Beast Gauge Cost: Numbers

[Shurrikhan]

...and Upheaval is unchanged as it also ignores Defiance.

I thought Upheaval not only ignored Defiance's damage reduction, but used its Max HP modifier for added damage?

[DWolfwood]

Thanks for doing this math. I'd been suspicious of Onslaught ever since I noticed all the top parses by both NA and JP players had been using it. Furthermore, I knew the cost of stance swapping on WAR was at the least comparable to the other two. I think the job has gotten more challenging, but that's actually what's reinvigorated my interest in it. I think that's also why so many are upset, and falsely think that WAR does low damage when it's actually just them, though not necessarily their fault.

You can't just buff a job based on what the average players, or even worse the ones below average, are doing DPS wise. It affects all players, and it's going to be seen the most in the top percentile of players who are pushing the jobs to their limits. When the top players are pushing out enough damage to be nearly on par with a DPS job, but the majority is experiencing low numbers, it's not potencies that need to be buffed. WAR needs changes that lower the skill floor and allow other players to catch up a bit.

That said, I think WAR is even more in need of utility. I always promote and suggest Thrill of Battle being changed to Thrill of War as I think that would be quite significant.

[Shinkyo]

Taken as a silo, Onslaught isn't bad indeed and there is some use to the move that's a very small DPS gain.
However practically, Onslaught has so much potential to screw up your gauge alignment with Berserk/IR that you need to be careful about using it.
It's a good tool for dumping gauge before changing stance or during IR if you can't do the full hexaFC due to mechanics.
So it's not useless but it's not great either. it's much more valuable in defiance though.

Regarding stance swap, WAR is bad period. We have the biggest penalty for the least benefit and unlike other tanks, our penalty is extremely disruptive to our rotation.
It can be worked around with proper planning but there's nothing satisfying about it.
And having to go in defiance in an emergency situation is probably some of the worst feeling, similar to BLM loosing enochian...

[Ogulbuk]

This thread got me a bit curious, so decided to run a bit of an experiment in excel. The experiment is extremely simple, meaning also very flawed, but I just wanted to answer myself the following question:

In Tank Stance (I am not fond of stance dancing) how worse/better would it be to just use Inner Beast whenever available (ignoring Onslaught) vs prioritizing on using Onslaught off GCD in between attacks. I did account for sustaining the +DMG of Storm Eye, and no skill speed (so 2.5 GCDs.) I would only use Inner Beast on the second test if Overpower was not available to consume BG. Didn't go fancy, no Upheaval, no Berserk, No Inner Rage, mostly because I just wanted to compare Overpower vs Inner Beast.

The test runs 2 minutes long. To my surprise
Onslaught rotation got me an average 84 Pot Per Second
Inner Beast Only Rotation got me 80 Pot Per Second. That's a nice 5% extra damage... I'll toss more factors into the pot with more time, but I guess using Onslaught as an oGCD attack may be worthwhile.

Still think its a useless gap closer, although that could be indirectly addressed by allowing us to use Infuriate out of combat.

[whiskeybravo]

Regarding stance swap, WAR is bad period. We have the biggest penalty for the least benefit and unlike other tanks, our penalty is extremely disruptive to our rotation.

The only times you are likely to be forced to swap stances are A) MT dies unexpectedly or B) planned mechanic such as tank swap or add drops

In either case, it's either planned or unplanned. You can't do much about unplanned stuff going down - mistakes happen - you just have to recover as best you can. For all other planned mechanics you can optimize around the cost of swapping.

Pulling a boss in Defiance and then swapping to Deliverance should come at a cost. The problem is what used to cost nothing now costs something. Kudos to the OP for taking the time to try and prove this cost for war is less than the cost of swapping for the other tanks.

[Eir_Z]

I worked out a couple Deliverance stance rotations yesterday, one ignoring Upheaval, one keeping it on CD. Both worked out to roughly the same potency after a 3 min run, but ignoring Upheaval made the rotation much easier and more flexible. Basically, just work up to the 6 FC first then 3 FC when Infuriate is up again and repeat. Alternate BB combo & SE combo. All the timers and gauge numbers work out beautifully. Meanwhile, trying to insert Upheaval means you're delaying at least one FC and gauge building gets very tedious to keep your potency/sec maxed. It's really only worth using Upheaval when you have <50 gauge right before a major boss mechanic. You also have to pop Thrill to get its full effect, which is still less than a FC in Deliverance.

In Defiance, Upheaval should probably be kept on cd just because I've seen it consistently meet the same damage as a FC, including crits, when used with Thrill in Defiance. I've yet to see an Inner Beast swing do that.

[Ogulbuk]

I'll be damned... I guess from now on I'm keeping both, Upheaval and Onslaught on cooldown as much as possible.

At least on paper, Using Berserk + Infuriate whenever they are up (to hell with timing, not wasting any of that cooldown timing)

Eye Combo > Path combo > Path Combo (interrupting whenever there is 50+ BG to throw Inner Beast) = 96.8 Pot Per Second
Same as above but keeping Onslaught on cooldown: 99.4 Pot Per Second (this means less self-healing from Inner Beast, but more enmity)
Same as above BUT also keep upheaval on cooldown (priority over Onslaught) = 111.9 Pot Per Second

This is exclusively on Deliverance stance, mind you, and I didn't count the slash res debuff but it is certain to be up almost all the time. I got to test this in game and see if the enmity generation from Onslaught makes up for never using BB combo against those Samurai...

[Argyle_Darkheart]

Onslaught is certainly not as bad as some people are saying, but it's still worse than it ought to be, in my opinion.

My opinion on WAR's stance changing is pretty much the same, with the addition that it plays badly. Because managing the Beast Gauge is so important to WAR play, halving it feels awful, especially if you end up with a remainder.

[Eir_Z]

Always start a fight with eye combo for that 20% damage buff.

Eye combo -> Path combo -> BB combo -> Path Combo -> Heavy Cleave -> Berserk -> Inner Release -> Maim -> SE -> FC -> FC -> Infuriate -> FC -> FC -> FC -> FC.

Infuriate after 2 FC's so the following four will drop Infuriate's CD timer to about 30-31 seconds.

Likewise, when you're coming up on a 3 FC combo: FC -> Infuriate -> FC -> FC.

Minimizes Infuriate downtime.

[Ogulbuk]

That's what I was doing (Eye > Path > Path), I just edited my post above (accidentally inverted the names of the combos.)

That said, I still like my comfy chair, I stick to Defiance in most content and try to at least open with one BB combo to establish agro, damage be damned (the fractions of a percent of overall group damage lost is well worth the RDM not getting hit hard in the face.)

I did forget to factor in the effect of Enhanced Infuriate, though.