Warrior Fantasy XIV: 1.0 Strikes Back [WAR/MRD 2.1 Update Thread]

[Gilgameshx]

How important is determination? My stat goal for MT is to reach the acc cap, have enough hp, then stack as much parry in as possible. But I see a lot of people talk about determination... I was always under the impression it wasn't a noticeable stat.

[BerenTebogo]

That's kind of an old-fashioned way of tanking for WAR tbh, unless you're doing savage coil.

But DET is good, very good.

[OWS_Tonx]

How important is determination? My stat goal for MT is to reach the acc cap, have enough hp, then stack as much parry in as possible. But I see a lot of people talk about determination... I was always under the impression it wasn't a noticeable stat.

Arguably the best secondary stat for any class

[Seravi Edalborez]

Parry is a dump stat because healers have to act like it doesn't exist and the returns suck.

[Raldo]

Parry is more of a no-choice stat. It's hard to find tank gear without accuracy or parry (or both). Meet the accuracy cap, push your DPS stats, and a sufficient amount of parry will follow because it's flat-out unavoidable.

Love me some Noct hat.

[Lucavi]

When Off-taking with War with the expectation of pushing solid deeps, what's the general consensus on rotations? We're deep into T9 and its time I start focusing on DPS since I'm only tanking the ghosts at this point. Specifically, I'm wondering about the application of fracture on Nael. Should I be leading off with fracture or waiting until the first rotation of eye for the stacking buff? Should I be completely skipping path and leaving the Pld tank to survive on his own? Is there every a point where popping IB mid-fight is a DPS increase over ignoring it when not main tanking?

I've always been an old-school tank. Load up on health, hit acc cap, and hold hate. DPS and re-gearing to STR accessories was a side-note to consider as my job was to let everyone else do theirs as easily as possible, but with T9 its not that cut-and-dry anymore.

Any help is appreciated.

[Seravi Edalborez]

SE>BB. Maintains 100% uptime. Trying to incorporate Fracture is generally a waste. I will usually SP before Ravens and Claw but otherwise don't bother.

I would say on double Meteor Streams you can pop Defiance > Infuriate > IB on Nael's return. Up to you if it's worth it.

[Lucavi]

So completely skip fracture. Alright. Yeah, two of the guys in the group have running parsers, but none of them actually calculate individual damage per each move, so I could never figure out how much I was getting from what. SE >> BB with path before the spikes. Simple enough.

Thanks.

[kisada]

why would fracture be a waste?

[BerenTebogo]

Do not skip fracture. If it goes for full duration it is your strongest attack.

Also with practice your entire rotation up until like divebombs is exactly, and I mean exactly the same.

Opening -> SE > zerk > SE > BB > Paci > HS + SS + auto attack > run to where healers and ranged dps are for BB + fracture. Etc etc. I average about 285-295 DPS all the way up to golems without any stoppage of parse. Fracture full time.

When nael comes down after megaflare -> infuriate + zerk > hs > IR + xpot > maim + SE > frac after heavensfall knockback > BB combo right up til pacify.

Again, fracture up fulltime.

The only reason to not use fracture is TP starvation or if it wont be up for full duration. Use it.

[Raldo]

Because of TP starvation, I only use Fracture when I have Berserk and/or Unchained up. I almost always manage to run out of TP in T7/8 even with that rule (with only one melee DPS, we don't play paeon).

[Seravi Edalborez]

The only reason to not use fracture is TP starvation or if it wont be up for full duration. Use it.

This is the primary part of it; damage isn't ticking on Nael during Meteor Streams iirc. The other part as mentioned is 100% SE uptime. Fracture might give you slightly higher personal DPS but even Shield Oath PLD is benefiting quite a bit from SE (and Sword Oath more if you're going reverse); letting it fall for 1 GCD by incorporating Fracture is lowering PLD's DPS too.

TP starvation isn't an issue in T9 of course.

edit: If you wanna draw a comparison, this is like Garuda vs Ifrit.

[BerenTebogo]

You're going to have to math it out (because I wont, too lazy) but I'm pretty sure the extra potency from full duration fracture is > +10% to one PLD GCD.

Also yes, it doesn't tick in T9 while nael is gone so I guess what I mean by "up fulltime" is "up fulltime intelligently".

Once you have been in there a few runs you know to land another BB or SE Instead of fracture before a double jump. Plenty of places to let it run full duration though.

Also for T8 I fulltime since I get paeon. Highest so far as solo MT is about 254 with Novus.

