WARLORD (Warlord 2020) + Superman

[Pushpin]

This guide is not my work, and it's a guide partially based off of work posted by Shas on the Rift forums, but I am going to share it with you all.

Notice: These are external links to a Google Document.
WARLORD (61 Warlord / 11 Riftblade / 4 Paladin (melee dps)
Superman (61 Warlord / 11 Riftblade / 4 Warchanter (melee dps with some ranged capabilities and Stand Tall!)

Hormais@Hailol put this together for <Chaotic Potential>

[Shas_]

Pdf #1

100% criting DS has a higher average damage than PT
So koth - DS - PT outside of BE will see DS on higher damage potential.

Pdf #2

The info regarding Stand Tall! is outdated since spring 2020. You are better off "Spamming" it @ self (for power starvation) and only @ tank withput a dedicated ST utilizing healer Since ST are limited to 1 per target now and overwrite.

General

Not sure why anyone would want to remove the @focus / @lasttarget alterations.
It's one of the biggest breakthroughs in tab mmo melee sweat and relyability.

[Pushpin]

This particular player manually controls Stand Tall! to put it on her husband who plays a rogue. They often run around doing things like duoing TDez in various dps setups, so having heals on both people is a boon. She also uses Stand Tall! on low-max-health players, like new 70s. Being "better off" is up for debate, and it's going to vary based on what exactly you are doing. Which part in that Google Doc are you claiming is outdated? When is the last time you tested Stand Tall!'s functionality?

I don't spend much time in Warlord/Superman, so I can't say much about the macros or the ability line-up. I'll have her test what you're saying to see if she finds an improvement.

For the record, they're the same document, but the links go to different portions.

[Hormais]

Hey Shas! I'm curious as to what part of the Stand Tall section is considered outdated. That was all written up based on observations and testing, and not based on any previous documentation. From what I can see, all of it still holds true for current gameplay as of this post.

Also for Superman, I use it to tank content that you wouldn't normally be able to do without a dedicated tank or tank healer. Maintaining an EW powered Stand Tall on myself is vital, so I would not want to have a cast @self ST in my DPS macros whatsoever. Accidentally putting a non-EW-powered ST on myself can absolutely be lethal, so I would not want that in my spam at all.

Also as Push mentioned, I frequently maintain ST on two people - myself and whoever might need some extra heals (lower geared character, a tank if we don't have a warrior healer, or someone vital like the cleanse spammer for Silgen). Usually I /focus the other person so that I never have to detarget my enemy. I also maintain a KAlert that warns me when my @focus Stand Tall is getting close to expiring, because that means mine is next.

100% criting DS has a higher average damage than PT
So koth - DS - PT outside of BE will see DS on higher damage potential.

Also for this - as Push indicated I went and tested this. I could see this being true for someone without a lot of critchance and critpower. However I found that with endgame gear, a critical PT was still outperforming the 100% crit DS, although not by a significant amount. Also, KOTH by itself does not hit that hard, and a non-crit PT was still hitting harder than a crit KOTH, which would be required to set up the 100% crit DS via Advanced Planning.

As such I found that I maintained higher DPS if I used KOTH to keep the Advanced Planning passive running since it boosts the damage of PT, and also used it and/or DS if AQD didn't proc again with the AQD/PT combo. By then AQD is typically ready to fire again and will outdamage any of these skills regardless.

Not sure why anyone would want to remove the @focus / @lasttarget alterations.
It's one of the biggest breakthroughs in tab mmo melee sweat and relyability.

When I built it based on your initial guide (thank you again by the way!), those alterations did not exist. However I'm willing to give the @lasttarget a try, since I usually use my @focus to maintain Stand Tall on a second person as noted above. Exceptions of course for things that I need to interrupt, like Boldoch in TDNM.

Feedback welcome!

[Shas_]

Which part in that Google Doc are you claiming is outdated? When is the last time you tested Stand Tall!'s functionality?

It got removed completely for a week or two around the time of Jan 10th 2020. After that i put lib pala etc in quarantene and alternated them and the Vk based on it.
This whole "apply St with eternal prefight" for bos chanter only affects the raw st ticks.
leg. Lib Treatment aswell as Predestination and eventual Warr tank buffs like soth and the Teneb procc on warriors (whatever runs "+%healing taken by the affected target") still operate as "Old ST light".

