gryphonskin accessories and go to work. Otherwise you're going to bottom out on TP by the time you get to the boss and need time to let it regen... which isn't really worth your marginal increase in DPS.

[Jerilith]

Thank you everyone for responding. I'd like to clarify a few things.

I'm talking in my original post about both boss and trash pulls. To be fair I don't use Fracture much at all on trash pulls.

I douse shield swipe as much as Possible; enmity permitting of course.

Again: all of my moveset does rely on emnity. If I'm having emnity issues I will not use shield swipe or fracture and default to emnity generating attacks.

Earlier there was a comment about the "problem with tanks" wanting to do more dps. If I have emnity under control and deal more dps then it's all okay.

My goal is 2 things:
1- control emnity in a manner where dps can let loose and deal out maximum damage.
2- deal as much possible dps/Debuff/interrupt/mitigation as possible while maintaining a safe emnity.

Thank you again everyone for replying! I'm enjoying the conversation(s)!

[SpookyGhost]

I think a good rule of thumb is this:

Short fight and low damage taken = Fracture is worth it

Long fight and high damage taken = Fracture isn't worth it

For that cooldown you're using Fracture you could be using Stoneskin and by the time you bottom out on TP and start auto-attacking only you'll be at a DPS loss rather than a DPS gain. Fracture is also good for DPS checks like Demon Wall or Titan's heart, but not good for DPS checks like fast conflags. It's also useful for fights where the boss disappears for a short period of time (Siren and the Primals mainly). Fracture basically has it's places, but it's very specific ones.

[Soulburn32]

i think too many of your are overly concerned with min/maxing in a game that does not require min/maxing to any high degree

my only concern is to have a strong enough opening combo that dps and heals can do pretty much whatever they want. If I have done that then I have done my job. Bunch of needless math on something that is really that simple.

[Jerilith]

I think a good rule of thumb is this:

Short fight and low damage taken = Fracture is worth it

Long fight and high damage taken = Fracture isn't worth it

For that cooldown you're using Fracture you could be using Stoneskin and by the time you bottom out on TP and start auto-attacking only you'll be at a DPS loss rather than a DPS gain. Fracture is also good for DPS checks like Demon Wall or Titan's heart, but not good for DPS checks like fast conflags. It's also useful for fights where the boss disappears for a short period of time (Siren and the Primals mainly). Fracture basically has it's places, but it's very specific ones.

Keep things situational then. Appreciate it very much!