Unchained. Seriously, why are we not abusing this skill?

[Comrade_uri]

For me Unchained is used only once. As an opener, tomahawk, the bb combo, the blade debuff combo (eye or path, I'm at work and ill, help a guy out XD ) at that point I have 4 stacks, pop internal release, berserk, unchained and do bb combo till pacify. I do that to get an amazing hate lead to swap into my dps stance and use that. I will say this, I only do that in boss fights I know very well otherwise I don't touch unchained. To me it's a tool to be used at certain times like all of the WARs ability's. I can't think of one thing that WAR has that I never use (least used award goes to the dps aoe attack you can use at 5 stacks, forgot what it was but yea, very rare it's used)

[Brian_]

So you're not using IB and only stay in Defiance for the duration of Unchained ? Great...then a PLD can do better than you.

How convenient to forgot that Sheltron gives a better eHP increase that Thrill Of Battle, right ? And has a recast of 30s, allowing it to be paired with every other mitigation cooldown.
It's not that difficult to calculate that Thrill Of Battle + Vengeance + Raw Intuition offer less mitigation than Sheltron + Rampart + Sentinel + Bulwark. Do the math...

That's exactly where you're wrong. Unchained lowers your mitigation toolkit.

No, I basically spend 100% of A5S - our current A8S progression in Deliverance.

Bulwark and Sentinel have 180s CDs. That means you will often not be able to use them on consecutive tank busters. I don't even know why I bother with people who clearly don't raid yet want to talk about things that only matter for raiding and use standards as stupid as "hey if you use all your CDs you have higher mitigation so PLD>WAR!" As a PLD, you are almost always rotating Rampart + some light CDs, Sentinel, and Hallowed Ground to create a full CD rotation for an encounter. Bulwark is not a CD you use to mitigate important damage.

Take early A1S progression for example. Back then, PLDs had to stack Rampart, Sentinel and ShO in order to survive. Because the next tank buster was roughly 120 seconds later, they needed to use HG to mitigate that one because Sentinel was not yet off CD. But, WARs could just use Thrill and Vengeance for all three because their CDs were short enough. As such, they had a ton of flexibility with their CDs because they still had Holmgang in their back pocket.

Or, look at A7S P3-->P5. If you use Sentinel on the first P3 Uplander Doom, it will not be ready for the P5 Uplander Doom during ball-phase. WARs don't have this problem even without the use of IB because of the shorter CD on Vengeance and Thrill.

That is why WARs are more than adequately equipped to deal with all current content even without IB. They have way more mitigation than they need.

How about you actually do some content that actually demands you know how to play your job before you tell other people "facts" and ask them to do some irrelevant math.

And how Unchained lowers a WAR's mitigation toolkit when it's purely a bonus is beyond me.

[JackFross]

It is my oppinion that a WAR that's MT'ing should rely on Inner Beast rather than Unchained, as it can hold aggro anyway and the 6 seconds of mitigation and the 300 potency self-heal offers more Raid-wide benefits than "Pulling harder on the boss I'm already pulling and holding".

Man, I stopped reading this post at the DPS stuff. I never realized how WILDLY off-base you are toward the topic of this thread.

Let me break this down for you. The WAR is changing their opener from Deliverance all the way to:

[Defiance>Infuriate>wait for the timer>vengeance>Unchained on pull]>
Tomahawk>2 combos>Deliverance>Berserk>Fell Cleave>normal Berserk opener.

Literally ALL YOU LOSE is 5% on those first 7 GCDs.

In contrast, the PLD or DRK get to open the fight out of tank stance and use zero enmity grabbing moves (which constitute a DPS loss for either other tank), only using one when they provoke off the WAR at Pacification to assume their proper spot in the MT position.

I am completely baffled as to how you're missing this point - or how anyone is missing this point and still whining and bitching about "BUT MUH DEEPS" when it's a drastic raid DPS boon to have the WAR pull with Defiance+Unchained, rather than force the DRK or PLD into tank stance on pull in order to hold against the bursting DPS.

How convenient to forgot that Sheltron gives a better eHP increase that Thrill Of Battle, right ?

I'm just gonna go ahead and tap you on the head and give you a sticker.

Sheltron looks really good on paper, but its uses are so few and far between for anything other than Shield Swipe procs. It requires a very specific situation for it to be worthwhile, and PLD sees a very tiny amount of those scenarios in Savage Midas - if they even see any at all. Almost every physical tank buster in Midas is multiple hits back-to-back, which makes Sheltron basically worthless, whereas Thrill+Equilibrium works significantly better.
"But that's two cooldowns!"
Equilibrium is a 60s CD that is usually used in Deliverance for a TP boost. Trading a TP boost for a health boost to mitigate incoming damage is not using an extra CD.

