Paladin BiS Accessory Reddit Discussion

I'm passing on all Allagan Tank Accessories on Turn 1-4. I need to start doing it as healer though now =3. I see no reason to use them... Hope Twinny drops Allagan Axe this week so I can try MT'ing with Warrior next week.

Since this tread is explicitly referencing PLD the argument that crafted accessories are better than Allagan/Hero for tanking is ridiculous. Stop it.

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Originally Posted by Jahaudant

Since this tread is explicitly referencing PLD the argument that crafted accessories are better than Allagan/Hero for tanking is ridiculous. Stop it.

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Technically it's not THAT ridiculous...

There are quite a few valid arguments for it. But the main reason really comes down to Block + Parry weightings and whether you prefer to help your healer lower the amount of raw healing they have to throw at you over time (More STR/DEX), or give them a greater reaction time buffer in which to heal you (More VIT).

I posted an example build in another thread a few weeks back. Reposting below.

Neck: Melded Gryphonskin
Ear: Melded Rosegold Earcuffs
Wrist: Melded Gryphonskin
Ring1: Melded Gryphonskin
Ring2: Melded Gryphonskin

Weapon: Allagan Blade
Offhand: Allagan Shield
Head: Allagan
Body: Valor
Hands: Valor
Waist: Allagan
Legs: Valor
Feet: Allagan

Grand Total: (with above gear on a 'Sea Wolf', no food)
406 Str, 234 Dex, 493 Vit, 585 Parry, 473 Acc, 383 Crit, 260 Det, 359 SS
HP: 6447.285 (in Party, no food)

Compared to the Post-T5 +Vit/+Parry BIS builds, you'd basically sacrifice 9 Parry, 25 Vit and 2 Acc for 45 Dex, 45 Str, 31 Crit, 30 Det and 7 SS.

In exchange for 5.3% HP, that pushes you up 1-2 Block/Parry Strength Tiers (+1%-2% strength, or about ~0.25-0.5% extra damage mitigation from parry over time, and the same from block) and very roughly around +0.5%-0.6% Block/Parry chance.

So realistically, you'd be swapping ~5% Maximum Health buffer for around a ~1% increase in damage mitigation versus non magic attacks. It also makes Bulwark a little bit stronger and more reliable.

By itself trading 5% HP for 1% mitigation may seem like a bad deal, but if your healer is skilled enough that they never let you drop lower than 5% HP then that extra 5% is going to be "wasted" - it doesn't actually reduce the damage you take. Assuming that your Healer reaction time is good and you're in no danger of being one-shot, the ONLY benefit additional HP gives you is whenever you're Stoneskinned or SCH-buffed and specifically using the extra HP buffer tactically in order to dodge the "added effect" of certain "added effect" attacks.

The blocking/parry increase isn't the only thing affected by accessory swapping however. Swapping in those stats adds somewhere in the region of +15-20% DPS - which also affects enmity generation. This adds a tiny tiny bit to your Self-healing via Bloodbath, and Mercy Stroke if you can ever land it exactly on time... but that's not why it's worth doing. Having higher DPS and enmity generation actually boosts survivability substantially - First you have the old well-proven "Killing things faster means they hit you less" argument. Second; whenever a PLD has a big enmity lead they have the option to spend LESS time Flashing and Cycling their RoH combo and MORE time Stunning, Shield Swiping and Stoneskinning.

Finally, the Dex boost also affects Shield Lob damage. PLD have very low native Dex, so +45 is actually a pretty big deal for Shield Lob. It makes for a much more solid hate lock when pulling at range. [see here].

I'm certainly not saying that Gryphonskins are "always BIS". But there are definitely valid arguments for using them if you're at the point where extra HP would "go to waste".

Being able to climb the Threat meters and then spam casting Stoneskin on yourself already flat out beats your 25 Vitality. Not to mention Death Sentence, Fireball even up to initial hit of the Liquid Hell all can be block/parried. There is never a situation where you'd need that extra 25 Vitality in Twintania, cause case 1 you should be topped off before every Death Sentence, there should be some sort of damage mitigation/reduction present, don't under estimate Bloodbath self heal via your damage it is capable of healing almost 1-1.2k during it's duration and is unaffected by Infirmity.

And as many have stated. As of current difficulty Gryphonskin is BiS when more hard hitting encounter is released that might change. But as of now even if it did happen unless the attack we're talking about is 500 DMG higher than what Twintania does per hit there is no reason putting on Allagan Accessories over perfect Meld Gryphonskins.

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Originally Posted by Jahaudant

Since this tread is explicitly referencing PLD the argument that crafted accessories are better than Allagan/Hero for tanking is ridiculous. Stop it.

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The fact that the discussion is this heated should tell you that they are pretty close. As explained above though, Gryphonskin is pretty much the only choice you should be making at the moment.

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Originally Posted by Paikis

The fact that the discussion is this heated should tell you that they are pretty close. As explained above though, Gryphonskin is pretty much the only choice you should be making at the moment.