Edit: Our first T9 clear was tonight so obviously I have a long way to go refining DPS for 45% and below, but unmerged I was at 241 and merged I was at 270. Again, i110 axe.

[Seravi Edalborez]

Most of my WAR knowhow is secondhand or learning in alt coil group. Kitru on OF had some good mathy posts on the subject but they got banned from forums so doesn't post anymore.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post1857709

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post2219758

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post2080451

[BerenTebogo]

On phone in bed so pleading the lazy tonight. I'll check them out tomorrow. I'm always down for maximizing DPS but napkin math (aka mental math) suggests fracture fulltime is the superior choice as long as you're doing it intelligently with regard to fight mechanics.

[BerenTebogo]

Perused, didn't see anything really that supports going away from fracture.

Fracture is a 300 potency hit that you can throw out once every 13 GCDs (12 GCDs for the DoT duration w/o breaking combos and 1 GCD for itself). Considering the average potency/GCD from special attacks of most of those attack strings is ~200, assuming you're not messing with Maim/SE debuff uptime, you're getting an extra 100 potency every 13 GCDs, which is 7.69 potency/GCD. Assuming a baseline potency/GCD of ~370 (SP>SE>BB, which is the median), that's a 2.08% increase in DPS (it's actually lower than this because using it would interfere with Maim and SE debuff).

Saw this, but really all this says is using fracture when you aren't TP starved is a bit of a DPS boost, if you will be TP starved it's a bit of a DPS loss.

So I think it comes back down to keep fracture up fulltime everywhere that it can tick for full duration and won't cause you to be TP starved, which is what was said earlier.

[Seravi Edalborez]

Oh bleh I didn't have the actual Fracture "debate" bookmarked. It's a long-ass thread so I'm obviously just cherrypicking but:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...50#post2232250

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...55#post2241455

Most relevant part to this discussion:

To explain why Fracture shouldn't be used, in any other situation, consider this: the best basic rotation is SE>BB, which has exactly 100% uptime for SE (e.g. no overlap in the SE debuff). Any time you use Fracture, you're cleaving off the debuff from one of the other combo finishers (Fracture breaks combos and, as such, you always have to start fresh after it). As such, you're getting a 300 potency attack but removing the 11% bonus from either a 280 or 270 potency attack, which is either an 11 potency loss (280 / .9 = 311.11) or breaking exactly even (270 / .9 = 300). You're actually losing slightly more than that because you're slowing down your next Inner Beast by 1 GCD as well, but that's harder to directly calculate.

If you're trying to maximize damage, the only attack you should use other than SE>BB (for any case that is *not* the predescribed UBIR attack string) is Inner Beast, because it's effectively a 400 potency attack (300 / .75), so, at worst, you're gaining 89 potency from the loss of SE uptime.

The problem with Fracture isn't the cost (it's actually pretty efficient given that it's 300 potency for 80 TP, which is 3.75 pot/TP; BB combo is the closest competitor at 630 for 190 TP, which is 3.315 pot/TP; it's "expensive" in that it increases your consumption per GCD, which, in any situation where you could feasibly run out of TP, ends up being a DPS loss thanks to buff/debuff uptime). The problem is the damage itself being too low coupled with the fact that it is a GCD that doesn't contribute to your Wrath to some extent.

Honestly, if the devs want to encourage WAR to use Fracture, if they don't want to just increase the damage, they should give it some chance of providing Wrath stacks on each tick (it's 10 ticks, so a 10% chance per tick would basically make it, over time, a single GCD for a single Wrath stack; this is more efficient compared to the other Wrath generator combos which are 3 GCDs for 2 stacks). That way, even if it decreases your damage by reducing debuff uptime (it might actually end up being a minute increase to damage via increase Wrath stack generation), at least it increases your mitigation by giving you faster Inner Beasts.

---

(speaking to using Fracture on jumps only)

How many jumps like this happen over the course of a fight? With Levi EX, depending upon DPS, you'll see between 2 and 7. With Titan EX, you'll see about 3-4 jumps. On Garuda EX, it'll happen about 4-5 times (once for first jump, once more for each add phase). On Ifrit, it's just straight up 3 times (when he jumps into Hellfire, he's immune to damage; it's when jumping into charges that he still takes damage).

At most, you're talking about 700 extra potency, but, on average, closer to 400. For a tank, that's about 400 damage. Unless you lose the fight by less than 1k damage, your "optimal Frac usage that you should always do" isn'y going to mean anything. Hell, if you lose by that much, I can pretty much guarantee you that you probably could have done any number of other different things (use of tank CDs can actually cause there to be a variance of several thousand potency over the course of a fight) with greater impact.

