Leveling; build for survivability?

I've noticed in most MMO's the game you play to level is very different than end game. As I make gear and stat choices I can't help but think about what is best right now versus what is best for endgame.

I run a lot of dungeons, and often find tanks that either die easy, or can't hold threat - which has means I've tanked more than a few bosses and a good deal of trash.

Does it make sense to favor wand/shield instead of 2h, and put stat points in Vit???

The evolution of your character is finished as you click create at the end of the character-creation. The rest is just the equip you got access to. With a shield you can may be able to take more hit(s) but with more base dam you might you can heal up yourself and your group better or help with focusing adds away. Same goes for statpoints. Untill you reach the very lategame you have no choices that matter much. And even there most characters of one class are clones.

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Originally Posted by Sinaloa

The evolution of your character is finished as you click create at the end of the character-creation. The rest is just the equip you got access to. With a shield you can may be able to take more hit(s) but with more base dam you might you can heal up yourself and your group better or help with focusing adds away. Same goes for statpoints. Untill you reach the very lategame you have no choices that matter much. And even there most characters of one class are clones.

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As I level, I can probably find any piece of equipment in the game... I could put all of my stat points in Vit, use Vit materia, accessories, and food. I'd argue that these have greater affect at low levels, since every stat point is hard to come by.


Sometimes tanks go from full to empty within 1 gcd, or can't hold aggro at all - no amount of healing can help that.

If your tanks are dying that fast in anything that isn't Coil, they have garbage gear and you should probably ditch them.

Not only will more MND make your heals more efficient it makes your MP usage more efficient and boost your nukes while under cleric stance (which you should always be using while soloing anyway). It is fine to put some points into VIT, I have, but you shouldn't put them all into it.

Now melding VIT materia on your gear, IMO, is a much better idea because usually you will not be able to add more/much MND to it.

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Originally Posted by Estellios

Now melding VIT materia on your gear, IMO, is a much better idea because usually you will not be able to add more/much MND to it.

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Most main slot gear has VIT on it too, so you're only really able to meld more onto accessories.

The choice between wand+shield and cane is pretty meaningless. Slightly different secondary stats, that's it. As a healer you shouldn't NEED to put points into VIT. Just upgrading gear should be sufficient. Bad tanks will be bad tanks; you have tools to help buy you a few precious seconds for most cases (Fluid Aura, Repose, Stone I for Heavy if it's that bad, Sprint).

I dont play super often, and don't have a good FC... I like the casual and random experience of using duty finder -- which means that I accept bad tanks as part of the game. If I ditch a group with a bad tank, then I'm probably done with dungeons for the night.

/insert joke about finding a good tank in df here

Still I would think mind would help more with an under geared tank than vitality would. You will be able to help him stay alive that much longer to absorb damage for you and you will be able to heal your dps better that might end up pulling aggro. As for yourself tanking I'm not sure but again I'd say mind just because you will ideally be able to replace hp faster than you will be losing it where as the larger pool of vit will really only help when it comes to bigger hits.

Thanks for the replies... Wasn't sure if there might be a trend of healers being prepared to tank. I guess, I'll just accept that I should do my job, and if the tank stinks there's only so much I can do about it :/

You can level a tank to 20 or something also to just learn a little about them and give your tanks advice (but I would be careful on giving more advice than your tank experience). If the tank takes the advice, then it will help them and you.

For instance, I was in tam-tara with a gladiator that couldn't hold hate on multiple mobs after a couple heals. I suggested he fast blade, savage blade, flash, repeat. It's not the best advice because there are more things a tank should be doing but the advice was very simple to execute. The gladiator started doing the suggested rotation and we had much less enmity problems.

I put a few points into Vit while leveling. In dungeons it shouldn't matter at all but it helps for soloing and FATEs.

I had 10 points into Vit while I was doing the hardmode primals, Titan specifically, then swapped to full mind after I got my relic. You'll have more than enough GC things to buy the thing.

Titan isn't too hard to heal, unless people are bad and getting hit (and, lets face it, you're not going to win then anyway), you just need to make sure you have enough HP to survive the later rounds of stomps.
It saved me some tome grinding prior to relic.