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The conversation is heated, so the results must be close!

No.

I'll keep it simple.

1% block mitigation on a 16% block rate = 0.16% Effective HP (vs physical only)
1% parry mitigation on a 20% parry rate = 0.20% Effective HP (vs physical only)
0.5% chance of mitigating 27% damage from blocking = 0.135% Effective HP (vs physical only)
0.5% chance of mitigating 15% damage from parry = 0.075% Effective HP (vs physical only)

Total EHP from STR/DEX = 0.57%

6447 * 0.0057 = 36.7 EHP increase (vs physical only)

(25 VIT * 1.03 party bonus) * 14.5 = 373 Effective HP

25 VIT is 337 points of EHP more effective (or a whopping 10.16 times better) than the mitigation gained from STR and DEX increases.

TLDR;
The mitigation argument is utterly ridiculous, so once again, stop it.

I won't argue against the DPS/threat benefits. But I will say that by choosing crafted accessories over Allagan/Hero Fending you are gearing to deal damage, not absorb it. And while I disagree that more threat is ever required, and that DPS should not be your primary focus, these are play style choices that I leave up to my follow PLDs to decide on.

I just want to make the numbers clear, and they aren't as attractive as you seem to have thought.

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Originally Posted by Jahaudant

I just want to make the numbers clear, and they aren't as attractive as you seem to have thought.

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The maths has been shown to them over and over again, they really feel like that 0.12% increase to the groups DPS is a big deal though ya know?

Might as well let them keep up their delusions, whatever helps them sleep at night.

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Originally Posted by Jahaudant

I won't argue against the DPS/threat benefits. While I disagree that more threat is ever required, and that DPS should not be your primary focus, these are play style choices that I leave up to my follow PLDs to decide on. I just want to make the numbers clear, and they aren't as attractive as you seem to have thought.

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Your block and parry rates are off.

585 Parry and 234 Dex, with a +1 Relic or Allagan Shield is substantially higher than a "16% block and 20% parry rate" - due to the DODGE -> BLOCK -> PARRY ordering, Block and Parry chances are close to identical, with a slight edge to Block. And those stats give a much higher Parry and Block chance.

You go from:

~361 STR and 189 Dex to ~406 and ~234 Dex, whilst losing a tiny amount of raw parry and acc. That crosses not one, but TWO Str tiers.

That's rising from 23% parry and 25% block strength to 25% parry and 27% block strength, whilst raising both parry block and parry rate by around 1%. If we take the reduced raw parry from gear into account and err on the side of caution, let's call this a 0.6% boost in rate... (realistically, I suspect that it'll probably be closer to 0.8%, but whatever).

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If you cross two STR tiers (as above), it'd be:

~23% block rate at 25% strength = 5.75% damage mitigated
~23% parry rate at 23% strength = 5.29% damage mitigated
Total = 11.04% damage mitigated over time from Block/Parry.

~23.6% block rate at 27% strength = 6.372% damage mitigated
~23.6% parry rate at 25% strength = 5.9% damage mitigated
Total = 12.272% damage mitigated over time from Block/Parry.

= An extra 1.232 percent of damage mitigated.

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If you cross only one STR tier, it'd be:

~23% block rate at 25% strength = 5.75% damage mitigated
~23% parry rate at 23% strength = 5.29% damage mitigated
Total = 11.04% damage mitigated over time from Block/Parry.

~23.6% block rate at 26% strength = 6.136% damage mitigated
~23.6% parry rate at 24% strength = 5.664% damage mitigated
Total = 11.8% damage mitigated over time from Block/Parry.

= An extra 0.76 percent of damage mitigated.

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So you can see that we're left with either a little over or a little under a baseline figure of ~1% additional mitigation versus non-magic damage. (Not counting any benefits to Bulwark).
That is a direct trade for ~5% HP, which is a damage "buffer" and NOT damage "reduction".

The difference between "buffer" and "reduction" is important, because whilst both increase your survivability, the effectiveness of the first vanishes whenever you start relying on heals to survive (as long as you can't be one-shot). What's better: Getting hit for 1000 damage and being Healed for 1000, or getting hit for 990 damage and being Healed for 1000? Reduction mitigation simply scales much better than Max HP as long as you aren't being one-shot, that's why PLDs are (currently, until patch 2.1!) better mitigation tanks than WARs.

My apologies.

Using those numbers it's 49 EHP vs 373 EHP making VIT 7.6 times better.

You realise that your argument is based on your healer having to cure for exactly 49 HP less for every 6447 damage you take? It's mind blowing. You cannot argue that melded Gryph accessories are better for survivability than Hero/Allagan, you simply cannot. It's not true. It will never be true. You are delusional if you think it's true. Stop telling people it's true. Good lord.

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Originally Posted by Jahaudant

You realise that your argument is based on your healer having to cure for exactly 49 HP less for every 6447 damage you take? It's mind blowing. You cannot argue that melded Gryph accessories are better for survivability than Hero/Allagan, you simply cannot. It's not true. It will never be true. You are delusional if you think it's true. Stop telling people it's true. Good lord.

