Please don't go through with the WAR changes SE

[Awha]

Just wondering--not saying this pertains to me since my warrior play is far from perfect--if the player is currently able to manage the windows properly now do these changes end up being a net nerf for said players? Due to our burst window no longer benefiting from Battle Litany/Voice, Chain Stratagem, Spear, etc . . .

[Mahrze]

Well, there is still Unchained + Defiance + ToB + Upheaval as a new option. Maybe some other ways to optimize DPS that didn't exist before.

Wasn't this already the thing considering Unchained is locked (pre 4.2) to Defiance?

[Aana]

This is a very good point that I feel is being overlooked. As I've stated in other threads, I really don't feel the WAR changes are going to end up being a nerf (except arguably to fun-factor) and will likely be more of a side-grade.

The more I look at the changes, the more it seems that the devs are trying to push WAR in the direction of using/being in Defiance more. If you look at the fact that the IR and Unchained timers are now decoupled and that IR is also now available in Defiance, it seems that in order to maximize efficiency you may have to pop over to Defiance more often.

Except there's still no advantage to being in defiance. Sure. Hop into defiance. Pop unchained. Congrats youre still
*doing 5% less damage than if you did nothing
*using IR in defiance is still a nono. Why do 5 IBs when you could do 5FCs? Damage loss
*You loose deliverance crit rate still.

Non of that is worth 1 50% stronger upheaval (150-160 potency) gain.

Defiance will not be used to GAIN dps.

What this does mean is that defiance LOOSES LESS dps than it currently does and opens some interesting defensive options. (5x DH IBs= 15sec of 20% damage down and 1500 potency of direct hit/Crit self cure). You are not punished as hard for using tank stance occasionally (feel free to loose 5% damage and crit rate for 20 sec whiel you unchained for safety. IR will be waiting for you after). But it will never be a gain in damage.

Optimal DPS play will still never touch defiance. But progression tanking, casual tanking, etc where defiance is used will hurt less than it currently does.

[TouchandFeel]

Except there's still no advantage to being in defiance. Sure. Hop into defiance. Pop unchained. Congrats youre still
*doing 5% less damage than if you did nothing
*using IR in defiance is still a nono. Why do 5 IBs when you could do 5FCs? Damage loss
*You loose deliverance crit rate still.

Non of that is worth 1 50% stronger upheaval (150-160 potency) gain.

Defiance will not be used to GAIN dps.

What this does mean is that defiance LOOSES LESS dps than it currently does and opens some interesting defensive options. (5x DH IBs= 15sec of 20% damage down and 1500 potency of direct hit/Crit self cure). You are not punished as hard for using tank stance occasionally (feel free to loose 5% damage and crit rate for 20 sec whiel you unchained for safety. IR will be waiting for you after). But it will never be a gain in damage.

Optimal DPS play will still never touch defiance. But progression tanking, casual tanking, etc where defiance is used will hurt less than it currently does.

I'm aware of all of this and it is this exact shift that may result in a shift of what is considered "efficient" play for a WAR depending on the content and situation. I don't think that using Defiance more will result in maximizing DPS for the WAR, but like you said it will be way less punishing to swap over to Defiance. That small change could have discernible ripple effects in how the WAR <--> healer dynamic works, which in turn would effect how the party tackles content.

[BluexBird]

As a Warrior main who is pretty bored with his Warrior as of late, I think this will be somewhat interesting. I'll only be disappointed if my damage drops by a lot, but still... at least it'll offer something different than what I've been used to for the last few months.

To everyone saying damage is for sure going to drop... well yes, if you're in the 99 percentile because of that ONE TIME you landed direct critical hits with every single one of your opening attacks, right up to the fourth Fell Cleave, then yeah... you probably won't be able to hit that high anymore.

But ON AVERAGE, I believe Warrior damage should go up by a small margin with these changes. Which is good since we will no longer rely on getting lucky with our attacks in order to compete with DPS.

The only complaint I have is that Inner Release (our only damage increase buff) will be OUR ONLY DAMAGE INCREASE BUFF..... every 80 seconds. So it's 80 seconds of just Storm's Path/Eye and Fell Cleaving whenever we cap on beast gauge. After that? 10 seconds of high damage, and back at it again with the 80 seconds. That's not fun. We should get something else to do. Maybe if they made Unchained do something cool as well, now that it's not linked with Inner Release anymore.

[mcspamm]

The only complaint I have is that Inner Release (our only damage increase buff) will be OUR ONLY DAMAGE INCREASE BUFF..... every 80 seconds. So it's 80 seconds of just Storm's Path/Eye and Fell Cleaving whenever we cap on beast gauge. After that? 10 seconds of high damage, and back at it again with the 80 seconds. That's not fun.

Agreed. This my biggest beef with the 4.2 WAR rework.

However they wanted to change them, I wish the devs would have left Berserk and IR as separate abilities, if just to avoid the homogenization of playstyle.

Despite the hiccups from having to perfectly manage your gauge (issues with player execution, fight design, dev implementation), I found that having two distinct burst windows every 120s (Berserk and IRserk) made the playstyle at least somewhat interesting.

While I did alternate between DRK and WAR for Omega progression, I ended on WAR because mindlessly spamming DA+TBN got boring really quickly.

Now, I can "look forward to" (even more) mindlessly spamming FC in 4.2 instead. . .

[Aana]

As a Warrior main who is pretty bored with his Warrior as of late, I think this will be somewhat interesting. I'll only be disappointed if my damage drops by a lot, but still... at least it'll offer something different than what I've been used to for the last few months.

