WAR damage is lacking

[LordNickage]

I'm kind of a mid tier WAR. How the hell are people pulling those kinds of numbers? I can maintain a rotation and do a triple FC Berserk opener on WAR but my burst is around 1800 and steadily falls through the fight.
Granted I use Eye/Path since we don't have a ninja so that I lose a little dps for added utility.
Still... 3.3k? That's unfathomable to me.

Back on subject, I feel WAR damage and utility are in a good spot. I'd like to see adjustments to PLD and DRK, if anything.

[Sarcatica]

I'm kind of a mid tier WAR. How the hell are people pulling those kinds of numbers? I can maintain a rotation and do a triple FC Berserk opener on WAR but my burst is around 1800 and steadily falls through the fight.
Granted I use Eye/Path since we don't have a ninja so that I lose a little dps for added utility.
Still... 3.3k? That's unfathomable to me.

Back on subject, I feel WAR damage and utility are in a good spot. I'd like to see adjustments to PLD and DRK, if anything.

Pushing unfavourable phases and killing the fights faster contribute a huge portion with MCH and NIN. Padding runs exist too so you pretty much leave adds for WAR, not to mention extended Balance is a thing if you just want to padd your number.

Phases like Double Scraplines in a9s for example requiring you to be mini-ed. For a10s, only thing I can think of is having tanks handle the preys and probably the adds. Lapis Lazuli skip is a huge one in a11s, minor ones are like the EDD adds where you have to tank and when boss does limit cut and go invul. Lastly for a12s, the last phase dance is a good chunk, basically you don't want to even see the "Summon Alexander" cast.

[aleph_null]

A lot of things affect your dps. Your rotation and gear, your group composition (litany, trick attack, hypercharge, paean, balance), the fight itself (amount of adds, vuln up/down buffs on the boss, downtimes, things that make you disengage). Do you have any fflogs parse? I might be able to point out some things if you do. However if your burst during opener is only around 1.8k probably you're either undergeared or your rotation is not very good.

[Sarcatica]

top FFlogs show warrior doing 2,385 and dark knight doing 2484 on 9 savage, the argument isn't invalid, its proven

In case if this thread is not poking fun, you are probably looking at the speedrun static tab. The reason why DRK and PLD can parse comfortably around the same as WAR if not more, is purely because those top tier teams make it happen.

In a9s as an example, the adds aren't aoed by WAR while DRK contributes sick amount of aoes via Dark Passenger and Salted Earth mostly. This has been heavily experimented by the top raiders, it took them to keep evolving the strat from week3 onwards. Now there is even a strat to get lb3 before faust drops at 2:40ish via Scrapline soaking.

TLDR: WAR loses a bit of DPS for a much higher return from allowing DRK doing more.

[LordNickage]

I appreciate the input. I ran ACT for a while but after the most recent update it stopped entirely.
I read up on rotations and from what I can tell I seem to be doing things correctly, but maybe not so much.
Is there a guide you'd recommend or shall I continue using the power of google?

[aleph_null]

You can look up Xenosys Vex on youtube and Angered FC's warrior guide. Generally You should prioritize storm's eye, try to have the debuff up as much as possible. Always end your berserk rotation with eye combo, not butcher's block, so the debuff will last until pacification ends and you can reapply it. Use butcher's block for extra damage when you can (either you're currently tanking, or the other tank has huge aggro lead over you). The only time you should prioritize something over storm's eye is when you need storm's path to mitigate a big aoe damage which might wipe the whole group otherwise (especially while trying to clear raids at low ilv). After getting your personal rotation down you should look at the raid/trials you're doing and adjust your buff management accordingly. Avoid using berserk when you're going to lose uptime (boss jumping around, phase change and boss is untargetable, or you have to pick generators in a9s).

Try to learn about other jobs and how their skills relate to you. In particular you want to check the timings of dragoon's litany, ninja's trick attack and machinist's hypercharge. For example if you're hitting dummy alone, you probably do two storm's eye combos before popping berserk for triple cleave rotation. But in raid groups with a ninja, usually trick attack is up around 10s into the fight, which means, if you have to do two full combos before popping berserk, your berserk doesn't align well with trick attack (probably you'll only get 2-3 gcds inside trick attack duration), so you should use berserk earlier, at the expense of one fell cleave in your berserk duration. Dragoons usually use litany right after their first gcd, so roughly 1-2s into the fight, so if you use berserk early, let's say after one eye combo (5-6s), you'll have 10s of your berserk aligned with trick attack, and around 16s of your berserk aligned with litany. Hypercharge is usually up the first 30s of a fight, so your berserk will be completely inside that duration. Try to match the dps' dmg utility skills, since they obviously shouldn't hold their skills just to wait for your berserk timing.

Lastly your goal should be the group's overall raid dps, not only your own. For example if you pull the boss with unchained, your co-tank (pld/drk) can just provoke the boss from you and they don't have to use shield oath or grit, and use less enmity combo (halone/power slash are dps loss for them). You'll lose some dps compared to doing your OT opener in deliverance, but the dps gain for the other tank outweighs that. Then if a boss fight is long enough, like a12s, you may want to do multiple tank swaps, so your defensive cds are utilized as well, instead of having the other tank go into shield/grit while you have thrill and vengeance or holmgang unused for minutes. Unlike war, pld and drk lose gcd by switching into shield/grit, so it's better to share the tank busters among two tanks.

[LordNickage]

That's some really great information. Looks like I have quite a bit to learn. So far I've just been trying to do my rotations well and balancing mitigation for tank swaps and when needed but it seems there's a lot more I can consider. Granted, I'm really not a raider I'm just one who always likes to improve.

Appreciated!

[Nicobo]

....TL;DR warrior damage is suffering, how can they put warrior back in the spot it traditionally filled as a high damage off tank without making it broken? ....

The job with a shield actually is PLD but not WAR. ^^;

[Reynhart]

not losing 30% of their damage for being in tank stance

Except PLD is the one that loses the most damage by being in tank stance.

[CommanderNarwhal]

Paladin loses 15% and a 75 potency attack after every auto-attack while warrior loses 25% and fell cleave plus the 5% from deliverance. Paladin damage is weirdly high for the amount of mitigation they have.