DRK vs. WAR: how do they compare?

[Absimiliard]

Hate to say it, but if SE really wants WAR's identity to be regen-based, it may behoove them to take a look at how blood DKs have historically operated. There are ways powerful healing tools, worthwhile mitigation, and an acceptable amount of damage could coexist on the job without it being a repeat of Heavensward WAR.

[RyuDragnier]

Hate to say it, but if SE really wants WAR's identity to be regen-based, it may behoove them to take a look at how blood DKs have historically operated. There are ways powerful healing tools, worthwhile mitigation, and an acceptable amount of damage could coexist on the job without it being a repeat of Heavensward WAR.

Tbh I think they should definitely look at making DRK the barrier and "revenge" tank, where it throws barriers on itself and others. Any barriers shattering should be giving a short bloodbath-ish effect to the target (10s), while any remaining HP should the barrier not break will be thrown into the target's HP pool. So say you get a 25K barrier and are hit for 30K. You lose 5K HP, but you gain the ability to start gaining your health back through damage, offsetting it. If you are hit for 20K, and then it expires, you get a 5K HP heal.

If you want to avoid any power creeping of TBN, just change Oblation to a 10% max HP barrier move with this function added. We've suddenly made it a rather good support that can shield for 10% of a target's HP and give them the ability to get their health back by wailing on the boss. With the 1m cooldown, 2 charges is enough to lessen DRK's problems with sustain, and increase the value of Oblation at the same time.

[Marxam]

imo they just need to make TBN 2 charges and increase the recast timer to balance it out. It will gain the added benefit of utility and pair nicely with 2 charges of oblation. However, they will need to buff the other tanks short cd.

[Windwalker]

War is king, always will be, nothing beats a strong viking warrior

[Simple_Barghest]

WAR has the tank invuln that isn't dependent on your Sage and Red Mage spamming all the heals in the world to prevent it from activating properly.
I'd say it edges out a fair bit, even if it lacks Blackest Night.

[Marxam]

Honestly I think WAR and DRK are very close in terms of defensive. The only difference is that DRK is easier to not overheal. Both use ehp mitigation via shields and/or heals. Not to mention tankbusters literally line up perfectly to your cds. P7S for example has equilibrium up for every aero. While DRK uses TBN to reduce dmg, WAR uses EQ to heal back that dmg. Also, EQ can crit so in some cases you are back at 100% hp after the hit and have a regen for the dot afterwards. That being said I still don't understand why DRK does more dmg than WAR if both are nearly identical in terms of ehp-style mitigation in savage.

[Lyth]

There's barely a 150-200 dps difference between all tanks, at a point in time when tanks in general just aren't heavy lifters in rdps. You could probably buff WAR very very marginally in damage output to make that even narrower, but first you really should start talking about achieving parity on things like Holmgang and Shake across all tanks.

[RyuDragnier]

Honestly I think WAR and DRK are very close in terms of defensive. The only difference is that DRK is easier to not overheal. Both use ehp mitigation via shields and/or heals. Not to mention tankbusters literally line up perfectly to your cds. P7S for example has equilibrium up for every aero. While DRK uses TBN to reduce dmg, WAR uses EQ to heal back that dmg. Also, EQ can crit so in some cases you are back at 100% hp after the hit and have a regen for the dot afterwards. That being said I still don't understand why DRK does more dmg than WAR if both are nearly identical in terms of ehp-style mitigation in savage.

Because DRK cannot heal itself, WAR can. That single thing is the main difference between the two. DRK can shield the hits, but still needs to be healed up. WAR can potentially heal itself back up after the hits, meaning no healing from the healers. WAR essentially allows DPS uptime for healers, meanwhile DRK requires them to actually heal. I guess their thoughts are that it balances itself out because of it?

[Absimiliard]

Because DRK cannot heal itself, WAR can. That single thing is the main difference between the two. DRK can shield the hits, but still needs to be healed up. WAR can potentially heal itself back up after the hits, meaning no healing from the healers. WAR essentially allows DPS uptime for healers, meanwhile DRK requires them to actually heal. I guess their thoughts are that it balances itself out because of it?

Assuming this tier is a sign of things to come and not just a one-off event of one of the devs having some kind of vendetta against WAR, then it's fair to assume the playing field between the two will be far more level in terms of survivability. In fact, I'd say DRK is better than WAR in this regard at present (dungeons and dated content notwithstanding, of course). With the advantage of healing largely neutralized, DRK's noticeably higher damage tilts things heavily in its favor.

The dots being applied to tanks are strong enough to burn straight through WAR's healing options. If they're going to need almost, if not as much, healing as the other tanks now, why not give back a little bit of the damage they used to have?

[NightHour]

A tier where Warrior's can't brain off cheese everything.

Good, keep doing this.