Please fix tank accessories already, it's been 3 patches

[Lyth]

Here's the main problem. It seems like the developers want to widen the damage gap between tanks and dps. Players, on the other hand, generally like to do as much damage as possible.

Every problem that we've had relating to tank accessories this expansion comes from this. At the start of this expansion, this was done by removing VIT from the new gear. The developers had created a damage gap. Ordinarily, that would have been the end of the discussion, and tanks would be doing less damage than even healers. (Remember Patch 4.01: What was that? You say that you want more enmity? You say that the lack of STR on your gear is interfering with your enmity? I'm struggling to hear you, but it sounded like you said enmity, not damage. Here, have some more enmity.)

Players quickly realised that their new accessories were doing less damage than their old i270 pieces. Surprise, surprise, players started forgoing the new accessories in favour of the ones with STR. Uh-oh.

Consider the following:
Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XXXVII Digest (8/10/2017)

Q: Currently some tanks stack STR on their accessories to increase their DPS, are changes planned for tank accessories themselves?

A: We have received feedback from tanks regarding continuing to equip item level 270 accessories. This puts more stress on the healers, and a lack of vitality may become an issue as we enter Savage. However, top players may be able to clear even under those conditions, so we worry that it will become the norm.

As a result, we have decided to add a minimum amount of strength to accessories in 4.05. I think there are people who are wondering why we haven’t addressed this until now despite the fact that requests have been made before. The reason is that if you add strength to a vitality accessary, only the tank will have increased strength stats when level syncing. We wanted to keep stats as simple as possible, but in 3.X, tanks were dealing quite a bit of damage, and we’ve decided to accept them doing that much damage.

The item level will increase in coming updates, but strength will not scale the same as vitality, so we would like you to keep that in mind. There are some people who suggested that we make it so that item level 270 accessories can only be equipped by certain roles, but even if we did that, there’s a chance that characters that already have these item equipped will just leave them equipped. We did not place equipment restriction on them in order to avoid any differences that might arise due to this.

To dissuade players from using the older accessories, they had to put a minimum amount of STR on the gear. So now STR goes up by a couple of points every 10 ilevels. You still want to use the newer accessories because they're marginally better, but your damage doesn't get significantly better with newer gear. That should have been the end of the discussion. Except for one thing.

Primary attributes are supposed to dictate the power difference between gear at different ilevels. When the STR difference is outweighed by secondary stats like direct hit and crit, those stats instead dictate gear strength. Because the STR difference between gear levels was too small, you had lower ilevel gear pieces which gave you a bigger dps benefit. Enter crafted gear.

This is a similar problem to what was happening with dead stat-weighted attributes like Parry and Accuracy on tank gear pre-Stormblood, in that there was a wide variation in secondary stats within a given gear level. So you would run into situations where lower ilevel gear outperformed higher ilevel gear, because it had less Parry and Accuracy.

Here's where we're at now:
Letter from the Producer LIVE XLII Digest (2/27/2018)

Q: For tank accessories, it seems much more useful to meld Direct Hit onto the new crafted accessories than using accessories obtained from the new tokens and Savage raid. Are there any plans to adjust the stats on the accessories in the future?

A: We believe the issue here is that the first groups of players trying to complete the raids quickly are in favor of pushing their DPS. Also, by the time players are able to obtain Savage accessories, their item level would probably have increased, so at that point, it’s up to the individual to consider to continue using DPS-focused gear.

We have received some suggestions that tanks should not receive any effects from Direct Hit. We understand the sentiment on this will be split, so we are carefully discussing this at the moment.

It seems like we're hitting our heads against the same wall. The developers aren't asking "How do we give tanks meaningful gear progression with higher ilevel." The question they're asking instead is "How do we limit the power of lower ilevel crafted gear."

Removing access to Direct Hit melds in 4.4 isn't going to solve the problem. Crit is probably going to be a better stat by that point (it already is for WAR, especially after the 4.2 changes). You're just going to see crafted gear with Crit/Det melds instead. In order for raid/token accessories to be preferred, the primary stat gain has to outweigh the higher amount of secondary stats on the crafted gear.

The bottom line is this. Players want meaningful stat progression on their gear. If you pick up a new, higher level accessory, you want it to make you stronger (i.e. more damage). In order to do this, there has to be a big enough separation between ilevels through primary stat gains to outweigh any variations in secondary stats within a given ilevel.

What do I see as the solution? Well, look at healers. Healers don't use INT. You don't have to worry that boosting the amount of primary stats on Healer gear is going to encroach on caster dps. You can tune them independently of each other. Instead, you have a primary stat that boosts both healing power and damage output. Perfect.

Do the same thing for tanks, next expansion. Make tenacity into the new tank primary, and have it boost damage output, self-healing, and mitigation. Have it scale at an appropriate rate, such that it doesn't get overpowered by secondary stats. That way, you can tune tank damage output without worrying about them encroaching on melee dps output, because they would have different primary stats.

