tanks with strength accessories

why is this becoming a trend?

is there anything to it other than "it makes me do more damage"

ment to say in the thread, tanks in 4 man dungeons

Right now, the current HP value of tanks in end-game content is so far over the top for what is actually required, that you are considered as 'not pulling your weight' if you don't start to find a way to work STR in. Many will go the pure-STR accessory route. Others will get crafted accessories and melt STR materia into it (or VIT materia into STR) so they get to double-dip on major stats.

But as it stands, you don't actually need 11k HP as a Warrior for any content. Proper mitigation and healers doing their job is enough to hnadle this. And as a tank, if you can help push DPS, you're considered not pushing yourself to your max potential if you don't do this.

It's like healer's and cleric's stance.

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

Right now, the current HP value of tanks in end-game content is so far over the top for what is actually required, that you are considered as 'not pulling your weight' if you don't start to find a way to work STR in. Many will go the pure-STR accessory route. Others will get crafted accessories and melt STR materia into it (or VIT materia into STR) so they get to double-dip on major stats.

But as it stands, you don't actually need 11k HP as a Warrior for any content. Proper mitigation and healers doing their job is enough to hnadle this. And as a tank, if you can help push DPS, you're considered not pushing yourself to your max potential if you don't do this.

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people dont think pulling their weight is pulling a ton of stuff, having enough hp to tank it for a long time, and let your healer holybomb/ whatever scholar does?

im sure that, in a whm healers case, holy bombing will do more dmg than adding 50-90 dmg to your overpower

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

It's like healer's and cleric's stance

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not really, if the situation needs to change, the healer can turn that off at any time. if the healer cant keep up and the tank pulled too much to have his dps items on, you wipe

They generate more aggro

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Originally Posted by Anneliese

They generate more aggro

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with overpower, steel cyclone, circle of scorn, and flash you should be fine unless your heavily undergeared compared to your grp

Well there's different ways to do what you say.

There's Poetics/Soldiery/Dreadworm Strength Accessories. This is the Rampaging Berserker mode... or maybe just too cheap to get Vit or hybrid accessories. Or the dungeon is level synced, and the extra vit is redundant.

Then there's I110 Pentamelds, which is the ideal way, which you can combine both Vit and Strength. Generally speaking when compared to I130 Vit accessories, you loose out on 30 Vitality in exchange for 90 strength. or 30 for 65 for I90. But, as previously mentioned... the level sync drops their melds.

So anyhow, myself personally I have pentamelds I use, unless there is a sync, like with HL and Low Level Roulette... in which case I just wear my STR accessories.

In any case.. all dungeons can be run, and speed ran with STR accessories by anyone with proper use of cooldowns, assuming your healer is equally prepared.

Anyhow. In my Hybrid set, or STR set, I'm almost an extra DPS as War... and as others mentioned.. enmity.

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Originally Posted by Hypnotic13371337

im sure that, in a whm healers case, holy bombing will do more dmg than adding 50-90 dmg to your overpower

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An extra 2k HP isn't enough to let the healer ignore healing. That extra 115 STR is enough for a tank to keep hate over a BLM going balls out though. Tank keeping hate gets stuff killed faster than WHM casting an extra holy.

Aggro isn't why tanks stack STR, aggro in this game is a joke. STR is stacked because the VIT it replaces is wasted. Once you reach the HP threshold for the content you're doing, everything else should go straight into STR. More DPS means quicker phase pushes, which is a form of mitigation for the entire party. You could also make or break a 1% wipe, whereas 2k extra unnecessary health won't. If you can take a tank buster + a crit auto attack and still live at a comfortable amount of HP, then you're at the HP threshold for that content.

It's not necessary in most situations, but it's the smart and optimal thing to do. There is a difference between balancing VIT/STR and just being suicidal, though. You shouldn't try to MT T13 in full i130 STR accessories, as an extreme example, but tanking a 4 man dungeon/SCoB with Echo you'd be fine to wear those. It's all about knowing how much HP you'll need for each instance and balancing your VIT and STR around that.

It really depends on the content, the lower difficutly the more you can get away with it obviously. Even more so as WAR because of their higher HP and higher natural damage, yes I don't really care about math I know you're gonna post those super detailed spreadsheets saying both tanks are equal in damage I'm not listening. Now MTing Cloud of Darkness with only 6k HP on PLD while each hit takes around 3k+ and your healers get targeted and have to do mechanics? Yeah, a bit annoying for the healers, still manageable but a bit annoying.

