Returning warrior looking for advice

[theunknowing]

Hello all, i had to quit the game shortly after launch due to i was moving at the time. I have finally decided to return so now i have this nice level 50 warrior sitting here and unsure of what to do now.

Any advice would be appreciated, advice on rotation and such would be nice. Any update info on the class would be nice aswell, back when i was playing warriors weren't exactly used for any thing so would be nice to know if they have been buffed since then.

But any ways, any info is appreciated!

[Donjo]

Warriors were buffed quite significantly in Patch 2.1. There are now fights where Warrior is a better Main Tank than Paladin and groups are generally uncomfortable with the idea of going into an 8 man instance without both a Paladin and a Warrior. They're in a good place right now.

The changes are deep into these patch notes: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...7af43f3c43828a

As for "what to do now", your best bet is to get used to the new Warrior and then start pursuing some gear!

[Bushman707]

I am a ilvl85 warrior and tried being a paladin in another world, but didn't care much for it after being a warrior. After 2.1, the warrior became a great asset to dungeons "as donjo said ^^". And the fact that they can turn off warrior and gain back that 15% strength, they are pretty much a dps that can actually pull and hold Aggro and has high hp. The paladins are great main tanks don't get me wrong, they have great defense. Warriors are a more offensive based, considering we heal through regeneration which we get through our attacking. So they blessed us with wrath! Which combined with certain attacks can generate powerful bursts of that do great amounts of damage and then dumps a little extra into our hp. But, I think warriors require more skill to master than paladins, which I find challenging and fun. 1 on 1, equally geared, i feel if you have a someone who knows how to use a warrior, he will take the paladin down! Wrath, holmgang, storms eye, and way higher hp! Love it lol.

[theunknowing]

Awesome, thanks for the replies guys. I will look through the patch notes and stuff soon and in the meantime work on adjusting to my warrior again before looking to grab some gear.

[Kitru]

Here's the basic rundown. If you have more questions, feel free to ask.

WAR has 4 basic rotations that you need to learn, each with a specific situation in which you need to use it (I'm referencing the combos, not the individual attacks). None of them have Fracture because Fracture is basically useless (it's not even an appreciable damage increase but it is a noticeable increase in TP consumption).

(SE or SP)>BB: this is your high damage rotation. Use it when you're soloing or have a comfortable enmity lead. SE is when you need more damage and SP is when you need more mitigation.
(SE or SP)>BB>BB: this is your high enmity rotation. Use it when you need to generate as much aggro as possible. SE for extra damage. SP for extra mitigation.
SE>SP>BB: this is your general purpose tanking rotation. It is good damage but not the best, good mitigation but it leaves a single open GCD, and good enough enmity to keep you afloat except when there's a PLD OT riding your ass.
SP>SE: this is your offtanking rotation. It's good damage, low enmity, and maintains both debuffs with 100% uptime.

(For the record, I did not include SE>BB>BB>BB because it actually generates less enmity than SE>BB>BB because Maim falls off before the third BB finishes, which ends up causing it to lose in enmity gen *and* damage compared to SE>BB>BB)

For your Wrath consumers, all 3 of them are useful. If you're expecting burst damage, save Inner Beast and time it to go off 1 GCD before it lands; else, use it as soon as you get 5 Wrath stacks (holding on to the Wrath stacks provides less damage than using Inner Beast does). Steel Cyclone is amazing AoE damage and enmity (more than Overpower, and it's effectively free); use it when you have 5 Wrath stacks and are thinking about using Overpower.

Unchained has a very specific way for you to use it: it's generally referred to as UBIR (Unchained, Berserk, Internal Release). When you have 5 stacks of Wrath and Maim up, do HS(Unchained)>SS(Berserk)>BB(Internal Release)>SE combo>BB combo>Inner Beast. This is the optimal damage usage of Unchained and generates an unholy amount of enmity in the process (you can often do this at the start of a fight and never have to use BB ever again because of the enmity cushion). If you need to absolutely maximize enmity, use HS(Unchained)>Maim(Berserk)>SE(Internal Release)>BB combo>BB combo>Inner Beast. It's lower damage because you sacrifice some debuff uptime, but it generates slightly more enmity. Optimally, you will try to use one of these every 2 minutes: the damage and enmity increase is truly awe inspiring (usage of this is how a WAR generates more enmity over time than a PLD; if you do not do this, PLD generates more).

For tank CDs, use them often. They recharge quickly so you're wasting the advantage they have in having low CDs. The longest CD is 2 minutes and the uptimes are remarkably high; if you stagger them along with Inner Beast, you can actually keep up at least 1 CD *at all times*. You should basically endeavor try to keep all but 1-2 on CD at all times. Burn Foresight and Featherfoot on a whim; if you want, you can generally just keep them on CD (just don't stack them; stagger them) because their contributions are only appreciable over the long term. Convalescence is used for periods of extended high damage that do not threaten to burst damage you to death; if you've got a reasonable expectation of high damage, use it. ToB is used for situations where you're at risk of dying to burst damage (or when you need a bit of a heal). Vengeance is used for situations when you're being wailed on by multiple targets (you need extra mitigation because of the additional attacks and the extra "AoE" damage is quite nice) or when you need both mean mitigation and eHP (this is your strongest CD; learn to love it and use it often).