Defiance still lacking in comparison to Shield Oath

[Hachiko]

That's the mistake that people keep making. WAR CDs are lower effect but usable more often and last longer. PAL CDs are amazing while they're up, but they can't be used nearly as often. The argument that the PAL CDs are somehow better only works when you completely ignore the actual advantage that the WAR CDs are designed to utilize.

It does mean they're better. You keep talking about uptime, but the biggest boon to uptime for WAR is Bloodbath which is easily the least effective defensive cd in the game. You don't get to say "it lasts for 30 second! Huge uptime!" when it's really only about 30 healing per second. It is outshined significantly by Inner Beast for example. It's a decent skill for maintain. But it's 100% no replacement for an actual defensive cooldown. It doesn't help you survive burst damage, and it only really helps with prolonged sustained damage over time.

You ask any experienced main tank what they would rather have: 40% damage reduction for 10 seconds or 20% damage reduction for 20 seconds, every decent main tank will go for 40% reduction for 10 seconds. Efficacy matters more than uptime in almost every situation. With the way damage works in this game, where you can avoid many AOEs, it makes the more powerful short duration CD's even better.

WAR don't need to have equivalent CD's to PAL at at all. But it's silly to not recognize that WAR's biggest weakness is our CD's when it comes to tanking.

[Kitru]

You ask any experienced main tank what they would rather have: 40% damage reduction for 10 seconds or 20% damage reduction for 20 seconds, every decent main tank will go for 40% reduction for 10 seconds. Efficacy matters more than uptime in almost every situation.

Except that we're not just looking at half of the duration with double the effect. The bigger consideration is actually the CD. PAL CDs are *all* longer than their effective match for a WAR.

Any main tank worth its salt would also rather have an ability with a 5 second duration on a 45 sec CD as opposed to a 10 second duration with a 90 sec CD. People keep ignoring the fact that the WAR CDs come back *way* faster than the PAL ones.

Also, a CD is only useful insofar as it lets you survive the situation for which you need it. If it's overkill for the given situation, you're not getting anything appreciably useful out of it. The WAR CDs are enough to keep a WAR alive through the "oh shit" situations that the CDs are needed for, and they can be used for *more* of those situations throughout the course of a fight as well as be used more readily because you're not having to weigh against future need nearly as much. Yes, you'll take more damage while they're active, but survival is the thing that matters.

Once again, I'm not saying that the PAL CD suite is worse than the WAR CD suite. They are simply *different*. The PAL CD suite is high value, low use rate. The WAR CD suite is comparatively low value with high use rate. A WAR that knows how to leverage those CDs (especially by stacking CDs) can do wonders with them. It's all about knowing how to utilize the tools given to you rather than expecting the tools to behave in exactly the same way just because you want them to.

[Sephirah]

I'm not saying that the PAL CD suite is worse than the WAR CD suite. They are simply *different*. The PAL CD suite is high value, low use rate. The WAR CD suite is comparatively low value with high use rate. A WAR that knows how to leverage those CDs (especially by stacking CDs) can do wonders with them. It's all about knowing how to utilize the tools given to you rather than expecting the tools to behave in exactly the same way just because you want them to.

Agreed.

[Duelle]

You ask any experienced main tank what they would rather have: 40% damage reduction for 10 seconds or 20% damage reduction for 20 seconds, every decent main tank will go for 40% reduction for 10 seconds. Efficacy matters more than uptime in almost every situation. With the way damage works in this game, where you can avoid many AOEs, it makes the more powerful short duration CD's even better.

This is very true. If damage were completely unavoidable like in older games, you could argue that WAR and PLD's mitigation and self-healing balance each other out over the same period of time. Problem is, a good chunk of damage can be avoided by not standing in the fire, which notably increases the value of cooldowns that are therefore useful in high damage situations.

Enhanced Mercy Stroke and Enhanced Fracture kinda rub me the wrong way. Fracture isn't that useful. Yeah sure it's a dot, but I don't feel it really adds anything special.

I'd go the Rend route and tie some sort of benefit to threat or mitigation while Fracture is up on the mob.

[Duelle]

The difference is that the threshold of "oh shit!" is substantially lower thanks to the lower CDs.

And that's exactly my point. Unless you're giving bosses high damage phases that last close to 45-60 seconds, there's no need for Hallowed Ground, Sentinel and Rampart to have more uptime.

And let's not act like the decision is difficult. You get ganged up by a pack of mobs, you pop a defensive cooldown. Boss enters high damage mode for however many seconds, pop a CD. You have a close call and want to buy the healer some time to get your HP up, pop a CD.