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My argument is that your healer having to heal you 1% less often is better than you having an extra 5% HP buffer which never actually gets used.

eHP is IRRELEVANT to this.

(In the situations we are talking about above, the endgame-i90'ed PLDs already have so much HP that the extra boost from 25 VIT ends up doing nothing. In THOSE cases, 1% reduction beats +5% HP)

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Originally Posted by Maelwys

(In the situations we are talking about above, the endgame-i90'ed PLDs already have so much HP that the extra boost from 25 VIT ends up doing nothing. In THOSE cases, 1% reduction beats +5% HP)

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You guys are doing a great job of trying to figure out BiS - and I commend you for that. I just wish all of the people on these forums wouldn't get so worked up about conversations. It seriously DOESN'T MATTER for any of this content. Some people want to find BiS for the sake of finding BiS. It's not like there is currently any content that you NEED this for. I had gryphonskin and have since re purposed them for my monk that is approaching 50. Why? It seriously just doesn't matter. Period. So can everyone take a chill pill and just talk? No one said you HAVE to go out and buy gryphonskin to be relevant. This is all theoretical stuff about pushing the boundaries for those who enjoy that kind of thing. So play nice mmmmmmkay :)

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Originally Posted by JBar

It seriously DOESN'T MATTER for any of this content.

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Agree wholeheartedly.

BIS builds are about pushing out that tiny tiny almost unnoticable bit of extra performance in exchange for for insane investments via time/money.

This thread is simply theorycrafting for the sake of theorycrafting, and in practice nobody in their right mind should really care whether a tank is using one accessory or another, providing that they can (i) survive and (ii) hold hate.

That said, at the extreme upper end of the bell curve there's a very small part of the community (in their "right mind" or not!) that is constantly trying to do faster and faster and faster runs. Or try odd setups, like 3-manning HM Titan. Trying to show what's at the outer limits of the "possible". That's the only real place you'd notice this kind of stuff.

Avoidance and HP along with the ratios of available Avoidance to VIT are still far to low to put any stock into Avoidance over Vitality for tanking purposes.

Using Mael's numbers for avoidance posted above, ignoring def/mdef/shield oath as they will multiply both results by the same ratio:

Full Gryphonskin
EHP: 6447
~23.6% block rate at 27% strength = 6.372% damage mitigated
~23.6% parry rate at 25% strength = 5.9% damage mitigated
11.8961% average reduction from avoidance if two rolls
AHP: 7317
12.272% average reduction from avoidance if one roll
AHP: 7349

Full i90
EHP: 6820
~23% block rate at 25% strength = 5.75% damage mitigated
~23% parry rate at 23% strength = 5.29% damage mitigated
10.735825% average reduction from avoidance if two rolls
AHP: 7640
11.04% average reduction from avoidance if one roll
AHP: 7666

Even on average taking in account Avoidance, the VIT heavy build survives longer. Again the issue is that current gear set just doesn't have enough VIT or enough avoidance to make avoidance even close.

BiS does and doesn't matter. If you want to make things as smooth as you possibly can for the current tier then yes it helps a bit. The bigger picture is figuring out and gearing to bis of this tier will give you a leg up when the next tier is released.

Once again, STR for dps increase? Go for it. But don't delude yourself into thinking you're improving your survivability over stacking VIT.

you guys really care way to much about this.......

the only time this Bis should even matter is after you have full i90 in every slot or if you are picking between 2 pieces of gear to spend your myth on and even then it would be arguable if you could even tell the difference between them.

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Originally Posted by CianaIezuborn

Avoidance and HP along with the ratios of available Avoidance to VIT are still far to low to put any stock into Avoidance over Vitality for tanking purposes.

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AHP

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I'm going to try explaining this just one last time.
Because people are STILL using mechanics such as "eHP" and "aHP" to argue this case.

I can appreciate that if we look at 'survivability' solely in terms of how much damage you can withstand going from 100% HP to 0% HP, then VIT is the clear winner.
That is what "Effective HP" is about, and is NOT what I'm contesting.

What I'm referring to is raising the "immortality point" of the party

Let me explain...

There are three possible scenarios when tanking:

(i) Tank is not dead, and is taking damage at a rate that is manageable by the healer.
(ii) Tank is not dead, and is taking damage at a rate BEYOND what is manageable by the healer.
(iii) Tank is dead.

STR/DEX Tanks last a tiny bit longer in scenario (i). They can take a tiny bit more damage before the healer starts becoming overwhelmed.

VIT Tanks last slightly longer in scenario (ii). Their higher HP pool means the enemy has to spend more time hitting them in order to reduce their HP bar to 0 if damage taken outstrips healing received.

This would point largely in the favour of VIT tanks were it not for one simple point: scenario (ii) is very rare in-game once you hit very high gear levels.