[AaronHughes]

A warrior's enmity combo, Butcher's Block, is their highest potency combo. In comparison, a Paladin's Rage of Halone combo is 90! potency less than Royal Authority. So naturally a Paladin will want to avoid using RoH as much as possible, while Butcher's Block is a natural part of a warrior's highest DPS rotation. We've already established that PLD/DRK benefit from holding the boss's aggro, but almost ironically they are the worst classes to generate hate with. Warrior is the only class that can almost completely negate the damage penalty of their tank stance thanks to Unchained, and it would be a waste to not let them do it. One fell cleave does not make up for both tanks getting to stay in dps for the entirety of a fight. Pacification is a convenient time to provoke, and remember you can accomplish all of this without the need for shadewalker from a NIN.

Of course we're talking about high level play, not your average pug.

[Februs]

Also tend to just MT fulltime as WAR if I'm with a PLD. If they let me. ...They rarely do.

Sadly, it's a side-effect of the prevailing mentality. Even I have pretty much given up on the idea of Off Tanking anything as Pld, because the general attitude of the majority of War's since 3.0 is that they are a Dps class, not a Tank. I can't count how many runs I've done where I entered the instance in No Oath or Sword Oath, and the War just stood there picking their nose while they waited for me to pull. Worse yet is the Wars who run head first into a mob encounter (typically the early entrance mobs of A2 / M2) with Deliverance on and get their shit kicked in and lose enmity to the Dps. I end up having to swap Oaths and do damage control just to cover for their mistakes, so there's not point to even considering not being the MT. It's not like anyone trusts them to do the job after they've already cocked it up once. No one wants to be stuck in a dungeon all day while the War tries and fails to prove how hard they are.

The same goes for Proxy pulls. Firstly, the fact that people use War as a surrogate for generating enmity is a testament to how utterly broken Pld's kit is. That's sheer lunacy, and SE isn't kidding anyone if they try to say otherwise. Secondly, It's not a tactic that I trust when In DF. I could just be super unlucky with the parties I end up getting, but there is no way in hell I'm going to trust the other tank to even know or understand what a proxy pull is, let alone successfully do one.

Most of this can't be faulted to War's though. If I'm going to point a finger at anyone, the first people to fall under blame is the folks working at SE. I love Pld as a job. I like what it could have been, and the sword and board is still my preferred style of combat. I just wish that SE had taken the same time and consideration when making Pld as they did with War and Drk. The fact that Pld's most useful utility comes in the extremely rare instances in which they can cheese mechs with HG is more than enough proof that SE just didn't put enough thought into the job, and their current idea of a Tank balance is a humorless joke.

[MagiusNecros]

The only encounter that is both relevant and affording Sheltron higher eHP than Thrill of Battle is Sephirot Extreme in the first phase of the fight. The final phase of A8N (not sure re: A8S, since I don't know the DRP timings there) counts, too, I suppose.

The real question I'd be asking is why does Sheltron block all the damage for the one TB attack in Sephy Ex but doesn't for any other physical only TB in any other trial. Eh? EH!?

[JackFross]

The real question I'd be asking is why does Sheltron block all the damage for the one TB attack in Sephy Ex but doesn't for any other physical only TB in any other trial. Eh? EH!?

Whatchu mean? It blocks Heavenly Heel successfully in Thordan, and it can block Ravana's frontal tank-split cleave. Every other trial is 50 or lower (or has no physical TB's *coughBismarckcough*), so they weren't designed with Sheltron in mind! I'm sure it'll block Ifrit's cleave and Titan's Mountain Buster, but they have no cast times and require pin-point precision, due to the whole... not designed with Sheltron in mind. c:

[MagiusNecros]

Whatchu mean? It blocks Heavenly Heel successfully in Thordan, and it can block Ravana's frontal tank-split cleave. Every other trial is 50 or lower (or has no physical TB's *coughBismarckcough*), so they weren't designed with Sheltron in mind! I'm sure it'll block Ifrit's cleave and Titan's Mountain Buster, but they have no cast times and require pin-point precision, due to the whole... not designed with Sheltron in mind. c:

And it blocks all the damage of those attacks? Sounds pretty hype. Makes my DRK jealous.

[HoodRat]

And it blocks all the damage of those attacks? Sounds pretty hype. Makes my DRK jealous.

Nah, you have to stack full parry for that. Sadly, you're stacking piety so you'd better stay drkmage.

[MagiusNecros]

Nah, you have to stack full parry for that. Sadly, you're stacking piety so you'd better stay drkmage.

Well I find PLD boring so that also gets in the way.