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Originally Posted by Hypnotic13371337

people dont think pulling their weight is pulling a ton of stuff, having enough hp to tank it for a long time, and let your healer holybomb/ whatever scholar does?

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You can do that with STR accessories in 4 mans.

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not really, if the situation needs to change, the healer can turn that off at any time. if the healer cant keep up and the tank pulled too much to have his dps items on, you wipe

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Extra HP doesn't help the healer keep up, if you are losing health faster than they can heal you will die regardless of how much health you have. Your ability to survive is dependent on cooldowns slowing the damage so healing potency outpaces it, and you are dependant on good DPS to kill things before you run out of cooldowns (and STR accessories give DPS). For warriors STR accessories actually help keep you alive with unchained+berserk+bloodbath overpower spam. The only thing that checks HP in the game are tank nukes and there are none in 4 mans.

If I see a tank with full fending in easy content I just groan, they will probably lose threat and that extra HP is contributing nothing.

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Aggro isn't why tanks stack STR, aggro in this game is a joke.

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It's a potential reason why I've done it. Due to not exactly being an endgame raider, my tank runs into many DPS with gear/capabilities enough to push the aggro line without me making an effort to increase my threat output.

I don't necessarily agree with doing it simply to try to increase your damage output unless your healer is not really trying his best to maximize his own damage output, but it of course depends on the fight. From a healer standpoint, the tank having more HP (even if it's "easy" content) still allows me to squeeze out more damage before I have to switch stance off and go back to healer mode, and I'm pretty sure what I can do as a healer (if allowed to) generally outweighs whatever little difference a STR build on the tank would make.

I wouldn't mind putting two str accessories instead of vit on a tank as long as it has determination instead of crit or skill speed. But does anyone know if determination has any effect on enmity, or how much a boost/ratio to cure spells received it gives?

STR affects damage, as well as mitigation. Remember that STR also affects how much damage is prevented by parrying and blocking.
VIT is just more HP.
If the healer can keep up with pretty much everything the instance can throw at the tank, why not throw more damage and mitigation instead of just extra fat that isn't really being used?

Tank accessories do not grant any extra defense, just parry (useless) and vit (mostly useless). Both tanks in strength gear are capable of pumping out very respectable damage. More damage means more aggro and mobs and bosses die faster. if you're in the 110-130 range and you're not wearing strength gear, you're actively slowing down your own dungeon and could even have aggro problems with dps with 120+ weapons.

Myself and every other tank that runs final coil in my FC agree that OUTSIDE of coil, strength gear is the way to go. INSIDE of coil you should coordinate with your healers and see what you can squeeze so that everyone is comfortable.

str plays into damage and agrro
and damage is what warrior's self heals scale off of, which is how war is designed to stay alive
hell, get enough str and you can go far longer without any enmity attacks without any risk of losing aggro
just look at xeno's new opener,bb isnt until the end, id love to see you do that as a vit baby

currently my war vit set is i109 and str set is i108
i only use the vit one as mt in wod, or if im in a df pug with a bad healer

High ilvl tanks these days have enough HP to do most content without the need for VIT accessories. It's silly how much HP we get, and aside from endgame raids; Higher VIT is not a necessity when your main armor alone puts you above 6400+ HP. That's about the same HP as a full VIT gear i90ish tank I think, give or take.

On top of that the more damage we do the more enmity we generate. For the best geared tanks it means they may not even have to use Shield Oath/Defiance to get initial enmity and maintain it. In the HM primal fights we really don't need 8k+ HP, nor do we in the regular dungeons.

That said, more HP certainly makes my main job (healing) easier. Tanks with a ton of HP can take more hits which allows me to A) do more damage and B) tend to other potentially dieing/dead party members. But if the tank has more than enough HP for a specific fight like say Ifrit/Garuda/Titan HM without VIT accessories, I say by all means put STR accessories on if you got em.

Stupid Question Time:

If you can 'squeeze' in a self cure or stoneskin does that also generate enmity and help maintain aggro?

It seems to work with fate mini-bosses but obviously dungeons etc, are much more intense.

A lot of 4 man ill run left side STR accs and sword oath on bosses. 7k HP is more than enough for all 4 peep content and most trials too. Also I know how and when to use defensive CDs, pronlem tanks are those which pull half the dungeon and dont even bother using 1 def CD and their health drops way too fast, having extra HP in that case does nothing as they will still die. Difference DPS is from 150-200 in full tank gear to 350-400 dps in str accs and sword oath, also, I have the icons to switch with one click if Im going half the instance pull time.