With a good healer, you should very rarely (if ever) hit the point of crossing over from scenario (i) to scenario (ii).
This means that for nearly all current content, once a Tank hits a certain Maximum HP threshold, adding any more HP is largely pointless.

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A Tank needs just enough HP to be able to withstand the highest level of spike damage that can be received between heals. Once this level of HP is achieved, any HP above that level is superfluous to performance - you only want a larger "buffer" of HP in order to compensate for a delay in healing (Healer reaction time, server lag, etc) or for "unforeseen emergencies" where something happens to make incoming damage rise.

This is where STR/DEX tanks shine. They receive the same amount of healing as VIT tanks but reduce the incoming damage slightly better - meaning that whilst neither tank would likely be in any real danger of dying, the Healer can spend slightly less time healing the STR/DEX tank than the VIT tank. This helps the healer conserve a bit more MP and/or occasionally frees up a Global cooldown for them to use another ability. it also very slightly raises the time it takes for a Tank to go from Scenario (i) to scenario (ii), which means that a STR/DEX Tank will be able to survive a bit more punishment before the party starts getting into difficulties, but if they DO start getting into difficulties, they'll die slightly faster than a VIT tank.

Now combine this with the fact that STR/DEX tanks will do more damage and therefore generate much more hate than VIT tanks - which gives the entire party slightly more leeway to overheal or do more DPS, and also gives the Tank an opportunity to occasionally take a break from generating maximum enmity in order to use abilities which increase their own damage mitigation (e.g Stoneskin). The difference between Tanks in scenario (ii) actually starts to blur a LOT... because (for example) if the STR/DEX tank manages to get one extra Stoneskin off then they'd effectively have +10% HP to the VIT tank's +5%.

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TL;DR:
Question: Is your Tank dying? (being one-shot doesn't count)
Answer: No --> Then technically they have more VIT than they need and it would be slightly better for the party if they stacked more STR and DEX instead.
Answer: Yes --> Then they might die slightly more slowly if they stack VIT.

So in future patches, I'm sure SE won't make the same silly mistake like making DPS accessories even remotely comparable to something 20 item levels higher.

Its pretty much the only gear that a crafter can sell... and better than having one set of gear good for everything and mandatory.
If we discussed for ten pages... then it means the two sets are pretty well balanced!

Maelwys put it best. You cannot just see everything based on a fixed point of view. You need to factor in external factors and internal factors. The fact that going STR/DEX build makes each point healed more effective, gives you leeway in Enmity generation to Heal/Stoneskin, more power to your Inner Beast/Bloodsurge and making your Bulwark in to a more dependable CD.

Sure without external aid Vit is king. But you can't put a finger on things like snap threat, cause if you let someone pull aggro and take a hit that is already a lot of eHP/heal loss cause the healer has to heal someone else other than you that is unforeseen. Tell me the times when your Flash didn't generate enough enmity against that crit streak BLM or that time when an ambush mob came out and your healer just threw a big heal on you and had more overheal ticks incoming. How many times have you killed a mob faster and reduce that incoming damage that you can't reliably gauge it's damage? These are factors that should not be overlooked.

The fact that eHP Vit is king is true but eHP works only when there is no heal and where spike damage is involved to a certain extend. Outside that you'd want to depend on eHP/heal which is not what Vit provide. Then to top it all with more potential enmity is just an icing on the cake, don't be so tunnel visioned as to see our point is directed only to increase tank DPS.

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Originally Posted by Maqaqa

Its pretty much the only gear that a crafter can sell... and better than having one set of gear good for everything and mandatory.
If we discussed for ten pages... then it means the two sets are pretty well balanced!

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It should make sense that i90 crafted comparable to i90 dropped but i70 compared to i90? Something is wrong with this. They'll either make i80 crafted somehow worse than i70 or i100 is going to make i90 look like you've just started playing.

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Originally Posted by Maelwys

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Here's the issue:

You're trying to lump in chance based mitigation with static based mitigation.

They aren't the same, over a long period of time (which is what avoidance based damage reductions rely on) static based mitigation will NEVER fail you and avoidance based mitigation will ALWAYS fail you at least once.

There is no situation where you have two tanks with equal static mitigation (DEF/MDEF/Shield Oath/technically heal% buffs though that's out of scope) and the same amount of constant healing coming in but differing avoidance rates that one will always die and one will always live.

They will either both always live or they will both always have a chance to die.

Luckily healing isn't a constant thing, healers are able to throw burst healing to match with the ebb and flow of damage. At this point avoidance and additional hp are providing the same advantage in different ways, they are reducing the stress on the human factor. Avoidance helps lower the frequency of the flows, while HP increases the amount of time a healer has to react to each flow.

AHp is a metric used to figure this and is the only reasonable one that has been determined to examine the effects of avoidance in simplified terms. By checking the figures I posted above, it's easy to see that there's a vast improvement in AHp by stacking VIT over Avoidance in current gear. This isn't to say that avoidance is bad, it's that HP and Avoidance levels in current gear sets are so low currently, that VIT is severely outweighing avoidance in AHp calculations.

