It's been informed to me that WAR's wearing STR gear isn't correct.

[Mishini_Dracoto]

STR is fine, but you have to be aware of the fight and the group. Shiva is a fight in which your extra STR probably will not do a whole lot. Since you will be mainly focusing on not dying and tanks swapping and positioning, ect. Your DPS uptime is limited.

But anyone who doesnt understand the value of STR and what it brings to the group on WAR is misinformed. Pure VIT is not the answer. I do Shiva in full STR gear, except shiva tank bracelet since it dropped and is an upgrade. 15/15 for spec too.

I feel like the opposite is true. Shiva doesn't require a significant amount of dodging. Whether you are tankign Staff or Sword, at most you dodge (the ice version of slipstream), when she first pulls out her bow you run through her, and when she drops the circles on the ground you move so you either onl get hit once or not at all. In those circumsances, you are never far from Shiva, and you go right back to DPS'ing. As a WAR, I typically OT spamming SE & SP Combo's. When I take threat, I will either SE + BB or SP + BB, depending on how much damage I'm taking. Shiva Ex is probably SP.

That said, I did find that Shiva typically hits fairly hard, so I farmed her in VIT Accessories. If I had the i90 Crafted accessories fully melded, it might have been a different story.

[Lemage]

If you understand when to switch between your str/vit sets, then sure, why not. But please, for the love of god, do not be that str warrior who ends up with 6K health and being one hit thinking he's invincible because of strength. I've had too many of those when healing, and as my second tank in raids only to end with them dying because healers cannot keep up with them, even if i cover them and take all physical hits from them they still end up dying.

[Kyros]

Reminds me of the time some guy got pissed because he got kicked off a Ramuh Solo tank party because he was going full STR. Solo tanking, on a PUG.

There is a place and a time for everything. If your group is not comfortable, don't go full squish. It's as simple as that.

[DreamWeaver]

Hi, healer here who is fascinated by the Str vs Vit debate for tanks .
Curious to what is the DPS increase to HP loss ratio (Example : 20 additional dps per 1k HP loss), is there such a formula?

For those str spec tanks, does it impede your healers from DPSing as efficiently as they can if you were full vit spec?
If yes, is the gain in tank DPS able to offset the loss in healer DPS?

Thanks in advance for all replies!!

[Sleigh]

Hi, healer here who is fascinated by the Str vs Vit debate for tanks .
Curious to what is the DPS increase to HP loss ratio (Example : 20 additional dps per 1k HP loss), is there such a formula?

For those str spec tanks, does it impede your healers from DPSing as efficiently as they can if you were full vit spec?
If yes, is the gain in tank DPS able to offset the loss in healer DPS?

Thanks in advance for all replies!!

Some very loose testing, don't quote these as the exact percentages or anything. It is what it is.

Mainly i110 gear with i110 weapon on 30 STR specced WAR, no buffs including party buff, food, or Maim/Berserk/IR/Unchained/Defiance.

VIT gear: auto-attacks range from 146-161. Raw Skull Sunder, AKA 100 potency, ranges from 131-144. HP is 7563.
STR i110 gear: auto-attacks range from 185-204. Raw Skull Sunder, AKA 100 potency, from 159-174. HP is 6083.

Gains of roughly 26% damage for a loss of roughly 20% HP. Depends on the content but if all that 20% less HP demands of your healers in overgeared content is one extra Regen or Cure II or Lustrate over the course of a minute or so, it's easily well worth it. For instance, every dungeon boss, I'll go STR while the healer DPSes and even occasionally take off the tank stance - in this case I may or may not require one extra heal in the course of the entire fight, and STR is far superior. Same with most raids below FCoB, if you had to choose STR or VIT it's probably wiser to go STR even with DPSing healers. If you're in content where you can get one shot with that kind of HP it goes from looking at it mathematically to looking at it practically.

Also these percentages, while they may apply to PLD as well, are far from equal than on a WAR. A WAR can pump out 300+ DPS in Defiance, while a PLD will struggle to hit 200 even with STR stuff in Shield Oath. Typically a WAR sacrificing some HP for STR will have larger gains than a PLD who attempts the same thing and forces more healing GCDs out of of healers than DPS GCDs.

Regardless of all the above .. Ruby FTW. Best of both worlds, only losing about 400 HP for a large DPS gain. I can't give you numbers because I don't personally have them and the tanks who do aren't available.

[melflomil]

The other day I did Quart as a SCH. The war had 8500 Hp. I was like that's pretty low. I looked he had a 120 weapon, woots crafted gear melded and all 110 strength accessories. We killed mobs so quick because this tank was doing insane damage. I won't lie though, it was tough to keep him alive.