I laugh when I see WARs in main scenraio roulette with 11k HP. like whats the point? Its doable with a 4k hp tank. XD

Over the holidays for fun we did 8 BLM main scenarios, 4 BLM AK and SV hard. Thats how hard 4 peep is :P

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Originally Posted by Dreufo

Stupid Question Time:

If you can 'squeeze' in a self cure or stoneskin does that also generate enmity and help maintain aggro?

It seems to work with fate mini-bosses but obviously dungeons etc, are much more intense.

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Not sure about Warrior self cures (as I don't have Warrior leveled), but Paladin self cures are pitiful, many don't even have it as a cross class ability because of it. Paladin has very little Mind (stat that contributes to healing power) in comparison to the actual healing jobs, resulting in a cure of about 300ish HP. It also generates very little enmity in comparison to Flash or the regular 1-2-3 combo. Stoneskin is much the same enmity wise, but the 10% HP shield is great to use to help out the healer.

In FFXI Paladin used cures along with Flash (and provoke if /WAR) to help maintain enmity since heals generated quite a bit of it (and mechanically FFXI was different), but it's not the case in XIVARR.

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Originally Posted by File2ish

Not sure about Warrior self cures (as I don't have Warrior leveled), but Paladin self cures are pitiful, many don't even have it as a cross class ability because of it. Paladin has very little Mind (stat that contributes to healing power) in comparison to the actual healing jobs, resulting in a cure of about 300ish HP. It also generates very little enmity in comparison to Flash or the regular 1-2-3 combo. Stoneskin is much the same enmity wise, but the 10% HP shield is great to use to help out the healer..

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Yep, PLDs cure is useless, much better to use Stoneskin as it is as effective as a SCHs stoneskin. Whn Im OT as PLD, or after tank swap ill throw a stoneskin on the MT for big hits to save on healers mana.Or even a cover+hallowed if I know I wont need it (eg no tank swaps like in Odin trial).

The amount of HP required for the game's current end game content isn't nearly as high as many players would probably believe it needs to be. To strictly say a tank is meant only to tank and nothing else isn't a refusal to think outside of the box. Was full STR practical at 2.0? No, not at all. But as we continue to get more and more patches with different types of gear, our options are slowly expanding. As long as you are sitting at 8000-8500 HP as a PLD, you're fine. As for WAR, 10k is the minimum for some of the other content. There are also batches of content to keep in mind that VIT is completely overkill for. A person does not need all that much HP for extreme mode Ifrit for example.

While it's still not something many PLDs are doing, some are slowly converting to full STR. WARs on the other hand are very much gungho for this sort of idea, myself included. STR meshes very well with a WAR's abilities, such as Second Wind, Inner Beast, Bloodbath(in very particular and rare circumstances), Vengeance, Maim, Storm's Eye, Berserk, etc. WAR has a surprising amount of damage for a tank, and while it's rather negligible, you do get a small amount of parry improvement.

TL;DR: The amount of HP that VIT stacking gives is overkill. We can better help the group by adding damage, additional aggro, and meeting dps checks/bursts.

I think it all depends on the healer you have.

If the healer sticks to healing and never does any dps, then by all means go full STR (just don't risk too much with giga-pulls).

If the healer spends most of his time doing dps in Cleric Stance and is good at passive healing through Fairy/Lustrate/Stoneskin/Regen , then it's way better to pack full VIT and try to survive longer without heals (keeping aggro is a joke now, so it shouldn't be an issue).

Personally, I prefer starting any dungeon with full VIT, just for safety, and then adjust myself after the first 1-2 pulls.

I'm a full VIT kind of tank when I play, but as long as the tank can do their job and has enough HP and defense to survive the big hitters I couldn't care less what they're wearing. As a healer, it's nice for the tank to have a decent amount of HP since it means I can throw up a regen and not have to worry about them while I DPS. It's also incredibly handy on big pulls since some tanks find it difficult to dodge the sheer volume of AoE's and many don't even try.

But while I won't be equipping STR myself, if I see another tank doing so I'll wait and see what they're like before making any judgements.

My base "build" for my WAR is what I run in Coil with; two (currently...I'm poor, OK?) penta-melded i110, 1 i130 STR and 2 i130 VIT accessories, DPS-built Ragnarok, all DPS-based i130 armor except penta-melded Kirimu pants (Phoenix hates me), and my attributes are 20/10 STR/VIT. Once I get the other three i110 penta melds I'll likely go full STR (assuming my WHM doesn't kill me for doing that...and I do try to listen to him, since he kinda keeps me alive during silly things like Akh Morn...) If it works in FCoB, it has to work (or be overkill) everywhere else.