It doesn't matter how much you argue that there are *some* GCDs where it's better to use it than others, if the number of GCDs where that is true is in the single digits, your argument is pointless: if the event occurs so infrequently that it dilutes the value of it to the point where it is completely and totally unnoticeable (and, honestly, is going to have less impact upon your total performance than natural variation in damage due to the RNG will), whatever you're discussing is pointless beyond semantics.

There is no practical value in using Fracture, *whatsoever*. It's DPS neutral and mitigation-loss in normal use (thanks to uptime loss and Wrath stack prevention) and, in the conditions where it's a DPS increase because uptime and Wrath stack prevention are a foregone conclusion, said increase is so small that it might as well not be there.

tl;dr, you can make it be an increase (like you're saying) but it's pretty tiny difference either way.

[BerenTebogo]

Yeah, that all makes pretty good sense from the perspective of having Defiance on and generating wrath, so maybe I'll try next T8 without it and see how it goes.

For the OT scenario (which I believe was what Uryuu was asking, too lazy to scroll up) you're not generating wrath because you don't have defiance up as a DPS OT. If you do have defiance up as a DPS OT you're bad. Bad bad bad.

So for situations like T6 while you don't have hate, T7 after the first 3 adds die, and T9 for anytime except the 1 ghost and where fracture won't tick to full duration the argument against using fracture falls flat imo. You should never have defiance up any longer than is absolutely necessary if you're trying to fulfill the role of DPS OT.

Edit: And really, the reason for picking at nits here is that a well-geared WAR is definitely capable of hitting 300 DPS in stuff like T9 as OT with perfect or near-perfect GCD usage. That is only possible by maximizing the marginal DPS gains available to you (no gap closer, time your pacification for when there is a jump -> IC or untargetable enemy, etc etc). If you just want to do some 200+ DPS, whatever. If you want that shiny 300 DPS holy grail then you gotta squeeze.

[bokchoykn]

Fracture out of Defiance is a large damage-per-second gain, small damage-per-TP loss.
Fracture in Defiance is a small damage-per-second gain, large damage-per-TP loss.

Seravi's quote is correct in that using Fracture means that Storm's Eye will fall off for the ensuing Storm's Eye. Moreover, the DoT portion of Fracture does not benefit from the Storm's Eye, so Fracture isn't truly "300 Potency" as advertised, when comparing to other Warrior weaponskills.

When using Fracture in Defiance, it now comes at an additional opportunity cost of weaponskills that gain Wrath stacks, resulting in less frequent Inner Beast and Steel Cyclones, which are the highest potency attacks and are TP-free.

Does this mean you should never use Fracture while in Defiance? Not necessarily. Judge it on a case-by-case basis.

Suppose you have Unchained about to expire and you've already built 5 stacks of Wrath. Your intention is to deactivate Defiance once Unchained wears off (after using Inner Beast, of course). Using Fracture here does not cost you Wrath because you're just going to drop Defiance anyway and you're therefore no longer interested in Wrath stacks. Plus, the Fracture gains the crit from the 5 Wrath stacks.

And really, the reason for picking at nits here is that a well-geared WAR is definitely capable of hitting 300 DPS in stuff like T9 as OT with perfect or near-perfect GCD usage. That is only possible by maximizing the marginal DPS gains available to you (no gap closer, time your pacification for when there is a jump -> IC or untargetable enemy, etc etc). If you just want to do some 200+ DPS, whatever. If you want that shiny 300 DPS holy grail then you gotta squeeze.

I'm pretty much BiS and highest I've parsed on a T9 kill is ~230 DPS. The strategy we use doesn't exactly squeeze maximum Warrior damage, but 300 seems out of reach.

[BerenTebogo]

Fracture out of Defiance is a large damage-per-second gain, small damage-per-TP loss.
Fracture in Defiance is a small damage-per-second gain, large damage-per-TP loss.



I'm pretty much BiS and highest I've parsed on a T9 kill is ~230 DPS. 300 seems out of reach.

This is from our very first T9 kill last night, unmerged. i110 axe

Spoiler: show

And gear + stats out of party:

Spoiler: show

I DEFINITELY see areas I can up my DPS. I've spiked as high as 300 DPS in phase 1, last night I think phase 1 I only pulled about 275 on that kill run for example. Obviously with HA axe numbers will go up as well.