Oh yeah? Correct me if im wrong, but dont tank threat rotations already produce a level of damage? If you lose out on damage entirely, what are you doing, spamming flash all boss fight long?
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If str is so important for tanks, they should really consider giving us more str bonuses in our base gear. Right? I certainly wouldn't mind more stat bonuses.
I love how the post right after this is Aeyis doing the 'str tanks are dumb' thing.
Also, I think the fact that every thread started on this in general has been calling all str tanks awful either directly or indirectly says something about this, too.
I don't really care how tanks gear so long as they know what they're doing, but considering the way these threads start, well. Guess I'm stuck arguing for strength because that's the one people are trying to say is bad.
Yes, by attacking the boss to generate hate you are by default doing a level of DPS.
You are also default mitigating damage by simply having your tank stance on.
And how do we enhance our capabilities of doing both of these? For tanking, we learn when to pop what CD, when you need to favor mitigation over damage, etc. etc. For damage dealing we learn when to use our offensive buffs, when we can stance dance, when we can forego using a defensive CD defensively and instead using it offensively (Rampart in Sword Oath = Shield Oath with more damage, Thrill + Conv in Deliverance = Defiance with more damage, etc).
There is a very tricky balance to optimizing yourself as a tank. It is not strictly about being able to take hits, but being able to maximize every aspect of your job without harming the others. Healers and tanks both perform this careful balancing act if you are playing your job to the best of it's ability. It's more noticeable on a healer who doesn't heal because they have to make a choice when to DPS the boss vs a tank who, by default, will be DPSing the boss. I wear STR accessories once I've learned what the boss does and when/where I'll need what CD - tanking will always take priority over DPS, you always want to be prepared to tank any hit before you know what exactly the boss is going to smack you with. Once you understand that, then you can start maximizing your DPS - planning out when you use what, when you can afford to be out of your tank stance, when you should use and when you should save your offensive buffs, etc.
If you just want to prioritize tanking on your tank then that's fine. I could care less about PUG tanks that stack VIT to their heart's content. I think the "STR tanks are bad!" argument stems from bad tanks wearing STR accessories, not making the proper progression of learning how to tank first and learning how to maximize your DPS second. I have been maximizing my DPS since 2.0 when Gryphonskin was a thing, it is not something you just jump head first into and understand completely. I always recommend against going full STR for new tanks because 9/10 you'll end up being too squishy and fall flat on your face, wondering why that happened, and you'll get people coming to the OF complaining about you and putting every other STR tank who's competent in a bad light because of it. Every good STR tank starts with either melded accessories or full VIT and then decides, once they know their damage intake, how much VIT they can afford to shed off.
A pure VIT tank's view on this is that we're all just stupid, wearing STR 24/7, expecting healers to heal us through everything and never DPS, etc. etc. It's not the case. The only difference between a competent pure VIT tank and a competent pure STR tank is that one of them knows that they can shed off excess VIT that isn't necessary and maximize their raid's DPS without costing themselves needed survivability.
I know, I know. Some people signed up for tanking and didn't expect to get pigeon holed into having to DPS as well. I really don't like that tanks have to gear this way and I would love it if tanks had defensive secondaries that actually mattered and made tanking itself more engaging/fun. As it stands, though, one of the aspects of our job is to hit the boss and therefore one of the things we must maximize is our ability to hit the boss as hard as we can. Not at the cost of survivability - thus the balance. This is really hard to explain as it's been such common knowledge to me for 2 years now, but I hope that helps a bit. I'm not saying VIT tanking is wrong, but I don't think it optimizes the job correctly - and I also don't think that new players should be trying to optimize a secondary priority over a primary priority.
{Perfect Balance}.
I always had hard time understanding why lvl 60 tank with ilvl 180 should have VIT accessories in dungeons, unless he wants to make the run longer to enjoy the trash and generic bosses.
But yeah, I won't flame tank in dungeon only because he has VIT gear even if it isn't neccessary.
... On the other hand during static raid the tank better git gut or git lost. xD
So basically how much a tank can screw around without getting the raid wiped. That's what I did when I tanked WoW LFR in dps spec. Its not exactly the right way to go about tanking tho, and only possible because of massive outgearing.
But atleast I could justify that because outgearing allowed me to do 5 times the dps of the average player (ilvl) the LFR was really ment for, and that did level of dps really did make a difference.
Tanks deal no great dps in this game. Dont make it sound like they do.
To me it really seems like half the community's tanks used to play WoW and was that guy who was always forced to tank but really wanted to play his dps spec instead.
There's a delightful irony with people posting that this should have been put in the thread this discussion spawned from but instead quite a few of you parrot the same thing and bump this thread up. As a result, it gets more attention.
I just feel like being silly and pointing that out, don't mind me!