Generally...I use this gear for dungeons and raids, and EX Primals; sure, I could probably use more STR in dungeons and older EXs, but I'm a bit lazy...I also err on the "safe" side in dungeons, since most people I run into there are...honestly, I don't know how they managed to get as far as they did lol. If I see that the randoms I'm with are good, then I'll adapt to them, but initially...random heals and DPS seem to just like seeing more VIT on their tanks and freak out if their HP is too low.

Trial roulette and most overworld stuff (hunts, maps, whatever)...I have an almost full i130 set of STR accessories (missing DW ring...) I use since my HP really doesn't matter there.

Back on topic; I generally don't understand full-STR PLD doing trash pulls...they spend most of their time using Flash trying to keep aggro off the Flare-happy BLM in their party. I'm fine with them going STR on bosses, since they're actually hitting things most of the time...but when Flash is your go-to button? Mix of VIT and STR makes more sense IMO. WAR...Bloodbath + Berserk + Steel Cyclone + Overpower spam...more STR = more healing, but again, you do need to have enough VIT to survive.

And no, I have no issues with hate at all on either PLD or WAR (and my PLD is more VIT-based than my WAR...and has worse weapons); the extra STR is purely for more DPS. Though it is funny seeing tanks try to take hate from me in Trials because they have more HP than me (and a good amount of these I take hate without Defiance on. GG other tank)

Healers in dps stance do more damage than tanks with dps accessories. So if your healer is dpsing, then go as tanky as possible to minimize their healing and maximize their dps. If your healer only wants to heal, then it's ok to go with str accessories for a tiny dps boost.

If a tank mindlessly goes dps and forces their healer to heal more, then it's a net loss for team dps.

Obviously if your healer isn't very good or is stressed out, then simply go full tank to help them out, as succeeding is much more important than failing fast.

Unfortunately some tanks have epeen about doing damage and don't care whether the team is doing more damage or not, as long as they are personally doing more damage.

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Originally Posted by IndigoHawk

Healers in dps stance do more damage than tanks with dps accessories. So if your healer is dpsing, then go as tanky as possible to minimize their healing and maximize their dps. If your healer only wants to heal, then it's ok to go with str accessories for a tiny dps boost.

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You can do both.

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Originally Posted by IndigoHawk

Healers in dps stance do more damage than tanks with dps accessories. So if your healer is dpsing, then go as tanky as possible to minimize their healing and maximize their dps. If your healer only wants to heal, then it's ok to go with str accessories for a tiny dps boost.

If a tank mindlessly goes dps and forces their healer to heal more, then it's a net loss for team dps.

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If a tank goes "full tank" and has no DPS at all, it's also a net loss. A good tank knows when it's a good idea to ditch "tankiness" for better DPS. For example, if the mobs are just cherry tapping the tank and not doing much damage, if he's all VIT and Parry, he's not doing anything for the group except being a sponge. If he's STILL getting cherry tapped with STR gear on, he's dealing more damage so the fights are shorter.
It's about balancing the group's needs and limits. Which is why tanking is so hard.

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Originally Posted by IndigoHawk

Healers in dps stance do more damage than tanks with dps accessories. So if your healer is dpsing, then go as tanky as possible to minimize their healing and maximize their dps. If your healer only wants to heal, then it's ok to go with str accessories for a tiny dps boost.

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As others have said, you can do both. This isn't a situation where you're either wearing Str accessories or your healer is able to DPS. If it was, you'd be correct. It's just not though. A tank (especially a Warrior, which is what most of the tanks using DPS accessories are) doing as much DPS as possible generally *doesn't* force their healer to heal more.

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Originally Posted by Cenebi

A tank (especially a Warrior, which is what most of the tanks using DPS accessories are) doing as much DPS as possible generally *doesn't* force their healer to heal more.

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This is where I will have to respectfully disagree. One important note that everyone is forgetting is that these accessories aren't just Vitality bonuses, they're also granting significant gains to parrying skill which will greatly reduce the damage taken by a tank. Sacrifice one, and sacrifice both.

The degree to which this will impact the dungeon is entirely speculative, but it's still a factor which seems to have been overlooked by many.

It's not overlooked the jury is out on parry and it's a terrible stat that most tanks who actually do hard content these days completely ignore.

However you overlooked that STR increases the amount of damage parried.

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Originally Posted by kyuven

STR affects damage, as well as mitigation. Remember that STR also affects how much damage is prevented by parrying and blocking.
VIT is just more HP.
If the healer can keep up with pretty much everything the instance can throw at the tank, why not throw more damage and mitigation instead of just extra fat that isn't really being used?

