Why don't people like to pick/use Tenacity over Determination?

I'm someone that's fairly new when it comes to tanking and I don't think I've had a full explanation as to why its not used much. I noticed some people complaining about the new Eden gear having Tenacity over Determination.

Anyone care to explain both their differences and why one is used over the other one to me?

Differences is like 2% if that, when it comes to damage. Full tenacity is doesn't cover a healer God, so it was deemed useless. But like I said before, 2-3% damage difference, when you compare the optimal build.

Determination offers more damage than Tenacity.

That's about it for why Tenacity is not favoured.

Tenacity will provide damage reduction which Determination does not, but it is often not necessary to use since it will rarely save a Healer having to spend an extra GCD on a heal to top you off.

In addition, even if it DID save the Healer having to spend a GCD on a heal, it only means that they'd spend the GCD on a damage spell instead. Which would be worth less damage than if you simply had a better stat instead of Tenacity boosting your own damage instead.

Even with all this, there's still only one Tank that actually wants Determination, which is Warrior. Other Tanks would prefer having Crit and Direct Hit for higher damage, while Warrior gets less damage from Direct Hit due to their job mechanics providing guaranteed Direct Critical Hits and so gets more damage from Determination than Direct Hit.

Lengthy answer ahead. If the first two posts didn't feel like enough, this one will.
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Short Answer: It is an "OK" stat, but it is not the prefered option since other provide larger benefits of damage.

Long Answer:
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All jobs in this game have a preferred stat order, in the case of tanks it is:
PLD / DRK / GNB: Skillspeed to desired GCD > Crit > Direct Hit > Determination > Tenacity
WAR only: Skillspeed to desired GCD > Crit > Determination > Tenacity > Direct Hit (majority of its' damage contribution forces DH)

The reason for the stat order is simply the gain in damage you get, with having a perfect aligning rotation being the highest, Crit being 2nd highest, etc. This does not mean Tenacity is a bad stat for damage, just not the best one (and we have 5 stats to pick). It is best explained if we look at how much of a stat we need to pour in to get the result.

Statistic intervals creditted to Nemekh & the TheoryJerks, bless their honest work.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...96/unknown.png

Based on those tables, we see we need 254 DET to gain +1% damage while we need 330 TEN to gain that 1% damage + reduction. So if the desire is mainly to increase damage, it makes sense why TEN is hardly favoured over other stats. But now to what makes Tenacity its own thing - its' built-in passive mitigation.

First of, as different damage buffs and stats work multiplicative (i.e. (20% + 20% = 44%, not 40%), so does mitigation. But the catch with mitigation unlike damage is that instead of getting greater results by stacking multiple damage multipliers, mitigation is victim to diminishing returns. The more %-based mitigation you use, the less effect the next one has when used. To give you a basic example with Warrior's cooldowns:

Rampart / Raw Int alone: 100% - 20% = 80%; you take 20% from the 100% original.
Rampart + Raw Int paired: 100% - 20% - 20% = 64%; the first 20% is as above, but the second mitigation takes from the remaining 80% instead (thus 16%)
So using Raw Int with Rampart diminished the total mitigation by 4%. This is still commonly used on tankbusters though, so don't think too hard about it.

The issue with TEN largely comes from us tanks having a large pool of mitigation options at our disposal to deal with basically every mechanic in the game. That on top of diminishing returns should make things clear.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen..._mitig_wip.png

However, to give you a second / third opinion by some of the fellas from theory discords such as Theoryjerks and TheBalance:

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Mox Xinmagar 04/08/2019

Does Tenacity suck??

Tenacity is an efficient stat for what it is, both increasing damage and mitigation at a nominal rate. Tenacity is currently regarded as a progression stat, in a similar vein to Vitality melds of old - helpful on occasion and can save your life, but not enough to warrant continuous, future use. The gain of Tenacity is not in reducing healer load. The gain is in the “insurance policy.” Tenacity could be useful. It could save your life. But you won’t see tangible benefit from Tenacity until that moment where you almost die.

-Theoryjerks Discord / Emiin

What does Tenacity do for us??

Tenacity allows the whole party to make some mistakes.
Missed a Feint or Addle? Shields? Cooldown dropped a second too early?
Tenacity's got it.

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Words of closure - having Tenacity on gear is not "bad", just not preferred. However, it is likely going to happen that your best-in-slot piece might end up having Crit + Tenacity on it. Due to Crit generally being the most sought-after stat, that extra Tenacity will generally be ok to have on your gear. Ok on gear, avoid to meld.

Hope this helps.

