Feelings on Dex?! (Gryphonskin accessories)

[Gamemako]

I ask because spending all this money on a set that is marginally better after a significant amount of melding is going to leave him dissatisfied - the gains aren't as huge as you think.

I never said they were large. I really don't know what you're on about here.

Just swapping your 30 point allotment around can show you you'd need more than just 30~ stats to make a change (regarding DEX/Parry/DET)... The same applies for DEX 29/30 DEX ~ 1/2% or +.01 to that there Parry Rating.

You clearly have not tested this at all. If you look at what meager data exists, Dexterity would be worth more than Parry. We do not have anything resembling a working formula at this time, but it's clear that "+0.01 to that there Parry Rating" is off by at least two orders of magnitude. Ninjiitsu's testing found an increase of 3.5% parry chance (relative 14.1% increase in parrying rate) by adding 30 points into dexterity.

None of the data is all that good, but for what's there, DEX adds a non-trivial portion to parry chance. We just don't really know how it works.

I wish people would understand that damage avoidance is pointless for a tank unless it is 100%.

That is incorrect. A tank who can withstand all hits in the game is ineffective if it cannot reduce healing load -- healers just go OOM and your party dies. eHP is not the end-all-be-all, it's just one facet of tanking. You must have aggro generation, burst eHP, and mitigation all if you are to be an effective tank.

In Valk's old testing STR gains to parry/block reduction jumps in tiers, and each tier is 1% reduction. Lets assume that holds true for DEXs effect on parry/block chance also.

That is not a valid assumption. It would be best to consider a possible build and see if reaching a parry strength tier is feasible, then consider a possible parry rate increase as a result. The real problem here is figuring out how much VIT is really needed, and however much you can avoid using can go into other stats. If you need all the VIT to withstand a hit, then it's a bit of a meaningless question.

EHP is more important than AHP.

AHP is not a valid metric. It would be something like Schrödinger's cat -- somewhere, that tank is both dead and alive.