IS WAR as hard as it seems?

[SpookyGhost]

The only reason people think that WAR is so easy and so brainless is because it's been pigeonholed into the OT slot on top of everything in HW being brainless to tank (so much so that even if WAR was tanking, it'd be in DPS stance). If we're purely talking about difficulty now relative to the content, then all 3 tanks are easy as hell. If you think that DRK has MP management you're bananas, it has a priority system and that's it. Blood Price and Blood Weapon never let you run out of MP and very rarely will you have to make a decision on what you should use over what. Most of DRK's oGCDs are just kept on CD as they have no mana cost. The CD rotation is as cut and dry as PLD's outside of using Dark Dance before a tank buster which adds no complexity as you need to know when the tank busters come regardless of what tank you play. The rotation is jokes, you rotate DA Soul Eater and Delirium depending on MP and what's coming off cooldown.

I just can not figure out what people are finding difficult about DRK. Is it because you have more buttons to press? Is pressing buttons difficult for some people?

e: Also, even if you needed to pick and choose what to press when, it comes down to simply looking at the number under the bar that's blue. That's not hard. That's not some sort of mental gymnastics. I know everyone wants to think their job is the hardest because they work so hard and put out DEM MAX DEEPZ BOISSSSS but jeeeesus.

As for DRK, try maximizing DoT/debuff uptime with your attack speed jumping up and down

??????????????????? Delirium being reset early literally affects nothing. You apply the DoT when it falls off, you have 1 DoT. What. What?? WHAT?? Honestly. Honestly. Come on.

[kensatsu]

That's not true for everyone i play war, and i MT in raid exept for A2S,
Because i can switch in delivrance when i MT, and it make a loose of dps to make my PLD mate doing more Rage of Halone if he MT, in A1S we tryed if the PLD take opressor in MT we loose 300 of dps for both tank, when i get opressor in MT, i just take aggro and burst in delivrance, i loose a very few dps, but the pld win 300 dps when OT. So as long i can burst in delivrance on Boss i don't have to OT them if i have a pld mate. the same can happen in A3S, in the first phase you can burst in delivrance when you MT, you can do it in P2 also. (i remember a pick upp asking me why i MT, it should be obvious, but it tell me a lot of player think war have to OT no matter what)
When i agree to say War is the easiest, yeah it's the easiest tank to begin with
But when you know how to tank, any tank is not difficult.
Someone have said the War is the easiest tank to get the full potential of, actualy i watched a lot of Clear video of A3s, A4s, i don't agree, a lot of War get the full potential of the dps output, it's look like many War care a lot about this. I don't see a lot of war when forced to be in defiance, trying to get Inner Beast Timed with the boss cleave, so a lot of war don't have the full potential to be as tanky as possible. Because it's not that easy to doing that.
the dps rotation is not difficult at all, use of self heal too and keep cd for tank burster too, you are good when you can use all these skill with synergy, but it's not the full potential of a war, many war can be better.

[Februs]

??????????????????? Delirium being reset early literally affects nothing. You apply the DoT when it falls off, you have 1 DoT. What. What?? WHAT?? Honestly. Honestly. Come on.

2 DoT's, for Drk actually. Salt of the Earth and Scourge. Otherwise yes, though. None of the tanks are particularly difficult.

[Twilite]

I just can not figure out what people are finding difficult about DRK. Is it because you have more buttons to press? Is pressing buttons difficult for some people?

The slow animations of every swing had put me off from the job. It is hard to explain, but it feels like I'll be too slow to grab threat, etc. And can never be because of buttons lol when you have to press a million buttons on WAR.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

War has even fewer buttons to press than paladin though.

[Brian_]

War has even fewer buttons to press than paladin though.

Except they don't.

WARs use every single skill they have pretty regularly and a lot stay relevant regardless of role.

PLDs don't. Cover is rarely used, Clemency is rarely used, Tempered Will is rarely used, Shield Bash is rarely used, one of their cross-class skills is basically a throw away, and a lot of their skills do nothing when they aren't being hit. PLDs have a very small number of skills you frequently use and a lot of buttons you might press a couple times per raid tier.

