Turning DRK into a tank was a huge mistake.

[Millerna]

As a healer, I don't care what the tank wears, as long as they can take the hits of whatever number of mobs they decide to pull. A decent DRK tank isn't much more difficult to heal than a decent WAR tank.

As for DRK being a traditionally DPS job... Most jobs are traditionally DPS in FF games, because there's little to no use to having a full on tank job in a single player game like FF.

[SuzakuCMX]

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

Its only wasted if nobody else is taking damage or the healers are solely healing.

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.

Agreed but in this game, more VIT = healers can do things other than healing you for longer.

[Gardes]

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.

Like what? Nothing happens on the tanks except for auto attacks after blindling blade, akh morn, raven's claw, bahamut's claw, critical rip, main/second head, revelation, death sentence, mountain buster, etc. Far as I can remember any tank buster designed to push taking damage to its limit, the tank can die from the next auto attack and regardless of the tank, they all need to be healed hard immediately after the tank buster to prevent that. A bigger HP tank with no healing+ from him will just take more damage and need more healing and eliminate any 'dps chance' for the healers.

[SpookyGhost]

Its only wasted if nobody else is taking damage or the healers are solely healing.

Trying to think of a situation where tanks would be taking a tank buster and other mechanics are going on at the same time...

A4? I think just A4. And in A4 it's just circle AOEs that people should be moving out of...

[Khalithar]

Snip

You can't look at past mechanics and use them to account for current situation mechanics. Have to look at what we're dealing with now and what content is relevant. In this case, the only tank busters I can think of are in A3 and A4.

The boss of A3's cleave hits hard even with my cooldowns up. The bigger HP pool is much more useful there as those few hundred hp meant the difference between life and death for me when I was running it over and over again to get my drop.

The boss of A4 uses that perpetual ray move which does hefty damage. Against that move the only thing that will save you is a lot of hp, stoneskin, a shield, and a defensive cooldown.

In both of those situations which are the current "tank busters" as far as I can tell, more hp seems to be the wiser choice. That being said however, I can definitely agree with using str accessories on A1's boss as every little bit of dps helps in that fight, and A2 as the adds really aren't that dangerous and it's better to burn them quickly. The only dangerous adds (the jagd dolls) can be locked down by the spider tank anyway.

[CGMidlander]

The boss of A3's cleave appears to be (unless I'm mistaken) magic damage and it hits hard even with my cooldowns up.

The cleave is physical. You can tell because it can be parried/blocked.

[Khalithar]

The cleave is physical. You can tell because it can be parried/blocked.

Thanks for clearing that up, for the life of me I couldn't remember. I fixed my post.

[SpookyGhost]

Do you mean the hand form or the human form?

The hand form should be split with the other tank until the hand itself splits. You can use a small CD (I literally just use Foresight) for the first one and then a bigger CD for the 3x slap.

The human form's slaps only start hitting hard in the last phase due to the stacking Blunt Resistance Down debuff, but if you swap at 4-5 stacks then it never really starts to hurt. Save CDs for 3~5 stacks.

[Dererk]

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.

An expansion is ment to add to the existing game no way should recourses be used to make a new level 1 to 50 area when it's so easy to level on here this isn't WoW where each race gets their own starting zone.

Also on the whole 2jobs for one class thing you obviously haven't heard that summaner was terribly weak but scholar was op because they couldn't buff summaner with out buffing scholar in turn.

[Gardes]

You can't look at past mechanics and use them to account for current situation mechanics. Have to look at what we're dealing with now and what content is relevant. In this case, the only tank busters I can think of are in A3 and A4.

The boss of A3's cleave hits hard even with my cooldowns up. The bigger HP pool is much more useful there as those few hundred hp meant the difference between life and death for me when I was running it over and over again to get my drop.

The boss of A4 uses that perpetual ray move which does hefty damage. Against that move the only thing that will save you is a lot of hp, stoneskin, a shield, and a defensive cooldown.

In both of those situations which are the current "tank busters" as far as I can tell, more hp seems to be the wiser choice. That being said however, I can definitely agree with using str accessories on A1's boss as every little bit of dps helps in that fight, and A2 as the adds really aren't that dangerous and it's better to burn them quickly. The only dangerous adds (the jagd dolls) can be locked down by the spider tank anyway.

The hand cleave? That's a shared damage mechanic and with just 2 tanks with tank stance on taking the slap you only take 1/2 hp damage on all str. With a cooldown that damage is now a joke. Reaction to wash away and quick repositioning is more important than HP in this fight. Ravana EX's blinding blade (which I listed and is also a shared damage mechanic) hurts alot more than that as far as I can tell.

I did A4 as DRK MT in DF with full str. While I probably had a hp shield, a defensive cooldown and a stoneskin, I did not 'a lot of hp' and cleared it just fine. So no, it's not the 'only thing'.