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Originally Posted by TwitchingFool0

I'm someone that's fairly new when it comes to tanking and I don't think I've had a full explanation as to why its not used much. I noticed some people complaining about the new Eden gear having Tenacity over Determination.

Anyone care to explain both their differences and why one is used over the other one to me?

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Tenacity will never make a perceptible difference in the amount of healing you need. It will never be the breakpoint between a healer choosing to spend resources to heal you, vs doing damage or something else.

On the flipside, every small bit of damage counts. That extra 1%, or even 0.1%, might be the difference between wiping at 0.1% hp as the boss enrages and clearing.

@Reinhardt_Azureheim there is no info on the Tank Mastery Trait that tanks have since that is automatic 20% damage reduction, so the math is probably a bit skewed there at least for mitigation...

Most people have no clue how the stats work and just follow the meta. The meta stems from the balance discord which pushes max DPS above all. People keep repeating it and using the best in slot gearsets without understanding them. The reason the balance promotes DPS is because a lot of them rush the content and spend more time optimizing and less time progressing. So they talk about progression less. People mistake this for progression being less important.

Tenacity is a fine progression stat. I wouldn't focus on tenacity for your gear, but melding tenacity works great. Then you just swap over to DPS as you get better gear. You burn like 1% damage to get 2-3% damage reduction. It doesn't seem like a lot, but when it counts it saves a run. It covers for little mistakes on tank or healer.

Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn't, and most people don't understand things well enough to know when to use it.

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Originally Posted by DRKoftheAzure

@Reinhardt_Azureheim there is no info on the Tank Mastery Trait that tanks have since that is automatic 20% damage reduction, so the math is probably a bit skewed there at least for mitigation...

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The tank mastery trait that got introduced into Shadowbringers merely presents a baseline / fixated amount of mitigation and is supposed to fill the gap that the former tank stances left. Mitigation strength got adjusted accross the board (like Dark Mind and PLD Block only being 20% instead of 30%) to accomodate this passive trait for pre-SHB content (particularly Stormblood Ultimates). The only time you take Tank Mastery's mitigation into account is if you compare a tank to a non-tank, but not when comparing damage taken between tanks.

Furthermore to nail down the effect of this trait:
- Stormblood and prior: remaining mitigation got adjusted to accomodate a permanent -20% mitigation compared to devs expecting us to use DPS stance and giving us stronger % mitigation in return.
- Shadowbringers and beyond: damage calculations for tankbusters already take into account you having this trait, so effectively it is like us being in DPS stance in HW and SB, no difference.

TL;DR: We dont calculate Tank Mastery into basic calculation. Instead, the damage without additional mitigation is being presented as the new 100% instead.

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Originally Posted by Warskull

Most people have no clue how the stats work and just follow the meta. The meta stems from the balance discord which pushes max DPS above all. People keep repeating it and using the best in slot gearsets without understanding them. The reason the balance promotes DPS is because a lot of them rush the content and spend more time optimizing and less time progressing. So they talk about progression less. People mistake this for progression being less important.

Tenacity is a fine progression stat. I wouldn't focus on tenacity for your gear, but melding tenacity works great. Then you just swap over to DPS as you get better gear. You burn like 1% damage to get 2-3% damage reduction. It doesn't seem like a lot, but when it counts it saves a run. It covers for little mistakes on tank or healer.

Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn't, and most people don't understand things well enough to know when to use it.

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This isn't purely about Balance promoting DPS-efficient stats, this is also about Tenacity at large not being useful as a mitigation stat outside of Ultimate or the final floor of the current Savage tier. Running a max Tenacity build does end up reducing your total dps by I believe 2-3%, but as you describe, it isn't as groundbreaking. But even so, the gain from using Tenacity is hardly ever worth it. The last time I saw some tanks going for a high Tenacity build was The Epic of Alexander (a friend of mine to be precise, who also happens to be among the players pushing high DPS), and even there it is hardly needed for progression.

And regarding melding Tenacity, keep in mind it takes 330 Tenacity per full percent (both damage and mitigation), so this would be 5.5 Tenacity VIII Materia you'd need to use, which given how small that increase is, could be spent better. Tenacity on gear is fine, but ideally you use a Crit Tenacity piece, with Det Tenacity being "ok too". The only time you should meld Tenacity if you go for a maximum Tenacity set and you can increase it further with melds (if not maxed out) or if you are Warrior and your Crit + Det on a piece is maxed out already and you have the Skillspeed you desire.

