Unchained...nothing stays the same (but how do YOU use it?)

[RojGardoth]

Unchained

Not much else to it. How do you guys use it? Is it situational? Is it even needed or helpful? Etc.

Thanks!

[Syzygian]

If its a fight where you need to stay in Defiance a lot, its one more offensive CD. If not, you can use it on pull for burst enmity and then again when its off cooldown, and you're in Deliverance, swap over into Defiance with Unchained and its like a pseudo-defensive CD as you gain the benefits of Defiance with very little DPS loss (assuming you're tanking most of the fight in Deliverance).

I'm curious who/what/when/where/why you thought this skill was needless or unhelpful? o.o Its a pretty self-evidently good CD.

[RojGardoth]

Its a pretty self-evidently good CD.

Well not to me is the problem I guess. It requires building a full Wrath stack of course. So assuming you have that, is Unchained BB combo better than Inner Beast + standard BB combo? If enmity generation is the goal that is. I like losing the Defiance damage debuff with Unchained. But then losing all Wrath is where it seems to negate that positive to me. I honestly do not know what creates more hate, but I know neither Unchained nor Inner Beast specifically state that they increase enmity (above and beyond that which any attack will create based on damage, I assume). Defiance, Skull Sunder, and Butcher's Block do have that extra enmity generation of course. Inner Beast also has the two nice buffs but could ignore those if Unchained provides a significant enough greater amount of enmity over IB.

[Launched]

Well not to me is the problem I guess. It requires building a full Wrath stack of course. So assuming you have that, is Unchained BB combo better than Inner Beast + standard BB combo? If enmity generation is the goal that is. I like losing the Defiance damage debuff with Unchained. But then losing all Wrath is where it seems to negate that positive to me. I honestly do not know what creates more hate, but I know neither Unchained nor Inner Beast specifically state that they increase enmity (above and beyond that which any attack will create based on damage, I assume). Defiance, Skull Sunder, and Butcher's Block do have that extra enmity generation of course. Inner Beast also has the two nice buffs but could ignore those if Unchained provides a significant enough greater amount of enmity over IB.

Unchained is about a 33% damage increase over Defiance DPS for 20s. IB is a single 300 potency attack. It should be pretty obvious that Unchained will add way more damage (and since enmity is based on damage, more enmity) than IB. Especially since the extra damage on Skull Sunder/Butcher's Block will get multiplied by their modifier.

[whiskeybravo]

I honestly do not know what creates more hate, but I know neither Unchained nor Inner Beast specifically state that they increase enmity .

Inner beast doesn't generate any additional enmity, while Unchained doesn't specifically - it eliminates the damage penalty - which means your enmity combos are doing more damage thus increasing enmity generation.

[Syzygian]

Well not to me is the problem I guess. It requires building a full Wrath stack of course. So assuming you have that, is Unchained BB combo better than Inner Beast + standard BB combo? If enmity generation is the goal that is. I like losing the Defiance damage debuff with Unchained. But then losing all Wrath is where it seems to negate that positive to me. I honestly do not know what creates more hate, but I know neither Unchained nor Inner Beast specifically state that they increase enmity (above and beyond that which any attack will create based on damage, I assume). Defiance, Skull Sunder, and Butcher's Block do have that extra enmity generation of course. Inner Beast also has the two nice buffs but could ignore those if Unchained provides a significant enough greater amount of enmity over IB.

This all assumes that you Infuriate on pull, which I believe all WAR mains do, at least when MTing:

BB+IB = (((150+(200*3.5)+(280*5.5))*.75)+300)*2.3 = 4812.75 potency of enmity.
BB+Unchained = (150+(200*3.5)+(280*5.5))*2.3 = 5487 potency of enmity.

WAR main correct me if I have the enmity modifiers wrong, iirc they are the same as DRK.

Unchained is better, by a lot, and over fewer GCDs.

I'm not understanding why you're worried about losing the stacks, I mean yeah, you're not spending them on an IB, but you are spending them on what is essentially a 25% damage increase (which is a lot) for 20 seconds...

[RojGardoth]

This all assumes that you Infuriate on pull, which I believe all WAR mains do, at least when MTing

I do not do this currently. I'd rather build a stack, then Infuriate to get a double burst. Or, better yet, have at least a partially built stack leftover from the last trash mob before a boss. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm wrong here too tho (see below).

BB+IB = (((150+(200*3.5)+(280*5.5))*.75)+300)*2.3 = 4812.75 potency of enmity.
BB+Unchained = (150+(200*3.5)+(280*5.5))*2.3 = 5487 potency of enmity.
...
I'm not understanding why you're worried about losing the stacks...

Well, because I didn't have any numbers showing which is better in a boss pull, which, btw, thanks for those. Intuition is often trumped by data :P

So, 3.5 is EM for SS? Which would make 5.5 for BB and 2.3 for anything under Defiance? I'd assume all other numbers are damage except the .75 which is Defiance debuff. Interesting stuff.

[Merkava]

Unchained has two mayor uses.

1) Burst enmity generation, if you are MTing then ALWAYS pull a boss with unchained active. It will give you a significant enmity advantage over other players. Ensuring you can deliverance to your hearts content. All MT pulls from a WAR should start with Unchained -> Tomahawk -> Eye Combo -> Butchers Combo -> Switch to Deliverance if you want and DPS away. You will never loose enmity to anyone (except for another really good WAR).

2) Extra DPS when situations require you to swap to Defiance. During A2S, I only have to Defiance at one point (when I have to tank the two Dolls in Wave 7). I always make sure to pop-in Unchained at this point in order to maximize my DPS as much as possible.

Unchained is somewhat situation but it should be extremely useful in just about any encounter.

[Jamillion]

Unchained has two mayor uses.

1) Burst enmity generation, if you are MTing then ALWAYS pull a boss with unchained active. It will give you a significant enmity advantage over other players. Ensuring you can deliverance to your hearts content. All MT pulls from a WAR should start with Unchained -> Tomahawk -> Eye Combo -> Butchers Combo -> Switch to Deliverance if you want and DPS away. You will never loose enmity to anyone (except for another really good WAR).

2) Extra DPS when situations require you to swap to Defiance. During A2S, I only have to Defiance at one point (when I have to tank the two Dolls in Wave 7). I always make sure to pop-in Unchained at this point in order to maximize my DPS as much as possible.

Unchained is somewhat situation but it should be extremely useful in just about any encounter.

I just want to point out that even on a single target it's better to pull with overpower than it is with tomahawk.

[Syzygian]

I just want to point out that even on a single target it's better to pull with overpower than it is with tomahawk.

Overpower's range is barely half of Tomahawk. Its technically impossible to pull with since you will always facepull first like a scrub.

I'd actually strongly recommend against this in fact, as in a controlled fight your DPS/healers will go caveman as soon as they see you hit a Tomahawk, and generally be safe, if they try and do the same while you mosey into Overpower range you're losing seconds of DPS uptime and can potentially end up with the boss yo-yoing into a suboptimal position.

Not a habit I'd recommend getting into.

Running up to the boss and pulling in general is pretty sloppy and suboptimal, actually. All of the de facto ranged tank pulling abilities (Shield Lob, Tomahawk, Unmend) have a 15y range which means you can get within range to use these abilities on any boss without actually pulling them. Doing this before a pull and then hitting the button from a standing position and THEN running to the boss allows your DPS to immediately go to town without any worry of face-aggro. If you run up to the boss even if you're mashing the button, the attack will not register on the boss until after you have already facepulled, and if any of your DPS have started their openers in that period you're putting the pull at a disadvantage.