Idea to Fix Problems with Tank Main Stat & Accessories

I'm the person who asked YoshiP about tank accessories at FanFest 2018. It's a topic that has weighed heavily on my mind because I've been raiding in this game since the start of Heavensward.

The fundamental problem is that tanks are the only role who have a main stat that doesn't contributes to damage. Every other role (including Healers) have a main stat that contributes to their damage output.

Our main stat is Vitality, but our damage comes from Strength. The latter doesn't scale as well on our accessories, which is why tanks used to wear Slaying accessories when they could and why we wear crafted accessories now.

It hit me this morning that there's an obvious solution that wouldn't require too much work to fix on the development end.

Make Vitality contribute to tank damage and not contribute any HP. Then change Tenacity (which is currently a junk stat) to provide HP the same way that Piety provides MP. Adjust the jobs as necessary to scale their HP as they level, perhaps through a HP+ passive trait.

They could change the description of Tenacity to "Affects maximum HP. Only applicable when role is Tank." to make it similar to the Piety stat on your character sheet under the "Role" category.

Any thoughts on this from people who main and/or raid as a tank? Thanks! :cool:

Many thanks for asking that question. That and the O11S question were the highlights of the Q+A for me.

The crux of the issue is not Vitality or Strength. The devs wanted to rein in tank dps. If you look at the Stone, Sea, Sky dummy HP from the start of this expansion, they anticipated that we would be doing less dps than even healers on a target dummy. That's pretty obnoxious. It's only later, after they made concessions with our accessories, that we pulled back ahead.

That's why the i270 STR accessory debacle was absolutely beautiful. Had they not made that critical error with scaling, they could have pretended that nothing was wrong. Even their responses were hilarious. What was that? You need to hold aggro? Here, have some enmity buffs. Yeah, okay.

There was a really easy way for them to avoid this altogether, though. The problem with STR is that it has a common meaning for both tanks and melee dps. So you can look at your tank accessories with 51 STR and compare them to melee dps ones with 171 STR. The solution would have been to give tanks their own primary stat, similar to how MND functions in healers. Now you have no way of comparing the two, and the tank primary can scale at a rate that you want it to.

I think that Tenacity is actually a really good candidate here. It impacts defense, attack power, and self-healing. Primaries are linked to ilvl, so their growth is regulated. You'd actually steadily improve in all of the areas that you want a tank to improve in over the course of an expansion, such that higher ilvl gear is always better than lower ilvl gear. And that should be the end goal of primary stat scaling.

I like this idea, seems really simple to do but I doubt the devs would make VIT effect tank damage again though. The devs don't seem to like the idea of tanks doing any meaningful damage.

I mean... They could just put more Strength on our accessories.

Since, it's not like every other piece of tank gear has pathetic amounts of STR on, it's just the accessories. Also, given the class restrictions on Tank accessories, it's not like MNK/SAM/DRG will be grabbing them and getting a bunch of free health.

That said, they could also push more towards Health = Damage with skills/traits. Sort of like with Upheaval (Also, a lesser extent Spirits Within) to allow for VIT to contribute to damage indirectly (Though, that would probably just buff WAR more given their tank stance gives health AND they can temporarily mitigate the damage reduction it gives...)

Thanks for the thoughtful responses. Much better than what I'm getting over on the subreddit.

The problem I have with "Health = Damage" abilities is it takes your DPS potential out of your hands. A lot of aggressive healers (read: my healers) don't keep their MT topped off and usually have them floating around 1/3 to 1/2 half for most of the fight so they can focus on DPSing without worrying about overhealing. I'm actually grateful that Upheaval is my only ability that scales damage based on my health because I'm sure I take a hit on that to benefit my healers.

It's unfortunate that the response what that tank damage output was "problematic."
To me this sounds like they plan a nerf to our DD ability entirely for 5.0. :(
I sincerely hope that isn't the case.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by VaryaKimon

Thanks for the thoughtful responses. Much better than what I'm getting over on the subreddit.