Also I would like to note that while Balance discord generally gives tips on how to improve your DPS, it is also helping people with questions other than DPS, such as "how do I do this mechanic" or "how should I use mitigation in a fight to get the best out of it?" or "I feel weak / I die a lot, I am probably doing something wrong, can you help me analyze how I play?". Even encounter-specific tips are given if asked for.

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Originally Posted by TwitchingFool0

I'm someone that's fairly new when it comes to tanking and I don't think I've had a full explanation as to why its not used much. I noticed some people complaining about the new Eden gear having Tenacity over Determination.

Anyone care to explain both their differences and why one is used over the other one to me?

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In terms of having the same boost of damage as from some tenacity value, you need only 70% or so determination. The issue with tenacity is that its mitigation is in practice not something making real difference - so the tradeoff has little sense. It's essentially dump-into stat as soon as you filled up the rest and reached your desired sks tier.

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

First of, as different damage buffs and stats work multiplicative (i.e. (20% + 20% = 44%, not 40%), so does mitigation. But the catch with mitigation unlike damage is that instead of getting greater results by stacking multiple damage multipliers, mitigation is victim to diminishing returns..

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You get the same amount of benefit. There is no diminishing return.

20% Mitigation = 125% EHP.
36% Mitigation = 156.25% EHP (A 25% gain from the previous)
51.2% Mitigation = 195.3% EHP (a 25% gain from the previous)

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

You get the same amount of benefit. There is no diminishing return.

20% Mitigation = 125% EHP.
36% Mitigation = 156.25% EHP (A 25% gain from the previous)
51.2% Mitigation = 195.3% EHP (a 25% gain from the previous)

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While your theory is correct and relative to each previous step it is a steady increase of +25% eHP (and relative to the original it grows exponentially), the reason we call it "diminishing returns" has nothing to do with eHP; the core of the explanation was "you can't reach -100% damage taken stacking %-based cooldowns because of the calculation being multiplicative, not additive", i.e. 20% + 20% =/= 40% but 36%.

Apart from that, you mistyped the 3rd mitigation. That should be 48.8% mitigation (51.2% remaining) to give 195.31% effective HP; 51.2% mitigation would be 200%+ eHP.

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

While your theory is correct and relative to each previous step it is a steady increase of +25% eHP (and relative to the original it grows exponentially), the reason we call it "diminishing returns" has nothing to do with eHP; the core of the explanation was "you can't reach -100% damage taken stacking %-based cooldowns because of the calculation being multiplicative, not additive", i.e. 20% + 20% =/= 40% but 36%.

Apart from that, you mistyped the 3rd mitigation. That should be 48.8% mitigation (51.2% remaining) to give 195.31% effective HP; 51.2% mitigation would be 200%+ eHP.

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Yeah, I mixed one up.

But that's also not what diminishing returns means. It means your effective gain is less. The effective gain is the same.

If it wasn't a geometric ratio, then you'd have increasing returns.

Right now it's neutral. Each gain is the proportional same as the prior - not diminishing.

For example

Stacking Direct Hit is diminishing return, even if no soft cap is applied.

1% DH is .25% average damage increase. At 10% DH you have a 2.5% increase of damage.

Our current baseline is [0], but we'll use [5] instead because it plays nice. 0 to anything is an infinite increase.

Every additional % of DH from the previous is 'less effective'.

5% -> 10%: "100% more chance"
10% -> 15%: "50% more chance"
15% -> 20%: "33% more chance"

Linear scaling improvement such as DH, Offensive Tenacity, and Determination have diminishing returns. That's before a softcap is applied.

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Originally Posted by Warskull

Most people have no clue how the stats work and just follow the meta. The meta stems from the balance discord which pushes max DPS above all. People keep repeating it and using the best in slot gearsets without understanding them. The reason the balance promotes DPS is because a lot of them rush the content and spend more time optimizing and less time progressing. So they talk about progression less. People mistake this for progression being less important.

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The problem there is that in progression the two things that seem to cause the most wipes are, and in order:

1. Learning the mechanics. Stand here, stack there, move to there and face that way...
2. Beating the enrage timer.

You spend about 5/6ths of progression just learning where to stand when... and then the final 6th is getting past the wipes that keep happening when the boss is at 1% or less...

That is why even progression starts to hyper focus on DPS...


If tenacity was to mean more...

Incoming damage would need to outpace all possible healing even outside of tankbusters. A boss auto-attack hitting a non-tank would need to be a death, 2-3 hits from a 'trash mob' likewise (and raids here don't even have trash mobs... so that's basically a moot point)...

And tanks would only be able to survive by stacking a lot of mitigation...

Then you would have to reduce their DPS contribution, and likewise that of healers... so that it was rarely useful for them to focus on DPSing... and do this without making them unplayable when solo leveling...

