Cross-class ability choices

[Corkafish]

Greetings,

I have WAR at 50 and will be working on getting PLD up next. I had some questions about specific cross-class abilities.

Savage Blade: does it generate high emnity without combo action when taken on WAR?
Skull Sunder: does it generate high emnity without combo action when taken on PLD?
Awareness: is this considered useful in boss fights, or mainly against trash packs?
Second Wind: is this ability bugged? It's a cure with 400 pot that scales with attack power, but it seems to be much weaker than the numbers would indicate.

[Hundred]

Savage blade gives 2x or 3x (one of the two) damage as Enmity and skull sunder does the exact same.
Since they do the same thing there is no point in taking the other.

[Corkafish]

Savage blade gives 2x or 3x (one of the two) damage as Enmity and skull sunder does the exact same.
Since they do the same thing there is no point in taking the other.

The use is that they generate high Emnity without needing to use a low-emnity attack for the combo action first (if I understand this right). So a PLD could open on a single target with lob, then Skull Sunder, then proceed with their Halone combo. Or a Warrior could open with Tomahawk, Savage Blade, then use a Storm's Eye combo to get the buffs/debuffs up.

[Hundred]

The PLD would use Savage blade for the exact same effect however which is why Im saying it doesn't make sense to use.
Savage blade is 100 potency without a combo.
Skull sunder is 100 potency without a combo.
The enmity either generates without being used in a combo is the same.
If you are a PLD and use Savage blade outside of a combo you'll get the same enmity as using Skull Sunder in that situation.
If you want to get enmity faster without using Fast blade as a PLD then you can just hit Savage blade, it would give you the exact same effect as using a cross-classed Skull sunder in that situation. The two skills are copies of each other with the only differences being 1) animation and 2) The pre-requisite to count as a combo.
If you dont have heavy Swing then Skull sunder is always the same as using Savage Blade without Fast blade so then why would you use Skull sunder? You wouldn't.
If anything the reason PLD has skull sunder and WAR has Savage blade is just the mechanic they set up. The two skills are available to all classes and since both Jobs cross-class with the others main class they have access to it as a result of formality, they aren't useful.

[Giantbane]

The PLD would use Savage blade for the exact same effect however which is why Im saying it doesn't make sense to use.
Savage blade is 100 potency without a combo.
Skull sunder is 100 potency without a combo.
The enmity either generates without being used in a combo is the same.
If you are a PLD and use Savage blade outside of a combo you'll get the same enmity as using Skull Sunder in that situation.
If you want to get enmity faster without using Fast blade as a PLD then you can just hit Savage blade, it would give you the exact same effect as using a cross-classed Skull sunder in that situation. The two skills are copies of each other with the only differences being 1) animation and 2) The pre-requisite to count as a combo.
If you dont have heavy Swing then Skull sunder is always the same as using Savage Blade without Fast blade so then why would you use Skull sunder? You wouldn't.
If anything the reason PLD has skull sunder and WAR has Savage blade is just the mechanic they set up. The two skills are available to all classes and since both Jobs cross-class with the others main class they have access to it as a result of formality, they aren't useful.

The short answer is that these abilities are not for WAR/PLD to use.

It's a high threat move that another class could use (LNC/PUG for instance) if they wanted to act as a makeshift tank by spamming the move for some half decent threat generation (it has the same threat as spamming a 300 potency attack when used out of a combo).

They only reason PLD/WAR get the opposite move is a matter of completeness, as they get all of the cross class abilities provided by the other class. It serves no actual purpose for that class whatsoever.

As I understand it, it's very similar to Cure/Physick both are 2.5s, 400 pot heals with the exact same mana cost. A WHM or SCH has no use for those abilities because it's redundant with their own base cure.

[Corkafish]

As I understand it, it's very similar to Cure/Physick both are 2.5s, 400 pot heals with the exact same mana cost. A WHM or SCH has no use for those abilities because it's redundant with their own base cure.

What I was thinking was, it seems like they do vastly less threat when used out of a combo, so they must not have the emnity modifier when used outside of a combo. Turns out they do have the modifier, but they generate less emnity because they do half the damage without a combo. That was the error in my line of thinking.

[Corkafish]

OK, makes sense. So I'm looking at this list as the "ideal" for survivability on WAR:

Mantra (or Second Wind)
Awareness
Convalescence
Provoke
Flash

And this as ideal for PLD:

Stoneskin
Foresight
Fracture
Bloodbath
Mercy Stroke

[Lhun]

OK, makes sense. So I'm looking at this list as the "ideal" for survivability on WAR:

Mantra (or Second Wind)
Awareness
Convalescence
Provoke
Flash

Dump awareness, pick up second wind. Use second wind with mantra active, convalescence with thrill of battle if the cooldowns allow. Second wind is based on attack power, of which, war's is pretty high. It can also crit.

[Giantbane]

Dump awareness, pick up second wind. Use second wind with mantra active, convalescence with thrill of battle if the cooldowns allow. Second wind is based on attack power, of which, war's is pretty high. It can also crit.

As I understand it, second wind and thrill of battle are not buffed by either convalescence or mantra. Convalescence & mantra only buff heal spells.

second wind should be buffed by berserk, so you should be able to pop that to buff second wind. Although I've seen some claiming that it doesn't work (haven't had a chance to test it yet) so you might want to double check that for yourself. It can crit, however, so Internal Release has a chance to make it more effective.

[Kitru]

Second Wind on a WAR isn't worth it. If you buff it massively, you'll end up getting ~600 with Berserk active, ~900 with a crit. A 2 min CD, contingent on using 2 other abilities (Berserk and Internal Release), that heals you for ~10% of max hp isn't really a CD worth bringing. I'd rather have Awareness and Mantra, since Awareness, while it's not a guaranteed mitigator or especially noticeable when it's active, will at least provide *at least* that much damage over its duration (mainly because bosses hit really hard and Second Wind sets a really low bar).