Warrior Tanks: Maximizing DPS Output

[BushidoMP]

Lots of good points, allow me to contribute.

For the sake of not relying on Lodestone's snapshot, I'll state my credentials and stats. Firstly, I played +30VIT warrior for a long time, and then I got bored of it and decided I wanted to see how hard I could hit. Since I've gone +30STR I would never EVER go back. Before I go any farther, let me state that I agree with OP in saying that I believe REAL BiS Warrior for any encounter is a healthy mix of VIT and DPS accessories to maximize the balance between Parry Rate and Parry%(the amount mitigated).

As it currently stands I wear full i90 dps accessories to ALL encounters in the game save Ifrit EX, for reasons that have already been stated by OP. In my current build, (I'll be changing 1 accessory today after some research), I'm weighing in at 469 STR, 416 VIT, 479 ACC, 424 CHR, 299 DET. However, I will be switching to 413CHR and 207 DET for a *marginal* increase in dps.

Moving on. At the current level of gear Full i90 + Allagan axe ... tanking in this game is pretty much a joke if you and your healers have some skill. I'll reiterate, I use my current build in all Extreme Primals except Ifrit, and in Coil 1-5. I do not main tank Twintania in my static, but I've had to take over after the first round of Twister and finished the fight no problem. The obvious weakness of this build it that I lack that extra HP buffer that's nice for tanking, but the DAMAGE is insane. Throwing some numbers out there: My highest Inner Beast crit has hit 1302 damage. I couldn't believe it. After that my upper end BB's hit for 1200+. Warrior is the class I've played from launch and I've had a lot of time to get comfortable in the class and change rotations etc. This is undoubtedly the most fun way to play warrior. While I'm sure it mostly speaks poorly of the DPS involved, I've been in EX Primal farming parties where I was doing top damage in the whole group. That being said, in a good group of DPS I can still keep up. I float between 4th/5th on the charts, but in my coil static I'm never gonna beat them in dps. I don't want to ramble, so if you have questions about specifics I will answer them.

As far as the enmity discussion goes, you can't argue with math. There will always be optimal rotations and the BEST way of doing things, however, that can't always be practically applied to a real scenario. At the end of the day it's going to come down to player skill and group cohesion. If everyone is "doing it right" then enmity shouldn't be an issue anyway, and furthermore using an all STR build you will hit so hard you shouldn't have problems regardless. I OT GarudaEX with Defiance off the whole time and the only time I have problems is when someone doesn't pop Quelling Strikes and start landing ridiculous crits. On the topic of tank swapping, again, group cohesion: your counterpart should know when to stop going buck wild so you can take over. The only time I've ran into problems during tank swapping is during IfritEX with an equally geared Paladin (Allagan blade) who kept spamming RoH combo. Most of the time, regardless of what the other tank does I can pull hate. I have noticed that while playing warrior this way, even with Defiance off, you must be careful to control your enmity, most of the time I have to spam Storm's Eye/Storm's Path because Butcher's Block just generates too much threat. That being said, I still hit like a truck and it's hella fun to play.

Fracture: I use it. It's definitely not the make or break it ability in terms of damage, but I feel there's plenty of benefit to using the move. Furthermore, I try to use it at strategic points in my rotation such that I maximize it's effectiveness and it doesn't interfere with my current optimal rotation for a given scenario (missing 1 GCD attack to place Storm's Path before a big attack, etc.) If you look at the numbers (in my case anyway), the DoT adds up, but the attack itself more-or-less adds up to the total effectiveness of Brutal Swing over the course of a battle; to corroborate Kitru's argument.

Rotation:

I've been experimenting, but usually as an opener I'll do something like this:

Defiance on
HS > SS > BB > HS > Bloodbath > Maim > SE > Berserk + Unchained > HS > IR > SS > Vengeance > BB > HS > Maim > Storm's Eye > Fracture > IB or Steel Cyclone || At this point Berserk and Unchained fall off.