[Aureus]

I'm a big fan of WAR, and I believe that if played correctly can be just as effective as PLD.

The only real complaint I have is adjust the traits a bit. Enhanced Mercy Stroke and Enhanced Fracture kinda rub me the wrong way. Fracture isn't that useful. Yeah sure it's a dot, but I don't feel it really adds anything special. I wouldn't mind maybe an Enhanced Tomahawk? Maybe it takes it off Global C/D? Or maybe an Enhanced Overpower that increases enmity more. Enhanced Mercy stroke is probably the most useless move endgame. And if you can manage to pull it off in a dungeon that's amazing! I for one can't really manage.

[hola]

I'm a big fan of WAR, and I believe that if played correctly can be just as effective as PLD.

so, you are a believer.

[Lharz]

Just wanted to say, a certain MMO also known as World Of Warcraft contained four fabulous tank classes years ago, four different gameplay which were really cool to play because one was really different from the others.

People cried 'cause they were "not balanced", so patches after patches, those four amazing differents tanks became just the same gameplay and nearly the same mechanics. You now play a warrior as you play a pally, as you play a DK and as you play a feral. Tanking in WoW is boring as hell nowadays.

Just sayin'.

[Delorean]

Tanking in WoW is boring as hell nowadays.

Just sayin'.

that's more because threat is a non issue nowadays and the warrior class is nothing but a shell of it's former self raped by homogenization. classes are still pretty different and have their own strengths, even the warrior. but tanking in wow is standing in place for 5 minutes and using big cd on boss nuke.

i mean, i don't really tank. because of how boring it is in world of warcraft. i didnt know mrd/war was tank role until i hit lv 15 on beta, i assumed it was dps because it was doing more damage than pugilist. i dont play games that dont have a warrior class and the only reason im not resisting being pigeonholed into tanking is because it's fun in this game.

The whole point is they aren't imbalanced, they are balanced, they just play differently. If WAR received an increase to defense, THEN it would be imbalanced. Still waiting for an answer for the "why would anyone be a pld" question.

lets be honest

no one cares about balance

they care about getting an invite to group and keeping their spot based on their ability to play the game, not the class that they play.

[Duelle]

Just wanted to say, a certain MMO also known as World Of Warcraft contained four fabulous tank classes years ago, four different gameplay which were really cool to play because one was really different from the others.

People cried 'cause they were "not balanced", so patches after patches, those four amazing differents tanks became just the same gameplay and nearly the same mechanics. You now play a warrior as you play a pally, as you play a DK and as you play a feral. Tanking in WoW is boring as hell nowadays.

Tanking in WoW went through the "fixed despite not being broken" issue. Blizzard changed stuff at will without actual reasoning, which is what effectively killed tanking for me. I was a prot warrior through and through since Vanilla and LOVED how they played in WotLK, only for them to entirely change how rage worked and then when they fell in love with the DK active mitigation (AKA blood shield) mechanic to the point they changed the other tanks to go by that model I simply chose to hang up my sword & board because the aspect of gameplay choice was not there anymore; I didn't like active mitigation and stuck to my prot warrior since it had mechanics I liked.

That being said, there's only so much you can do to stray from a set tanking model, because otherwise you get the "only warriors can tank Illidan" scenario, making the other tanks chopped liver. Regardless of whether we can change classes and jobs, people should still tank using whatever class they want, not worry about whether their class and job are viable in the hard content, and certainly not affect their group's chances of success.

Imbalanced gameplay is really not something you should be so proud of.

This.

Mitigation through defense is currently the only thing PLD is superior at compared to WAR. WAR has superior HP, self-survivability, damage, and aoe control. If you get equal defense as PLD, then there is no reason to be one.

Who said anything about equal defense to a PLD? Asking for a small buff to mitigation is not suddenly going to make WAR the only tank choice in the game. There's ways you can do it, and since WAR is in part inspired by WoW's Cataclysm-era Blood DK, something akin to the Blood Shield mechanic may be all they need.

lets be honest

no one cares about balance

they care about getting an invite to group and keeping their spot based on their ability to play the game, not the class that they play.

Yes and no. I care about balance between members of the same roster because if left alone that sort of thing trickles down, and before you know it other roles are affected. Even as a PLD (I don't and have never liked axes) I want WAR to be equally viable not only to the number crunchers but to everyone that plays the game, where it's business as usual in beating content regardless of who is doing the tanking. That also applies to heals (I have some issues with SCH for the same reason I have issues with WAR) and DPS.