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I think a lot of people overlook the parry benefits from STR. I play WAR and WHM and you're right, if you already have the HP to deal with the content, put the points into STR so you don't have so much redundant and mostly wasted HP. When I'm healing, the faster things die, the faster i get to relax.

@OP, As a healer I can tell you that I have a FAR easier time healing a tank that is spec'd for STR vs one spec'd for VIT. The reason being, that if you read the tooltip for stats, STR affects how much dmg you block or parry for, While VIT only increases HP. If I dont have to heal as much dmg, because its being blocked, the easier it becomes to keep the tank @ or near full health. With VIT tanks, I tend to have to spam Cures just to keep them at full health.

I have even seen tanks starting to spec STR and then add in STR&DEX melded accessories because DEX affects the block and parry rates, meaning they can block or parry more often. These are the tanks I have to waste the least amount of MP on keeping alive. Even in large pulls.

Play a healer class for a while, and I can guarantee you, you will start to understand which path is more beneficial.

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Originally Posted by PArcher

Back on topic; I generally don't understand full-STR PLD doing trash pulls...they spend most of their time using Flash trying to keep aggro off the Flare-happy BLM in their party. I'm fine with them going STR on bosses, since they're actually hitting things most of the time...but when Flash is your go-to button? Mix of VIT and STR makes more sense IMO. WAR...Bloodbath + Berserk + Steel Cyclone + Overpower spam...more STR = more healing, but again, you do need to have enough VIT to survive.

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aggro from flash scales off of str
just like regular attacks

I have over 12k HP when I'm my full VIT build. I don't need freaking 12k HP to tank anything outside of T12 or T13. So I wear STR accessories so I can help push DPS on the bosses in EXDR or WoD or whatever so the party doesn't have to waste any more time grinding out this content for Poetics or Demon Belt of Scouting (which is literally the only thing which drops from WoD) or whatever else they are there for. Even in full STR accessories on my right side, I still have 9600 or 9800 HP in 4-man and 8-man content which is way more HP than I need for Keeper of the Lake or whatever pops up in EXDR.

I run everything but a few primals and FCoB in full STR accessories, the extra HP is meaningless as long as heals don't scale with max HP (Lustrate and Benediction do but you can't spam them) and the tank nukes still hit nowhere near your max HP with STR set. If healer can't keep up with the damage, the extra HP only delays the inevitable by a few seconds.

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Originally Posted by Illya

I don't need freaking 12k HP to tank anything outside of T12 or T13.

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Unless you're doing warrior MT in T13, you shouldn't need that much HP either. Thrill of battle is up for every bennu you're going to tank, vengeance is up for every revelation you're going to tank and it doesn't hit for more than 6k or so if you inner beast alongside it and put path up in time. Akh morn is half as bad as people pretend it is unless you're doing a stupid cooldown rotation, I die to the last pain of meracydia more frequently than I get anywhere close to dying to akh morn. Don't think I've ever stepped into final coil with more than 10.6k HP in defiance.

I switched my stats from Vit to Str for all my gear in one gearset and thats for PvP. It's also good for solo play. In these two areas it makes a big difference. Also when I off tank, i find it helps too. I'f i'm MT I have a gearset that is poetics for the higher leveled stuff.

Lately IV been having people tell me that parry is a joke since its rng is there any proof that it dose negate damage?

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Originally Posted by Kotemon

I wouldn't mind putting two str accessories instead of vit on a tank as long as it has determination instead of crit or skill speed. But does anyone know if determination has any effect on enmity, or how much a boost/ratio to cure spells received it gives?

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Determination affects the damage/healing you do. I think the consensus is that approximately 6-8 determination is equal to 1 in your primary stat (STR/INT/MND), but I don't remember the exact number.
Determination does not affect the healing you receive. It only plays in with outgoing damage/healing. The tooltip is a bit fuzzy, I know.

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Originally Posted by Dererk

Lately IV been having people tell me that parry is a joke since its rng is there any proof that it dose negate damage?

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It does mitigate damage, but the return isn't really worth the investment. I came into the game assuming the "tank stats" would be best for tanks and went with a full acc/parry spec on my relic. It was easy to do (not to mention cheaper than the alternatives) and I figured it'd be useful. I recently respecced it for acc/det/crit and I haven't noticed a difference at all. My static's healers don't seem to have noticed either, because they haven't brought anything up about it. The extra damage, however, is beautiful to have in any encounter. I think I'm going to end up completing my pentamelded accessories on top of that. ^^