Okay, so I've been seething with abandon stacks since the embargo ended. Five whole stacks!

Let's talk about the new kit for Warriors, shall we? Disclaimer: I know tooltips and such are subject to change. If/when they do--and they fix these problems--I'll eat my words

Onslaught

At first glance it's the dream skill we've always wanted. It's a gap closer! 15 second cooldown! This will be used all the time! Picking up adds will be so easy with this! But here's the problem: Onslaught is just a Dark Knight's Plunge but costs about as much as a discounted Fell Cleave. Dark Knights get to use Plunge whenever they want to without a cost. Warriors however have to spend 20 gauge to do the exact same ability. It's unfair. It's unbalanced. Sure you could argue "But Liyonn, Onslaught has a 15 second cooldown and has increased enmity! It's a different ability!" So tell me why I should delay a Fell Cleave (Warriors only identifying ability) to do something Dark Knights can do for free? If the goal was to get warriors to Fell Cleave a lot, then why give us an ability that makes us do less Fell Cleaves? Even if we're not supposed to use it on cooldown, we can hardly even afford to use it to pick up adds. 20 Inner Beast is just too darn much for it's niche use. There's already a lack of flexibility in Warrior's new rotation, spending 20 IB for something you can do by just sprinting is rarely ever going to be worth the hassle. There's of course niche uses for the ability and it won't be entirely useless but

If I am allowed to say how this skill could be made better: Make it cost 10 IB but with a longer cooldown. That's all. Warriors will actually USE a skill the dev team put time and effort in to make. We want to use it, please don't punish us for using it!

Upheaval

Here's where Warrior begins to look like a knock-off brand tank. Upheaval is just a re-branded Spirits Within. Same cooldown, same potency, it even has the same HP effect! Woah! Where Paladins could, and still can, use it whenever they wish for free, Warriors on the other hand have to spend 20 Beast Gauge to have the privilege of using the exact same skill. Although it's a very efficient ability cost wise, 150 potency per 10 Beast (Fell Cleave sits at 100 potency per 10 Beast) it seems silly that it's a non-free version of a skill Paladin's have been using for free since A Realm Reborn. This right here is absolutely unfair. I don't mean to sound like a whiny child in the schoolyard but job balance is literally what this game is about. Jobs should feel balanced and well thought-out. At least the animation team did a wonderful job! It's a beautiful ability.

If I am allowed to offer an alternative I'd say this: Make Upheaval differ when in Defiance and Deliverance, I dunno. Just make it UNIQUE please!

Shake It Off

Thanks Obama. You just added insult to injury with this one. The community has mixed feelings about the Berserk change. But one thing that's commonly appreciated is the removal of Pacify. It just hurt when you'd be pacified at the wrong time and that lead to a wipe, ya know? So Pacify is gone! And the crowd goes wild! But then you decide that Warriors still need an ability that is basically a self Esuna. If we had this in Heavensward we would have all cheered and been really happy! However it just seems to all of us that Shake It Off was designed initially as a Pacify-Be-Gone but now that you've removed Pacify there's no real purpose to it. It just takes up space, space you could've used to have given us a wonderful flashy unique ability (maybe given us some party utility back while you were at it)! But no! All it boils down to is saving the healer a single cast of Esuna. And the crowd walks out of the arena...

It just boils down to wasted space with a rare niche.

Inner Release

It's good, beautiful, and makes the job really interesting to play! And here you thought I was gonna be completely negative! There's only so much praise I can give before I just start rambling so I'll just leave it at that. Only problem to me is that it shares a cooldown with Unchained! They're separate abilities, they shouldn't share cooldowns. If you wanted them to be a "one or the other" type of ability give it the Equilibrium treatment.

Warrior's Party Utility

Here's the thing that has every single Warrior worried for their spot in progression. All throughout Heavensward Warrior's been a Must-Have for any and all parties. This was a problem! Warrior needs competition for the off-tank-slot in progression groups! But how it was done has only really made Warrior incompatible with any other jobs in the game.

Storm's Path's damage down debuff was removed. That is at the surface level a good idea. It was one reason why it was necessary. It was pretty over-powered too. But the issue comes in to play when nothing was given back to the Warriors replace it's lost utility.

Storm's Eye's slashing debuff has been made a staple in Samurai and Ninja's rotations. That is the best thing that could've been done to fix the monopoly problem. But it takes away another unique aspect of Warrior utility with nothing given back in exchange.

So what utility did Warrior get in exchange for those it's lost?

...

...

...

A self-Esuna?

That alone is not enough to warrant Warriors to be worried about their slots being taken by other jobs. No. It's when you consider that Paladin and Dark Knight both got powerful party utility abilities in their new 60+ kit AND really didn't lose anything beyond STR and INT down. Paladin can still Divine Veil, Clemency, Intervention and Passage of Arms. Dark Knight got The Blackest Night, but sadly lost Reprisal to the Cross-Role.

Warrior is left in the dust. We lost our unique slashing debuff which in itself is a great thing. But we also lost our unique raid-wide mitigation ability in the form of Storm's Path. Not to mention we've gained absolutely nothing new as well. A Warrior being taken in a progression group is beginning to look like it would only hinder a group rather than benefit.

