WAR Adjustments

[subteraneanbird]

It's always been my personal opinion that Holmgang should stop Titan from jumping. Geocrush? Nah dude.

[Umbeliel]

Something that's largely glossed over by a lot of people and is pretty stressful: the 2.1 changes were a buff..... To healers. The damage reduction is nice, but our independence on the whole took a huge hit.
I could complain all day about 2.1 changes on the whole, but as it stands the balance between Warrior and Paladin only exists as far as "They both can theoretically do the same content without the outright impossibility of 2.0"- there is absolutely nothing that a Warrior can do currently that a Paladin can't do better, with the two exceptions of snap AoE enmity and in stance dps, so much so that there wouldn't even be a reason to take a Warrior to anything if they didn't hit Bards with that nerf to Rain of Death and move it to Path..... But that is an entirely separate beast to tackle.

As it stands, IB, used constantly, only contributes about the same net damage reduction as simply equipping a shield does- which is the same function it had back in 2.0 (Sort of. It works better now to that point, at least.) and it does have the benefit of being on demand, yes, but the paladin cooldown suite effectively means that they can do that to the same effect- A 30 second cooldown rotation (combining bulwark and foresight[when applicable], and Convascalence and Awareness as a pair always) will leave you with very few "No mitigation" moments, except shield oath is always up and shield block can always happen. Self stoneskinning and the benefit from Flash's blind are huge utility that Warrior has absolutely nothing on. On top of the fact that their cooldowns pretty much cover everything anyway, shield block itself is something that can and is a thing that paladins can influence! It's the entire debate on onion shield vs everything else.

Defiance itself serves no real purpose to a Warrior's own capabilities other than reducing our damage and locking out all of our job skills. Brutal Swing is trash compared to Shield Bash and serves little to no purpose depending on the encounter. Holmgang is only very very rarely ever useful- the bastard child Squenix tried to cover up with a bandaid, I'm not even going to pretend it warrants any legitimate comparison to anything paladin has. Even Berserk's 50% attack power increase is effectively worse than FoF's 30% damage buff. I said this already, but the only good reason anyone will have for taking a Warrior to anything would be Storm's Path- which puts Paladins into OT positions often not because Warriors are better, but because they're worse at OTing than a Paladin would be, but they basically have to be around. If anything, the fact that Warrior actually has to use gladiator skills to be relevant in any post T4 content exemplifies that- you have the real tank and that second option they just sort of threw in and don't know what to do with. There is absolutely no balance between the two past the absolutely most superficial level possible.

There are a lot of things that can be done- buffing IB's heal specifically would be a good start.

[bokchoykn]

There are a few actually truly useless skills in this game. Holmgang is not one of them. A Warrior cannot OT Leviathan without Holmgang. It is very useful in T9 (Take an entire Bahamut's claw without it dying).

If you wanna talk useless, look no further than Haymaker, One Ilm Punch, and Awareness. I'd give up Bloodbath and Foresight before I'd give up Holmgang.

[Sibyll]

There are a few actually truly useless skills in this game. Holmgang is not one of them. A Warrior cannot OT Leviathan without Holmgang. It is very useful in T9 (Take an entire Bahamut's claw without it dying).

If you wanna talk useless, look no further than Haymaker, One Ilm Punch, and Awareness. I'd give up Bloodbath and Foresight before I'd give up Holmgang.

The thing is that I use Bloodbath and Foresight almost off cool down. While it may be arguable whether the uptime of the skill makes up for the lower impact, the purpose of those skills is very clear. Holmgang's purpose is not very clear. It tries to do too much and as a result it does nothing well.

My opinion of Haymaker is the same as my opinion of Keen Flurry and Featherfoot, melee DPS were intended to off-tank for certain mechanics (Garuda Extreme) and these skills exist as tools for that role. Unfortunately, most people would prefer to overload the main or off tank than to accept the fact that Monks and Lancers are fully capable of tanking because their skill sets were designed with this idea in mind, but I digress.

As for One-Ilm Punch, it has no real use now but it is perfectly possible that there will be mechanics that allow certain buffs to be removed in which case it will be used accordingly.

Awareness is just silly. I'm not sure why they even wasted a skill on Sword Oath.

Just a note, I don't think Warriors need special treatment. Other classes have some really lack luster skills that simply exist. It'd be nice to see those get some love as well so that they are actually worth being on the action bar.

[Fue]

Wasted a skill on sword oath, what?
Its the best stance for increasing dmg in the game. And its highly useful everytime you do a tank swap.

