So, instead of people fighting about STR, why are they fighting about VIT?

I would have liked it. I have experience playing another MMO and I had no use for tanking when their damage output was so pathetic, like 20-25% what a DPS was capable of. When I started playing FFXIV I loved how tanks weren't swinging wet noodles for a change and I actually ENJOYED tanking (which I had to do, because I only use swords and PLD/DRK are my favorite classes in the game) but sadly after coming back to the game I didn't get to 60 before the nerfhammer fell.

Tank damage is still pretty good, and tanks can even meld main damage stats onto accessories.
I don't know why people are still acting like the damage nerf was so huge. It really wasn't.
Dps jobs do a bit more damage than tanks, because that's what they specialize in. Pretty reasonable.

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

I know how people have wanted others to pressure using STR back before 3.2 with the new tank formula, but why are people just flipping sides and fighting over VIT instead? It's like the whole community just bandwagoned on the other side and decided to say 'VIT is best' instead of 'STR is best'.

I know that the changes impacted STR some, but I do like to think STR is still a factor in tank damage and is on even level with VIT.

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Why would people that argued for the mathematically best gear before the patch now argue for the new best gear after they changed how the math worked?

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Hmm. I wonder.

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Originally Posted by IndigoHawk

Tank damage is still pretty good, and tanks can even meld main damage stats onto accessories.
I don't know why people are still acting like the damage nerf was so huge. It really wasn't.
Dps jobs do a bit more damage than tanks, because that's what they specialize in. Pretty reasonable.

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20% is a pretty big nerf no matter how you look at it. Its somewhat silly to say otherwise. I'm not taking sides, but I just had to comment on that.

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Originally Posted by Gameplayzero

20% is a pretty big nerf no matter how you look at it. Its somewhat silly to say otherwise. I'm not taking sides, but I just had to comment on that.

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It seems a lot of people don't understand splitting AP point gains between two different attributes results in a nerf.

Whereas before, 1 STR materia gave you 1 AP, now it just gives .44 of a point. Same with VIT, it just gives .44 AP.

Since math is hard for some people...

Before Patch:

4 STR = 4 AP

After Patch:


4 STR = 1.76 AP

2 STR + 2 VIT = 1.76 AP

4 VIT = 1.76 AP

It doesn't matter how you slice it, tanks cannot recover the DPS they used to be capable of. It's mathematically impossible to do so. The nerf is there, and it's very real. You can't compensate for it by just stacking VIT which is what a lot of players think they can do. But they can't because that's not how the math works.

The worst of it is that this nerf addressed none of the problems it was supposed to address, which was mainly that WARs were preferred over PLD and DRK because they deal more DPS and that helps clear DPS checks.

WARs still deal a good deal more DPS than DRK and PLD, and will still be preferred by progression raiding min-maxers.

And progression guilds will still favor WARs since every bit of damage matters for clearing content. Sure, the encounters are designed so any tank can do it, but that's how min-maxers behave. They always gravitate toward what is superior, even if it's just a fraction of a point better.

The nerf also didn't improve tank survivability for anyone except perhaps WARs. PLD and DRK don't get a significant increase in HP for stacking VIT, and the only reason WARs do is because of Defiance.

Just want to hop on in and clarify some things.

Firstly, the change wasn't "to address WAR being preferred over PLD/DRK" - this literally makes no sense as nerfing baseline attribute points effectiveness still leaves the relative discrepancy in damage intact. However as a side effect to the change the difference in damage doesn't matter as much since all tanks contribute less overall, similar to how being in tank stance nerfs our damage less than it did before due to us dealing less overall damage. Anyway, the real reason that they changed attributes around is to force all tanks into Fending accessories, something that a large amount of tanks weren't using and were considered near worthless compared to crafted and Slaying accessories. The devs intended for us to use these accessories they threw in literally every single patch and not do something completely non-intuitive for a tank (sacrifice health for damage), so they put us in a situation where there's no real point in using Slaying (the DPS you gain from better secondaries isn't even worth it since you lose so much health).

It is a "nerf" to our overall damage, however we weren't meant to be dealing that much to begin with. It's like if you played a DPS and did 3000 DPS compared to the average DPS doing 1000, then they put you back down to where everyone else is and you complained "No! They nerfed our damage! :(". Tanks were really, genuinely overpowered since SCoB and nobody wants to accept it. They just want to go back to being crazy OP and facerolling everything at half the health you're intended to be at for the encounter.

Also there's this huge fallacy that STR tanking was "harder", when in reality the only point where it was actually more difficult was SCoB and T13 MT due to how much damage things did relative to our health. This didn't even make it more difficult, it just meant that messing up could cost you your life, which is significantly too much effort to be putting in as a tank. Also, in 3.0 it was literally the easiest thing in the world because everything hit like pillows - you got all the advantages of doing over-the-top damage while also having a giant HP buffer that nearly never got used.

