Turning DRK into a tank was a huge mistake.

[QiLymePye]

I can understand that for sure. But at the same time, I think a class that starts out at level 1 might not be a bad idea. I think that the game is ripe for a new starter area and continent with 1-50 quests to do. I feel heavensward basically added nothing for players that weren't already at the level cap with their main story done. Adding some low to mid level content might not be a bad idea.

I also thought that they should have had those new jobs start at level 1.You wanted to gate unlocking them after main story, fine. But if you were gonna add a new job with abilities that need learning and adjusting, give players time to adjust. Felt weird unlocking MCH and looking at all the skills already learned at level 30 but listed as lvl1, lvl2, lvl5, etc. The good thing about lvling up a new class is unlocking skills as you go and learning and incorporating them into your style of play. And because you used one skill enough so when you unlocked next skill, you had an idea how that skill was to affect the others. IDK...just don't agree with how they did things this expansion. This letdown was almost as bad as buying the Destiny House of Wolves Expansion......wait......ok Maybe not that bad

[Kowen]

Healers find this annoying because a tank more concerned with his damage is squishier and his damage contribution isn't nearly as valuable as he'd like to think.

VIT doesn't affect incoming damage at all, and the tiny amount of parry you might get on a VIT accessory is negligible with the way the stat currently works. If you feel like a tank in STR gear is squishier then it's placebo.

All damage contribution is valuable, whether it's from a tank or a healer. If a dungeon goes faster, that means we can all get on with our lives a little sooner.

[SuzakuCMX]

*snip*

Nobody was talking about OTing. Your main job as a tank is to take all the hits so the DPS and Healer don't die. DPS on top of that is a bonus, just like a healer being able to DPS is a bonus. You can easily keep hate even without STR accessories unless you are significantly less geared than your DPS or you aren't using your enmity combo frequently enough.

In static raids you only need enough VIT to survive a tank buster + an auto-attack so the healers can get you out of the danger zone. Gear and skill level vary greatly in DF content though so it's much better to err with caution and go VIT.

VIT doesn't affect incoming damage at all, and the tiny amount of parry you might get on a VIT accessory is negligible with the way the stat currently works. If you feel like a tank in STR gear is squishier then it's placebo.

All damage contribution is valuable, whether it's from a tank or a healer. If a dungeon goes faster, that means we can all get on with our lives a little sooner.

Somehow you don't get what squishy means. A tank with 40,000 HP is much less squishy than a tank with 10,000 HP because they can take more hits without dying. All defenses do is multiply your HP with regards to EHP. EHP is what matters and more HP means defense matters a helluva lot more because it gets multiplied by your defenses. You need a good combo of both defense and HP to not be considered squishy. And like I said, your tank DPS is trash for AoE compared to what healers can output.

Consider two tanks with the same amount of defense; they reduce all damage taken by 20%.

Tank 1 has 10,000 HP
Tank 2 has 12,000 HP.

The 20% Defense means their EHP is whatever their HP is x1.2

Tank 1 has 12,000 EHP
Tank 2 has 14,400 EHP.

Tank 1 can only take 12,000 HP raw damage whereas Tank 2 can take 14,400 raw damage.

Now let's see with low HP and high defense:

Tank 1 has 5000 HP and 20% damage reduction via defense
Tank 2 has 7000 HP and 0% damage reduction via defense

Tank 1 has 6000 EHP
Tank 2 has 7000 EHP

Tank 2 is still less squishy than Tank 1 when they have 0 defense because their HP is higher. Tank 1 will need 40% more defense (or enough defense to mitigate 40% more damage than Tank 2) to reach the same EHP as Tank 2 just because of raw HP difference.

That's why WAR and PLD are as good as each other at taking hits even though PLD has higher defense and WAR has way higher HP. Their EHP is about equal.

[Gardes]

I'm sorry, I read this and all I can hear is "hurrr durr muh dps".

Healers find this annoying because a tank more concerned with his damage is squishier and his damage contribution isn't nearly as valuable as he'd like to think.