As VIT and Avoidance both rise, Avoidance has the possibility of creeping up on VIT in value due to the fact that linear VIT gains increase AHP linearly, while linear Avoidance gains increase AHP exponentially.

But until AHP gains more from stacking Avoidance gear over VIT gear, there's no argument. You are becoming less tanky by doing so.

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Originally Posted by TaneshimaPopura

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Again though, if your intention is to do more DPS/Enmity then yeah stack DPS stats.

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Originally Posted by CianaIezuborn

AHp is a metric used to figure this and is the only reasonable one that has been determined to examine the effects of avoidance in simplified terms.

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All of which is true, but AHP is still the wrong metric to use in this comparison. Because it looks at total time taken for a tank to drop from 100% HP to 0% without outside healing.

Which doesn't address the issues I raised above, namely that:

(i) STR/DEX equipment setups will be able to survive a greater amount of damage than +VIT setups (on average) before the healers start struggling to keep up with the incoming damage

and

(ii) that for any HIGHER damage, STR/DEX setups will only possibly die more quickly than VIT setups. Because of their increased enmity generation allowing them to use delaying tactics (Stoneskin, Stuns, Kiting, etc) without putting any pressure on the rest of the team to lower their damage or healing output.

You are correct that Blocking and Parries are a "chance" rather than always-on mitigation.

However this does not detract from the above statement.

Just because you cannot rely on them to kick in at any given moment does not mean they are less effective over the long term (particularly with Bulwark up).

Even in a worst-case scenario, such as fighting ADS where you have no chance whatsoever of blocking, then STR/DEX setups are no worse off than VIT setups as long as your healers never let you drop below 5% HP - and it's not as if you can't just swap back to +Vit accessories in those situations anyway :)

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But until AHP gains more from stacking Avoidance gear over VIT gear, there's no argument. You are becoming less tanky by doing so.

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That's the thing: you do NOT become less "Tanky" by stacking STR or DEX.

You become (arguably, see above comment on enmity and stoneskin) slightly faster at dying under extremely heavy damage which is heavier than your healers can handle. But you become able to handle more damage before your healers start struggling, and you become better at holding enmity.

A Tank's role is to (i) hold enmity and (ii) weather damage. Increasing STR/DEX ticks both those boxes - you are certainly "tanky", you just have slightly less of a raw HP buffer between you and death.

The fact that Block/Parry is not a guaranteed chance to proc does not really matter, because even if the mitigation doesn't kick in, you lose virtually nothing - a STR/DEX-setup tank will remain identical in performance to a +VIT-setup tank unless their healers let them drop below 5% HP. And whenever their mitigation DOES kick in, it gives those healers a slight breather.

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aHP, like eHP, is a useful metric when comparing the amount of damage a tank can Take before dying. But it is NOT a helpful metric when considering how much damage a Tank can actually withstand before their supporting party starts to struggle (either with keeping up with healing the tank, or with having to hold back due to aggro control).

Bottom line is that STR/DEX gives better performance than +VIT in all but one situation: when an extra raw 5% HP would make the difference between you living and dying. And I honestly can't say I've encountered many of those.

I'm all for allocating all your character's Distributable Points into VIT, but being able to swap 25 Vit for 45 STR/DEX via easilly-unequippable accessories is a very nice trade in most endgame situations! :)

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Originally Posted by Maelwys

I'm all for allocating all your character's Distributable Points into VIT, but being able to swap 25 Vit for 45 STR/DEX via easilly-unequippable accessories is a very nice trade in most endgame situations! :)

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I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you're going to sacrifice VIT for STR/DEX, this is the way to do it. 25 points for 90 points is extremely tempting and is the most efficient way to go about it. Especially compared to bonus points on a 1 to 1 ratio.

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(i) STR/DEX equipment setups will be able to survive a greater amount of damage than +VIT setups (on average) before the healers start struggling to keep up with the incoming damage

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That's the issue though, real world best case scenario on RNG neither tank dies. Real world average scenario, neither tank dies. That's because in both cases each tank has taken enough EHp to survive the predictable burst.

It's the increasingly worst case scenarios that EHp builds win out in. Strings of missed avoidance, healers mis-timing heals, melee dropping an ae on tank, and just plain old lag. In these scenarios you have a 100% chance for an extra 5% buffer vs a 1% chance at some buffer (lets just say an avoidance would be equivalent to that 5% buffer). Dirty math, but calculating specifics on the effects of avoidance in worst case scenarios is non trivial.

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(ii) that for any HIGHER damage, STR/DEX setups will only possibly die more quickly than VIT setups. Because of their increased enmity generation allowing them to use delaying tactics (Stoneskin, Stuns, Kiting, etc) without putting any pressure on the rest of the team to lower their damage or healing output.