DL (lv70 gear) gives you a lot of Vitality, but being a Lalafell I think you should put 1/7-1/8 of your attribute points in VIT.
The Coil requires a lot of Vitality too because it is a "lv90 dungeon" instead of Hard Primals that are lv60-70.
But remember that HP aren't the only important thing, you need Piety (MP MAX) and Mind (cure power).
Spend something like this: 4/7 Mind, 2/7 Piety, 1/7 Vitality.
The rest isn't that important for a White Mage, maybe 1 or 2 total points in Spell Speed if you want.

I was thinking 100% in Vit until I get to 50, then redistributing them, but based on what's been said here - I shouldn't be prepared to tank even though it inevitably happens.

As I'm leveling, I typically do each dungeon as soon as it's available, and keep doing it until it starts syncing me down (I just use Duty Finder). I've tanked just about every boss as CNJ, because I've had tanks that have no idea how to hold threat, or literally go from full hp to 0 in less time than it takes to cast cure. I know people keep saying Mind would help, but when your tank is such complete garbage, infinite Mind wouldn't help.

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Originally Posted by Simaril

I was thinking 100% in Vit until I get to 50, then redistributing them, but based on what's been said here - I shouldn't be prepared to tank even though it inevitably happens.

As I'm leveling, I typically do each dungeon as soon as it's available, and keep doing it until it starts syncing me down (I just use Duty Finder). I've tanked just about every boss as CNJ, because I've had tanks that have no idea how to hold threat, or literally go from full hp to 0 in less time than it takes to cast cure. I know people keep saying Mind would help, but when your tank is such complete garbage, infinite Mind wouldn't help.

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You can get as much VIT as you wish, a healer can't tank a lv50 instance. Don't think about tanking, think about healing.

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Originally Posted by YanDere

You can get as much VIT as you wish, a healer can't tank a lv50 instance. Don't think about tanking, think about healing.

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or if Scholar dpsing.

But if you had to tank every Boss the chances are very good the aggroproblem is not tankrelated. If you are just spamming Medica the tank cant do much about it unless he is quite overgeared.

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Originally Posted by YanDere

You can get as much VIT as you wish, a healer can't tank a lv50 instance. Don't think about tanking, think about healing.

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If you read the TITLE of the thread it's about leveling, not 50.

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Originally Posted by Sinaloa

or if Scholar dpsing.

But if you had to tank every Boss the chances are very good the aggroproblem is not tankrelated. If you are just spamming Medica the tank cant do much about it unless he is quite overgeared.

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I do lots of instances... and have done every boss avaialble at level 30 like 5+ times. I've ended up tanking most of them ONE time -- usually because the tank goes from full HP to 0 in less time than it takes to cast cure, or they have no idea how to generate threat at all.

Really - it seems to me that good tanks are easy to heal, and bad tanks are impossible to heal. Stacking Vit might be approprate for both circumstances.

If a tank is going full to dead around 30ish, I'll assume it's the last boss in Haukke Manor. The void fire/thunder spells can be avoided by running behind the caster. If your tank is dropping when the adds come out, then they're somehow getting threat on all the adds when they pop rather than you (because you're healing) and then taking all of the hits to the face - three of them is some pretty nasty burst, just the two maidens casting can burst down a Conjurer that hasn't got their job crystal yet. Happened to me a few times at that level.

If they're going full to dead on pretty much any other boss before that, they more or less need to be unequipping gear + standing in the bad to drop that fast. On trash you can also sleep one at the start of the pull if you need to (lowers how much heals you need, thus less likely to pull off a tank with poor aoe threat).

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Originally Posted by Simaril

If you read the TITLE of the thread it's about leveling, not 50.

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If I know what "build" means, it means you are building your stats for what's really important, and you can put everything in Parry if you wish, until lv50 it's the same, everything is easy as shit.
I was suggesting a way to build your stats thinking about the endgame content, because I don't see anything else that should require a "stats build".
And, I don't know why do you look so upset just for some advice I gave you.