Don't hold me to all the cooldown placements cause I'm just throwing that in off the top of my head and I can't say I don't switch it up. Also I throw in Brutal Swing whenever it's off cooldown. After that I just rotate between SE, SP, BB as I see fit to make
sure that I'm keeping debuffs going. I may or may not throw an extra fracture in there too, I forget, but I usually don't use Fracture when I have Defiance up, and I also ALWAYS save Berserk for pairing with Unchained. When I know I'm going to have that pair together I save IR for it as well, but if not I just use IR whenever it's ready, the cooldowns usually gel.

When I'm off tanking, it's an all you can Berserk, all you can Storm's Eye, all you can fracture-fest, and jut let loose. In the beginning of a fight you have to be careful of BB, but after the tank has established decent enmity you can pretty much do whatever you want. This is how I'm able to really push the numbers with warrior. It's a beautiful thing. Obviously in scenarios when I need to tank swap I Defiance dance accordingly and try to have Berserk+Unchained ready for when I need to take over so that I can maximize my dmg output while I'm MT.

tl;dr. Spec +30STR, wear Full i90 DPS accessories, Get allagan Axe, Hit things hard, Profit.

[bokchoykn]

tl;dr. Spec +30STR, wear Full i90 DPS accessories, Get allagan Axe, Hit things hard, Profit.

A couple of things I disagree with:

Speccing 30 STR basically trades VIT for STR at a 1:1 ratio.

Wearing Gryphonskin Accessories over i90 Accessories trades VIT for STR at a 5:9 ratio, plus you get a TON more secondary damage stats and slightly more Parry chance (some in the form of DEX) along with it.

By saying "Spec +30STR, wear Full i90 DPS accessories", you're essentially saying trading 30 VIT for 30 STR is worth it, but trading 25 VIT for 45 STR is not worth it. This makes no mathematical sense and is bad advice.

IMO: Spec +30 VIT. Wear the accessories that are most appropriate for the encounter and your role.

let me state that I agree with OP in saying that I believe REAL BiS Warrior for any encounter is a healthy mix of VIT and DPS accessories to maximize the balance between Parry Rate and Parry%(the amount mitigated).

This is definitely not what I said. "Best-in-Slot" varies from encounter-to-encounter and boils down to what is more valuable in that fight: The boost to WAR HP vs The boost to WAR Damage.

Parry has very little to do with it.

[BushidoMP]

A couple of things I disagree with:

This is definitely not what I said. "Best-in-Slot" varies from encounter-to-encounter and boils down to what is more valuable in that fight: The boost to WAR HP vs The boost to WAR Damage.

Parry has very little to do with it.

Not word for word, but I thought in the general sense you felt that it's best to do more damage while still being a reliable tank; forgive my assumption.

Anyway, about the STR trade... the mathematical trade off is better with i70 accessories, but you're doing to do more damage with full i90 STR accesories, and you can still tank every encounter in the game currently. That was the point of my post.

If you wanna debate absolute optimal gear scenario per every encounter in the game I have no desire to argue with you, but I would stand by my claim that i90 dps accesories > i70 penta melds.

Edit:

A couple of things I disagree with:
Wearing Gryphonskin Accessories over i90 Accessories trades VIT for STR at a 5:9 ratio, plus you get a TON more secondary damage stats and slightly more Parry chance (some in the form of DEX) along with it.

By saying "Spec +30STR, wear Full i90 DPS accessories", you're essentially saying trading 30 VIT for 30 STR is worth it, but trading 25 VIT for 45 STR is not worth it. This makes no mathematical sense and is bad advice.

Also, I wanted to say that I think trading 30VIT for 30STR is worth it, if you have the gear for it, yes. Also, you're twisting my words here just to make your point. I'm not discrediting i70 pentamelds at all, they're still a good option. I'm merely advocating my method.

What is your point with this thread? Did you wanna facilitate a discussion about warrior damage, or did you just want to argue with everyone about why your method is superior? Because that's about all you've done so far.

Post YOUR stats on your warrior with your 30VIT and your i70 pentamelds, and we'll compare them to mine and see if you really get a TON more secondary damage stats.

