DRK vs. WAR: how do they compare?

[Undeadfire]

I mean, War only out going was it's DPS and Drk really wasn't that far behind. Ignoring Wars Crit RNG, depending on fights Drk 50+/400+ less against, Drk pushed boundaries with Scourge multi targets (30s dot GCD). Looked through Fflogs.

Ninja was mandatory because Shadewalker allowed more tank DPS, 15s 80% enmity feed, drop tank stances after 3 GCDs, griefing without.

Drk 20% perma mitis, extra DPS taking damage, 20% HP/MP restore from add deaths, vs, Shield blocking, guaranteed shield block, 2 Mins 30s raid wide barrier 10% Paladin HP, Str -10%, vs, High crit tank with a optional storms path for prog (Optimal kills this was not used, occasionally used.), Equil self heal, front only self mitigation (Must not move or remove).

Come on now, Drk is far beyond, I literally raided in Alex Savage during their prime times, you were griefing the team if you didn't bring it than self survival.

[Crater]

The idea that Warrior wasn't laughably, absurdly overpowered in Heavensward is some mind-boggling historical revisionism.

Heavensward tank balance was basically just Stormblood tank balance except with DRK and PLD flipped around. In Heavensward, WAR was the superior tank in basically every way, DRK was WAR's sidekick whose primary advantage was having two party mitigation skills instead of one, and PLD was just kind of bad from top-to-bottom with a handful of niche advantages that never turned out to make up for its overall weakness. In Stormblood, WAR was still the superior tank in basically every way (albeit to a much smaller degree), PLD was WAR's sidekick whose primary advantage was having two party mitigation skills instead of one, and DRK was just kind of bad from top-to-bottom with a handful of niche advantages that never turned out to make up for its overall weakness.

Heavensward DRK was good, but it was appropriately balanced with upsides and downsides. WAR was stupidly overpowered, and PLD was stupidly underpowered.

[Undeadfire]

Well just agree to disagree, really not gonna argue, this isn't the topic.

After experiencing it all Gordias all the way to Creator, I still give it to Drk.

[RyuDragnier]

The issues DRK had were things that they didn't need to gut it for. Spammable Reprisal? Just remove the spammable part. DRK outdoing PLD due to magic mitigation? Shelltron changes in SB fixed that. DRK did not need to be gutted.

But nope, gave Reprisal to every tank, gave Low Blow to every tank DESPITE PLD HAVING A SPAMMABLE STUN AND WAR ALREADY HAVING A STUN ON THE SAME COOLDOWN TIMER AS DRK, giving Dark Dance (Anticipation) to every tank DESPITE WAR ALREADY HAVING 100% PARRY RATE AND PLD HAVING 100% BLOCK RATE, removing the DoT from DRK while keeping PLD's, removing the 2nd combo from DRK while keeping WAR and PLD's, removing the high risk/reward gameplay, etc etc.

I know I'm just repeating myself, but DRK got gutted for no reason, when the playstyle was just fine. Its problems were things that could have been fixed with slight tweaks, not a complete gutting of the kit.

[Argyle_Darkheart]

Reprisal and Low Blow weren't really "just fine."

[RyuDragnier]

Reprisal and Low Blow weren't really "just fine."

Low Blow had a chance to come off cooldown when you got a crit. Remove that interaction, it becomes fine. Reprisal had a chance of doing the same with parries. Remove that interaction, it's just fine.

[Argyle_Darkheart]

If you remove the parry procs, then they're just oGCD damage spam, which is what we already have. Granted, DRK funnels most of its buttons into 60/120s, rather than spreading it out.

[Lyth]

Low Blow was designed in relation to Brutal Swing. Brutal Swing had a 20 second recast. Low Blow had a 25 second recast, but had a 30% chance to reset on parry proc to offset this. In short, a 6% chance per physical auto (12% with standard DD up), and autos typically happened every 4 seconds or so. The main issue with this design was that it forced DRK to actively tank to get these procs, but WAR just did more damage on average so it didn't really affect them.

Reprisal was a 30 second recast ability with a 20 second damage down attached. The caveat was that it could only ever be used after a parry proc. Which again, required physical autos (which some fights didn't have - Oppressor, Manipulator, two of the four Combaticons, and Onslaughter), and required DRK to be actively tanking to fish for procs.

The issue that I see with Reprisal was that it was essentially a 100% uptime ability in line with WAR's Path, and that's a design philosophy I've actively argued against and am glad that those abilities are gone. I think anything that forces you to design your comp around particular job combinations is bad for the game, which is why it's good that the Path/Eye buffs are gone alongside old Reprisal. That being said, I don't think the dev team was entirely sure about what to do with raidwide mitigation post-Heavensward. They started out with Reprisal as a universal action (although the animation and icon weren't nearly as cool). But then they decided to give PLD two additional raidwide mitigation abilities and everyone else nothing. And since then it's been an arms race of adding in additional raidwide mitigation.