[Cabalabob]

Honestly I think they should just delete VIT from the game, have our hp rise based on our ilvl and just make tank accs be capped STR with lower scaling than on dps. Change food from VIT+X% to HP+X% and change VIT materia into HP materia.

[Capn_Goggles]

The developers handle this issue with all the finesse of a rhinoceros knitting a sweater, and they frequently ignore the community on fairly simple solutions. If resurrection weakness applied to damage dealt and healing provided, rather than targeting stats, there would be no reason not to tie damage to vitality like in HW. Regardless of the solution, the reason crafted gear is better is because tanks are the only role that are able to meld their primary damage stat, because, and I know this is where it gets complicated, tanks are the only role that do not receive full primary stat scaling on their gear.

Limiting tank ability to meld damage stats on their gear would be the most absurdly tone-deaf change they could possibly make, and yet I feel as though it is the most likely solution because it's the easiest solution and they only risk upsetting the fraction of a percent of the playerbase who continue to play tank.

[Chrono_Rising]

The solution isn't even complicated. Crafted accessories are only marginally, less than a percent, better than accessories 20 ilvls above them. Upgrading to the 20 ilvl higher accessories gets you 18 more vit, 1 additional strength, and 18 more secondary stats, and that is just shy of being on par with crafted accessories.

If the strength on tank accessories increased by half of our vit stat increases (gaining 4 strength per 10 ilvls instead of 1 per 10 ilvls) we would have gear progression, tank dps wouldn't fly off the handle, and would require no changes to the damage formula or the way weakness is calculated. The solution is extremely simple and should raise questions as to why it hasn't been fixed.

[Marxam]

As long as forbidden melding is a thing and stat gains are roughly 15-20 points between a 30 ilvl gap I don't think crafted is going anytime soon. I would prefer if they just put the STR capped on accessories innately, ex. i370 has 25 STR and i350 has 5 STR. They could also stop making bosses hit like a limp noodle and actually have tanks stay in their defensive stance for an attack however I don't think that would happen given SE's fixation of damage > everything else.

This is more of a game design issue than an equipment issue as healers also deal with the same mentality where it's damage first then keeping party alive. They just don't have to meld their main stat to get it like we do.

[Capn_Goggles]

This is more of a game design issue than an equipment issue as healers also deal with the same mentality where it's damage first then keeping party alive. They just don't have to meld their main stat to get it like we do.

The thing is, SE is on the cusp of a good thing here. I love the idea of everyone sharing responsibilities regardless of role. Healers should be expected to do damage when possible, tanks should be maximizing both their damage given while minimizing damage taken, DPS should be expected to manage their own enmity, and so on. The issue here is that they're all over the place on where the stand on tank DPS, and they've approached the issue in the most insanely obtuse manner possible.

Among the most exasperating aspects of playing a tank is dealing with constant, sweeping changes that completely flip the role upside-down yet do not actually address any core issues. What they're doing is the equivalent of constantly painting over dust and rust; they're making their lives harder in the long run when it inevitably flakes off, all for the sake of very temporarily prettying everything up.

[Lyth]

I don't think that reducing tank damage output makes the role easier to pick up at lower skill levels. If anything, it has the biggest negative impact on casual groups, which generally have a greater variation in player skill. If you have a weaker dps, you might be able to cross-compensate with a stronger healer or tank.

Most of the skill-based dps disparity in tanking comes from differences in tank stance usage and stance penalties, not on how skilfully or cleverly you press the Inner Release button. Reducing overall tank dps doesn't change that.

[Fourbestintoner]

Crafted accs are literally the best thing about tank bis since they guarantee you'll be bis in at least 8 weeks.

[Derio]

I dont see them fixing this problem anytime soon. The fact that we have been going around in circles since 3.x with accessories is crazy.

[shao32]

this is from a recent korean interview:

Q: Tanks require Crafted equipments much more than other roles. Please increase the value of raid equipment!

A: In terms of development standpoint, I don't think tanks should be able to to output DPS much higher than necessary. But I do however think and understand that players want to output more DPS. I understand that this is a problem right now but if we are to immediately address it, it would end up as if the solution being a forced one rather than ideal. We are always tackling on this issue here so it'll take some time before we can address this.

(Translation note: To prevent misunderstanding, it'd be more accurate to say YoshiP thinks tanks should not have been outputting firepower already higher than what is required in any raid situations, possibly or most likely because he thinks it will blur the definition of what a tank is. He IS however fine with players wanting to do more DPS. The problem he acknowledged here isn't regarding on tanks doing more DPS but more on the problem on the value of raid equipments. However, if any Japanese speakers out there would want to pinpoint the mistakes in my translation, please point it out and it will be reflected. Thank you)