A former WAR's Paradigm Shift

[Kassiekane]

I've mained Warrior since patch 2.1. I haven't put that much though into why I chose Warrior over Paladin back then, I just went with Warrior because it wasn't a pain in the ass to hold threat while leveling. All I really cared about was being a tank - which is why I leveled Paladin soon after. As time passed, I found myself liking tanking more and more. Though eventually, some people started tanking in Strength accessories and I couldn't understand why. A quick look at the tank forums revealed to me how important it was for the tank to contribute to the raid's DPS. I was still kind of new to tanking and figured "well this is what's expected of me so I should do it". And I liked it. I enjoyed how having more strength gave me more HP with self-healing. Even though I did start using strength accessories I never felt like I was a dps.

Then 3.0 rolls around. SE dishes out a DPS stance that gives warriors powerful attacks. At first I was really excited, especially for Decimate. But then, once I stepped into Bismark extreme I knew something was wrong. I was competing with anyone that was not a dragoon or a monk, and when bursting on the back, my dps skyrockets to the top of the charts. I'm just sitting there asking myself: "Is this what's supposed to happen?". So I started looking at theorycraft posts on reddit and parse videos on youtube just to find that my war's dps is horrifically close to that of the highest dps achieved with a theorycrafted rotation (at the time). Since then, I started to feel less like a tank and more like a glorified DPS that can take hits.

My love for the job really stated to dwindle when Alex savage was released. I couldn't find a group because all groups had a warrior already. I was surprised, and started wondering where the hell did all these warriors come from.

Since I was unable to participate in any savage raids, I just decided to level AST in my spare time. There was this one particular run in the Aery with a tank being a WAR decked out with dreamwyrm glamour and strength accessories. Now this was before the AST buff, and I stepped into the dungeon with a weapon from the previous dungeon, so my healing was not very strong. This person would chain pull mobs, overpower a few times, and tank in deliverance. I burned all of my mana because she was taking a lot of damage and one of the dps ran out of TP on the previous pull and did not have enough to aoe again. When she went down, she called me a scrub. When I visited the tank forums a few days later, I started seeing threads and posts of people complaining about tanks, especially WARs, that tank in strength accessories. This was confusing, since it was something that was previously accepted. But I couldn't help but to assume the worst: is this how others perceive of me when I tank?

Up until 3.1, I barely played. Just logged on to collect tomes. Thordan Ex rolls around, I don't even bother tanking it. I was so fed up with tanking that I tried it as monk, and then just avoided it all together. Then I see a post about how PLD is really good in Thordan Ex which intrigued me, so I started leveling Paladin.

My paradigm shifted when I started playing vault. It was then that I enjoyed tanking again. I liked that fact that I could cover somebody before they could get hit by holy shield bash / Soul Ascension the first time, then cast stoneskin on targeted party members for subsequent Soul Ascensions. I could cast Clemency for when he jumps back down they will be instantly healed. On the second boss I could also pop HG to soak the puddles so that melee dps have room to breath, then pop Tempered Will to cleanse the heavy and negate the knockback. The point is that, I felt like a tank again. I don't even have to get to 60 to determine that PLD will be my main class for now on.

Moral of the story: Stay away from the tank sub-forums.

[Kuwagami]

at 60 they'll call you scrub because you aren't tanking in sword oath and with full STR accessories, don't worry :/

Still, happy that you like tanking as a whole o/

[Kassiekane]

at 60 they'll call you scrub because you aren't tanking in sword oath and with full STR accessories, don't worry :/

Which is why I'm glad that strength tanks will be abolished and content is going back to being mechanic-heavy in 3.2.

[Ralvenom]

Which is why I'm glad that strength tanks will be abolished and content is going back to being mechanic-heavy in 3.2.

What indication do you have that Strength tanks are going to be "abolished". Mechanic-heavy content is one thing, but I doubt we'll see using Strength accessories go away completely.

[Februs]

Which is why I'm glad that strength tanks will be abolished and content is going back to being mechanic-heavy in 3.2.