What's the point if having extra HP, if you and your healers are perfectly comfortable with less? Of course tanking is the main role you have to pull, but why put obsolete stats into Vitality if you don't need them, when you could also be pulling DPS and gaining more enmity?
Slotting to Strength and Vit both have their places. Outside the hardcore raid/df hero scenarios however, slotting to Strength is usually more beneficial.
Anyone disagreeing with slotting Strength ever must like playing their role sub-par. There's a reason, why Wars that can hold aggro, survive AND deal 900+ dps are better than the ones that can only do the tanking and slap 400dps.
Some tanks are not comfortable with using full strength accessories and that doesn't make them a bad tank. It also puts more pressure on the healers. Tanks are each to their own. You're not a bad tank just because you're not DPSing amazingly. If they can hold aggro, use their cooldowns correctly and basically do what a tank is supposed to do, let them use whatever stats they want.
I don't think so, if you need str to hold hate at least semi-consistently then you're on another level of bad. I doubt str would save you at that point- and at least not dying would be better. (Just hate spam, only time it might not work is when you are out ilvled by a significant margin)
While we don't want either I still stand by bad vit > bad str. Let's have neither tho? Lol. It isn't purely determinable by healer in a positive direction, bad tank may not use def cool downs so a good healer may still be sol on a less hp tank- and a bad healer needs a bigger buffer. So in the healer case as well when everyone is bad, sleepy, new, under geared, or wants a nice steady tortoise run* go vit, xD. * may not be faster but less concerned about "will we finish this?".
The person who said the healer would still have to heal = same, similar disagreement. The extra hp would keep them alive easier which means less weakness which means way better tank in stat form. (Weakness especially stacked will make you a worse tank than just living)
VIT tanks in dungeons, because a healers AOE DPS will spank a STR tank anyday. so you're making the dungeon run longer because tanks want to see MOAR dps and keeping the healer glued to your health bar :rolleyes:
BUT if a healer wants to go lazy mode and only heal than by all means go full strenght and make that healer, heal :P
i like to have str accessories mainly for fun. i also like to dps on my sch, but i noticed if i let my warrior go deliverance with full str he can do 700 dps ( more than my 400 if i keep some dots up durring fight ), i think this game give us many options to try different things, what ever ur static is comfortable trying to do, but for sure to get hate or such because u prefer VIT is not right, str tank is a situational thing. also rememeber we dont have savage yet so whatever we are doing now is trivial, that incudes those extreme primals.
Since we're on a pointless, opinion-based topic from another forum:
Should healers DPS?
Same argument, same sides, different roles...
It's similar. But Healer DPS is buffed by MND so they don't sacrifice dps for healing, in regards to gear.
On the flip side, unlike Healers, Tanks are going to be hitting the boss regardless so they don't lose as much dpsing, in regards to skills used in battle.
The Healer debate is about what you do during a fight.
This Tank debate is (mostly) about how you gear, WAR stance dancing aside.
The difference comes in when, say, a healer can stop dpsing on the fly but a tank can't change his gear in combat when things get hairy.
Or on the opposing side, a tank doesn't need to stop Tanking to dps while a healer needs to stop healing (in most cases) at least for some time.
This whole debate is why I stopped trying to level my warrior. Since I main scholar, I can completely see the value of healers and tanks maximizing dps when the situation is favorable. But then the community gets involved and everything goes to shit...
The fact is, I've become too uncomfortable trying to figure out how to play a warrior optimally because I've seen the following attitudes on these boards:
STR Tanks: 'WHAT?! You don't know how to do this intrinsically?! Git gud scrub or gtfo.'
VIT Tanks: 'Stop trying to be a useless dps scrub or gtfo.'
I know there are also level headed players in each camp...but the 'angry' ones seem to be the most vocal anymore...
Honestly, if you want to level WAR and enjoy it then just do it and find what works best for you. If that's full VIT until you're comfortable with stuff and then swapping out to some STR accessories or melded then that's fine. But in the end you do what you and your group are comfortable with.
The majority of us STR tanks are doing what we do because we want to get the most out of our job as we can and aren't comfortable just sitting there in turtle mode. It's not what the job was designed to do (Which Yoshi even stated when people were calling for a nerf to WAR damage). But again, if you want to play it then play it and do it the way that makes you comfortable. The issue arises when people try and preach that their way is the only way.
