ARR Attack Magic Damage Test (beta3) Int, dtr & acc

[Molly_Millions]

That's certainly true. In some ways this is a academic debate, since at cap materia levels, you can pretty much guarentee 3-4 capped stats (though now that information about sub-caps on materia for stats outside of gear affinity has come out, you may be able to cap more). Based on what I know right now - which could change at any moment - I would cap Strength, then Parry, then Dexterity, then Mind, then Piety on PLD; Strength, then Vitality, then Parry, then Critical Accuracy, then Dexterity on MRD.

As you said, Strength really does reign supreme right now as a tanking stat; it grants damage reduction, more enmity, and allows you to be a meaningful damage dealer (though still lacking when compared to dedicated damage dealers).

Parry seems to have excellent returns on investment, increasing parry rates by 6-7% with +80 Parry in my test, which is incredibly easy to come by, it's also relatively easy to cap for PLDs.

Dexterity is still a black horse here as far as I am concerned, but the small imporvements I saw could have easily been due to the low levels of Dex, and honestly, it's probably still worth the effort when compared to Vitality, since Vitality comes so easily.

Perhaps this is my old FFXI days talking, but I also think PLDs would see some valuable returns on investment at late levels by bringing their Mind and Piety up closer to at level values; I'd want to see how healing enmity compares to spamming WSs to be sure on that one though.

MRD on the other hand, is going to benifit more heavily from raw increases in survivability, as well as attack power improvements to better the chances of a burst of HP absorb, so I would rate Vitality much higher and add Critical Accuracy in to have better HP absorption rates.

Funny you mentioned the bolded part. I parsed several ifrit fights during the last test and was no.1 DD as WAR in every one of them.

In all honesty, I think there are several different ways you can make a build and be effective. The most important thing to remember when doing so is to pick a hierarchy for your stats and stick with it for every piece of gear. It has to do with the low stat caps, and the small returns from each stat. I think this was an intentional design choice, because in 1.0 there was basically 1 way to gear each job and that was it. Now at least we have some flexibility, even if the returns are negligible.

*Edit: As Deli says above the best thing to do is to avoid getting hit in the first place. As tanks, we're given some moves so that we can stun, and stop big damage attacks. Also, running away is a completely valid strategy. :P We don't have to just stand there and eat attacks.