Defiance still lacking in comparison to Shield Oath

[Faction]

The CD suites are roughly equal, with PLD having the better spike CDs whereas the WAR has better average contribution CDs (longer durations and shorter CDs with weaker effects), which is fine.

This is completely untrue.

Warrior cooldowns are Thrill of Battle which is very good, Foresight which Paladin can use, Bloodbath which is entirely inconsequential (and paladin can also use it), and Featherfoot which is pulled from monk. Other cooldowns are mostly damage based, aside from Infuriate which can be used to give you another snap heal. These aren't even remotely up to par with the 3 paladin mitigation cooldowns. Hell, Covalescense? Crappy 5th string Gladiator cooldown, while for us, it's one of our best. Says a lot.

[Lacavi]

I think you guys are completely missing the point of how Warrior is supposed to tank in this game. They are effective health tanks.

99% of bosses in this game use one large hitting move on a timer, even if it's random, and most of the time you'll be able to get five stacks up between them, you're mitigating their strongest move by 900-1700 damage with a proper Inner Beast. Usually that's anywhere from 25% (Hydra solo hit Tri) to 100% (Keep last boss breath).

Because of this mitigation I was able to solo tank Hydra eating every hit. I'm genuinely curious if a Paladin can manage that at the moment.

[Kitru]

Warrior cooldowns are Thrill of Battle which is very good, Foresight which Paladin can use, Bloodbath which is entirely inconsequential, and Featherfoot which is pulled from monk. Other cooldowns are mostly damage based, aside from Infuriate which can be used to give you another snap heal. These aren't even remotely up to par with the 3 paladin mitigation cooldowns.

You're drastically underestimating the value of the healing CDs. Bloodbath heals for a lot more than anyone ever seems to give it credit for, especially when it's stacked up with the numerous damage increase CDs that they get (Unchained, Berserk, Internal Release), not to mention Convalescence.

On top of that, you're also ignoring the trait modifications that apply to the given CDs. Compare the CD suites with more than just names (and you *do* have to factor in the additional abilities since those are pretty much requisite balancing concerns; PAL has a great default suite but it gets a *lot* less from its additionals than WAR does) and you'll see: WAR CDs have better uptime but lesser effects while active.

WARs get Bloodbath (30 every 90), Foresight (20 every 90), and Thrill of Battle (10 every 120) by default. For additionals, Featherfoot (15 every 90), Convalescence (20 every 120), Awareness (15? every 120) and/or Mantra (15 every 120). That's 122% total potential uptime. Toss out Awareness (questionable value) and you get 110%.

PALs get Hallowed Ground (10 every 420), Rampart (20 every 90), Convalescence (20 every 120), Awareness (25 every 120), Sentinel (10 every 180), and Bulwark (15 every 180). For additionals, all they get is Foresight (20 every 120) and Bloodbath (15 every 90). That's 109% potential uptime. Toss out Awareness (questionable value) and you get 88%. Toss out Bloodbath (questionable value thanks to the lower DPS and fewer DPS CDs) and it goes down to 71%.

WARs don't have the same *spike* CD functionality that PALs get, but they don't *need* to have the same spike functionality to have an equally valuable CD suite. The fact that they can maintain survivability CDs on a near constant basis is a substantial advantage.

[Faction]

You're drastically underestimating the value of the healing CDs. Bloodbath heals for a lot more than anyone ever seems to give it credit for

Sorry but a couple thousand healing at best over 30 seconds isn't significant, no matter how you try to twist it. So I can heal for 40% of my health if I'm VERY lucky over 30 seconds if I use it in conjuction with every other dps cooldown - and this is significant? Not to mention the 5+ seconds you'd lose if you pop all of your cooldowns at once due to animation time.

you're also ignoring the trait modifications that apply to the given CDs.

Um, there's two defensive cd's that get traits. 30 seconds lower CD on Foresight and 15 seconds duration to bloodbath. Very big deal! We could compare the trait modifications to gladiator skills, but none of the best gladiator skills are cross class (except covalescense, which guess what, has a trait that we don't get), while they get access to our second best cooldown. Lol!

lol skill comparison

Yeah, great. Except the warrior cooldowns are MUCH WORSE. Slightly higher uptime if you're chaining ineffectual cooldowns back to back isn't an advantage, especially when so much of your theory relies on the assumption that Warrior cooldowns are actually good, which they aren't. Is your theorycrafting serious, or is this some kind of weird troll?

