Warrior Tanks: Maximizing DPS Output

[Makado]

Hello, I'm a fresh 50 WAR (been a career T5 winning PLD). Just wanting some advice on best combo when your not main tanking? What I usually have been doing (literally just hit 50 last night) is staying out of Defiance, and using Fracture - Storm Eye combo - x2 Butcher combos - repeat, using the Crit Boost skill and Blood Bath together when they are both up and refreshing Fracture as needed.

Also what do you WAR who OT in T5 do if you get Liquid Hells on you when your in the Neurolink in last phase? I have only been PLD and had my Hallowed Ground for this. Thanks!

[Instrumentality]

Stand in them and not care?

I mean if you really want to, you can pop Vengeance or Thrill of Battle but it means nothing because Liquid Hells aren't a threat to tanks.

[Makado]

Thanks for stating the obvious, I'm just wondering if any people do anything special other then that to minimize it. As PLD I had HG to help out, so just looking for any cool tips or hints for WAR.

[Instrumentality]

There's really nothing special to do. You can Inner Beast for them if you leave Defiance up for that phase, but there's no reason to have it on so there's not very much for you to do.

Thrill of Battle or Vengeance. Convalescence afterwards if your healers don't have more than a GCD or so to spare?

[SpookyGhost]

Also what do you WAR who OT in T5 do if you get Liquid Hells on you when your in the Neurolink in last phase? I have only been PLD and had my Hallowed Ground for this. Thanks!

Vengeance + Bloodbath and stand there. If it happens again, Thrill + Convalescence. You'll take damage, but not much.

[Kitru]

Just wanting some advice on best combo when your not main tanking?

SP>SE is the off-tanking rotation: you want to maintain both debuffs for the other tank and it only does slightly less damage than SE>BB. I honestly wouldn't say that Fracture is worth it because it's such a laughably marginal increase to total DPS over time; no one is likely to notice the difference between using it and not. SE>BB>BB generates too much enmity and is likely to rip enmity from another tank if you're not careful, not to mention that it doesn't provide the super important 10% damage debuff from SP.

If you're asking what to use when you're just putzing around while solo, SE>BB is best; it's the highest damage rotation for WARs.

[bokchoykn]

SE>BB>BB generates too much enmity and is likely to rip enmity from another tank if you're not careful.

SE>BB>BB out of Defiance won't compare to Halone>Halone>Halone in Shield Oath. Especially if there are Fractures mixed in.

Using Fracture, compared to the average combo attack, is an extra 100 Potency. It is also more efficient Potency per TP. Using it 6-7 times in a fight is like having an extra full combo worth of damage. Even if you're really selective on when you use Fracture and only use it when you have Maim, Berserk and Storm's Eye up and outside of Defiance (or Unchained) it's still significant. "Laughably marginal" is an exaggeration.

[Kitru]

SE>BB>BB out of Defiance won't compare to Halone>Halone>Halone in Shield Oath. Especially if there are Fractures mixed in.

You're operating under the assumption that whoever you're tanking with isn't a complete idiot and/or undergeared. I've ripped aggro off of my co-tank in HM Ultima Weapon using only SE>SP and that's got no enmity modifier whatsoever.

The salient point is that, even if you're not in Defiance, you shouldn't be using SE>BB>BB. SE>BB>BB is a high enmity rotation as opposed to a high damage rotation. SE>BB is going to do more damage while generating less enmity, and SE>SP is going to keep both debuffs applied 100% of the time while doing a tiny bit less damage than SE>BB.

If you're not tanking, you shouldn't even be using SE>BB>BB since it's not optimal damage. In fact, you really shouldn't be using SE>BB>BB at any time since, if you're tanking, you should be using SP>SE>BB (low enmity, high damage, SP present), SP>BB>BB (high enmity, SP present), or SE>BB>BB>BB (highest enmity), depending upon how well your co-tank knows how to throttle their enmity.

Using Fracture, compared to the average combo attack, is an extra 100 Potency. It is also more efficient Potency per TP. Using it 6-7 times in a fight is like having an extra full combo worth of damage. Even if you're really selective on when you use Fracture and only use it when you have Maim, Berserk and Storm's Eye up and outside of Defiance (or Unchained) it's still significant. "Laughably marginal" is an exaggeration.

What you forgot to mention is that using Fracture is a whopping ~2% increase in damage with a nearly identical increase in TP consumption that also ends up ignoring the effects of bottoming out TP upon your damage due to a decrease in ability to maintain buffs, debuffs, and DoTs due to bottomed out TP. Talking about an extra full combo of damage seems like a lot until you realize that one extra combo sits on top of 50. It's entirely appropriate to call it "laughably marginal" unless you're simply dead set on justifying Fracture by presenting the information in a manner designed to force you to draw inaccurate conclusions (binary comparisons on similar quantified values instead of straight binary attributes or highly disparate values; swapping from unit to unit, forcing constant conversion rather than immediately applicable comparison).

[whiskeybravo]

I don't want to debate the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of Fracture as additional DPS. However, I like the idea of stacking as many DoT's as possible on an enemy, because it's like having any extra person doing damage over the course of the fight. Every class has DoT's right? I wanna see like 40 DoTs on KB

[Kitru]

However, I like the idea of stacking as many DoT's as possible on an enemy, because it's like having any extra person doing damage over the course of the fight.

That's so untrue it hurts. DoTs aren't an extra benefit that classes have on top of their existing damage. If it were true, summoners would be broken as hell because a majority of their damage is based off of DoTs. DoTs are baked into the existing functionality of a class. Having 40 DoTs on a target just means that there are 40 DoTs distributed amongst all of the people currently attacking the boss.