Why Crit for tanks?

So why do the BiS websites have Crit materia for tanks? They don't outdamage any of the DPS, why wouldn't it be best to put in tenacity or determination?

Because crit provides more DPS regardless of role so it’s the best for every role

Just because tanks don’t do as much DPS as DPS doesn’t mean doing more DPS isn’t better

Yeah it's a bit of a shame that secondary stats don't at least diversify more (meaning different jobs value different stats the most), instead it's always Crit > Det >=/=/> DH >= Ten (IIRC, after they buffed it? Could still be '>').

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Originally Posted by MrSnow288

So why do the BiS websites have Crit materia for tanks? They don't outdamage any of the DPS, why wouldn't it be best to put in tenacity or determination?

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Tank damage while it doesn't "out damage" DPS is still pretty strong, around 60-70% worth of a DPS values, Tank and Healer dps matter a lot towards a enrage, one tank and one healer together would even outdps one dps, so it's very important to damage on both roles.

Tenacity isn't picked because tanks already have more then enough mitigation to the point of having more is just useless, the damage gain is smaller then determination, which on det you don't use as much as Crit/Dh. So you almost never want tenacity, even if its mitigation benefits sound good on paper it's not.

Determination is a decent stat, but tanks would rather have Direct hit because they lack Direct hit without melds because tank gear doesn't have them built in, this stat might be better on DPS due to them having direct hit built into gear

Stat priority is Critical hit > Direct hit > Determination > Tenacity/Skill Speed. (sometimes skill speed is fine, though on jobs like PLD who use spells you 100% want to avoid it if you can).

Stat priority is just based on max damage, because in ff14 damage is the most important even on tanks and healers, crit is great because a burst critical hit attack does a lot of damage and crit scales better then any other stat.

Dead things can't hit back, therefore dps=mit.

A tank's base kit is enough to allow them to tank anything. It's better to just kill things faster hence why all jobs—including tanks and healers—try to maximize DPS.

Allow me to introduce you to the highly interesting materia stats of FFXIV:
You have:

+damage
+damage(again)
+damage (worse)
+damage (somehow even worse, tanks only, marginally more tanky but your CDs do the heavy lifting so who cares)
+skill/spell speed (borderline abandoned concept)
+piety (lol)

Crit/DH just happen to be the best +damages

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Originally Posted by Oizen

Allow me to introduce you to the highly interesting materia stats of FFXIV:
You have:

+damage
+damage(again)
+damage (worse)
+damage (somehow even worse, tanks only, marginally more tanky but your CDs do the heavy lifting so who cares)
+skill/spell speed (borderline abandoned concept)
+piety (lol)

Crit/DH just happen to be the best +damages

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Makes me sad to see skill/spell speed be pretty much useless in favour of Critical hit, Honestly Critical/direct hit are such boring stats that don't have any effect on gameplay... actually I despise depending more of getting crits in burst.

Imagine if tenacity was a serious consideration ever... that would actually be interesting but because tanks are so survivable and DPS checks are so important it becomes a stat that has no purpose.

I really wish that stats felt more intresting... at the very least I much rather have speed builds be more viable rather then stacking critical hit, it's such a boring design.

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

Imagine if tenacity was a serious consideration ever... that would actually be interesting but because tanks are so survivable and DPS checks are so important it becomes a stat that has no purpose.

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As Tenacity stands, if you want to make it a more serious pick, you either need to improve the damage gain, which, at the end of the day, just changes the stat priority, the other is increasing the damage mitigation. Now, this is a slightly more interesting prospect, but it end up in a similar situation to what accuracy used to be, ie. you get enough to go past a specific threshold, then you pick something else. It does come with the fact you have to then work out what combination of gear gives you that minimum, whilst then giving you the best damage increase. This would then just be put into a calculator that spits out the best gear combination with materia melds. It isn't an interesting prospect either way as it doesn't change how you play.

Unless you want to give Tenacity a new use, there isn't really anything interesting that could come from it (and I am ignoring the healing aspect, it really isn't something that needs to be taken into account, ie. the more Tenacity you have, the less damage you take, which means the extra healing is more likely to go to waste).

I am someone who would like more variety in stats and how jobs gear up. In my opinion, it is going to require more than just changing what stats do, it needs a change in how jobs are designed in general. But giving you the option of making a fast build or a more crit orientated build. Split Crit into Drit damage and Crit Rate, Direct hit is changed to reflect one of these (Critical Hit Rate determines the % and Direct Hit determines the damage). Tenacity, Piety and Determination could then be the role specific stats. Tenacity can do what it does now, Piety should add additional healing and have a damage increase and then Determination would primarily be a flat damage increase, but it could also add a very small amount of crit/DH (I didn't want to keep it as just a flat damage and this was the nest in a 10 second think, feel free to improve).