On my PLD I macro switch STR / VIT gear based on the fights ahead before pull. If want to pull a big mob i switch to VIT, if i have DPS mainly single target ie MNK and NIN or even BRD in my party ill switch over to str and pull in smaller amounts. If the DPS is more heavily geared than me, ill switch to STR otherwise they will pull hate off me. If i had the choice, I'd prefer i180 crafted VIT with Melded STR and get real balance than switching to 2 extremes. Id gladly take a hit on VIT for STR and STR for more VIT. On my WAR, I need VIT all day, I absolutely hate seeing my HP fall below 50% and even the most skilled healers will have some complaints about the squeamishness of a WAR. Though I don't know if this will change, I haven't gotten WAR or DRK to 60 yet.
well again situational, we dont have a real raid yet so i will take examples from t11 and t12 while we were progressing, i agree with my whm that at certain points in the fight i wanted to dps, for intstance bane the bennu/blackfire alogn with our smn, and in turn11 i would go full dps the first adds etc. what ever both healers like to agree on is propably good and u can try and stretch it and see how it works out for u ;)
Not a bad tank, just not an optimized tank. Probably not a progression player, but fine for df bs. Too many people see Xenos vidoe and walk away thinking str accs are all there is to tanking.
As long as you can get and maintain hate, you are fine for df. If dps checks arent being met, its mostly the fault of the dps.
Now a DRG with INT acc would be a bad DRG, but VIT is benefical to tanks, so you aren't bad, you're just not optomized.
The problem for me is that I want to learn how to play in a way that I agree is optimal. But equipping STR accessories is only one small part of that. I want to know more about the play style to that maximizes DPS. The problem for me is that I learn best by asking questions of those with experience first. I don't want to just go in blind and hope I'm developing the right habits and behaviors.
The problem with asking questions anymore seems to be that...especially with this STR vs. VIT debate...there's a very vocal portion of the population that will write you off as a horrible player. To some...it seems...something not being obvious to you is a black mark, and they'd rather label you as hopeless or useless. I'm not saying everyone is this way...but it's enough for someone like me to be hesitant to even try because they have enough negativity their life not to want to invite more into it. Which sucks because tanking seems like it could be fun...
It is alot of fun, nothing else I would rather do. If you want to do it, do it. Find your niche and stick to it. There is no right or wrong in this debate. Your one and only foremost issue is to maintain hate and keep it off your party members. DPSing is secondary. When you get better at and know your role, sure add some STR into the mix, I currently run 3 STR and 2 VIT acc. I have never been told that I don't DPS enough or that an instance failed because my DPS was too low.
Go vit until you feel comfortable maxing DPS and using your CDs and stuff with Vit, then swap stats, do a few more dungeons, if it still feels good trade a vit acc for a str one, etc. etc. When you hit a point that it feels weird/uncomfortable start focusing on improving yourself again, and repeat until you're full str if that's your goal.
Your rotation, how you pull, and every other bit of how you play the class is going to be the same between the two. You just have less margin of error for popping CDs on hard hitting attacks, and do more damage in str. So learning to play in vit is probably best.
Also remember that on progression raiding full str probably won't be optimal (alex savage). It wasn't before, until you could get better gear than coil. You need enough HP to survive tank busters with enough of a buffer to not die to the next auto attack.
Now wait a minute... Do I read this correctly ? Going full STR instead of full VIT, with the same team, shaved off 8 seconds out of about 4 minutes ? And DPS went from 740 to 1000 ?
It's a noticeable increase to a single party member's DPS, that I won't deny. But is shaving 8 seconds out of 4 minutes truly considered "optimizing" ? I expected at least a 10% decrease in time taken. That's not even close. :(
That was done on a training dummy outside my FC house. I attempted to keep the times similar so as to give an accurate comparison. The other thing to keep in mind as well is that STR influences your self heals (Equilibrium and Second Wind for WAR and Clemency for PLD).
In a short time span it won't be as noticeable, but the same tank running the same rotation against a mob with 1m HP. The attempt using STR gear will kill the mob in just under 17 minutes. A full VIT run would take almost 23 minutes.
I'd also like to point out that the 1k DPS is also possible in a raid scenario. It's not uncommon to see myself sitting at 1000-ish in any turn of Alex save for Floor 4, Extreme dungeons or EX Primals.
This, however, is presuming the entire raid has a 30% increase in DPS. 1/8th of a raid that has a 30% increase wouldn't translate into those numbers, and ultimately, that's what people want to know.
Just how much shorter would the entire raid take if the tank uses full STR ? That is the question.
Your calculation also doesn't take into account damage taken, people falling/being resurrected, and such.
it wasn't meant to, numbers were requested. I provided them. A single person in an 8-man raid pushing themselves to the limit isn't going to translate to much, but a whole group reaching their absolute max potential will be quite noticeable. Take the 2:30 Alex Floor 1 kill for example (Google it if you don't believe me). Solo tank, 5 DPS, 2 healers. The tank pulled almost 900, no DPS was lower than 1k and both healers broke 800. Compare that to your average Alex Floor 1 run and tell me that there's not a noticeable difference.