The problem I have with "Health = Damage" abilities is it takes your DPS potential out of your hands. A lot of aggressive healers (read: my healers) don't keep their MT topped off and usually have them floating around 1/3 to 1/2 half for most of the fight so they can focus on DPSing without worrying about overhealing. I'm actually grateful that Upheaval is my only ability that scales damage based on my health because I'm sure I take a hit on that to benefit my healers.

---

Ah, I wasn't particularly clear.

In terms of the Health = Damage, I was more implying "Max Health" = Damage. Akin to how Upheaval gets BONUS Potency when you boost up your max health (Hence the lesser extent on Spirits Within as that just has the scaling down on Pot based on current health)

Meaning that irregardless of if you have 1 health or 100,000 health remaining it would do the same damage so long as your max health is the same (But also, where the issue would arise with WAR due to their 2 sources of max health boosting AND tank stance penalty mitigation)

Essentially, though, it would be just the same as Vit = Attack Power, just in an indirect way.

Also, as a side note... Anyone else find Upheaval odd given that WAR is the "Berserker" class, I would have thought they'd get a skill that scaled the other way, being more powerful at lower life...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Canadane

It's unfortunate that the response what that tank damage output was "problematic."
To me this sounds like they plan a nerf to our DD ability entirely for 5.0. :(
I sincerely hope that isn't the case.

---

Truthfully, I don't care what my DPS is. I've been a Warrior since 2.0 and I play a tank job because I enjoy the duties of being a tank. I think it's more "problematic" that every job in this game is a DPS, but some have enmity tools and some have healing tools.

It's probably an unpopular opinion, but I would continue to play a tank even if they nerfed our DPS into the ground as long as we could still effectively do the responsibilities that I think we're supposed to be focusing on. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kalise

In terms of the Health = Damage, I was more implying "Max Health" = Damage.

---

Oh, I'm 100% behind that, then! :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kalise

Also, as a side note... Anyone else find Upheaval odd given that WAR is the "Berserker" class, I would have thought they'd get a skill that scaled the other way, being more powerful at lower life...

---

Ha! I never thought of it that way, but that would be more fun ... especially if you pulled off an Upheaval after a successful Holmgang for max damage!

Wait, what?

Have Vitality increase strength but no HP, and have Tenacity increase HP?

Doesnt that seem backwards to you?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by VaryaKimon

...

---

The problem is that these "tanking responsibilities" that you speak of don't exist in raid content. Raid tanking in this game is the equivalent of a rail shooter. The boss positions itself.

We're effectively melee dps who alternate between invulns and supercooldowns at fixed timestamps. If you take away the melee dps aspect, you're left with nothing. There's a balance to be struck here, and we've already started to swing well past it. Given how slow SE is at reacting to player feedback, I'd rather they become aware of the problem sooner rather than later. Please, just hire some actual tanks to do your raid design.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lyth

The problem is that these "tanking responsibilities" that you speak of don't exist in raid content. Raid tanking in this game is the equivalent of a rail shooter. The boss positions itself.

We're effectively melee dps who alternate between invulns and supercooldowns at fixed timestamps. If you take away the melee dps aspect, you're left with nothing. There's a balance to be struck here, and we've already started to swing well past it. Given how slow SE is at reacting to player feedback, I'd rather they become aware of the problem sooner rather than later. Please, just hire some actual tanks to do your raid design.

---

Sure, I don't disagree with you. I just wish that wasn't the case, but I didn't design this game so we're stuck with it.

Tanks also have to manage enmity control, which largely consists of tank swaps with Shirk and reminding your DPS and Healers to use their enmity dumps when they inevitably forget to do it on their own. At least they have it on their hotbar now, so that's an improvement. :p

I missed the QA. What exactly was the question and SE's response?