Hey Shas! I'm curious as to what part of the Stand Tall section is considered outdated. That was all written up based on observations and testing, and not based on any previous documentation. From what I can see, all of it still holds true for current gameplay as of this post.

Pre 2020 hotfix:

Stand Tall on a target reloops the castin character's available healing% onto a target for all healing taken. Additionally adds any eternal bonus active while ST was applied. Stackable.
(As with all activate-able buffs that apply a healing% taken effect)
Default link-chanter without fluff items would constantly run 5-7m combined hps.

After hotfix:

Stand Tall snapshots the healing % and eternal for it's own ticks every 3 seconds but lost the re loop. (lib treatment and various pala/vk+ teneb rune still do though)

With the giant boni gone pumping vampiric essence, steadfast soul, jolt etc into multi 100ks even with offline eternal bonus, getting the power cost from frequent ST + applying it every 4 sec (forcing a tick on application) > one&forget. It is just a (above average) heal like jolt but not a godbuff.
So unless, as stated, trying to keep the 50k/3 sec on someone, increasing power drain+effective tickrates is better.
I barely used the WL with 2/4 Wc since in terms of solo- ability it's pretty slow and RB already solos tdem while healing 9 in the process.
And on that, i personally rather used eternal-St for it's initial tick, as ogcd spotheal rather than relying on the slow af ticks. (Kind of like Misery alliction where the re-apply-tick is what makes heretic so juicy)

By all means go manually for improved control- but ST overcharging t hps (aka ST greatly improves the target's healing taken) is gone.
Or have you seen people pulling 20m+ ohps in pugs anytime lately ^^

100% criting DS has a higher average damage than PT
So koth - DS - PT outside of BE will see DS on higher damage potential.

Should have written it "koth - DS (multiple) - PT"

The idea goes like this:

DS @ 100% crit average expected damage > PT @ ca. 65%-75% crit.

The whole Reta design > Ttb is based not on max hits, fancy crits or potentially lucky alignments- but on average expectable value/gcd. Basically moneyball which works for developing every mmo dps approach ever.

Alternating aqd+Pt with koth every 15sec is ca. 1.3
Using koth ca. only every 15sec while snapshotting maximum Ds crits (hopefully ending on 100% crit ds all the time) is ca. 1.4+
Even with the %package from leg. RP, PT still can't hold up with a DS maintained 100% critical.
Without anything installed rn and just to give the idea,
If a critting pt is on 1.6 average and criting ds on 1.3-1.4 average, a 65% critrate on Pt brings it down to 1-1.2m avg < ds. (Arbitrary representative numbers)
Rthe poor basedmg of koth can be left out since PT wants it every 15 sec anyway and DS is not taking the one guarantted PT crit away.

Yes koth, like bb have a low priority for their own effective damage. The idea is to "milk the ds crit bonus with as little koth uses as possible". And since "as little is possible" means every 15sec ca., you get one free ds per 15s and crits back2back with BE ofc. PT wanting the same koth % bonus and consuming the crits, DS > PT on "gcd value". It would need luck to have PT go brr but combatlogging 200 times on hope for luck is just cringe.
Try it.
Koth- Ds-BE- now keep using DS. Watch all DS crit and none consuming the buff.
This is a pretty big deal.
The pdf talks about DS as if every DS requires one koth.

Chance to use a Ds as throwaway filler for non BE+ non RP, taking the noncrit over an unbuffed aqd but that won't be noticeable in the grand picture and belongs to the least important last steps.

And yes the DS aspect is most impactful on terrible gear but AP scaling & Cp makes it never lose relevance.

When I built it based on your initial guide (thank you again by the way!), those alterations did not exist. However I'm willing to give the @lasttarget a try, since I usually use my @focus to maintain Stand Tall on a second person as noted above. Exceptions of course for things that I need to interrupt, like Boldoch in TDNM.

Interesting. I just figured that you may have only refered to the healing bonus for ST heal ticks and not even to what it used to derail.

If it works out for your everyday use, fine.
The main concern really only is the "increases target's healing raken" aswell as canches that a new "superman" overwrites important chanter/pala/lib/rb ST with the new overwriting aspect and "freely buff on whoever" promoted.


