Cross-class ability choices

[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).