Overall Damage

Warrior used to pride itself on being this offensive machine that could use it's defensive abilities to be even more offensive. We could even tough out the hardest hitting attacks with our powerful self-heals. We used to be real berserkers powering through the toughest of challenges. All while dealing intense amounts of damage. But all that seems null and void when our goody-two-shoes rivals, Paladins, are running around flinging huge potency combo-finishers like Goring Blade (over 600 potency) and Royal Authority (370 potency). We warriors have to compete! We can't be shown up on our own turf! Besides Fell Cleave, our highest GCD potency comes in at a whopping...!

...

280 potency. -cue children going yaaaaaay disappointingly-

Both Paladin and Dark Knight got potency buffs in their main combos. A large buff to Goring Blade, 10 more for Royal and Halone. Dark Knight's Soul Eater hits even harder to boot. But Warrior is left feeling ignored and neglected. Our only potency tweak comes in the form of Inner Beast getting 50 more potency. Exciting in itself but if that's all Warrior is getting we're bound to be left behind in the damage department.

The tank community's been theory crafting all week and have shown time and time again that 4.0 Paladin outshines both Dark Knight and Warrior in Potency per GCD(PpGCD). I won't go into the specific numbers in this post since nothing is ever final in that regard. But here we thought you learned your lesson from 3.0 Warrior. Don't make a job completely outshine it's competition.

As of right now the discrepancy is destroying any sense of free-will in regards to tank-choice. Paladin/Paladin is going to be the only way to go if these potencies stay in the same ballpark. That's very un-fun.

Stances

Warrior used to make the other jobs jealous of their stance dancing. Off-GCD? No MP Cost? We were kings of the stance dance floor. We could swap any day of the week free of any stress. Oh, main tank died? Swap and provoke! Oh, a new add showed up? Swap! I'm taking too much damage? Swap! I want to deal more damage? Swap! It never mattered when or where in the fight we swapped, it was nice and it was free. So as a square enix employee it sure looked unfair to the other jobs. Yes, most would agree to that. But the fix... oh the fix... I'm beginning to cry just thinking about it. Stance changing costs half of our Beast Gauge! If you want us to swap stances this ain't how to do it. There are very few moments when a Warrior will be at 0 Beast Gauge. And you'll be actively punishing us (not costing us) for changing stances at anything BUT 0 Beast. My OCD cannot take swapping at 10 beast! Being at an awkward 5 Beast just hurts! Defiance already had a 25% damage down. It already requires a healer to do it's job. It doesn't NEED a lazily tacked on "cost" to balance it out. At it's worst it costs an entire Fell Cleave (our job's identity) but Defiance still drops our damage by an unprecedented 30% (5 more percent from losing Deliverance). Other tanks? 15% for Paladin and 20% for Dark Knight. We get punished enough, Square Enix. Don't tack on another punishment for us trying to do our jobs! Many warriors I've spoken to feel as though they'll never change stances in a fight. We're rarely ever at 0 IB, so why should we throw away a Fell Cleave?

A big part of the fun was having enough stacks to swap into Defiance, pop Unchained, and still deal major damage. Then swap back after you built up more stacks for a Fell Cleave. With the cut-in-half aspect of stance dancing means you aren't rewarded for going into tank stance like a good little tank. Sure if you're at 40 IB you can pop an unchained right away but you're basically building up half IB since you won't be staying in Defiance forever.

Even Dungeon runs are hurt by this change. You're at 100 IB after that trash pull and you're approaching a boss. But wait, you're in Deliverance! Holding aggro will be tough in Deliverance! So you... throw away an entire Fell Cleave to go into Defiance. That's plainly un-fun.

If I am allowed to make any suggestions: Remove the cut in half aspect of stance swapping completely. Or if that is nonnegotiable make Defiance only decrease our damage by 15% like Paladins or better yet 10% because it'll end up being 15% because of Deliverance. The stance gives us nothing without an extra bit of work, unlike the other jobs we don't get 20% extra mitigation by being in tank stance.

Conclusion

The transition from 2.x Warrior to 3.x Warrior felt smooth and intuitive. It truly felt like a true extension of the job itself. We all know that the goal of 4.x is to make jobs more simplified with less button bloat and raise the skill floor, but this is not at all how it feels regarding Warrior. Warrior has been made even more convoluted than ever before. It just isn't intuitive anymore. The Fell Cleave-onomy is in a recession! It's looking bleak! Invest your Fell Cleaves now before they're lost in the great stance swap of 2017! I just pray that the media tour numbers are changed come early-access. We lost our major identity with the cutting of Bloodbath. Bloodbath was iconic for Warriors and we lost a major part of our utility as well. Our self healing was powerful but now it costs too much to enter Defiance to use Equilibrium in a pinch. The only thing we have left going for us is our Fell Cleaves, but Fell Cleaves don't bring much in the way of party utility... If I started rambling I apologize, I'm getting really sleepy. I'll edit this tomorrow if there are some major mistakes or other concerns are made known to me.

Please, Square Enix forum team, we all ask that you pass these concerns on to the Dev Team. We believe these are legitimate issues of the job itself and hope they are already known and are being/have been worked on.