I don't really want to make a long post explaining jobs in more detail, but this would be a start in making things more interesting.

I think a neat idea to make Tenacity actually useful would be to give dungeon and raid bosses the chance to crit with auto-attacks for like +200% damage, with Tenacity reducing the chance of crits landing on the tank, in addition to its current effects.

Keep the required amount to reach crit immunity consistent throughout the expansion (like say 2400 for Dawntrail) so that going back to previous tiers doesn't feel like you're completely wasting stats. As your ilvl goes up, it just means you can afford to go after more pieces that lack Tenacity or not meld as much of it.

And for more daring players that trust their healers to keep them alive, the option of going for more DPS is still there in exchange for survivability.

because the only thing that matter in this game, whatever your role is, is all about doing damage.

To the op.

There are three types of mitigation in this game

Tank dps and healer shields

Support skills like arms length

And finally your dps. More damage you do faster things die.

Because crit not only affects damage but the crit rate of your self healing. All tanks have some form of self healing. For tenacity to be worth it, it would have to be much greater value.

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Originally Posted by Derio

Because crit not only affects damage but the crit rate of your self healing. All tanks have some form of self healing. For tenacity to be worth it, it would have to be much greater value.

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No one picks crit or direct hit for self healing though they pick it for damage.

So if you're doing stuff with party, damage is always the option, which means crit has prio and after that its going for dh/det balance.

However if you were to do solo challenges, i believe tenacity is actually the best option.

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Originally Posted by ThurinTurambar

So if you're doing stuff with party, damage is always the option, which means crit has prio and after that its going for dh/det balance.

However if you were to do solo challenges, i believe tenacity is actually the best option.

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Tenacity scales so slowly, you would still be better off with your normal melds. The mitigation you have is going to be more than enough to cover what you need and in most cases, you do still want to win as fast as possible.

Because the game doesn't throw anything at tanks that requires them to take defensive stats so killing faster is the best way to go. Can't really think of any mechanics in recent history that has wiped the group due to them not having enough HP / defense, but there are multiple accounts showing how groups wipe to enrages due to not having enough DPS.

Reason 2 is that no mechanics require additional defense outside of the standard tool kit a job has.

Reason 3 is that the rule of having enough defense and then put the rest into offensive stats is and probably will always be a thing. The amount of defense directly correlates to the amount of forced damage you take and the mistakes you make. Can be applied to just about any game that has these stats. The same can be said for accuracy, even though this stat no longer exists

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

Imagine if tenacity was a serious consideration ever... that would actually be interesting but because tanks are so survivable and DPS checks are so important it becomes a stat that has no purpose.

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The problem is that by all accounts tenacity should already be a serious consideration. It's numerical effects are already super strong, people joke about the 5%-6% extra mit, but that's flat mit based on already taking only 60% or less of the damage, so in reality it's 10% reduction, an amount you really should not sneeze at plus it increases damage and healing by 4%-5% on top of that.

The only problem is... a defensive stat in a game that never tests this defense ever is inherently useless. The issue with tenacity is not that the stat in itself is weak, rather that the mitigation-buffing part of it has no functional effect as the incoming damage to tanks is never the problem of their players, the damage they deal to the boss is.

If bosses dealt significant (and I mean significant, 200%-500% of current damage output if not even more) damage ot the tanks like in many other MMOs, then yeah, skipping tenacity for damage stats would be a tricky choice to make. Something for organized groups and stuff. For the offtank of the group probably, the maintank would want to stack tenacity so they don't die to AoE hits after a badly-timed autoattack they didn't mitigate at the time.

The goal isn't to deal more damage than a DPS. The goal is to contribute as much damage as possible because, unless fights start being designed differently, damage reigns supreme. The faster you kill a boss, the better.

Besides, tank DPS isn't as low as one might expect. Some jobs like Dancer barely do more.

intrinsically the less damage the tank takes, the less the healer has to heal, now do healers out dps tanks? probably not, but I'm sure they'd appreciate it. besides, I can heal myself.

this makes even more sense on trash mobs, because the pld can heal oneself, whereas the healer probably wants to enfeeble or aoe or something. Half the healers are probably just filling the role to get a dungeon spot and do not actually main heal, so once again, putting less weight on their shoulders makes sense.