The problem isn't the use of Str accessories. That has been a common thing since the Coil days. As soon as your primary gear outclasses the Trial/Raid, people swapped to Str gear. The problem is the general attitude and mentality of the new breed of tanks that have made an appearance in HW, thinking that they can substitute for a Dps. SE is, partly, responsible for perpetuating this attitude, because they designed a bunch of Trial/Raids that require almost no technical mechanics an have difficulty that only scales directly with DPS output. This kind of thing enables the silly minded people who think they can completely forego doing their actual job in favour of SICK DEEPS!

If SE is really planning on going back to mechanic heavy fights in 3.2 than it might solve some of the problem (replacing it with a new generation of Dps-Tanks that have no idea how to avoid simple mechs) but it won't change the viability of using Str accessories. Even Pld's get a better use for Str/Det than they do out of Vit, especially when they start over- gearing.

[MagiusNecros]

Yeah right now STR tanks resonate with more people because of big damage numbers and faster clear times. Not many people find the fun in being a Tank class and taking a big hit and mitigating the damage down to be basically nothing.

I'm happy you find fun in Paladin though. I can't for the life of me.

[Ashkendor]

You'll learn that you can't win as a tank. Tank stance + Fending? You have low DPS. DPS stance + Slaying? You're squishy. Melded jewelry will just get you called a tryhard, though that's less of a thing now because a set doesn't cost 20mil+ to make anymore. Big pulls? People whine that it's too much. Small pulls? People whine that it's not enough. Honestly, they're all viable (though as a healer, I admittedly have a profound dislike for tanks in nonstop DPS stance on big pulls, especially when they don't seem to know the difference between their cooldown rotation and their left elbow) and it's completely up to you how you feel comfortable playing. My advice would pretty much be: just don't pay attention to anyone that frames their criticism of you by calling you a scrub. Me, I tend toward the middle of the road a lot. I'll be in Slaying or melded depending on if I'm with friends or in DF; trash packs are tanked in my tanking stance until at least some of the mobs die and bosses are tanked in my DPS stance. During progression in raids, I tend to lean a lot on mitigation to the detriment of DPS. As I figure out safe places to deal more damage in the fight, I spend more time in my DPS stance.

As far as PLD in Thordan EX, it is indeed very good. A lot of our kit is actually really useful in this fight, including Divine Veil (there's a crapton of unavoidable AoE damage in the later phases, it looks like a real bear to heal). And yes, it's nice to be a tank again.

Which is why I'm glad that strength tanks will be abolished and content is going back to being mechanic-heavy in 3.2.

I wouldn't say that I want to see strength tanks abolished, but I do want to see more content similar to Thordan EX.

There's DPS checks, but they're not completely unrecoverable if someone dies.

[Kassiekane]

You'll learn that you can't win as a tank.

This much I know. I'm just making the decision which makes the game more enjoyable for me. When it comes to choosing dps over mitigation, I'll do what's best for the situation; they didn't give us RA for no reason.

I also disagree with you on the avoiding this forum bit

That was just a joke poking fun at how much the tank forums influenced my decision to switch to PLD.

[Jpec07]

Actually, we don't know that for sure. All we know is they're "changing tank damage calculation," which could really mean anything (even if it was just changing the Str modifier from 1x to .9x).

I'm glad you're enjoying tanking. PLD is definitely the tankiest right now by design when taking lots of physical hits, with DRK coming second. But the job is suffering because (1) so many people won't take PLD because of how poorly they perform in that same DPS meta that you hate, and (2) it's been proven that they actually take more damage in current encounter design, while also contributing less DPS. And unfortunately, punishingly tight DPS checks will probably continue to be a thing for some time to come, so the meta will prevail.

I'm holding out hope, though. Saint Mocianne's Arboretum, Pharos Sirius HM, and MB Thordan all seem to be leaning on the ability to mitigate frequent medium-to-high amounts of damage, so there are signs pointing that SE might develop content that lets tanks be tanks again.

I also disagree with you on the avoiding this forum bit, but that's mostly because I've been jonesing for a web forum for years now, and this place is a great place to get my fix.

[Leonus]

I started getting my rocks off on mitigating what needs to be mitigated while doing as much damage as possible. If they mess with damage calculations too much and drop tank dps to being sad and pathetic, it takes the fun out of it for me. Just standing there trying to live... is rather dull for me and in my honest opinion, the easiest part if the job.