Most STR tanks probably don't care.

If healers are allowed to make the choice, so do tanks. Feel free to take a stance though.

[Kowen]

EHP is what matters and more HP means defense matters a helluva lot more because it gets multiplied by your defenses.

It doesn't work like that.

WAR has the same EHP as a PLD not just because it has more HP, but because defiance gives a 20% bonus to incoming heals as well.

Adding VIT increases your HP but you still get healed for the same amount, so it doesn't raise your EHP the same way that defiance does.

Tank A could have 6000 HP, and Tank B could have 7000 HP because of VIT gear, but cures still hit them both for the same amount. That means Tank B needs more incoming heals to top off than A does.

[SuzakuCMX]

*snip*

Yes it does work like that. You don't keep the tank topped off 100% of the time; that's a waste of MP. You keep them with enough HP to survive the next few hits with room to spare. If they are riding the VIT/STR line PERFECTLY, then yes, that means keeping them topped off most of the time.

If a tank buster and an auto-attack are going to hit you for 8000 HP then I'd prefer you have 20k HP and no defense than 15k HP and 20% defense. No exceptions, because the 2nd tank is still going to have a lot more room for taking hits than the first tank.

Unless you're in a battle that does % based HP damage all of the time, in which case it doesn't matter how much HP you have.

Regardless, you sacrifice 3k HP trading all VIT accessories for STR accessories. That is about 30% of your HP pre-accessories on a DRK and should not be done lightly.

If you are going to be outputting more damage than your healers with the STR accessories than your healers would be doing when you have VIT accessories you should sacrifice your personal DPS for the group's DPS.

Yes I will have to put out a few more heals to keep you at full HP. But you're not changing how much defenses you have with switching accessories and the VIT gives both you and the healers a lot more room for error. But currently the VIT differential is small between DRK and PLD, DRK can self-heal constantly, PLD has a self-heal, and WAR gets +20% healing done to make up for the difference in HP. The 3k HP from VIT accessories is a couple Cures or a Cure II....which means I can do an extra 2 DPS spells at least before I have to heal you.

[Kowen]

If you're going to be tossing out nukes then yeah, I totally agree. That's why I said I'll switch to VIT accessories when I'm with a healer who uses cleric stance.

Raids are different too, where a few thousand HP can mean surviving or not. I mentioned 4-man dungeons specifically because I don't recall any of them having tank busters.

[Waliel]

Technically any extra HP over what you need to survive the biggest spike is wasted. Technically.

If a tank buster and an auto-attack are going to hit you for 8000 HP then I'd prefer you have 20k HP and no defense than 15k HP and 20% defense. No exceptions, because the 2nd tank is still going to have a lot more room for taking hits than the first tank.

In this case both tanks can only take two hits before dying, but the first tank will need more healing to be able to survive anything after two hits. Give me the second tank.

Increasing your EHP by VIT only is the worst way to do it when healing is concerned; it's an absolute pain to heal HP sponge tanks.

[SuzakuCMX]

snip

The entire diatribe was about whether or not a tank using STR gear instead of VIT gear was squishier. You said no. Due to how EHP works and the fact that your defense doesn't change, yes someone in STR gear will be squishier than the same class in VIT gear.

It should also be noted that the VIT gear gives you about 30% more HP than STR gear so with VIT gear on you can turn off Grit if enmity isn't a problem and have the same EHP as if you were using STR gear with Grit on. I don't know the damage formula so I don't know if the 200 STR differemce from accessories is less or more than the 20% increase from turnimg off grit.

[Kaedan]

Technically any extra HP over what you need to survive the biggest spike is wasted. Technically.

Suzaku already made the appropriate reply, but I'd like to add that it is not as simple as this. If you only have enough HP to survive the biggest spike, and there are any complications whatsoever and for whatever reason you aren't topped off when the spike comes, then you're dead.

It's always best to have some buffer. Not saying you can't use STR accessories, but you gotta account for a buffer.