So little threads and it's already turning nerdy ^^


Younger pt logs don't indicate any fancy outliners in terms of overclocked healing.
My eu T1 warr firstly testing Oc Pala in 19' went 3m+ self hps.
My na warr on semilast eternal in 19' would run 30mil+ hps as Mac alongside a second chanter (Because NA strats i guess) Post 2020 logs barely hit 7 + even with Stacking ST&Perserverance
+ said extensive tests to re- evaluate ST for all existing guides including it (with Windymay back then) had me come to the results.

You could popp Wardcl Shared excess on a Riftblade and have it tick 100k+ like Pos Reaction. Barely dripping the 20k last used on silgen after Jan 20.

Chance that overlooked single % still get re-looped.
Happy to be proven wrong in any cases.

//While monitoring 2 ST anyway. Try cleavelord with 13WC and Stand&Deliver. Superman heals but should be closer to ret st dps+ juicy cleave, easily hitting 800-1m twice + aoe. Downside of it is the terribly flimsy ST rebuff pattern .. but while doing it anyway /shrug
may be fun.

//Reading again there is a chance we all mean the exact same but my mole brain is just not your target audience.

With my shit and many updates on it yeeted, i swore to keep myself out of ghar posts but boy oh boy here we are.
I guess best to keep my dirty hands off -apparently working- things. ^^
Happy blasting.

[Hormais]

OK this is a lot to process. By all means I want your feedback, no need to stay hands off. I'm following you as best as I can - you've gotten down to the nuts and bolts of this far more than I have.

Full disclosure - I greatly dislike RB even if it is "better". WL feels so much more like what a warrior should be. I'll still play RB as needed in a group, though, but I still do not enjoy the spec at all. I love the toughness that comes with the WL's blocking for free, as well as the situational versatility leftover from its offtank capabilities.

When testing Stand Tall both old and new, the effect we noted was that ST boosted most, if not all, heals that the recipient of ST receives, and not just heals given by the warrior themselves.

This was most notable on Kokroni's roguetank. I forget which rogue skill it was that we were experimenting with, but the healing amount was absolutely terrible and wouldn't save the tank from anything serious. It ticked quickly, however. We noticed something was up when I dropped my EW boosted ST on Kokroni and the healing went from the order of 3K/tick to over 40K/tick. Kokroni pretty much became invincible for the content we were doing, without a healer.

Further testing revealed that most heals were getting boosted by approximate value of the Warrior's EW, even if those heals weren't cast by the Warrior. The actual healing from Stand Tall itself isn't that big of a deal - but it giving my EW bonus to every other heal that person receives absolutely can be. Heals that tick rapidly are especially powerful in this situation.

Whether this is intentional behavior or not is anyone's guess. However it does come in handy. Normally I reserve my extra ST for someone who is a little undergeared, or for someone critically important to the fight that may need an extra boost to stay alive. Having the raid healer's heals also add the Warrior's EW bonus to the ST target can definitely help with survival. The combination of a bonus ST + Brothers in Arms can also give a cushion to a lesser geared tank trying to get a feel for something new.

You do raise an excellent point about a new Superman placing a ST where it is not needed. I will add a note to the guide about discussing with your group leader before doing this. (I do this anyway.)

I see what you mean now for DS (multiple) - this I would agree with while BE is running. I will do further testing - thanks for the clarification! I'll post my results later.

[Shas_]

Interesting on the ST.

In later Jan 2020, a ca. 5k Ticking Jolt, applied with currently offline eternal would not see a difference with infused ST active or not.
Into the blue it appears as if one of the server maintenance restarts in the meantime rerolled fixes or disabled plugins that were supposed to address this.

As it looks like, the % relooping is still off, the flat 42k on again then.

And yes that was the incentive on pushing Wl.
Paragon's 1b bs is off the table so pretty happy WL provided a "true warr" alternative, playing quite the opposite to RB - which gets tiresome quickly. Glad it's gaining traction.

And as a final, WL 1min without RP proccs is

(charge) - BB - koth - DS - be+DSx7 (delayed by RP) - PT - koth - DS (til be runs out) - PT - aqd - PT - (BB around here) aqd - PT [...]