[Faction]

substantial advantage.

This is such an amazingly hyperbolic statement that it deserved its own quote.

WARs don't have the same *spike* CD functionality that PALs get, but they don't *need* to have the same spike functionality to have an equally valuable CD suite. The fact that they can maintain survivability CDs on a near constant basis is a substantial advantage.

Let's play a game: ask anyone who's ever tanked in any game if they'd prefer an immunity cooldown, a 20% damage reduction cooldown and a 40% damage reduction cooldown to healing for 25% of your damage dealt, last stand, and having a 30 second lower cooldown on a percentage based buff to a stat with diminishing returns. Don't forget to tell them that said buff is Warriors only true mitigation cooldown and that it's competing with a flat 20% damage reduction on the exact same timer.

You're vastly overvaluing warrior cooldowns and simultaneously undervaluing paladins but that's only natural when you're playing forum theorykings and pretending that Bloodbath is a significant defensive cooldown that is going to make a difference in anything ever.

[Kitru]

Let's play a game: ask anyone who's ever tanked in any game if they'd prefer an immunity cooldown, a 20% damage reduction cooldown and a 40% damage reduction cooldown to healing for 25% of your damage dealt, last stand, and having a 30 second lower cooldown on a percentage based buff to a stat with diminishing returns. Don't forget to tell them that said buff is Warriors only true mitigation cooldown and that it's competing with a flat 20% damage reduction on the exact same timer.

Let's see... A 10 second immunity CD on a 7 minute CD, which means that, at best, you'll use it *maybe* twice per encounter, more likely just the once if even that since you'll be too worried that you might need it at some other point; a 20% DR CD with an uptime of 22% at best; and a 40% DR CD that lasts 10 seconds and is on a 3 minute CD, so that you'll use it maybe 2-3 times over the course of a fight. Those CDs are nice, but they're crippled by their CDs. You are *forced* to save them for emergency situations because they don't last long enough and you have to wait too long between uses.

You can get as hyperbolic as you want but you're still ignoring the fact that the PAL CDs all have terrible uptimes. Acting as if they were somehow *better* because they have better contributions *while they're active* while completely ignoring the fact that they're active *way* less often and, because of this, are less likely to be used is simply being obtuse.

The WAR CDs are meant to be used regularly; you're not supposed to save them. The PAL CDs are meant to be held in reserve; you're *supposed* to save them. That's not just theory. That's experience in tanking over multiple games over multiple years dealing with the same exact issues. I've seen plenty of people that only ever look at the size of a CD rather than the uptime, and they're always missing half of the story.

Personally, I prefer the WAR CD suite since I actually *like* using my tank CDs actively, cycling through them and not worrying if I might need the CD for something more important within the next 5 minutes. It's a playstyle question. If you only ever want to see tank CDs as emergency buttons, you can feel free to go PAL, but you're incorrect to say that it's outright *better*. It's simply *different* and, honestly, if you can't get the value out of the WAR CD suite, it's not because of the class/abilities: it's because you just don't know how to use a CD suite that is actually supposed to be *used*.

The only CD that I'm even *remotely* jealous of is the immunity CD and, even then, that's a bit questionable because of that insane 7 minute CD. At best, it lets you ignore one burst damage attack per fight, which is kind of kewl but *hugely* restricting and not even all that valuable since it's not like you're only going to see *one* of those big nasty hits per fight.

[Kaalan]

There's one thing I don't understand. Are all healer in this game bad ?
I mean, listening to some people, not even taking the extra hp and self healing into account, it seems to me that the little bit of damage that a WAR take and a PLD wouldn't take is a big deal for healers. Have you even consider that, those extra damage could be, at least in part, negated by the overhealing that might happen when a good tank meet a good healer ? Because that's what you're saying.
I'm not that greatly geared and have currently 6k4 HP. As long as I'm with a decent healer, I really rarely drop bellow 60% hp, which, well, is close to an equaly geared PLD's HP.
IF I drop bellow those 60% HP, the only thing I have to do is pop inner beast, and bam, with a good heal, I'm close to full again. You're all talking about the fact that it might not be worth to pop inner beast and lose the 15% healing recieve buff, but I'm pretty sure WAR has skills that allows him to build wrath quickly.