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I can't make a clear connect between paper and practice so I can't really put an exact metric of value on it. Anecdotal I know, but I've never been in a situation where I've not been in such a lead on st damage that I haven't been able to afford to through out stoneskin/stuns whenever I've needed to. As far as kiting, that's pure flash cut spam, which I find the limiting factor to be mana versus a single AOEer (Double AOEers kill the mobs before breaking through enmity buffer)

There is a theoretical edge case where that 1% avoidance would beat out EHP where the incoming damage vs healing would keep the Avoidance tank 100% on average and drain the EHp tank 1% per second. I can't think of a method in which this could happen though where both tanks didn't have a chance of dieing from bad RNG or where both tanks could live with proper use of cooldowns.

When you look at it from the point of view of worst case scenario your EHp increases your tolerance to horrible situations where as your Avoidance reduces the frequency of such horrible situations.

I'll reiterate, if you're over-geared and in no danger of dieing to an encounter, stick on DPS gear, switch to sword oath, go nuts. But I can't think of any situation where I'd be like "This boss keeps killing me, time to drop 5% HP for 1% avoidance reduction".

I was on the other side of this debate about a year ago in Rift where I was arguing for a 20% increase to AHp over a .1% drop in EHp due to the huge amount of raw avoidance and hp. That's the type of hardcore EHP all the HP folks I've run into in the past. I'm all for including avoidance in the equation, but for me the cut off point isn't anywhere near where it is in this game. I'd have to see at least EHp over the reasonable burst and then double the % AHP gain over % EHP loss to consider it for purely tanking reasons.

Finally, this may seem like heated debate, but I have the uptmost respect for Mael and the theorycrafting he's done for the Pal community. I just figure after a few back and forth posts that had to be said =p

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Originally Posted by CianaIezuborn

But I can't think of any situation where I'd be like "This boss keeps killing me, time to drop 5% HP for 1% avoidance reduction".

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Turn 4? The incoming damage is quite heavy, all blockable and not on a regular spike timer due to multiple mobs being tanked simultaneously. (Also, I'd often love a bit of extra DPS to help me hold hate a little more solidly as an OT on both a Soldier and a Knight when the DDs start going wild on both...) ;)

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When you look at it from the point of view of worst case scenario your EHp increases your tolerance to horrible situations where as your Avoidance reduces the frequency of such horrible situations.

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Bingo! :)

This is why I'd consider DEX/STR setups to be generally "better" once you're at endgame and your team is fully geared up. Because for an overgeared party you simply don't come across those "horrible situations" all that regularly, and the benefits of reducing their frequency even further outshines having a slightly better chance of recovery if one was to happen.

Endgame teams are (very broadly speaking) rather skilled, and have multiple methods of turning such a situation around that don't involve their tank dropping below 5% HP.

Honestly, I really can't think of many situations where a tank having 5% more raw HP would actually benefit a solid endgame team (whereas I can think of plenty of situations where I'd rather have more DPS/enmity generation and a slightly higher threshold for the "crap hitting the fan"!).

That said, I agree that if a spike has the potential to drop you to less than 5% HP in one hit (I'm thinking mainly of Turn 5 here) then +VIT is the clear winner.

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There is a theoretical edge case where that 1% avoidance would beat out EHP where the incoming damage vs healing would keep the Avoidance tank 100% on average and drain the EHp tank 1% per second. I can't think of a method in which this could happen though where both tanks didn't have a chance of dieing from bad RNG or where both tanks could live with proper use of cooldowns.

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That's the slight edge in sustained mitigation I was referring to.

I agree that being able to take ~1% extra damage before you start dieing is pretty damn tiny in terms of mitigation. Especially whenever blocks/parries are not guaranteed. But given the alternative... in any situation where I'm confident that I'd never be in danger of dropping below 5% HP, I'd much prefer being able to take a tiny bit more damage over time over having 5% HP that I'd never use.

The thought process here is that "A tiny bit of something is better than nothing".

Maybe it makes me (extra) weird... but I just think that occasionally there's such a thing as "too much" HP, whenever you know you're not going to use it and could potentially swap it for something else that could give you slightly better performance.

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I can't make a clear connect between paper and practice so I can't really put an exact metric of value on it. Anecdotal I know, but I've never been in a situation where I've not been in such a lead on st damage that I haven't been able to afford to through out stoneskin/stuns whenever I've needed to.

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Sadly, as a VIT-built PLD I've been in that situation dozens of times whenever I'm tanking multiple mobs. Turn 4 is an obvious example. But it even happens occasionally on silly trash things like AK runs if the DDs are better geared than me, are not using enmity shedding abilities, and decide they want to deal spike damage. BLM's "Triple Flare" is a prime example.

On Bosses, extra enmity is generally not needed, aside from the odd flaky mechanic (Turn 2's -25% Tank DPS debuff) but when fighting multiple mobs it's very handy to have extra enmity generation.

