Good or no good?

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Originally Posted by Phoenicia

You said "bad". VIT won't save "bad". All VIT does is make a bad tank that doesn't use CDs last 1~2 hits longer than a bad STR tank. You won't get to cast all 3 DoTs + Miasra + Shadow Flare simply because a tank is wearing full VIT and having 2k more HP than a STR tank.

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VIT actually does save bad in my experience, in the case of making sure I have enough time to get DoTs up. Even most bad tanks will hit at least one cooldown for a large pull, and with the extra health, I usually get the extra GCD or two that I need. In part it's a UI issue--I don't know many healers that sit and tabulate health totals mid-encounter (nobody's a human calculator after all). They're normally relying on the fluctuating health bar to gauge the need for heals, which results in more frequent stance-dancing which is a flat DPS loss.

You're also using a lower number for the HP which makes your argument appear stronger. On my tank (a measly i173), dropping my Fending accessories costs 3444 HP (3557 with party bonus), which is about 1.5x your 2k HP estimate. That difference between all Fending and all Slaying is more pronounced at higher gear levels, naturally.

This is across a varying number of item levels, of course. Honestly, as long as I see the tank has around 16,000-17,000 hp (for DRK or PLD at any rate), they're as good as a VIT tank to me regardless of whether they're wearing Slaying or not in the Expert dungeons, as that's plenty of HP to do the majority of the pulls fairly safely in my experience. It's the sub-15k tanks that tend to give me pause.

But in any situation where I don't know the tank (i.e., most DF runs), I'm always going to be initially happier zoning into a Fending tank, as it's the "safer" option.

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Originally Posted by Alahra

Snip.

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I'm not arguing that having more HP as a total is not more comfy. What I was pointing out is regardless of how much VIT you have, the amount of healing needed is the same.

When I tank, I use my judgement based on how many things I'm pulling and how much damage I'm going to take during said pulls and when I want to use my CDs. For example, as a WAR, I would like to use Vengeance/RI during Berserk so there is a sort of delay on when those CDs are used. I would have "some" VIT (2STR 3VIT) in order to make up for the delay in my CD.

If I'm not tanking, I don't judge other tanks on DF since I don't know their skill levels. So when I see a VIT tank I think it's probably someone who's not comfortable with STR tanking or someone who doesn't trust random healers. Either way, it doesn't matter as long as this tank can hold hate, meaning if I'm DPS, I don't want mobs running after me the second I hit Deathflare, which due to SMN's nature, comes pretty late into the fight. And if I'm a healer, I Adlo+Stoneskin the tank prepull and I expect him to survive long enough for me to apply all 3 dots, bane them, add in Miasra + instant shadwoflare. As long as the tank can do that, I'm a happy camper.

In the end, I can't control how others play, but I can adapt to how they play and I try to make the best of it.

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Originally Posted by Phoenicia

I'm not arguing that having more HP as a total is not more comfy. What I was pointing out is regardless of how much VIT you have, the amount of healing needed is the same.

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Oh, I won't argue that numerically the total number of HP that needs to be healed is going to be the same. But that's arguing semantics, as relative to healer DPS, it can lead to less healer DPS for any number of reasons. Whatever the numbers say on paper, I consistently spend less time in Cleric Stance when I'm with STR tanks (though usually not with ones I know personally), so I generally take issue with any sort of blanket statements that VIT is worthless (which is sadly common around here)--it isn't useful past a certain HP threshold, and that's the distinction that usually gets lost in the vitriol.

Personally, I've just switched to Eos full time for dungeons, as Whispering Dawn is almost always enough to give me the space for the extra globals to at least get DoTs up even if the tank is awful, but that is still potential lost DPS from the lack of Fey Wind.

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Originally Posted by Litegrace

there is no loss in dps on the healer side for having less health, that makes no sense.

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Yes it does. Hypothetical example. Consider a Tank A with 13k health and Tank B with 17k health. Assume they have the same defensive scores and use the same cooldowns. Now assume that they are losing about 2k health a second from a pull, net of any heals my fairy chips in.

As a scholar, I am going to try casting Bio II, Miasma, Bio I, wait 0.25 sec, then Bane. This takes 7.45s. Tank A died at the 6.5s mark. Tank B has 2100 health left and will live another 1.05 seconds. For Tank A, I must stop and heal. I do not finish my rotation of dots, I do not get to bane them. Assuming the average large pull is ~6 mobs, my DPS is cut by 85% or so until I finish my rotation later on. Tank B gets rescued with a lustrate and the pull carries on normally.

Now those numbers are made up, but you can see how having more time gives me more options. If a tank lives even longer without my attention, I can put up a shadowflare, aero, and maybe a miasma ii. In addition, a tank with a larger health pool gives me more options on how to go about recovery. Because I have more time, I can use more efficient spells. I can take a moment to heal the dragoon who stood in the fire too long. I can reposition myself and not have to worry as much.

I get your point that having a big fat pool of HP in itself doesn't make you tougher. It doesn't reduce the damage you take. But what it does do is afford the luxury of -time-, which is a precious resource.

Viviza says it best really, and I wish more tanks would realise this.

FF is a game where wipes are rarely caused by healers running out of MP (certanly not in 4mans at least). Whilst you do want to manage MP efficiently and not overcast inefficient spells, what kills tanks is a combination of either damage spikes or a burst of rapidly incoming damage that they can't be healed through.

