(03-04-2014, 01:53 PM)Steel Wolf Wrote: I would not be against hearing rotation information, just as a primer. I tend to learn by doing, of course, but some preliminary information would not be a terrible thing just to set myself up to succeed instead of fail. :3
Merri did a good job of this, but I'll try to break down WAR and it's rotations as simply as I can.Â
First off, my five(six) recommended cross-class abilities for WAR are:Â
-Flash (GLA 8) - Helps aoe enmity build. Uses mp instead of tp, so you can use Flash as a substitute for Overpower to alleviate strain on tp.
-Convalescence (GLA 10) - Grants 20% extra healing potency for all healing spells cast on you. This will temporarily double your native 20% healing potency increase that comes from having defiance up.
-Provoke (GLA 22) - Useful for tank swapping and if you are way behind on enmity and you need to catch up instantly.
-Second Wind (PGL 8) - It's an extra free self heal. You may need this to help your healer bounce you back after you've taken a lot of damage. This heal's potency increases with your attack power, so comboing this with berserk is very effective.
-Internal Release (PGL 12) - Increases your critical hit rate by 10%. Combo this with Infuriated status (5 stacks of Wrath) and that's +20% crit rate.
An alternate useful cross class skill would be Awareness (GLA 34). This ability nullifies your chance to taking a critical hit for 25 seconds. Pretty useful for WAR considering they have low passive mitigation and their survivability is HP based. I'd say swap this skill in in place of Flash if you find you aren't having trouble holding hate.
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Now that that's out of the way. Rotations for WAR are pretty simple. You have 3 combo trees. The first increases your enmity, the second decreases damage done against you, and the third increases your damage dealt.
[1]Enmity: Heavy Swing > Skull Sunder > Butcher's Block
[2]Defense: Heavy Swing > Maim > Storm's Path
[3]Damage: Heavy Swing > Maim > Storm's Eye
If you are tanking, the combo you want to start off using is your enmity rotation. Your number one priority as a WAR tank is making sure you're solid on enmity, which isn't all that hard on WAR honestly. So you'll go in and get aggro with Tomahawk and then secure AoE hate on the enemy party with an Overpower or two depending on the strength of your party. Then you'll want to do at least one Butcher's Block combo on each of the attacking mobs before swapping to your other combos.Â
Once you have hate secured, your next combo really depends on what your situation calls for. If you're taking a lot of damage, you'll probably want to start off with your Storm's Path combo and take 10% dmg off of your enemy's attacks. This is one of WAR's greatest utilities. If you're not taking too much damage, then it's time to start dishing out more damage. This is when you go into your Storm's Eye combo and start going slightly more dps mode. Can also pop your damage buffs and Fracture here to really get a good burn phase. However, if you can't get ahead in the enmity race, you may never make it past using your Butcher's Block combo.
After that, it's all about managing your Wrath stacks. You get Wrath stacks from using certain abilities and combos. Once you have 5 stacks of Wrath, you become "infuriated" and can use your WAR specific abilities. You have three abilities tied to Wrath and they can kind of be broken down into the same categories as your combo trees.
[1] Enmity: Steel Cyclone - This is one of your AoE hate abilities. Great for quickly gaining enmity on mobs quickly and for a medium AoE burst of damage.
[2] Defense: Inner Beast - Inner Beast gives you 20% dmg mitigation for 6s in addition to healing yourself for the amount of damage you hit for. The defensive buff is not a long time, so you'll want to save this ability for when you're about to take a big hit. In early game, this won't be as apparent so you'll probably just use this for when you are taking a lot of damage from a lot of enemies at once.
[3] Damage: Unchained - Removes the dmg reduction from your Defiance buff for 20s. You can hit some really high damage numbers when you pop this with your other damage buffs and combo.Â
Alternatively, you don't have to use any of these three abilities and you can just keep yourself at 5 Stacks of Wrath until you need one of them. Having the 5 stacks just sitting there increases your crit rate by 10%. So that can be helpful when dpsing or tanking.
Hope that helps! ^^