Now IDK about you, I am not very far in the game, but I am experienced, I did play 1.0 and beta, I did master FFXI, I know my stuff.

With a full tenacity build I was able to solo T1-T5 completing all but T5 before level 62. I used dark knight for the kill but I used PLD/WAR frequently for the rest

My point is, in my scenario, I wouldn't have done it any other way. I geared for tenacity implictly, reaching practically 1000 ten at such a low level. This made my souleaters strong enough to outlast twintania's enrage. I'll delve into this deeper on a future note but my preference is, TEN > SKILL > DET > CRIT > DIRECT TMYK

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Originally Posted by Rajah

intrinsically the less damage the tank takes, the less the healer has to heal, now do healers out dps tanks? probably not, but I'm sure they'd appreciate it. besides, I can heal myself.

this makes even more sense on trash mobs, because the pld can heal oneself, whereas the healer probably wants to enfeeble or aoe or something. Half the healers are probably just filling the role to get a dungeon spot and do not actually main heal, so once again, putting less weight on their shoulders makes sense.

Now IDK about you, I am not very far in the game, but I am experienced, I did play 1.0 and beta, I did master FFXI, I know my stuff.

With a full tenacity build I was able to solo T1-T5 completing all but T5 before level 62. I used dark knight for the kill but I used PLD/WAR frequently for the rest

My point is, in my scenario, I wouldn't have done it any other way. I geared for tenacity implictly, reaching practically 1000 ten at such a low level. This made my souleaters strong enough to outlast twintania's enrage. I'll delve into this deeper on a future note but my preference is, TEN > SKILL > DET > CRIT > DIRECT TMYK

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Unfortunately, as logical as it might seem for a tank to take less damage to lessen the burden for the healers, it only really matters if you're doing lower level content with an inexperienced healer.

At higher levels, both tanks and healers have a multitude of available tools which makes healing a tank, that rotates cooldowns properly, into child's play. This is why CRIT > DHT > DET is the general go-to in higher level content, because there's nothing challenging the tanks and even if something did, the healers have an abundance of OGCDs to keep the healing up without needing to lose uptime on the boss/trash.

Basically, if you pick up TEN or DET, you will deal less damage and bore the healers even more than they already are.

Furthermore, at harder content like Savage and such, the deciding factor for defeating the encounter boils down to killing the boss before their enrage and the faster you can do so, the easier a time everyone will have, including the healers. Even on the most hard-hitting fights, I get by fine with the skills I have available, and even if a healer might have to GCD heal my co-tank, we both need to focus on damage to actually beat certain phases in time. I have seen plenty of 0.5% wipes and gearing defensively would only widen that gap.

So all in all, tanks and healers both have enough tools to keep tanks alive without TEN/DET, which is why extra damage in the form of exponentially scaling CRIT is preferred.

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Originally Posted by Rajah

intrinsically the less damage the tank takes, the less the healer has to heal, now do healers out dps tanks? probably not, but I'm sure they'd appreciate it. besides, I can heal myself.

this makes even more sense on trash mobs, because the pld can heal oneself, whereas the healer probably wants to enfeeble or aoe or something. Half the healers are probably just filling the role to get a dungeon spot and do not actually main heal, so once again, putting less weight on their shoulders makes sense.

Now IDK about you, I am not very far in the game, but I am experienced, I did play 1.0 and beta, I did master FFXI, I know my stuff.

With a full tenacity build I was able to solo T1-T5 completing all but T5 before level 62. I used dark knight for the kill but I used PLD/WAR frequently for the rest

My point is, in my scenario, I wouldn't have done it any other way. I geared for tenacity implictly, reaching practically 1000 ten at such a low level. This made my souleaters strong enough to outlast twintania's enrage. I'll delve into this deeper on a future note but my preference is, TEN > SKILL > DET > CRIT > DIRECT TMYK

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The problem is healers have so many OGCD heals that throwing a few heals at the tank doesn't cut into the amount of DPS they can do. For healers that do need use a GCD to heal, it builds up to a stronger attack to make up for the DPS loss, such as White Mage and their lilies.

As for soloing old content, later fights have tight DPS checks due to adds tethering to each other or a lack of bodies to handle certain mechanics. All that extra tenacity doesn't mean anything if you're unable to kill an add that enrages in a few seconds and then smacks you for 99999999 damage, ignoring immunities.

Also tank survivability is a 0-1 problem. Lets say we are introduced to a problem where both tanks are spent out of their cooldowns and boss enters a phase where it 2-shots tanks with the auto attacks, but a certain amount of tenacity makes it a 3 shot instead. What would happen is the tanks would meld exactly the amount of tenacity needed for that to happen and not a single point more, rest would go into damage.

