War's a bit squishy?

[aqskerorokero]

Drk prevents incoming damage, War reacts to it.

[Megguido]

Drk prevents incoming damage, War reacts to it.

Aren't WAR defensive CDs used the same way as DRK ? I mean, Holmgang, Vengence, Raw Intuition, Thrill of Battle, all those are used preemptively, in the same way you would use TBN or Dark Mind.

[Tex_Mex]

It's worth noting that even with up to date gear, pulling multiple packs in Bardam's is sometimes just not a good idea. Those mobs hit significantly harder than anything in previous dungeons and it can sometimes be tough on healers if they are below average. Since this thread is about WAR differences from the other 2 tanks, and since I haven't seen anyone explain it yet, this seems like a good time to talk about one minor difference between tank stances.

Defiance is slightly inferior to the other 2 tank stances due to a really strange mechanic:
Defiance - "Increases maximum HP by 25%, while reducing damage dealt by 20% and increasing enmity. Increases own HP recovery via healing magic by 20%."

Notice the wording there. It says healing "magic." This has some unfortunate implications. Healing magic DOES NOT include healing abilities, only healing spells. To put that in perspective, here are some healing abilities that are not affected by Defiance: Equilibirium, Lustrate, Tetragrammation, Excogitation, Essential Dignity, etc. At higher levels, a huge portion of healing comes from these skills. This definitely seems like it was a developer oversight. I mean even a WAR's own Equilibrium is not affected. This can lead to some feeling of squishiness for a WAR versus the other 2 tanks; however, it is not completely debilitating or anything. WAR is still considered an incredibly effective tank right now.

[Jscagg]

Firstly I just want to thank everyone for their responses, it has given me quite a bit of insight into warrior as a class! Now to answer some questions: Someone had asked if I'm pairing Raw Intuition with Awareness, and I am in fact doing just that. I will admit that I actually have the two moves macro'd to avoid any blunders of accidentally hitting one and not the other. Whenever I use that macro I always check my buffs and make sure both are up, and not just one. So no extra squishiness comes from accidental crits due to Intuition. Caitlinzulu also mentioned pairing an Beserk with an AoE for healing, but since Beserk doesn't offer healing anymore, we can't do that, sadly! I also failed to realize that the war tank stance doesn't give damage reduction, it just gives an HP increase. Don't ask me how I didn't notice that...

I also believe that what vVAstrAVv said might be true, drk has two CD's for normal use, and one that is very situational for magic. Coming from that onto War, which has so many CD's, some of which need to be paired with others to be fully effective, like Thrill of Battle paired with Conv, I think I'm not popping things correctly and so I feel much squishier than I am. I start fighting a group of things and pop Rampart and Vengeance and that's it, when I have a few other CD's I can be using but I don't think of. That actually brings another question to mind, does Rampart and Vengeance stack together? I'm just curious if they're worth stacking together, or if I should use them separately.

[Megguido]

I would suggest to not macro your defensive skills. You want to activate those at a precise moment, you need it to be as responsive as possible. Macros aren't responsive. Also sometimes you want to use Raw Intuition without Awareness (to boost Shake it Off shield for example), or just to mitigate a guaranteed critical hit (like Shinryu ex' or Halicarnassus' tankbuster). You don't have that much buttons to deal with as a warrior, I'm sure you can do great with Raw Int and Awareness on a separate button

On the WAR vs DRK topic, a common mistake is thinking "more cooldown" = "better". For example, WAR has a 20% HP boost on a 120s cooldown, DRK has a 20% HP shield on a 15s cooldown. Also a warrior has to sacrifice its own damage output to use on-demand mitigation (Inner Beast), whereas PLD and DRK can use Sheltron or The Blackest Night without any drawback. What makes WAR's defensive kit OP isn't its 3782 defensive abilities, it's Holmgang.

Also, while pulling several mobs in dungeons, you want to cycle through all your cooldowns, starting with the most powerful. For example, start with Vengence, then Rampart, then Awareness + Raw Int, then Thrill + Convalescence. Rampart and Vengence stack together, but in a multiplicative way (it's not 20%+30% = 50%, it is 20%*30% = 44% damage reduction).

[Tex_Mex]

Also, while pulling several mobs in dungeons, you want to cycle through all your cooldowns, starting with the most powerful. For example, start with Vengence, then Rampart, then Awareness + Raw Int, then Thrill + Convalescence. Rampart and Vengence stack together, but in a multiplicative way (it's not 20%+30% = 50%, it is 20%*30% = 44% damage reduction).

Megguido nailed it here. Proper cooldown cycling is incredibly important for large pulls in SB dungeons. The layout and order he listed are exactly what I use as well. And considering how short all the CD's are, you will just about always have some of them up for the next pull. No 3 minute CD's here! (F-YOU Sentinel)

[HyoMinPark]

Caitlinzulu also mentioned pairing an Beserk with an AoE for healing, but since Beserk doesn't offer healing anymore, we can't do that, sadly!

You can still heal yourself in Berserk/Inner Release in large packs: Berserk/IR > Steel Cyclone. Steel Cyclone has a passive healing attached to it.

EDIT: TouchandFeel explained it.

[347SPECTRE]

The AoE ability they were referring to is 'Steel Cyclone'

[Aana]

The leveling process is all over the map with tanks. But its so short lived and temporary I wouldn't worry about it much. War will become much stronger at lv 70 for dungeons when inner release allows you to spam 5+ steel cyclones with guaranteed crit/DH and kill packs easily while gaining boatloads of health to the point of invulnerability every 90 seconds. 60-69 you wont have that in your pocket while Drk will have all of their mass pull tools available. War used to have 20 second zerk+Bloodbath at an extraordinarily low level to mass pull, but that is all gone now leaving mass pull warrior a little behind until that function is returned in another form (steel cyclone inner release spam) at 70. Similarly Drk doesn't get TBN until 70 making it suffer from tank buster actions much more than the readily available inner beast war has while leveling.

Without your full kit at 70 there will be gaps for every tank until it all comes together. As SE has changed, removed, added abilities to all tanks over the years and expansions the leveling process has gotten a little wonky. But its really a very short lived annoyance as the game settles in at 70, and at that point all tanks have what they need to get the job done.

[TouchandFeel]

60-69 you wont have that in your pocket while Drk will have all of their mass pull tools available ... Similarly Drk doesn't get TBN until 70 making it suffer from tank buster actions much more than the readily available inner beast war has while leveling.

The italicized part of the quote isn't really true though.
As you pointed out DRK doesn't get TBN until lvl70 and TBN is a foundational piece of it's AoE/mass pull capabilities. Not only is it a big part of soaking damage since Dark Mind does squat in pretty much all trash pulls, leaving DRK well behind in defensive CDs to use if they don't have TBN; it is also necessary to keep your MP up so that you can keep casting Abyssal since you have to cast and break TBN to get the 50 Blood to then use Quietus that then gives you back MP so you can keep going.

DRK definitely doesn't have all it's tools pre lvl70 just like WAR doesn't. PLD really has it the best in this regard since Passage has pretty much nothing to do with mass pulls.

The rest of the post was quite true though and the leveling process can really be awkward with job kits only really coming together at 70 and that people shouldn't really worry about min/maxing before level cap.