To everyone saying damage is for sure going to drop... well yes, if you're in the 99 percentile because of that ONE TIME you landed direct critical hits with every single one of your opening attacks, right up to the fourth Fell Cleave, then yeah... you probably won't be able to hit that high anymore.

But ON AVERAGE, I believe Warrior damage should go up by a small margin with these changes. Which is good since we will no longer rely on getting lucky with our attacks in order to compete with DPS.

The only complaint I have is that Inner Release (our only damage increase buff) will be OUR ONLY DAMAGE INCREASE BUFF..... every 80 seconds. So it's 80 seconds of just Storm's Path/Eye and Fell Cleaving whenever we cap on beast gauge. After that? 10 seconds of high damage, and back at it again with the 80 seconds. That's not fun. We should get something else to do. Maybe if they made Unchained do something cool as well, now that it's not linked with Inner Release anymore.

The math will be forthcoming on reddit etc soon, but just for a quick napkin version:

*Eye nerf is a 9% loss. Potencies of all actions are +5-10%. gain depending on the action. Fairly negligible overall. within a % or so.

Current zerk/IR.

Solo zerk:
9gcds: 3FCs, 5 combo GCDs, upheaval. Abou 2800 pot.
2800*30%=840 pot from zerk, loosely. Lets call it 800.

IR window 9gcds: 6FCS, Maim, Path, 2 onslaught, 1 upheaval. roughly 3970 pot. Lets call it 4k.

Zerk during IR window: 4k*30% 1191. lets say 1200.

IR bonus: Ill just note the difference from a regular zerk window and an IR window base potency to see what IR gives.
IR: 4k-2800=1200pot.

Combined both zerk and Zerk/IR window = 800+1200+1200= 5200 pot.

Current Zerk/IR= +5200 pot.

New Traited Zerk/IR.
5FCs, 1 upheaval, 1 onslaught. 2900 pot.
+25% for DH. +~50% for crits (starts at 45% but scales with crit gear. 50% pretty reasonable). 2900*1.25*1.5=5437. 5400.
Subtract out the base combo avg opportunity cost (~200pot each gcd is -1000). 5400-1000=4400
Rough gain of ~4400 pot.
__________________________________________________________________________

TLDR of quick n dirty:
*Eye/potency change pretty negligible. Estimating slight loss due to AAs mostly.
*Old zerk+Zerk/IR windows=+5200 pot/120 sec. 2600pot/min
*New Zerk/IR wombocombo= +4400 pot/90 sec. 2933 pot/min.

Obvious notes:
*This undersells the old IR/Zerk because it doesn't account for stray RNG crit/DHs. So it would go up based on your crit/DH chance.
* Doesn't account for autos. That's a boost for new IR/Zerk as they would get roughly 90% stronger while old zerk/IR they only get 30% stronger.

All things considered, the new braindead wombocombo is probably pretty similar to optimal zerk/IR play today.

[Terkhev]

Wasn't this already the thing considering Unchained is locked (pre 4.2) to Defiance?

Unchained shared cooldown with IR, now it's separate.

[SoulSkyheart]

Remember when warriors used to demand "MOAR FELLCLEAVES" or "FELLCLEAVE EVERYTHING" Isn't this the changed that was wanted? I mean i see 4 DH/DC FCs Upheaval and Onslaught with no gauge cost and 3 more FCs that do have a chance to DH/Crit/DC. Am i missing something? Did no one want more FCs? We got 1 more FC off of this, Unchained and Inner Release not sharing cooldowns. A slight nerf to our gcds but not game breaking. Berserk is gone, losing 30% AP but the new Inner Release is supposed to make up for it.

I'm sure someone's gonna hit me with some math and some talk of "back then we head this". Well we can't have everything we ask for without preparing to lose other things. "Looking at you DRK" If worst comes to, PLD will be top DPS of all 3 tanks and it's a PLD only expansion and we can move on with our lives.

[Aana]

Remember when warriors used to demand "MOAR FELLCLEAVES" or "FELLCLEAVE EVERYTHING" Isn't this the changed that was wanted? I mean i see 4 DH/DC FCs Upheaval and Onslaught with no gauge cost and 3 more FCs that do have a chance to DH/Crit/DC. Am i missing something? Did no one want more FCs? We got 1 more FC off of this, Unchained and Inner Release not sharing cooldowns. A slight nerf to our gcds but not game breaking. Berserk is gone, losing 30% AP but the new Inner Release is supposed to make up for it.

I'm sure someone's gonna hit me with some math and some talk of "back then we head this". Well we can't have everything we ask for without preparing to lose other things. "Looking at you DRK" If worst comes to, PLD will be top DPS of all 3 tanks and it's a PLD only expansion and we can move on with our lives.

I don't think there was some concesus between wars that just wanted MOAR FC! FC FOR DAYS! In fact there was quite a bit of disappointment at the 70 job preview before stormblood came out amongst wars here that we just got a meme skill while looking over at the 'cool' 'unique' stuff like passage of arms and TBN. I'm sure some wars are just addicted to the FC and for them this is great, but its certainly not 'everyone'. Obviously some of those 'cool' skills didn't pan out in the power level department, but they are still more unique and engaging conceptually than HIT IT VERY HARD.

I don't think anyone is really saying these changes are unbalanced/broken in a good or bad way. But they do dramatically change the way war plays and feels. Just like Drks that miss HW design drk and some that like the newer version, a lot of old war's like myself are going to be missing the original playstyle SE just destroyed.