An alternate approach is to stick with TTB 13 Para. Activate TTB prepull and keep it until the be block is gone, getting a faster opener and the relyable DS carpet and then 1.5s for the PT alteration.

Without Legendaries- or as lvl 60 you would literaly "spam" DS like that with Icy burst on 3 cp. That's how good it is. (easily rocking 200k dps in IA's- smoking lvl 70s)
Addet a pretty big section about WL leveling to wl2020 which went more into the whole DS priority- just days before forums went poof.

With ST doing it's thing again, Superman does sound like a relyable high octane maintank
Battlefield Medic having a hot effect would be insane.

https://rift.magelo.com/en/soultree#!7g ... Gg/2q|PYP0
procced aqd > double S&D > koth' buff > DS > PT
"Cleavelord"- not sure if there is even anything about it.
As said only downside is the manual ST juggling every 3 minutes. But since you do that anyway, chance it can elevate your efforts to combat RB dependency.

two S&D hits have higher damage (1mil critx2) than a maxed PT + only 1sec gcd (+50% effective dmg).

Happy about results

[Hormais]

With ST doing it's thing again, Superman does sound like a relyable high octane maintank
Battlefield Medic having a hot effect would be insane.

It is depending on content. It doesn't have the mitigation that a true tank does, so a large slow hit still has the potential to oneshot you (Tarjulia's Spider's Weave will do this.) However, it is absolutely hilarious to be the tank, frequently top DPS, and also a spot healer at the same time. Kokroni was the one who named the spec "Superman" and it stuck. I run EOA groups in "Supes" all the time, and Kokroni and I have duoed TDez with it with a variety of partner specs.

Supes does struggle a bit with AOE threat management, since General's Orders can only be used 1/minute, but for a big single boss such as EOA it's pretty unlikely someone is going to peel off you unless they use a hard taunt due to the Warlord's increased threat generation. If they do, you can activate Defensive Posture and taunt right back.

For funsies, Kokroni and I also MT'ed / OT'ed Azranel with Superman and a Bladedancer with a dash of Riftstalker in it for a hard taunt. Granted Azranel only tickles the tanks a little bit, but it was still hilarious to see the group without a blue shield in it. I maintained my Stand Tall on Kokroni and myself, and things went just fine.

[Jegodin]

I'd really recommend a 13 paragon and 2 Rift blade combination... legendary rising waterfall hits really hard, and for warlord it's better get stats out of weapon familiarity and grace of the 5 rings, the only thing rift blade really gives you in terms of increasing damage in Warlord is legendary icy burst and storm blade, both of which are only useful in getting more AQD death procs.

[Shas_]

Depends on what you are planning to do with it.

As a pvp main, the whole eternal circus truly is a neglectable byproduct.

Comes down to waht you want to do with it. Basically, you can run 61Wl with whatever you want. Wl2020 is based on raw pve dps, superman on flexible group jump runs.

Para rb is the old default WL, it does well and it also the best version while leveling, giving a littlebit more flexibility for chaotic situations

Some viable versions everyone can discover for himself:

- Tempest/RB : Get ranged icy burst proccs off and start new targets with an AQD oneshot. Nice in pvp with many disconnects, adds another leap backwards.
- Para/RB : Old pve main WL which is decent for chaotic pve- but builds on alot of uptime aswell. Great to get spontaneous utility like charges or retreat for less gcd cost. Recommended leveling combi. For Leggy Ready Posture, you really want 2x 1h with it though.
- WC/Rb : Either ''superman 4wc'' in RB flex heal style or 13WC cleavelord - pve only
- Pala/RB : Highest st playing into best gcd value during melee uptime

What holds 13 Para back is the ''+10% dmg for builders'' which is pretty terrible. Same reason you still use the orange syn crystal. Otherwise Ttb for the opener and then deactivated for the loop can do the trick. Not sure where to even put Rising Waterfall it hits for less than anything Wl. May rather Vapor Rush- Swift Strike- Breaking Blow.

Issue with 13 Para 2RB for lower geared pve people is the 2h weapon and the animation delay. 1sec gcd on procc based melee builds with a 2h weapon are borderline torture.