[Brannigan]

Sword Oath is good, it just shouldn't really take an ability slot. Or, rather, Shield Oath shouldn't exist and the paladin soul crystal should give -20% damage taken, -20% damage dealt, and 2x enmity, with Sword Oath removing those effects. Basically it just kind of sucks to give a class 2 semi-passive stances out of its 5 total job abilities, especially considering how limited in usefulness some other gladiator/paladin abilities are.

They could scrap shield oath (or make sword/shield toggle each other with multiple presses) and give paladins a third hit to the riot blade combo in its place.

Back on topic, though, I think Warrior's in a pretty good place right now. Its worst (native) skills are probably Foresight and Bloodbath, and Foresight honestly isn't as terrible as people seem to think. Holmgang, I think, is useful enough to justify its existence. At least if Cover and Tempered Will are useful enough to justify their existence, then Holmgang certainly is. It's definitely no Apocatastasis.

[Sibyll]

Wasted a skill on sword oath, what?
Its the best stance for increasing dmg in the game. And its highly useful everytime you do a tank swap.

I never said the skill was bad, I'm sure the numbers are available to prove the % DPS boost between Sword Oath Stance and No Stance. My point is that it feels like a filler skill that serves only to put non-tank stance Paladins on par with non-tank stance Warriors in terms of DPS output.

Also, what percentage increase does Sword Oath provide over having no stance up at all. I can only seem to find comparisons between Sword Oath and Shield Oath when I'm actually curious between Sword Oath and No stance.

Back on topic, though, I think Warrior's in a pretty good place right now. Its worst (native) skills are probably Foresight and Bloodbath, and Foresight honestly isn't as terrible as people seem to think. Holmgang, I think, is useful enough to justify its existence. At least if Cover and Tempered Will are useful enough to justify their existence, then Holmgang certainly is. It's definitely no Apocatastasis.

I agree it's overall a fine class. I think people view Foresight as being worse than it is because they try to use it like a Paladin tanking CD and it's not meant to be used that way. People have said this before, Warrior/Marauder CDs have low effects because they are meant to be used more frequently thanks to their lower CDs.

Apocatastasis exists for the same reason Elemental Resist Materia exist. They forgot to take them out.

[MythToken]

So can we agree that there isn't much to adjust?

[Umbeliel]

I never said the skill was bad, I'm sure the numbers are available to prove the % DPS boost between Sword Oath Stance and No Stance. My point is that it feels like a filler skill that serves only to put non-tank stance Paladins on par with non-tank stance Warriors in terms of DPS output.

I don't have the numbers for this on hand, but I might go out of my way to make some more up to date ones later anyway. A sword oath Paladin actually will have higher dps than a off stance Warrior in equivalent gear, though. Don't be fooled by the big axe.

So can we agree that there isn't much to adjust?

No.

[bokchoykn]

So can we agree that there isn't much to adjust?

I do.

We have no reason to complain. Warrior is a well-made class in a game where not every class is well-made. That's saying a lot. People just want to see their own class get stronger and stronger, with no regard to the real class design issues that would actually make the game better. They want their class to get all the love and will never be satisfied. This is the case in every MMO ever. Whiners will whine.

Warrior. Is. Fine.

I don't have the numbers for this on hand, but I might go out of my way to make some more up to date ones later anyway. A sword oath Paladin actually will have higher dps than a off stance Warrior in equivalent gear, though. Don't be fooled by the big axe.

A Non-Defiance Warrior's DPS is actually very slightly higher than a Sword Oath Paladin's, but where Warrior's DPS really shines is their DPS while they're tanking and ESPECIALLY in situations where they are required to change in and out of tanking stance.

Warriors have Unchained, which removes the tanking stance damage penalty. Paladins don't have an equivalent to this. The maximum uptime on this ability is 20s duration / 120s cooldown, or 16.6%. However, in situations where Warriors constantly bounce in and out of Defiance (Turns 6, 7, 9), the adjusted uptime on this ability is much higher because Warrior is only tanking for some of the time. Warriors also have Inner Beast, which not only does a ton of damage but also conserves TP since it has no TP cost.

On top of that, Warriors swap between tanking and non-tanking stances much easier than Paladins do. With Paladins, they lose two GCD's: one for going to Sword Oath and another for going back to Shield Oath. Warriors don't because stance changes are off GCD for Warriors. It's like Warriors get an extra GCD for every tank swap. Moreover, their combos don't get interrupted when they swap stances.

In tank swap situations, Paladins have to be careful how they use Rage of Halone, lest they rip aggro back as soon as their tanking partner vokes. Warriors can continue by using Storm's Path/Eye combos plus an actually good Fracture in these situations, so they can continue to DPS hard without fear of ripping aggro.

So, while a Sword Oath Paladin can hang with a non-Defiance Warrior, actual raid situations call for both classes to tank at some point. Warriors should blow Paladin DPS out of the water.