DRKs also share the issue of some of their skills being situational and others being useless while not being hit (either at all or by a specific damage type). But, at least DRKs have a larger spread of buttons they need to frequently press.

[Syzygian]

??????????????????? Delirium being reset early literally affects nothing. You apply the DoT when it falls off, you have 1 DoT. What. What?? WHAT?? Honestly. Honestly. Come on.

I know Path is a DPS loss for WAR, but DRK's have no excuses to not have their debuffs up as much as possible.

And yes, Blood Weapon lining up with your applications of Delirium and Scourge does affect your rotation; allow me to enlighten you...

If Blood Weapon comes off cooldown in such a way that you can Scourge>DE combo>Blood Weapon you can get off two DA-SEs and then re-apply Delirium and Scourge in that order without losing either of them. This is a thing you have to watch for, because it will not be same twice in a row due to BW's cooldown being 40s, duration 15s, Scourge's duration 30s, and DE's duration 20s, much like WAR with Berserk and Infuriate and/or RI/Vengeance not lining up perfectly twice in a row. For it to not clip Scourge you have to be at a point in your rotation where both Scourge and Delirium are about to fall, with Scourge sooner, and with BW coming off recast at almost the same time. If you simply alternate DE/DASE Scourge is always applied after the every other use of one or the other depending on extra DA-SEs you may have used. It is not simple to map this out at all and varies depending on the fight so it is a situation you have to watch for.

Furthermore, if BW is on cooldown and you can afford to let Delirium drop, you can <DA>-HS-SS-SE-<DA>-HS-<C&S>-SS-<DA>-SE for a pretty huge burst. You cannot do this with BW up cause your GCD is too fast, and you have to time DA perfectly because of its 5s recast to DA two SEs in a row with a DA Carve woven in between, in much the same way as you must pop Berserk late in the GCD to have it not pacify you in an untimely fashion. Again, this requires a decent chunk of MP and planning, and you obviously must use Scourge immediately prior and be able to let Delirium fall for a few seconds in order to pull it off, and it has to coincide with C&S' recast time to avoid saving the CD and losing DPS, obviously.

WAR doesn't have the tanking monopoly on rotational awareness and planning. Getting off bursts like this in accordance with the duration of your debuffs and when BW and C&S come off recast while maximizing DA SE usage is apparently completely unknown information. Never seen it anywhere on the forums, and there are still a plethora of people out there that just say "blah blah rotate DE/DASE ezpz". I'm sorry its not as well publicized as stuff like triple cleave but its still a thing. Countless people show their ignorance and lack of curiosity/motivation to learn about maximizing a job not named WAR. This oversimplication of other jobs isn't going to buy us more quality players that main them, that's for sure.

[Blackbird1]

Oh god no war might have a few extra keys but it's far easier then pld or drk since your not worrying about things like mp management. Once you've learned the rotations it's fairly easy plus you got a kick ass axe instead of a sword and shield. imo best to put your points to str when lvling to 50 before desiding on switching to something like str and vit just make sure you got your provoke and whatever else you think you'll need

[Lyth]

Most of the additions to WAR with Heavensward were quality-of-life changes. While this hasn't made the job "simpler", it certainly is more forgiving to play than it used to be in the 2.x series. Even if you make a poor decision, something good still happens because of the amazing synergy between all the skills. Although you are required to "manage" stacks, there rarely is a situation where you are punished and left resource-starved for doing this poorly, outside of an incorrectly timed berserk. (Incidently, one of the best ways to become better at stack management and buff timing on WAR is to spend a good amount of time practicing hudless, which isn't feasible at all on DRK.)

Any job becomes more complex as you come to better understand its potential. There's a good bit of nuance and skill to playing WAR well, but it certainly is the most straightforward tank class to pick up and play at the moment. That's more a testament to it's design than anything else.

[Sayora]

I found WAR to be pretty easy to learn how to play because everything really does fit well together. I play DRK more but I really do appreciate how well-designed WAR is.