There is a problem with the discrepancy between WAR + DRK/WAR + PLD and DRK + PLD, however it has nothing to do with the change that was made to attribute points because that literally did nothing as all 3 tanks were affected equally.

Also one last thing:

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The nerf also didn't improve tank survivability for anyone except perhaps WARs. PLD and DRK don't get a significant increase in HP for stacking VIT, and the only reason WARs do is because of Defiance.

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This makes no sense. WAR doesn't gain more eHP than PLD/DRK from turning on their tank stance, its equal. In fact, PLD/DRK recieve more effective healing from abilities than WAR does. We also lost effective potency on our self healing, meaning Equilibrium and Second Wind both got nerfed since they contribute less overall and definitely less relative to our increased health.

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Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

It seems a lot of people don't understand splitting AP point gains between two different attributes results in a nerf.

Whereas before, 1 STR materia gave you 1 AP, now it just gives .44 of a point. Same with VIT, it just gives .44 AP.

Since math is hard for some people...

Before Patch:

4 STR = 4 AP

After Patch:


4 STR = 1.76 AP

2 STR + 2 VIT = 1.76 AP

4 VIT = 1.76 AP

It doesn't matter how you slice it, tanks cannot recover the DPS they used to be capable of. It's mathematically impossible to do so. The nerf is there, and it's very real. You can't compensate for it by just stacking VIT which is what a lot of players think they can do. But they can't because that's not how the math works.

The worst of it is that this nerf addressed none of the problems it was supposed to address, which was mainly that WARs were preferred over PLD and DRK because they deal more DPS and that helps clear DPS checks.

WARs still deal a good deal more DPS than DRK and PLD, and will still be preferred by progression raiding min-maxers.

And progression guilds will still favor WARs since every bit of damage matters for clearing content. Sure, the encounters are designed so any tank can do it, but that's how min-maxers behave. They always gravitate toward what is superior, even if it's just a fraction of a point better.

The nerf also didn't improve tank survivability for anyone except perhaps WARs. PLD and DRK don't get a significant increase in HP for stacking VIT, and the only reason WARs do is because of Defiance.

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It's 0,45 i think.

And you get a lot more of main stats now.

@240 it's 782 Str + 1100 Vit = 1882 which is 846,9 AP from gear.

With slaying and Str = 1 AP it would be 1012. That's around 16,5%.

But this gap will close with time.

VIT is getting higher faster than STR. On ilvl 200 body it's 93 STR / 97 VIT, which is now 8% lower AP then before.
@240ilvl it's 131 STR / 142 VIT and only 6% lower then it would be before.

VIT/STR-gap grews by 1 every 10 ilvl, so the AP will tend towards the old values (latest, when they fix parry in 3.4/40.).

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Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

It seems a lot of people don't understand splitting AP point gains between two different attributes results in a nerf.

Whereas before, 1 STR materia gave you 1 AP, now it just gives .44 of a point. Same with VIT, it just gives .44 AP.

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Just to clarify, left-side pieces have both Strength and Vitality. Most of the loss would come from the right side, but left sides have been hit relatively weaker, keeping it a 1:1 value would have left tank damage out of control. Vitality also gains more per ilvl on gear, and as of now, tanks are the only class that directly gets AP from food.

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Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

The worst of it is that this nerf addressed none of the problems it was supposed to address, which was mainly that WARs were preferred over PLD and DRK because they deal more DPS and that helps clear DPS checks.

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I'd agree, if that was the problem they were addressing to begin with. They wanted to make vitality be a meaningful/desired stat for tanks. Up until now, slayiing accessories were desired by both tanks and melee, and you'd frequently see vitality accessories (especially with raid lock outs) go to waste because of it.

I'm level 49 right now, and was putting all of my bonus Attributes into STR. Is that all busted now? I read that going STR was okay, which is why I did that. However now it looks like I should have gone full VIT.

If I put all my attributes into STR, and spec my gear for full VIT, would that be okay?

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Originally Posted by GenesisZ

I'm level 49 right now, and was putting all of my bonus Attributes into STR. Is that all busted now? I read that going STR was okay, which is why I did that. However now it looks like I should have gone full VIT.

If I put all my attributes into STR, and spec my gear for full VIT, would that be okay?

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I would encourage you to go to your GC and buy a Keeper's Hymn as soon as possible. That item will reset the attributes you have chosen so far, allowing you to go full VIT. To clarify, VIT and STR provide an equal boost to attack power, but since VIT also provides an HP boost, VIT is the better option. If you aren't able to afford the reset right away, please be nice to your healers and cycle your cooldowns properly to make your leveling runs go smoother.