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Originally Posted by ThurinTurambar

Also tank survivability is a 0-1 problem. Lets say we are introduced to a problem where both tanks are spent out of their cooldowns and boss enters a phase where it 2-shots tanks with the auto attacks, but a certain amount of tenacity makes it a 3 shot instead. What would happen is the tanks would meld exactly the amount of tenacity needed for that to happen and not a single point more, rest would go into damage.

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This is also why it is inherently problematic for the tanks to do more damage when not focusing on using GCDs on defense (which they can't in this game, so let's assume 100% is spent on damage) than when the healers are doing the same.

You need for tanks to want to make the healers heal less, because that's a gain in damage. But it isn't, tanks gearing for max damage is more efficient overall.

Personally, I miss the days of accuracy thresholds. It forced players to actually think about substats and making certain gear choices while working towards BiS. Missing an ability and doing 0 damage (and possibly breaking a combo) made accuracy THE #1 stat up to a point. Then it was useless. However, it made gear selection more interesting. However, I think SE realized players don't want to put that much thought into gear.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

It forced players to actually think about substats

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How so? Unless with "think" you actually meant "follow a guide, blindly".

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Originally Posted by Carighan

How so? Unless with "think" you actually meant "follow a guide, blindly".

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The guides only had the starting point, BIS and maybe 1 or 2 recomendet steps to goe from start to BIS. But we had to decide if we change a Ring early and get a small DPS loss or wait until we get the Boots from the Raid to change the Ring without a DPS loss. It was not a "follow the guide, blindly" as it is today but a equipment by equipoment choice when we equip them and how to change the Materia to get the wanted results.

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Originally Posted by Asdif_Laoeg

It was not a "follow the guide, blindly" as it is today but a equipment by equipoment choice when we equip them and how to change the Materia to get the wanted results.

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Nice rose-colored goggles, but it was actually just follow the guide. Maybe not blindly, granted, you need to read/see the guide.

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Originally Posted by Asdif_Laoeg

The guides only had the starting point, BIS and maybe 1 or 2 recomendet steps to goe from start to BIS. But we had to decide if we change a Ring early and get a small DPS loss or wait until we get the Boots from the Raid to change the Ring without a DPS loss. It was not a "follow the guide, blindly" as it is today but a equipment by equipoment choice when we equip them and how to change the Materia to get the wanted results.

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I remember old raiding gear not having materia slots. Only crafted gear could be melded, which made it really annoying trying to hit those accuracy thresholds as you had to use lower ilvl pieces. Not only that, but harder content required a lot more accuracy, so you either had to swap pieces or just go in with wasted stats when doing older content.

This was so inconvenient for healers that SE had to start putting bonus accuracy on their gear. This is why a lot of late ARR healing gear has direct hit as a third stat on it.

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Originally Posted by Espon

I remember old raiding gear not having materia slots. Only crafted gear could be melded, which made it really annoying trying to hit those accuracy thresholds as you had to use lower ilvl pieces. Not only that, but harder content required a lot more accuracy, so you either had to swap pieces or just go in with wasted stats when doing older content.

This was so inconvenient for healers that SE had to start putting bonus accuracy on their gear. This is why a lot of late ARR healing gear has direct hit as a third stat on it.

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Materia slots were added part way through HW, though I don't remember exactly when.

Tanks also had it rough. Enemies had different accuracy requirements based on where you attack the boss, rear had a lower accuracy requirement compared to flank, then front had it even higher. Since tanks had to account for being infront of the boss, more gear/materia had to be dedicated to accuracy. They tried to alleviate this by adding increased accuracy on tank stance (+5% IIRC), but since everyone was tanking without tank stance, it didn't make a difference.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

Personally, I miss the days of accuracy thresholds. It forced players to actually think about substats and making certain gear choices while working towards BiS. Missing an ability and doing 0 damage (and possibly breaking a combo) made accuracy THE #1 stat up to a point. Then it was useless. However, it made gear selection more interesting. However, I think SE realized players don't want to put that much thought into gear.

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It was not just accuracy, it was also vitality.
Back when tanks could use dps accessories, and those had no vit on them, you had to figure out how much health you needed (or how little you could get away with) for a fight to comfortably do your main job, not dying to tank mechanics, while putting as much into more damage as possible.

It wasn't super interesting either, but it added a few more considerations to "stack as much crit as possible".

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