Now, assuming all healers are meh, or bad. Well then, you cannot say bloodbath is a garbage skill. When your healer is struggling, a well timed bloodbath (+berserk +convlescence) and a couple of Storm's Path will make a difference. Yes it is not as if we had a cure (is that what you want ?) but it will make up for a meh healer.

One AK from my first farming session. It was like the 6th or 7th and people were getting a bit tired and just, derped on demon wall, everyone but me died in the bee phase, leaving the boss at around 30% and the last bee around that same amount of life. I wasnt geared at all and at around 50% of my hp. Yet I manage to kill the bee and then started soloing the wall. I ended up dying with the wall having so little HP that you could barely see it. I wasnt geared at all and started this with half my life. A darklight piece, an extra heal before dying, and I would've successfully solo'd the last 30% of the demon wall. I'd love to see a PLD do that.

[Duelle]

You can get as hyperbolic as you want but you're still ignoring the fact that the PAL CDs all have terrible uptimes.

That's probably because PLDs treat their cooldowns as just that: cooldowns, as in saved for emergencies or "oh shit" moments.

Real cooldowns are not stuff you rotate over the course of a fight as part of standard play. To do so follows boneheaded design like the whole "Berserk => Last Resort => Soul Eater" thing DRKs had to deal with in FFXI.

The WAR CDs are meant to be used regularly; you're not supposed to save them.

Except you could get away with this if the abilities in question dealt with raw mitigation (the type PLD currently boasts). There's a reason WAR's inspiration required a damage shield procced by one of their main attacks to compliment their tank design, which was a self-healing tank. And I think WAR would be well served to have something similar.

[Kitru]

That's probably because PLDs treat their cooldowns as just that: cooldowns, as in saved for emergencies or "oh shit" moments.

The term "cooldown" refers to any ability that has a cooldown, not an arbitrary "oh shit" button. There are DPS CDs, heal CDs, tank CDs, etc. "Oh shit!" buttons are simply one subtype of tank CDs.

WAR *also* reserves CDs for emergencies. The difference is that the threshold of "oh shit!" is substantially lower thanks to the lower CDs. The "oh shit!" threshold for Hallowed Ground is ridiculously high: if you use it, it's not going to be available for the remainder of the fight. The "oh shit!" threshold of Sentinel is only slightly lower than that because you get maybe 2-3 uses out of it. The "oh shit!" threshold of everything that WARs gets is pretty much nonexistent such that you can burn them for any kind of minor emergency. You'd still save Thrill of Battle for a big emergency because it's up for only 10 seconds on a 3 minute CD, but you're going to use Bloodbath and Featherfoot pretty much every time it comes up for pretty much any physical burst damage mechanism rather than having to gauge whether you'll need it later on.

The difference between a WAR and a PAL in CD usage is that a PAL has to play triage with their CDs and a WAR doesn't: the WAR just sees a situation where damage is higher or healers need a reprieve and uses one without regards for whether another will be needed later. PAL, on the other hand, has to ask themself if it's a big enough situation to necessitate preventing them from not having that resource somewhere down the line.

[Wangstrong]

I genuinely can't believe there are still people insisting that warriors are not worse tanks than paladins. I mean, it's so resoundingly obvious that denying it is a declaration of idiocy. How can someone possibly argue that the warrior tanking cooldowns are as good as the paladin ones? How can someone seriously be of the belief that HP is as good a tanking stat as universal mitigation? These are clearly players who have never grasped advanced tanking concepts and are simply speaking from bias and a desire to not see their class "lose" the pedestal of 'by far the best tank in the game.' The imbalance between these two classes is so clear and so categorically provable that it took about a week before high-end guilds decided to completely drop warriors from their rosters. The class is just way too weak, and nobody has yet provided a counterargument worth taking seriously.