What attracted me to WAR besides Greataxes and the aesthetics of a Barbarian was the common gameplay type affilliated with aforementioned aesthetics: Charge/Windup/Rage.

I thoroughly enjoy playing small/regular hit buildup into an explosive big hit and FFXIV WAR resonated so well with me in that regard(My soul animal!). But seeing the preview of changing the gameplay into more frequent Fell Cleave spamming as well as the nerf to Berserk potency has taken away from that greatly. Now Fell Cleave has less individual impact and has become just apart of the small/regular hits.

This ontop of the lack of any meaningful gameplay change to WAR such as a useless and cost-inefficient gap closer, a very plain oGCD, a kind of lackluster Status Purge and a rather pointless meme hyping(although admittedly, the visual aspect turned me on) buff has slated WAR in 4.0 to be virtually the same as WAR 3.0.

What did I want from WAR in 4.0?
- Defiance and Inner Beast relevance. All they had to do was make Defiance not punish an aspect of our role(Do damage) to unnecessarily overfill another. I.E Successful usage of Inner Beast(Threshold of Damage mitigated/Tankbuster) would grant a limited damage boost/increase the potency of your next Fell Cleave by the difference loss from entering Defiance and using IB over FC + A little bonus.
- Exemplify the Charge/Buildup/Rage gameplay. With new additions to utilize that aspect.

So I decided to drop the greataxe and turned my sights to my next favoured themed class: DRK and all I frankly saw was a dumbed down 3.0 WAR. I'll see how it all plays out in the release version and for the first tier of Omega. If my fears come true with the dumbing down of classes, WAR and DRK being ruined, and the nerf to tank stat weights(...again).
Then all I have left in terms of a melee weapon wielding(and possibly armour wearing) fighter that doesn't use spears is SAM. And boy do I hate the very principles this selfish, not even great-katana wielding ronin-esque type Samurai stands for.

Stormblood continues to disappoint with each day that draws closer.

/endrant