10 changes which will make WAR competitive with PLD!!

[Casper]

1. Defiance is OK as it is. It adds a lot of depth to our class and makes Infuriate a useful defensive and offensive cooldown. The bigger issue is with the usefulness of skills that eat our stacks.

2. Inner Beast heal is actually very good. It would be better if it was a shield effect though, and I think this would be a fair change. The biggest problem is how often it overheals, or causes a cure 2 to overheal.

3. 3 stacks would be way too powerful even if it didn't need the stacks for the healing and crit chance (like you suggest dropping the requirement). 3 stacks would mean a 1k self heal ridiculously often. IMO it would be broken. I could see 4 stacks, but that would only be if it still required you to stack for the healing / crit bonus.

4. I don't think Foresight should be taken from PLD, though it could be slightly better I don't think it should be buffed that much...

5. Yeah storm's eye is problematic. As it is it makes improved maim a completely worthless trait because you have to go through a maim combo more often to apply the slashing resistance debuff every other combo anyway. The alternative is dropping storms eye from the rotation, which seems a bit ridiculous considering it's our level 50 MRD skill...

6. Bloodbath isn't very good for a cooldown, I agree.

7. Mercy Stroke is probably one of our most useless skills. I would like to see it reworked as a proper execute: I.E. 200 potentcy attack, 60 second cooldown, if the target is below 20% health it deals double damage. If it kills the target, apply the heal it currently does. At least then I would macro it into something...

8. Steel Cyclone is trash. Damage is too low, and it's only good for aoe enmity except if you are aoe tanking losing your fury stacks from defiance is too high of a price to pay. Would love to see it consume only 1 stack of Wrath, and be usable while not infuriated. Currently there would never be a situation where you should use it over flash or overpower.

9. Brutal Swing should have a lower stun duration and a shorter cooldown. Enhanced brutal Swing should reduce the cooldown to 20 seconds instead of making it last 5 seconds. It's nice how it has flavor and is off the GCD though. Homogonzing it to be like paladin shield bash would be horrible.

10. The 5 seconds after berserk is necessary to counteract the huge damage bonus it gives us. It's still probably the best DPS cooldown in the game, with the possible exception of Blood for Blood which would be completely unusable by marauders anyway. The time can be well utilized by defensive cooldowns and dropping a flash.

So I agree that some of the things you bring up are issues but I think all your solutions need more thought.

I personally agree with a lot of what you are saying. Only things i beg to differ:

4) foresight is definitely pitifuly underpower compared to rampart. While i get we don't have as many defensive CD than paladin, the fact that we get at the same level range a defensive CD, but while theirs is a 20% damage reduction for both physical and magical, and we get like a 6% damage reduction only physical, is laughable. The fact that PLD can cross class foresight and we can't do the same with rampart just adds insult to the injury.

10) Actually, it is not, and once again, PLD get the better of it. Fight of flight is a 30% DPS increase for 30 sec, or about 9 seconds of DPS, you win every 90 seconds, so about 6 seconds DPS per minute. 10%. Berserker is 50% for 20 sec, or 10 seconds, to which you remove 5 seconds, so 5 seconds of gained DPS. This is on a 90 sec CD too, to it is about 3.33 second of gained DPS per minute. As it stands, fight or flight is almost twice as powerfulla s berserk, even if the damage boost is not as powerful for short burst. Still, 30% is nothing to scoff at. This one is easier to change for: instead of making berserk better, just let us cross class fight or flight (un-traited anyway). I get that pld are all about defensiveness so they get both berserk and foresight from us. Then as warrior are about mitigating through damage, we should DEFINITELY have the pld ability that increases damage. Would also make for some interesting choices regarding which abilities you pick as a war.


EDIT: suggestions to solve both problems:
For 4): make us get rampart and pld foresight. Same as before, they can cross class skill it, we can't. Pld get a minor loss (trading enhanced ramprt for enhanced foresight) but we get a massive boost, and at least one freackin defensive CD that is not abyssmally bad.

For 10): as said i would like us to get our hand on unenhanced fight or fligth. Moreover, to get berserk up to par with fight or flight, up its damage increase to 70%. 70% for 20 sec is 14 sec of damage increase, minus 5 = 9, same as fight or flight. I agree with the don't remove 5 seconds where you are down, as it is an integral part of the skill, and what makes it fun and interesting to use IMO. But this should seriously rock, not be slightly better than the pld damage enhancing with a huge weakness built in so that its half as usefull as theirs. The fact they can half ass theirs and not thinka bout it and its twice as powerfull, whereas we need to think when we use ours because it can be disastrous used on wrong time, but it is half as potent, is ludicrous.