[Zdenka]

PLD in full VIT gear does 200 DPS in shield oath... it should be closer to 250-275 in STR accessories, and then 350-400 in Sword Oath with a 115 weapon. You'll often see them lower than 200 on parses due to fighting breaks, TP = 0 etc. I haven't saved them but when we were wiping on T13 in the early phases before adds, my DPS was 200-210 on average for a reference point.

From when we were playing around with it in 2.3 we estimated STR PLD in Sword Oath has a higher DPS ceiling than a STR WAR does without defiance and its MULTITUDES easier, of course you needed a WAR MT back then but we have NIN now. If you compare Defiance vs Shield Oath then WAR wins every time due to Unchained/Berserk. On training dummies trying to perfect WAR rotation I found if I missed 1 GCD at all for any reason such as not getting fracture up when i'm supposed to etc WAR instantly drops 10 DPS, PLD doesn't really have this problem as they lose equal or less DPS from disconnecting from the boss than WAR does and its nearly impossible to ever mess up the PLD rotation.

Overall point of the post... if you really want to gun DPS STR WAR MT and STR PLD OT is the way to go, not sure how fun T10-13 might be right now like that but the rest of the content should be fun!

[kro]

Go melded or go home. If you can't afford it and pug a lot, then play it safe with VIT. Full STR should never be your only option.

[SpookyGhost]

Overall point of the post... if you really want to gun DPS STR WAR MT and STR PLD OT is the way to go, not sure how fun T10-13 might be right now like that but the rest of the content should be fun!

WAR MT / WAR OT is better if the OT ever needs to tank anything. PLD MT / WAR OT is also better if the OT ever needs to tank anything. WAR MT / PLD OT is only viable in fights where there is nothing for the OT to actually tank, and in which case you might as well bring another DPS. The WAR OT rotation isn't complicated or somehow more difficult to land than the PLD rotation:

WAR rotation #1: SE -> Fracture* -> SP -> etc
WAR rotation #2: SE -> Fracture* -> BB -> etc
PLD rotation #1: Fracture -> RoH
PLD rotation #2: RoH

*: Dunno if Fracture ticks actually benefit from SE, so maybe this should go first and then SE -> SP/ SE -> BB. Dunno.

There's also Defiance -> Infuriate -> Unchained -> 5 Wrath -> IB, but that assumes you won't need it within 2 minutes for tanking things. Regardless, not a complicated rotation, so messing it up won't happen unless you have alzheimers. If you're away from the boss for an extended period of time while he's still able to be hit, then WAR DPS will suffer a bit of loss if Fracture isn't already ticking... but that's what Fracture is for.

Anyway. Difference between PLD OT and WAR OT DPS is minimal to begin with. The more important point would be that WAR MT does more DPS by a larger amount, but that WAR would also need to make up for the fact that the PLD is swapping in and out of Shield Oath to tank adds or swap for a mechanic. If the following conditions are met then WAR MT / PLD OT is the best choice:

1. The OT never needs to tank anything.
2. You need Hallowed Ground.
3. You need two different tanks for quicker LB building.
4. You have the possibility of your MT dying to a mechanic and needing an OT to avoid a wipe.

So... basically nothing in the game. I'm fine with being wrong, I'm not trying to claim to have all the facts or anything - but considering WAR's tank stance is off the GCD and WAR does more damage in tank stance and that stance is completely negated if the WAR only needs to tank in short burts, I can't think of a fight in the game where WAR MT / WAR OT or PLD MT / WAR OT wouldn't be better. I also dunno what fight in the game you'd be doing the content in full STR where your job choice matters, so I'm pretty sure WAR MT / WAR OT is better in the situation you're describing - or just solo WAR tank. Maybe T10, but for a large portion of that fight both tanks are in their tank stance. Same for T11. T12 the OT needs to constantly be in and out of their stance. T13 there's an entire add phase where both tanks are tanking 95% of it, on top of being in tank stance for 4 of the 5 Akh Morns. SCoB everything is solo tankable... everything else is either solo tankable or WAR MT / WAR OT is better... sorry I'm just rambling here, I'm just curious where WAR MT / PLD OT would be better.

[Sleigh]

WAR MT / WAR OT is better... sorry I'm just rambling here, I'm just curious where PLD MT / WAR OT would be better.

You're forgetting one huge, undeniable benefit of bringing PLD - Rage of Halone STR debuff. It's huge, and its loss is both a survival risk in new content and such a mitigation loss otherwise that you have to lose a lot of healer DPS to compensate.

Also, as mentioned in a topic about T13 where I asked about who should MT T13, and as I learned in practice, it's really all about PLD MT there in our gear level. The rest of the non-Savage content is questionable as to having PLD MT, but T13 ... you want PLD, with WAR OT.