[bokchoykn]

*snip*

My mistake. I read your TLDR at as i90 Tank accessories.


i90 DPS accessories will give you the most damage, but gives you no HP and much less mitigation

i90 Tank accessories will give you the most HP, but give you very, very little damage.

i70 Pentamelded accessories essentially give you ~75% of the damage, ~55% of the HP, and slightly more mitigation than any other option.

Basically:

i90 VIT: Survivability 10, Damage 1
i90 STR: Survivability 1, Damage 10
i70 Crafted: Survivability 7, Damage 7

I would against i90 DPS accessories. If my healers are really good, can I tank every encounter in the game wearing Monk Accessories? Probably. But using that logic, you could also argue that if your DPS is really good, you shouldn't have to wear DPS accessories.

The bottom line is: Which set will give you the highest chance at success and the lowest risk of failure? I highly doubt that i90 STR accessories and +30 STR is the answer to this question for all encounters.

[BushidoMP]

But using that logic, you could also argue that if your DPS is really good, you shouldn't have to wear DPS accessories.

What? Lol.

i70 Pentamelded accessories essentially give you ~75% of the damage, ~55% of the HP, and slightly more mitigation than any other option.

Basically:

i90 VIT: Survivability 10, Damage 1
i90 STR: Survivability 1, Damage 10
i70 Crafted: Survivability 7, Damage 7

Can you post your numbers like I asked? I'm curious about doing a comparison.

The bottom line is: Which set will give you the highest chance at success and the lowest risk of failure? I highly doubt that i90 STR accessories and +30 STR is the answer to this question for all encounters.

The title of this thread is literally "Maximizing DPS Output" -- that's what the purpose of my reply was, to explain how I maximize my DPS output. Explaining that I've been able to tank all encounters in the game in DPS gear was just some bonus info. If you want to discuss optimal gear sets for all encounters. Rate of Success vs Risk of Failure, that's an entirely different argument. At that rate, why not spec +30 VIT and i90 tanking accessories and call it a day. Discussion over.

Pick an argument.

Min/Maxing the optimal build for tanking survivability vs damage output is basically going to be defined by having a combination of a large amount of effective HP, high Parry Rate and Parry mitigation (%parried). In this case, as I stated previously, you're probably best off mixing up i90 tanking + i90 dps accessories where Parry, Determination, and STR take precedence. I don't say vitality because it's innately attached to the tanking accessories. We don't truly know if STR/Parry is tiered or matches up point for point, but if we go with the tier theory, it's probably best to build STR until you reach 25% mitigation from parries, and then stack parry to increase your parry rate. Crit isn't entirely irrelevant, but it holds the lowest weight.

Anyway, I digress. Please post your gear sets + stats so we can continue to discuss warrior DPS output.

[bokchoykn]

Can you post your numbers like I asked? I'm curious about doing a comparison.

I am at work. I cannot log in right now to show you my stats.

The title of this thread is literally "Maximizing DPS Output" -- that's what the purpose of my reply was, to explain how I maximize my DPS output.

This thread is more about making DPS a priority. Not necessarily making it the ultimate priority or putting DPS above all else. It was a poorly-chosen title. I'm bad at making titles, so I apologize for any confusion.

The point of the thread was that Warriors (and tanks in general) should do what they can to maximize their DPS output, while performing the other primary functions of the job. Not necessarily to blindly maximize DPS at all costs.

Warrior would obviously output more DPS with full STR gear and 30 STR attribute points, there is definitely no argument there.

The BiS set for each individual fight is definitely a good topic of debate. For example:

At that rate, why not spec +30 VIT and i90 tanking accessories and call it a day.

Because, depending on the fight, this might not be the best way to increase rate of success. For instance, I think damage is the main bottleneck in the Titan EX fight, not tank survivability. It is worth giving up 25 VIT for 45 STR (i90 VIT to Gryphonskin), but probably not worth giving up 75 VIT for 65 STR (i90 VIT to i90 STR).