Basically you'd need a game design similar to WoW of about 10-years ago (but not modern WoW)...

And it's not really a sure thing that's a good idea... no actively-updated game has that kind of design anymore.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

You get the same amount of benefit. There is no diminishing return.

20% Mitigation = 125% EHP.
36% Mitigation = 156.25% EHP (A 25% gain from the previous)
51.2% Mitigation = 195.3% EHP (a 25% gain from the previous)

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The point is that stacking mitigation will mitigate less damage than if you were to use them separately, whereas the opposite is true for damage buffs. Effective HP is a separate matter; it is not equivalent to mitigation.

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Linear scaling improvement such as DH, Offensive Tenacity, and Determination have diminishing returns.

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This statement contradicts itself. Linear scaling is, by definition, not subject to diminishing returns.

The damage you would gain from increasing your direct hit rate from 5% to 10% is the same as the damage you would gain from increasing your direct hit rate from 10% to 15%. The relative increase in direct hit rate is entirely irrelevant with regards to actual output (damage).

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Originally Posted by Argyle_Darkheart

Stuff.

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I feel like we're tackling the same thing from different sides.

I say DR doesn't apply to mitigation because EHP increases at a proportional amount, while you say it is because the raw damage itself is decreased for each additional instance.

I say DR applies to things like DHit because the relative increase is smaller for the same budget, while you're saying it's not because the raw increase is the same.

I remember reading a post once where someone actually went ahead and did the math. They legit went out of their way to get the maximum tenacity a tank could possibly get, and worked out the damage reduction. And the result you get from sacrificing all that extra potential critical hit damage is... about 11% less damage received.

So yeah, if you feel like 150k HP and a bunch of cooldowns isn't enough for you, then I guess you can try for tenacity.

It just bothers me to no end that I once heard one of the staff say something along the lines of: "Tenacity will appear useless at first, but it will be extremely useful the more you get of it." Instead, what we get is a useless stat that offers practically nothing compared to the other stats.

Tenacity's damage mitigation is not good enough to warrant investing into.

My gripe with tenacity is that its a wasted stat IMO and it should just be built in and not a meldable option.

Maybe if they doubled the damage reduction from this stat then it would be picked, but right now its really meh.

To be fair, if you're not doing Savage meld as you like. Ten will occasionally make a fatal hit a close-call, which can happen more in Normal content where groups aren't as predictable and the dps stats will give you +1-2% dps. There are very few enrage timers or real dps checks on Normal, so the chance your dps melds saved a wipe are probably the same as the chance your Ten melds kept you hanging in there on 1k health to recover a messy run and save a wipe. Pick your preference.

On Savage and above, enrage timers and dps checks are very real and mechanics (done correctly) are designed to be survivable and easily healed even with 0 Ten (done incorrectly you die regardless), so the dps melds are absolutely superior.

People ranting about too much Tenacity on Normal Eden are just spouting things they read on a guide without a real understanding of it.

Because there’s no reason to. Kill the boss faster to take less damage and DPS checks sound over tuned. Again.

Outside of progression there’s no real reason to have it and even then that’s a maybe.

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Originally Posted by Derio

Tenacity's damage mitigation is not good enough to warrant investing into.

My gripe with tenacity is that its a wasted stat IMO and it should just be built in and not a meldable option.

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Considering that Tenacity is a good budget materia meld stat if you can't afford say Critical Hit or Direct Hit Rate materia from the market board...

And I only really go for Tenacity for guaranteed DPS boost of the RNG nature of Direct Hit Rate...

I was wondering if I should do a tenacity meld for Ruby EX. Seems like it might be helpful for the ad tank buster and for the meteor.

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Originally Posted by Acesfool

I was wondering if I should do a tenacity meld for Ruby EX. Seems like it might be helpful for the ad tank buster and for the meteor.

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Tenacity shines with the adds' tankbuster in phase 2, particularly during progression. That tankbuster hits extremely hard and a missed cooldown or a healer having you not quite topped off can easily result in your death. Some tenacity really helps smooth out mistakes here. There is a ton of incoming damage and mistakes by the DPS will have your healers struggling to keep up. Eventually you get to the point where you don't need it anymore, but it helps on the road to learning the fight.

With the meteor it doesn't help so much and your healers clean that up with AoE. Proper stacking is necessary here.

Personally OP, as a Tank, I couldn't care less about damage, and I will always go for the mod that gives me more defense. I remember reading that 2000 Tenacity gives you about 5-6% more mitigation, and that's good enough for me, so in my many years of playing I have always melded it (since it was introduced) and I will always meld it. It all comes down to your personal playstyle, mod your gear in whatever way you desire.