On the topic of VIT and TEN, what was suggested about Tenacity would in fact make it a useful stat and we wouldn't have a 'useless' stat anymore that relates to tanks. They'd also be able to do away with melding STR on gear and instead allocate enough stats on Accessories so that we can tank and also do DPS...though, what I wonder is how we go about making sure that Crafted doesn't become super dominant even in late game.

Overmelding is the biggest reason why it's stronger than raid gear a decent amount of the time, along with the stats that some raid gear comes with. The Tome Gear and Raid Gear should typically be what comprises BiS while Crafted is what pushes you up as progression gear when you're first attempting the fight and don't have the gear from it; it'd keep people in the market for crafted gear while also fixing some of Tank's issues with needing that 10,000,000 Gil Crafted Ring just so that you can be BiS(since not everyone has that kind of money to throw around).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

On the topic of VIT and TEN, what was suggested about Tenacity would in fact make it a useful stat

---

Tenacity is pretty useful as it is. The only reason people think it isn't is because it is not the absolutely best stat for increasing damage output - and too many people seem to think anything which does not increase.damage output is useless.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by VaryaKimon

Our main stat is Vitality, but our damage comes from Strength. The latter doesn't scale as well on our accessories, which is why tanks used to wear Slaying accessories when they could and why we wear crafted accessories now.

It hit me this morning that there's an obvious solution that wouldn't require too much work to fix on the development end.

Make Vitality contribute to tank damage and not contribute any HP. Then change Tenacity (which is currently a junk stat) to provide HP the same way that Piety provides MP. Adjust the jobs as necessary to scale their HP as they level, perhaps through a HP+ passive trait.

---

Umm last I checked this was already the case? Isn't the damage formula (AP) for tanks a mixture of a portion of STR + a portion of Vit?

Per the wiki:

"As of Patch 3.2, vitality is used in the calculation of Attack Power for tank jobs."

SE has decided they don't want the STR meta to be a thing because they don't want squishy tanks. Sorry you disagree with that, but it's in the realm of "just deal with it". Every Job has a main stat. STR is the DPS stat, Vit is the tank stat, just like Mind is the healer stat. I wish healer Acc's had some base Vit on them, but they don't and I don't complain about it. It would make healers tankier than they're supposed to be. Perhaps you should stop looking at tanks as a DPS? If you want to play as a DPS, play a DPS.

Gotta keep in mind that VIT isn’t just for tanks, other jobs get HP from it too. If you make VIT a damage stat and tenacity into HP then everyone except tanks ends up like DoH/L where you’re level 70 with 5k HP.

Personally I’d rather see them put more STR on tank accs to match the STR on slaying accs, but reduce the scaling we get from it. E.G. a dps gets 1 damage for 1 STR while a tank gets 0.75 damage from 1 STR. That way tank stats scale the same as everyone else but our damage is still less than an equally geared dps.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Deceptus

Umm last I checked this was already the case? Isn't the damage formula (AP) for tanks a mixture of a portion of STR + a portion of Vit?

Per the wiki:

"As of Patch 3.2, vitality is used in the calculation of Attack Power for tank jobs."

---

It was that way for a while, with STR and VIT contributing equally to damage for tanks, and then they changed it back with 4.0.
Now VIT does not contribute to damage at all.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Deceptus

Umm last I checked this was already the case? Isn't the damage formula (AP) for tanks a mixture of a portion of STR + a portion of Vit?

Per the wiki:

"As of Patch 3.2, vitality is used in the calculation of Attack Power for tank jobs."

---

I believe that the Wiki is wrong on this one, since in-game Vit just states "Increases HP" and only STR notes any benefit for Tanks damage.

I gather that to mean that some point since 3.2 they removed the Vit being part of tank AP calculation (When, I haven't the foggiest to be honest...)

Quote:

---

SE has decided they don't want the STR meta to be a thing because they don't want squishy tanks. Sorry you disagree with that, but it's in the realm of "just deal with it". Every Job has a main stat. STR is the DPS stat, Vit is the tank stat, just like Mind is the healer stat. I wish healer Acc's had some base Vit on them, but they don't and I don't complain about it. It would make healers tankier than they're supposed to be. Perhaps you should stop looking at tanks as a DPS? If you want to play as a DPS, play a DPS.