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As far as kiting, that's pure flash cut spam, which I find the limiting factor to be mana versus a single AOEer (Double AOEers kill the mobs before breaking through enmity buffer)

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I think you're referring to kiting with Flash because of the method used in "speed runs"? (e.g. round everything up, keep flashing to hold hate, run in circles so any cones miss you and have to keep interrupting their attack cycle in order to move towards you)

I'm referring to "Jousting" with RoH rather than Flash spam - used on only one or two tougher melee-attacking mobs instead of huge packs of trash. You rotate your RoH combo on the mob just enough to hold hate, whilst attempting to stay out of autoattack range as much as possible. Make it chase you (possibly around Line-of-sight-breaking geometry) so that its attacks only very rarely hit.

There aren't very many geometry-breaking battles in the game, but a few do exist... An example would be AK boss #1: You can kite the Psycheflayer around a pillar constantly and take no damage. To a lesser extent, this "mitigation by not being there" tactic includes things like Circle-tanking the Hydra, and sidestepping/backing away from any mob AoEs.

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Finally, this may seem like heated debate, but I have the uptmost respect for Mael and the theorycrafting he's done for the Pal community. I just figure after a few back and forth posts that had to be said =p

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Aww. I love you too! ;)

Never mistake a love of a good argument (or in my case, insufficient sense to know when to shut up) for a lack of affection! :D

And good grief, this has turned into quite the essay! Time for sleeps!! :p

Rule of optimization speed run in any RPG game:
- Tank: Have enough HP to survive any 1 shot ability in game, then push DPS as high as possible
- Healer: Have enough heal power (power/pool) to support the tank above, then HP just to survive all non-avoidable attack.
- DPS: Have enough HP just to survive all non-avoidable attack, then go all DPS

While larger HP pool allow more mistake to be make but ideally it is not optimization for speed play.

But..... people do make mistake....

Guys, random question but how do fully melded Darksteel Gloves and Flanchard compare to their Darklight counterparts?

I currently have a lot of spare materia and Philosophy tomes, wondering if it'd be worth swapping out my two DL pieces for Darksteel.

@Grembo,
- Fully Melded Parry/Acc Darksteel HQ glove is definitely better than Darklight Glove
- Darklight Flanchard has both ACC/Parry while Darksteel doesn't have any of it....

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Originally Posted by WowSuchName

@Grembo,
- Fully Melded Parry/Acc Darksteel HQ glove is definitely better than Darklight Glove
- Darklight Flanchard has both ACC/Parry while Darksteel doesn't have any of it....

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Had a feeling this might be the case from the odd comment i've read, sadly I can't seem to dig up much else. If anyone knows where I can find the cap limits for the gloves i'd appreciate it.

Also, might be worth noting that i'm already well over the ACC cap with my current gear and don't really have anything I could swap in and out.

Think my acc is at 520 - 530ish from memory, I have...

Relic +1 and Holy Shield +1

Myth Head

Allagan Chest

DL Gloves + Flanchard

Full DL Fending Accesories + Myth Ring

@Grembo, yeah I save exactly the same problem with you with Heavy Allagan Chest and planning the same.
THE AMOUNT OF ACC IS TOO DAMN HIGH !!

I use XIVDB.com & this file as reference

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/103/pk1b.png

I don't remember where I download this file from reddit's monk gear discussion. But I will upload it here.
- Red = cap
- Blue = No go

Darksteel Glove is cap at 16 Parry, 16ACC (HQ 11ACC +5ACC materia)
- So this one beat HDL glove by 4 Parry

Darksteel Flanchard, the file suggest cap Parry at 43
- If we don't need ACC from HDL Flanchard. This one will beat it by 13 Parry :O with nice Crit & Skill speed

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Originally Posted by WowSuchName

Darksteel Glove is cap at 16 Parry, 16ACC (HQ 11ACC +5ACC materia)
- So this one beat HDL glove by 4 Parry

Darksteel Flanchard, the file suggest cap Parry at 43
- If we don't need ACC from HDL Flanchard. This one will beat it by 13 Parry :O with nice Crit & Skill speed

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Cheers for the link, i've also seen that file around but I can never seem to find things when I need them.

Gloves - Should be able to drop all the ACC on these if I swap them over so it looks like i'd get +4 Parry and an extra 15 Crit and 6 Determination. Not sure if the added numbers will be beneficial with the rest of my gear but I won't be losing anything.

Flanchard - Not sure about this, doubt I can afford to drop 43 ACC. Going to load up the game and have a look at my current stats.

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Originally Posted by Grembo

Cheers for the link, i've also seen that file around but I can never seem to find things when I need them.

Gloves - Should be able to drop all the ACC on these if I swap them over so it looks like i'd get +4 Parry and an extra 15 Crit and 6 Determination. Not sure if the added numbers will be beneficial with the rest of my gear but I won't be losing anything.

Flanchard - Not sure about this, doubt I can afford to drop 43 ACC. Going to load up the game and have a look at my current stats.

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Ok, so 'm at 539 Accuracy so I have got room to swap both equips.

