Xeno's Warrior Tanking Guide

[SeraviEdalborez]

Are you going to be updating your guide with the buff to storm's path?

*Eye

It makes the rotation streamlined now.

No defiance: H M SE Fracture H S BB, repeat.
Defiance: Same thing, or just skip the Fracture. SE duration buff lets you use IB without letting SE fall off.

All the duration buff is really letting you do is apply letting the SE in the rotation hit with SE debuff still up. If you tried to use Fracture before 2.4 you would have SE fall off on the reapplying SE. This required a more SE-heavy rotation (or a 2nd WAR) to upkeep fulltime: SE > Frac > SE > BB > SE, repeat.

[Kieda1080]

So Im semi new to war and been pld 4 awhile. Im going to be doing my first attempts at tanking T5 tomorrow and my FC lead told me not to do it as war. We had a long talk about how hard it is to heal wars in that fight and I explained it depends on the skill of the war. We are doing a FC learning party and I plan on looking a lot up, but she told me over and over again it is inconsiderate of me to do it as war since she was healing.


How do you guys feel about this? We are going to be doing the 1 tank way and I understand dmg maybe smoother as pld as its easier, I feel it is unforgiving to deny me the chance to learn and better my war as thats becoming my new main. Just would like some input as I know wars do this fine and I\\\\'ll over gear the content too. Bc being told by a healer "if its hard for me to heal you then it\\\\'s not my fault", when that is the healers job and mine is to mitigate the big hard hitting mechanics and not the fluff dmg....

[Rbstr]

She's full of crap. Wars require the same amount of healing and have the same effective HP as paladins.

You can have inner beast up for every Deathsentence if you're timing it well. And a couple other cooldowns to rely on if you mess up or feel like you need to stack with IB. That's why War has been the preferred MT in t5 for a while. Your gear is nearly 20 ilevels beyond what was "required" and then you have the echo (though maybe take another Vit accessory or two just to humor them). If they're having a hard time keeping you up and you have a modicum of awareness, it's their problem at this point.

But, TBH, you're not likely to sway anyone's opinion. It's like Parry=Best-in-slot. It's so ingrained into some people that you should mitigate at all costs that they don't see the larger picture.

[Kieda1080]

Thanks! Yeah I was kind of thinking along the lines of what you said. I enjoy war more and feel it makes me a better tank b/c I actually take the time to see what the boss does and what I need to mitigate. For T5 should I put my focus on Death Sentence for my mitigation? So if I miss an IB use vengence or forsight for it? And just not worry about plummit(sp?)? I know for war its more about the main mechanics and not the inbetween dmg thats our problem. Just want to maximize and improve. PLD is just so boring now that I've been walking the path of the warrior......

[Warrlordd]

Warriors are fantastic main tanks, and solo tanks. In T9 they rock as well.

So are paladins.

In T5 you will need to use IB for the death sentences. I find it happens nearly after every second plummet (but stay on your toes, I've been surprised before).

As always, using your other CD's (convalescense, foresight, bloodbath, awareness) is important inbetween all thats going on.

[Kimura410]

regarding awareness....as a pld you should use it as CC bc no other skills are worth the 5th slot. youll either have protect raise or cure. none of those are worth it. why would you cure for 300 when you could put a stoneskin on yourself that mitigates 800hp or so? its not great, but awareness is useful in some fights and situations. shiva during bow phase is one. t11 one of the adds gets increased crit chances. and looking back on t9, there were times when a ravensbeak would come, then the auto attack directly after would be a crit and id drop every once in a blue moon.

its not the best skill but not completely useless either. if youre a pld you should be using it whenever its on cooldown. if youre a warrior, then yeah, second wind is prob still better.

very good guide tho

[SpookyGhost]

snip

Can't really figure out what you're saying here, think you might've accidentally typed one word when you meant the other but uh. Awareness is a GLD ability, which means PLD gets it by default - so if you felt like popping it for something it would be at 0 cost to you. For WAR, awareness does have situational uses (moreso now than before), but it's not really the best fill for the last slot in most content. If you have no use for Flash in the instance you're fighting, I'd say substitute it for Awareness, but that's it.

[Kenji_]

Hi Xeno and all tanks around here, i had a look over your guide and i have to say its the most competent guide available, great job. I havea question tho, i am still new to this game so i just got my WAR to ilvl 95 but didnt start any crafting yet, are the ilvl 90 accesorys still relevant in 2.4? Or can you craft something better to be on par with ilvl130 or better?

[SeraviEdalborez]

Ruby (i90) is still relevant in Final Coil (i130) for the reason Gryphonskin (i70) was still relevant in Second Coil (i110). Raw combination of stats. This was posted before we knew i130 acc stats so not perfect analysis, but:

The simple truth is that the i90 melded is giving more main stats than the i110 acc drops.

Numberdump

i70 Gryphonskin: 9 STR, 10 VIT
-Set: 45 STR, 50 VIT (95 attribute points)

i90 VIT: 15 VIT
-Set: 75 VIT

i90 STR: 13 STR
-Set: 65 STR

---

i90 Ruby (or Topaz, whatever): 13 STR, 15 VIT
-Set: 65 STR, 75 VIT (140 attribute points)

i110 VIT: 21 VIT
-Set: 105 VIT

i110 STR: 18 STR
-Set: 90 STR

---

From this we can draw conclusions that i130 VIT and STR will be probably 27-28 VIT and 24-25. We'll use the high numbers for presumed behind-the-scenes rounding up.

i130 VIT: 28 VIT
-Set: 140 VIT

i130 STR: 25 STR
-Set: 125 STR

---

Now as I said earlier, people have done T9 with Gryphonskin accs long before Ruby/Topaz was a thing and long before full i110 right-side was even close to possible, and some have still done it long after. There's no real reason you can't do the same with Ruby accs, ESPECIALLY for progression. It lets you upgrade the left-side gear first and maybe never have to upgrade the right side.

It's not clear-cut best. We won't know that for sure until people get into Turn 13 and learn how much VIT you need to survive and how much you can shed. If T9 is any indication, Ruby should be more than plenty.

The takeaway of this is that if you (wisely) upgrade left side pieces before ever considering accessories, the longevity of your accs is going to be much more pronounced. May or may not be best in slot, but it's progression.

[Kenji_]

So its a long term investment and not absolete by a long shot. Thats what i wanted to hear. Thank you for your reply.