---

Well, the thing isn't just about wanting to be a DPS as a Tank, it's the fact that, once you reach a point where you can survive all sources of burst damage in the game, VIT does nothing for you.

Heck, we're already easily to the point where you can be in DPS stance AND not need to be stacking VIT to safely get through every single burst damage ability in the game.

So... What else can a Tank do to improve themselves and make fights easier for their party/raid? Stack STR and do more damage. Stack Det for more damage. Stack Ten for more damage. Stack Crit for more damage. Stack Spd for more damage.

That's it. That's all that's left. Do more damage, make the boss die faster.

Meaning that the options for SE are: Let Tanks more easily build for damage using our main stat (VIT) or have more access to Accessories with the stat we actually care about (STR). Or invent some reason for Tanks to want to keep stacking defences well past what is actually necessary to do content (Especially Health, the most useless of all defensive stats in any video game since raw health just means you survive by needing more raw healing compared to if you mitigated damage instead). Bearing in mind, that our enmity is also tied to our damage output, so we literally NEED to do at least a decent amount of damage so that DPS can go ham without having to worry about ripping threat off us.

For the many ideas and scenarios I can come up with, I honestly cannot think of anything that would satisfy the latter option that doesn't revolve around some form of damage boost. Given that honestly, the primary thing that getting better gear does for a group is let the DPS kill the boss faster, let the healer spend less time healing and more time DPSing to kill the boss faster...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Deceptus

If you want to play as a DPS, play a DPS.

---

This thread is not about us wanting to play as a DPS. This thread is to discuss the de-empowering of a whole role because the creators of the game want to fit the role into a specific box, but don't change or create any of the encounters to force the players who play that role to confine themselves into that box. Ie: They want tanks to do less damage, but do nothing to the encounters to warrant tanks to stack Tenacity versus Strength. Instead, they try to just "lower tank damage" by giving accessories that have poor STR (or no STR) compared to the other's role's main stats.

Yes, each role has a "main stat", as you have stated. Though, Healer and DPS roles' main stats 100% contribute to the "damage race (or damage paradigm)":

Get the enemy to 0 health before they get you to 0 health.

• DPS main stats help get the enemy to 0 quicker while having other abilities tied to that stat (if applicable).
• Healer main stat helps them perform their advertised function (healing) which helps with the slowing of "get you to 0 heath." At the same time, that same stat is what is used for Healer damage.

Tanks, on the other hand, have two stats for that paradigm: VIT to slow down getting them to 0 health. STR for the "getting the enemy to 0 health."

Whenever Healer or DPS gets an accessory drop, it contributes to both parts of the damage paradigm. When Tank's get an accessory drop, it doesn't contribute very much to both ends of the paradigm... only 1/2 of it (slowing down you getting to 0). If a tank wants to contribute to both ends of the paradigm, they have to have over-meld crafted accessories. No other role has to do this.

Plus, there is a certain point where that one extra point of VIT or Tenacity isn't going to save the Healer that 1 point of MP. In order to save on limited resources (healer's MP), the other option is to kill the enemy quicker. VIT doesn't help with that, and TEN doesn't do good enough job. There is no other option but to stack STR and pro-damage substats.

They would just rework Tenacity in general before they change things back to VIT.

People dont choose tenacity because our gear and defensive cooldowns along with shields and utility from other jobs makeup and exceed the defensive side for tenacity, while at the same time DH, DET, CRIT, and obviously STR increase our damage way more than Tenacity does.

The classic MMO saying " The boss cant hurt you if its dead" promotes more dps

Tanks need rebalancing and I am sure the devs have spent so much time in terms of 5.0 balancing that our conversations here have nothing to do with the new systems they have in place in 5.0 along with TP/MP combination.