My maths is blergh but it looks like if I can fully meld both the Gloves and Flanchard, I should get 59 parry (up from 41), 45 Crit Rate, 59 Skill Speed and 6 determination.

All i'd lose in return is the drop in ACC which would still leave me at 491.

I think the issue with the debate is that it is coming from two different bases.

Those endorsing str/dex are suggesting that you have already overgeared the content.
Those suggesting vit are considering progession, where you are not overgearing the content.

If we are considering over gearing the content sure, whatever gets you ahead.
If you don't? Vitality is probably going to be best due to helping in the worst case scenario, or fights such as turn 2 where you cannot block/parry any of the attacks.

Also Ciana, I remember that debate, and I believe the reason eHP was considered better, even though a gain of .01% of eHP was small, was because the attacks that could kill you, such as Crucia's breath, could not be avoided/blocked/deflected.

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Originally Posted by Leiron

I think the issue with the debate is that it is coming from two different bases.

Those endorsing str/dex are suggesting that you have already overgeared the content.

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Before coil, your choices are Darklight <item> of Fending or Gryphonskin. The Gryphonskin is just plain better, in every way. No contest. So the first time you step into Coil, Gryphonskin are the best you have available.
Once you have cleared all of Coil, Gryphonskin are still the best available.

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Originally Posted by Leiron

Vitality is probably going to be best due to helping in the worst case scenario, or fights such as turn 2 where you cannot block/parry any of the attacks.

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Bad example. Turn 2 is a DPS race (a slow one, but still) where your tanks generate reduced threat due to a buff that ADS can get. Having Gryphonskin will help immensely here, especially if you're running with one or more Paladins, and if you're tank swapping correctly, you really shouldn't be getting killed.

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Originally Posted by Paikis

Before coil, your choices are Darklight <item> of Fending or Gryphonskin. The Gryphonskin is just plain better, in every way. No contest. So the first time you step into Coil, Gryphonskin are the best you have available.
Once you have cleared all of Coil, Gryphonskin are still the best available.

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Naturally gryphon skin is better than Darklight.
It has the same vitality and dishes out DPS stats that help for enmity.


On the other hand when you are progressing, Allagan fending is going to be better, because your HP is not going to be very high until you've completely geared yourself out in ilvl90 gear, in which case you can go back to using gryphonskin because not only you are geared out, but the healers and DPS are geared out.
So fights are shorter, heals are more powerful, and you're not in as much danger.

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Originally Posted by Paikis

Bad example. Turn 2 is a DPS race (a slow one, but still) where your tanks generate reduced threat due to a buff that ADS can get. Having Gryphonskin will help immensely here, especially if you're running with one or more Paladins, and if you're tank swapping correctly, you really shouldn't be getting killed.

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It is a good example, because you are forgetting that while tanks are hitting for less, the DPS is going to be hitting for less as well.
ADS receives a defense buffs against all types of damage.
He receives a defensive buff against slashing, magic, piercing and blunt.
So if you are losing enmity on that fight, then you must have made an error somewhere.

The group I run with clears t2 regularly using PAL/PAL and PAL/WAR.
We all use fending rings and we've never had any issue on enmity.
It becomes even LESS of an issue with PAL/WAR due to the slash debuff being applied.

Death for a tank is typically going to occur right before the OT has his stacks fall off.
Having more vitality is going to help you in your survivability to tank, and the gryphon skin is not going to increase your damage capability very much with the slash buff up.

Perhaps you are forgetting that on a progression run for turn 2, you're not going to be clearing out all the nodes as you would after you've geared up.
In which case, you'll typically have defensive buffs beyond the slash one, and your DPS won't be as high either.

I progressed all the way through Coil wearing Gryphonskin. Extra VIT is not needed until Twintania. Gryphonskin is still the best choice.

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Originally Posted by Paikis

I progressed all the way through Coil wearing Gryphonskin. Extra VIT is not needed until Twintania. Gryphonskin is still the best choice.

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Yeah it's not needed, but it helps. While progressing having the tank die "later" is worth way more. Once you have Turn 1-4 on farm, which shouldn't take long, then I would consider switching to Gryphonskin, even when everything else is only DL.

Some people seem to forget that PLDs with itemlvl70 get to just over 5k HP...

Extra VIT won't even be necessary if you're the Warrior since you won't be tanking anyway :V

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Originally Posted by Exstal

Extra VIT won't even be necessary if you're the Warrior since you won't be tanking anyway :V

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You haven't actually done Turn 2 have you?

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Originally Posted by Paikis

You haven't actually done Turn 2 have you?

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Well in his defense ADS hits like a schoolgirl...

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Originally Posted by Paikis

You haven't actually done Turn 2 have you?

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>need extra VIT for T2
>don't need extra VIT for t5
http://i3.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/...0044776986.jpg

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Originally Posted by Exstal

>need extra VIT for T2
>don't need extra VIT for t5

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Read it again buddy, not what I said. I know the school system is going to crap, but really? Come on now.