Gear Assistance

[Kagato]

Problem is that adding DEF or VIT for taking less damage is barely noticable unless you're tanking a lot of mobs at once and that just doesn't really happen in this game unless you're in a SB pt and in all honesty if you need anything better than AF for a SB pt you're doing it wrong.

Stacking HP is quite possibly the best thing you can do for slots that don't up your enmity in some way (STR/Enmity materia) while tanking and it also makes your Spirits Within better on PLD

[Molly_Millions]

You can easily reach stat caps with melded gear for tanking. Start by melding VIT onto a Cobalt Cuirass to reach 310 VIT. From there, triple mled some STR onto some Cobalt Mitt Guantlets. If you need some more STR, add a Rubelite Ring +1. Double or triple meld some Ironman's Will onto some felt trousers after that and you should be at both caps. (use the very best tier IIs and IIIs in your triple melds or use all Tier IVs)

[AmyNeudaiz]

MFW I remembered this was a WAR thread

[Molly_Millions]

Tanks generally meld HP on their gear, so that's why you probably won't hit your stat caps.

A good WAR tank doesn't use HP. Cap VIT, it'll give you defense and some hp, therefore you need less HP. You have no shield so you need the DEF that comes from VIT on your chest piece. The only place you have left to add HP would be your boots, you might be better off adding m.eva to those though, especially if you do skirmish a lot.

[Grimwald]

Defense and Vit are ignored by almost all bosses. dLVL pretty much nerfs your defense and vit to where you're relying on your innate damage reduction abilities and passives. Luckily, VIT is an important component of your core stats anyways, so at least you're getting somewhat of a return. It's safe to assume most bosses are 4-6 levels higher than you.

"This is why the naked Ifrit run works from a tanking perspective. If you go in naked, you take about 1,100 damage. If you go in fully geared on a GLA with 1,000 Defense, you'll end up taking about 650. Because we are so far from the damage floor, there is very little efficiency, even in upping our defense from 50 to 1,000! It all as to do with where our current defense is relatively the defense required to reach the damage floor. This is why defense can seem so important on R50s, but mean so little on higher end mobs. Another way we can put this is the higher damage the mob deals to you, the less efficient defense stacking will be.

Beyond this explanation of tanking naked on Ifrit, I do not wish to get into a philosophical argument as to whether or not the defense stat is broken. I only intend to illustrate WHY things work the way they work. I will leave the philosophical "should be" arguments to the official forums."

Please see here for more info:

SCIENCE

[Molly_Millions]

Defense and Vit are ignored by almost all bosses. dLVL pretty much nerfs your defense and vit to where you're relying on your innate damage reduction abilities and passives. Luckily, VIT is an important component of your core stats anyways, so at least you're getting somewhat of a return. It's safe to assume most bosses are 4-6 levels higher than you.




Please see here for more info:

SCIENCE

Yes, and the effect is worse for VIT than it is for DEF (because you get less def back from VIT than you do from straight DEF materia) and is exactly why I stress DEF materia over VIT for PLD.

[Zet]

I've been trying to figure out which build to go with myself. I'd like to tank on my WAR so I went with aiming for VIT where available. This is a summary of my gear:
Iffy Axe
AF helm
2 amber rings +1
Cobalt belt with enmity materia
Still need good earrings
Settled with Stonewall choker for now
Cuirass with HP materia
AF legs
I still need to acquire some tanking legs and might replace my Explorer's Sabatons with something else

Overall my Vit is at 330, Str is low, 261 - I keep getting different perspectives on what to stack up on. Am I on the correct course for tanking gear or should I switch to cap STR and secondary VIT? I personally feel that for tanking I should cap VIT + secondary STR and if I go DD then I can switch gear to cap STR and secondary VIT.
This being said, the gear I have means my ACC number is also low - if I can't hit anything then I can't generate hate - Is there an ACC total # I should aim for?
Any input would be appreciated!

[Molly_Millions]

Get sentinel's sabatons, an explorer's earring, explorer's choker, a cobalt cuirass with 25ish VIT, and some cobalt mitt gauntlets with ~50 STR, a rubelite ring +1, and an electrum ring +1