The main problem with these abilities was not the procs, but rather the fact that you had to be actively tanking to get the extra damage from them. Which is also why Blood Price was removed from the game. In fact, the only action still left that follows this philosophy is WAR's Vengeance, which still retains its legacy thorns effect. So if you want to find fault with the design philosophy around Low Blow, we really should talk about removing the thorns effect from Vengeance to bring it in line with every other tank's 30% mitigation action as the final outlier.

[Marxam]

The main problem with these abilities was not the procs, but rather the fact that you had to be actively tanking to get the extra damage from them. Which is also why Blood Price was removed from the game. In fact, the only action still left that follows this philosophy is WAR's Vengeance, which still retains its legacy thorns effect. So if you want to find fault with the design philosophy around Low Blow, we really should talk about removing the thorns effect from Vengeance to bring it in line with every other tank's 30% mitigation action as the final outlier.

Or, instead of trying to make all the 30% cds identical, introduce other things that make their cds unique. I'm honestly surprised shadow wall doesn't reflect magic or Sentinel increase oath gauge, though that would be redundant since they made PLD have 100 gauge at the start (which is proof of how useless PLD's gauge is that it requires it to be full at the start). The thorns is also such a minor issue having lost bloodbath and the ability to heal via NF that the devs removing it would only exacerbate the homogenization issue we have currently. WAR already lost overpower cone when they already have access to four other circle aoes via mythril tempest, orogeny, primal rend and decimate/CC. Lets not dilute the tanks more than they already are.

Also, ToB is still relatively unchanged since inception, with the only addition of convalescence as a trait instead of a cross class and it healed for that amount. Otherwise WAR has been the most consistent tank in design ever since release, albeit constantly getting nerfed with every expansion to lower the skill ceiling.

Regarding the procs of HW, the only issue is that it came out in a time when boss autos did not universally target the top two enmity like we have now, so being an OT literally disable some skills. Sure there were add phases but that was only at set intervals and most of time the boss was only hitting one tank. If the bosses in HW auto both tanks like we have now it might be a different scenario though personally I'm glad those procs are gone. Having dead buttons has always annoyed me to no end. It's one of the reasons why I both love and hate PR. It's a button that is only active once a minute but PR doesn't share the same button as IR so I have to macro them and don't tell me it they can't share a button because in PvP, WAR's BW literally does what I want IR to do in PvE. It's and ogcd that changes into a gcd action in a single button. It's literally be done and proven in-game so the fact that IR and PR isn't like that show how their ability to reduce button bloat falls short in the design phase.

[Axious]

Or, instead of trying to make all the 30% cds identical, introduce other things that make their cds unique. I'm honestly surprised shadow wall doesn't reflect magic or Sentinel increase oath gauge, though that would be redundant since they made PLD have 100 gauge at the start (which is proof of how useless PLD's gauge is that it requires it to be full at the start). The thorns is also such a minor issue having lost bloodbath and the ability to heal via NF that the devs removing it would only exacerbate the homogenization issue we have currently. WAR already lost overpower cone when they already have access to four other circle aoes via mythril tempest, orogeny, primal rend and decimate/CC. Lets not dilute the tanks more than they already are.

Also, ToB is still relatively unchanged since inception, with the only addition of convalescence as a trait instead of a cross class and it healed for that amount. Otherwise WAR has been the most consistent tank in design ever since release, albeit constantly getting nerfed with every expansion to lower the skill ceiling.

Regarding the procs of HW, the only issue is that it came out in a time when boss autos did not universally target the top two enmity like we have now, so being an OT literally disable some skills. Sure there were add phases but that was only at set intervals and most of time the boss was only hitting one tank. If the bosses in HW auto both tanks like we have now it might be a different scenario though personally I'm glad those procs are gone. Having dead buttons has always annoyed me to no end. It's one of the reasons why I both love and hate PR. It's a button that is only active once a minute but PR doesn't share the same button as IR so I have to macro them and don't tell me it they can't share a button because in PvP, WAR's BW literally does what I want IR to do in PvE. It's and ogcd that changes into a gcd action in a single button. It's literally be done and proven in-game so the fact that IR and PR isn't like that show how their ability to reduce button bloat falls short in the design phase.

On release? Warrior has been gutted the most and lost almost all identity after 2.0.
Devs should have kept warrior high hp and self healing with minimal damage mitigation.