Warriors, I need your help.

[Novak_04]

Hey there, folks!

The past few days, I have been leveling up my Warrior. Currently, he sits halfway through 68. Given that I am still leveling and have sub par gear, I stay in Defiance. I try and keep Inner Beast up as often as I can while rotating Rampart and Vengeance when I know things are about to get rough. I'll pop Awareness with Raw Intuition on larger trash packs, and use Convalescence on CD while in combat. I save Thrill of Battle for larger-than-average pulls and use Anticipation for most trash packs, given its short(ish) CD. Now that I've covered my cool down usage, I'd like to appeal to the veteran Warriors out there and ask: am I supposed to be squishy right now? Things just seem to wreck me. I understand that we're the "dps tank," but given my current state of survival, my only option is to prioritize defense over damage. Any advice or words of encouragement? Do all tanks experience this level of wreckage in here while leveling? At what point does it mellow out and I start to feel tanky? Thanks in advance!

-Zugz

[Mortex]

lvl 70 warrior is at the moment the best main tank and the best tank overall. Storm blood dungeons do have the thing that they hit really hard even on better lvl gear. Warrior has the best cooldowns as tank and the highest dmg as a tank. Just wait for lvl 70 and don’t be discouraged

[Kalise]

This is normal. Leveling up, at even once you hit level 70 and start gearing up, you'll be squish. Squish af.

You will have to utilize tank stance and keep rotating CD's a lot.

It's only when you start to gear up, with better gear than the dungeons provide, that you'll find yourself being tanky and able to afford to focus more on damage.

It's just part of the way they scale Tanks and Healers. So that while leveling up doing at level content can be rough. But once you start to outgear them they become cakewalks.

[Lumadurin]

The latter half of the 50's, 60's (and soon to probably be 70's too) is when tanks and healers have the roughest time because that's the point where the highest ilvl from the last expansion (Aug. Ironworks/Shire/eventually-Scavean) falls off and you'll no longer be overgeared for dungeons.
It'll rectify itself once your ilvl goes up. Going through the MSQ you don't feel the power spike as much because the game gives you free level-appropriate HQ gear. But if you're leveling a tank after that then you'll have to play more conservatively unless you can afford to get a full crafted set every 2 levels (and also feel like wasting your gil).

[Novak_04]

Thanks for the reassurance. It's getting more and more difficult to feel accomplished in these dungeons, however. Moments ago, I had a healer leave after the first trash pack because he couldn't spam Broil the whole time. I believe his words were something along the lines of "I have to heal too much. I'm out." Additionally, I've encountered healers who simply do not care that I'm trying to learn the dungeon from a tanking perspective. They just want to go go go. The gotta-go-fayast mentality really dampens the learning process. Dps and healers pull groups while I'm in between globals, causing Overpower to be locked out, which leads the trash pack mauling the group while I reposition myself for an optimal strike. Sometimes I wonder if it would have just been easier on a Paladin. Do all tanks experience this? I typically play a dps or healer, and I've never witnessed this occurring. I'm always extremely considerate of any tank who chooses to pull at their own pace. Perhaps I'm just over thinking it. I'm too close to 70 to give up now, however.

[Kalise]

Do all tanks experience this?

Yes.

It happens, irregardless of class or level. You get people that are so used to most tanks being level 70's fully kitted in high ilevel gear just running roulettes.

So, whenever anyone new actually tries to play the role and learn what to do it's "Too hard" to have to wait like 5 seconds to murder the current trash pack before working on the next one, or to press Regen/Aspected Benefic/Adlo and maybe a oGCD heal every so often...

This sort of behaviour is very common in games. It also leads to the stereotype of the "Elitist Jerk Tanks" when everyone gets fed up of their crap and do things like enforce the "You pull it, you tank it" rule.

[AleXwern]

Are you rotating your CDs on normal basis or only when "things get rough" and are you using Veng and Rampart at the same time?

% based mitigation have less effectiveness the more you stack them. For example Rampart + Veng is not 0.8-0.7=0.5=50% but 0.8*0.7=0.56=44% so you get less out of them if you stack them. However stuff like Anticipation and Convalescence work better with said cooldowns because of their random nature (well, Conva is not random but it's not really a *defensive* cooldown either). Anticipation for example gives you +20% chance to parry for -20% damage and that's only -4% less expected damage taken overall so you preferably need something else with it.

The most damage happen at the start of the fight when all the enemies are alive and in dungeons most damage are in trash mob fights rather than boss fights, so you should prioritize your cooldowns at the start of the fight when you and your enemies are at high health and rotate them from highest to lowest and try to overlap them as little as possible. Veng -> Rampart -> Raw/Awarenes -> Little stuff like Anticipation. Thrill works everywhere because it's effective HP and works well with % based cooldowns because it doesn't get neutered by them or vice versa.

At lv68 you are at the peak of high damage dungeons. Doma and Abania both hit like a truck so being at the top of your game is very important. It gets waaay easier when you hit 70.

[whiskeybravo]

If you're staying in defiance for large pulls it shouldn't be a lot of healing unless you just don't use your other CDs.

I use this cooldown rotation in DF runs:

1st pull - Vengeance > Thrill + Conv > Anticipation
2nd pull - Awareness + Raw > Rampart > Anticipation

Usually enough unless dps is really low and pulls drag on

[Novak_04]

Are you rotating your CDs on normal basis or only when "things get rough" and are you using Veng and Rampart at the same time?

% based mitigation have less effectiveness the more you stack them. For example Rampart + Veng is not 0.8-0.7=0.5=50% but 0.8*0.7=0.56=44% so you get less out of them if you stack them. However stuff like Anticipation and Convalescence work better with said cooldowns because of their random nature (well, Conva is not random but it's not really a *defensive* cooldown either). Anticipation for example gives you +20% chance to parry for -20% damage and that's only -4% less expected damage taken overall so you preferably need something else with it.

The most damage happen at the start of the fight when all the enemies are alive and in dungeons most damage are in trash mob fights rather than boss fights, so you should prioritize your cooldowns at the start of the fight when you and your enemies are at high health and rotate them from highest to lowest and try to overlap them as little as possible. Veng -> Rampart -> Raw/Awarenes -> Little stuff like Anticipation. Thrill works everywhere because it's effective HP and works well with % based cooldowns because it doesn't get neutered by them or vice versa.

At lv68 you are at the peak of high damage dungeons. Doma and Abania both hit like a truck so being at the top of your game is very important. It gets waaay easier when you hit 70.

I am rotating my CDs. I never pop Veng with Rampart, though I confess that I use Inner Beast non-stop whenever the gauge will allow -- regardless of what CDs I have up. I use Anticipation on CD during pulls except when I have Awareness + RI up. Thanks for the feedback. Knowing that it's not entirely a "me" thing is encouraging.

[Novak_04]

Update: I hit 70 last night and geared myself up to 372. Tanking became an absolute joke at that point. Furthermore, I love my Warrior now! Thanks for the advice, folks!