Whilst I'd never advocate stacking Vit in most situations, there is a point where a tank that's undergeared can simply have too little Vit for a healer to be able to leave them on their own for a few seconds to do other stuff. If every single healer ONLY stood attentively and healed the tank and did nothing else, then every tank should only ever run full Str. But often when trying to speed run 4mans, a tank with really low health can slow a run down.

yes, the tank will do more damage with low health and strength build, but due to the mechanics of a Healer's Cleric Stance which necessitates wanting to NOT heal for as long as possible, tanks who go pure glass cannon in instances CAN end up making a run slower by preventing the healer from being able to do any meaningful DPS. Note that if Cleric stance didnt exist and healers could simply weave one DPS spell in between every heal, this issue wouldnt exist. It's purely the lengthy on/off toggle that makes it worthwhile for tanks to have a chunky pool of EHP when doing big pulls.

Of course, it only really happens when the tank is fairly low geared, but Vit is certainly not useless, and you need to evaluate on an instance-by-instance basis whether a glass cannon strength build is really the best way to go.

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Originally Posted by Alahra

But in any situation where I don't know the tank (i.e., most DF runs), I'm always going to be initially happier zoning into a Fending tank, as it's the "safer" option.

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There's no truth to that statement. Full slaying><Full fending brings me from 16k+ hp to 20k and change. A random Crit hit, or multiple hits from a pack knock that "advantage" right out in 1-2 seconds flat. Running full Vit is not safer, it doesn't allow say, a cure I cast instead of a cure II from a healer. There would have to be a large chunk of Vit from a higher tier set of accessories with the content staying relatively the same difficulty for that statement to ring true.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

Viviza says it best really, and I wish more tanks would realise this.

FF is a game where wipes are rarely caused by healers running out of MP (certanly not in 4mans at least). Whilst you do want to manage MP efficiently and not overcast inefficient spells, what kills tanks is a combination of either damage spikes or a burst of rapidly incoming damage that they can't be healed through.

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I'm sorry but current meta disagrees. Speed runs are determined by proper defensive CD rotations as a "Glass Cannon", not how much health the Tank has, wherein You want both your 180 and 190 fending ring in SA1, unitil you get your Gordian fending ring, where now you have enough HP to swap in say your 190 slaying ring for the "Umph" to your "Booyakasha".

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Originally Posted by Iagainsti

There's no truth to that statement. Full slaying><Full fending brings me from 16k+ hp to 20k and change. A random Crit hit, or multiple hits from a pack knock that "advantage" right out in 1-2 seconds flat.

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"Safer" refers to the margin for error that VIT provides. STR provide less margin for error. There's less room for DPS to get hit with stray adds, less time to heal if the tank accidentally eats a ground AoE, less time if someone eats a boss cleave, and so on and so on. VIT tanks are therefore "safer."

I've seen a tank more than once accidentally get bound on one of the last pulls of Fractal and eat two lasers. These pulls have stray DPS damage and debuffs that should be removed, so the healer's attention is not always on the tank. A VIT tank has a better chance to survive a mistake like that, and therefore, that option is "safer."

You would also do well to remember that not every tank is fully decked out in i190 or better at this point in time. I've said before that past 16,000 HP or so, you have enough to do most of the large pulls relatively safely, but that doesn't deny that additional VIT is still safer in that it allows for more human error.

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Originally Posted by Viviza

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My problem with this is that you are listing a bunch of points that only affect the healer. Why should a tank have to stack VIT (which doesn't help any of their abilities in any way) in order to make the healer's life easier? VIT literally does nothing but add extra health, which is useless beyond the maximum damage you will take plus some.

STR benefits most of a tank's abilities in a positive way however, and also leads to higher party DPS. So if you argue that a healer does less DPS with a tank stacking STR, then I will argue that a tank does less DPS when stacking VIT. Either way leads to less DPS, and I would rather not stack a stat that doesn't benefit me. With the gear I have now, I have more than enough health and my defensive cooldowns lessen the damage I take, meaning stacking VIT does nothing for me. Until they change how the stat works, there's no reason to stack it right now. I'm not saying I'm unwilling to make a healer's job easier, but there needs to be some reward for doing so, other than just a safety net (like some sort of damage reduction or mitigation on VIT).

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Originally Posted by Litegrace

Why should a tank have to stack VIT (which doesn't help any of their abilities in any way) in order to make the healer's life easier?

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I know I'm taking this out of context, but this sentence leapt out at me and made my spine crawl. The whole point of being a tank is to make the entire party's life as easy as possible so everyone can do their jobs to the best of their abilities. Ideally this will result in a run with highest possible total party dps but also one that's -safe-. Knocking 10 seconds off the speed of a run is fine, but if it gives your healer a heart attack and has heavy risk of wipes then it's probably not worth it.

Of course, as always, advocating additional Vit is purely something for those who are low geared. DF 4mans are tuned for people in 145-150 gear, so 180+ is far beyond. Yes, no point at all having a single Vit accessory when you've got 16k health from left side alone.

But don't dismiss healer dps as unimportant. Your whole post comes across as so selfish sadly. The damage a Scholar can do to a pack of mobs by just putting up 3 dots and Baning them is immense, and if a low geared tank is at so much risk of dying in 3 seconds that a scholar has to stay in heal-mode for a full pack then that tank is making the party do less damage even though they might have strength gear and do more themselves. +20% or so damage on a tank's output is significant, but if it causes a healer to do -zero- damage then it's not worth it. Of course, it's a balancing act, and that's an extreme example.

I know it's not how you necessarily meant it, but that sentence sounds like someone who only cares about their own DPS parse rather than the overall success of a party. That's not the tanking mindset. Tanks should do as much damage as humanly possible and make a run as swift and painless as can be, but if the best way to do that is to facilitate other members of the party doing higher damage, so be it.

DPS is important. The best tanks maximise it. But don't forget that a tank is primarily a "support" class, in a sense. Your role is to control the battlefield and ensure your party can do their job.