When it comes to mods OP, there's no objective "right" answer, if someone tries to tell you there is, don't pay them any mind because they're most likely a narcissist & have no clue what they are talking about. The difference in stats that mods give you in general (no matter what stat you mod) are very minor, and will not have any significant effect on gameplay. Game on buddy!

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

Because there’s no reason to. Kill the boss faster to take less damage and DPS checks sound over tuned. Again.

Outside of progression there’s no real reason to have it and even then that’s a maybe.

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Hmm, I disagree with that stance, your damage intake only matters as long as the boss is alive, imo you can't really say that the boss's death is mitigation. The moment the boss goes down, it's a totally different situation...

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Originally Posted by TheForce

Hmm, I disagree with that stance, your damage intake only matters as long as the boss is alive, imo you can't really say that the boss's death is mitigation. The moment the boss goes down, it's a totally different situation...

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Everywhere I look it's always "Damage damage damage damage damage".

There's no reason to have a couple extra bits of HP when you need that damage to push phase change or beat enrage it seems.

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

Everywhere I look it's always "Damage damage damage damage damage".

There's no reason to have a couple extra bits of HP when you need that damage to push phase change or beat enrage it seems.

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you have mitigation tools. use them more wisely before overstating the value of TEN as a stat. Everything happens when it will happen, and can have mitigation from everyone mapped accordingly.

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Originally Posted by WhyAmIHere

you have mitigation tools. use them more wisely before overstating the value of TEN as a stat. Everything happens when it will happen, and can have mitigation from everyone mapped accordingly.

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If anything I’m understating the stat and I’m not u sure how you got the impression otherwise. Any extra bit of damage will help push through engrage timers and DPS checks, TEN doesn’t help as much. All I said earlier was that it might help with progression, letting the tanks soak another hit or two and just see more of the fight. But even then, I’m not 100% sure it’s worth it.

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Originally Posted by Warskull

Tenacity shines with the adds' tankbuster in phase 2, particularly during progression. That tankbuster hits extremely hard and a missed cooldown or a healer having you not quite topped off can easily result in your death. Some tenacity really helps smooth out mistakes here. There is a ton of incoming damage and mistakes by the DPS will have your healers struggling to keep up. Eventually you get to the point where you don't need it anymore, but it helps on the road to learning the fight.

With the meteor it doesn't help so much and your healers clean that up with AoE. Proper stacking is necessary here.

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Yeah, when I said meteors I meant to say comets. It sucks that you can't use any abilities while "holding" the comet because if you pop invuln too early it doesn't do much good and if you wait too long you can't use it at all. I have enough materia that I can redo my gear several times over so I think I'll give tenacity a try. Thanks for the info.

I'd go for it, if the defense boost was alright.

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Originally Posted by Acesfool

Yeah, when I said meteors I meant to say comets. It sucks that you can't use any abilities while "holding" the comet because if you pop invuln too early it doesn't do much good and if you wait too long you can't use it at all. I have enough materia that I can redo my gear several times over so I think I'll give tenacity a try. Thanks for the info.

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For the comets do not stand in the final spot. Stand by it near the boss. Once it hits the final spot it glows, you actually have about 2 seconds to pick it up. So you don't have to worry about timing it. You see the final spot, pop hallowed then rampart, then step in it. You get almost 10s of invuln then an addition 10 seconds of 20% damage reduction.

Plus this lets your team focus all DPS on the other tanks comet at the start, that makes the phase go quite smooth. Tenacity probably helps a bit for the other tanks, but as a PLD there is no better place to use hallowed in the 2nd half of the fight.

The big difference is in how damage vs defense is valued, due to enemies having insane health pools relative to players.
Having 5% more defense won’t allow you to survive a single extra hit without dying, which makes it functionally useless (I’m pretty sure this is also true of all the 10% DR cooldowns, which is strange). Say your tank would normally die from eating a mechanic followed by a tank buster; having that extra defense won’t stop that from killing you. If one mechanic takes like 70% of your health, and Tenacity reduces that to 67%, you’ll still die in the same number of hits.
Having a couple extra % of damage though actually will shorten the length of a fight, even if it is only by an insignificant sum.
It also won’t reduce damage taken enough to reduce the number of heals needed to get you back to full health.

The only way to make Tenacity relevant would be to either increase the damage reduction to a massive number, like 3x what it is now. Or make tanks have so much defense in general that keeping them alive is a non-issue, and extra defense just means more damage and less healing from the healers over the course of a fight.