Turning DRK into a tank was a huge mistake.

[Velstriker]

Here's my 2 cents on the subject of VIT vs STR accessories. PLD has a shield that has a passive mitigation therefore they can use STR accessories to give a bit more POW considering they loose 20% damage from Shield Oath. WAR Defiance gives 25% more hp but takes away 25% damage, therefore they can use STR over VIT accessories because they get the added HP from their tank stance and need to make up their damage reduction from Defiance. DRK on the other hand has Grit which works exactly like Shield Oath, but they don't have the passive mitigation from a shield, and they don't have the HP boost given to WAR with Defiance. What they do have is Darkside, which gives a 15% damage boost. THEREFORE they get the damage boost that other tanks get from wearing STR accessories BUILT INTO their job and so it frees them up to wear VIT accessories to make up the downside of not having a shield for passive mitigation or a 25% HP boost from Defiance. Sure you can use STR, thats fine, its more POW POW, but I think the job really shines as a tank when wearing VIT.

[l---------------l]

Regarding STR gear. I have to point out that VIT doesn't.... DOESN'T give you more Defense or Magical Defense... Someone with 2000 more vit is same squishy... VIT is only necessary or helps if there's a cap in some mega boss of raid attack... Or if the healer is not too alert to your vit. By far, when I use tanks I prefer to go STR, even if I still using CDs and stuff.

[Aegrus]

If only there was a way str would affect defensive abilities... OH WAIT...

Clemency: 1200 potency (based off attack power)
Equilibrium: 1200 Potency (based off attack power)
Swapping full vit for full str changes the heal from ~3400(vit) to ~4450

Inner Beast and Souleater both heal equal to attack damage at 300 and 260/500(DA) potency respectively. I know with inner beast its easy to get 2k/3kcrit heals with berserk
while pure vit drops it by almost a quarter

Not to mention passive healing increases with bloodbath up.

Not only this, tank dps DOES matter. The longer the fight goes on the scarier mechanics can get. Some fights have a hard enrage (ravana) but others ramp up damage till the tank dies, Alexander floor 4 (extra laser burst each time he does the tank buster). In both these fights DPS matters tremendously as you can avoid an extra tank buster or hard enrage by moving faster through the fight.

HP matters as far as you can soak a buster hit and possibly one auto attack, but beyond that, any extra is just that. When learning, VIT is nice to give breathing room, but when you want to down a boss before an enrage, you need DPS wherever you can get it, so you swap enough Vit pieces out so you can still survive a hit but contribute as much damage as possible.

[l---------------l]

If only there was a way str would affect defensive abilities... OH WAIT...

Clemency: 1200 potency (based off attack power)
Equilibrium: 1200 Potency (based off attack power)
Swapping full vit for full str changes the heal from ~3400(vit) to ~4450

Inner Beast and Souleater both heal equal to attack damage at 300 and 260/500(DA) potency respectively. I know with inner beast its easy to get 2k/3kcrit heals with berserk
while pure vit drops it by almost a quarter

Not to mention passive healing increases with bloodbath up.

Not only this, tank dps DOES matter. The longer the fight goes on the scarier mechanics can get. Some fights have a hard enrage (ravana) but others ramp up damage till the tank dies, Alexander floor 4 (extra laser burst each time he does the tank buster). In both these fights DPS matters tremendously as you can avoid an extra tank buster or hard enrage by moving faster through the fight.

HP matters as far as you can soak a buster hit and possibly one auto attack, but beyond that, any extra is just that. When learning, VIT is nice to give breathing room, but when you want to down a boss before an enrage, you need DPS wherever you can get it, so you swap enough Vit pieces out so you can still survive a hit but contribute as much damage as possible.

And you dear sir/lady just said what I was about to bother writing, thanks!

[Einheri]

Defiance = shield oath = grit. They extend the tanks effective health pool the same. Pld has no reason to gear differently than a warrior. Parry and block are useless vs magic damage and unavoidable special attacks.

Parry as a stat is the least useful to pld because of how the avoidance rolls in the game work. You roll for hit. Success then rolls for block. No block then rolls for parry. So if you have 15% block and 15% parry chance the rolls reduce your effective parry to 12.5%

15000 hp tank
15000 damage tank kill

Pld/drk 15000 - (15000*.8)= 3k hp
War (15000*1.25)-15000=3750 hp

Pld dark needs 12k heals to get back to full
War need 15000
12000*1.2= 14400 (I inner beast will put you over)

[Stanelis]

HP matters as far as you can soak a buster hit and possibly one auto attack, but beyond that, any extra is just that. When learning, VIT is nice to give breathing room, but when you want to down a boss before an enrage, you need DPS wherever you can get it, so you swap enough Vit pieces out so you can still survive a hit but contribute as much damage as possible.

Relevant content (such as coil and possibly alexander savage) is tuned so, as a tank, you are right at the threshold on the last floor while fully equipped with the gear dropping in said tier of content (not taking echo into account, but when echo is out the relevant content isn't relevant anymore).

When I read those things about vitality caps I always think back about the double dreadnought phase on T4 (where both tanks and 1 DPS used to take a lot of damage), the last phase of twintania (super hectic regarding burst, as healers can be stunned or have to run around dropping aoe on the grounds), solotank T8 or T9 and I laugh hard.

Obs if you only tank primordials or dungeons, while overgeared, you can throw in as many str as you want.

Not only this, tank dps DOES matter. The longer the fight goes on the scarier mechanics can get. Some fights have a hard enrage (ravana) but others ramp up damage till the tank dies, Alexander floor 4 (extra laser burst each time he does the tank buster). In both these fights DPS matters tremendously as you can avoid an extra tank buster or hard enrage by moving faster through the fight.

Please, the DPS threshold on those fights is incredibly low. Ilvl 180 is already overkill on those encounters.

[Eisen-Zorn]

The problem with stat mixing like that (Save for the STR ring), is well, you have them so split apart that each one does an incredibly insignificant benefit for you.

Wall of Text

It works for me. I've had quite a lot of fun running a hybrid build, and if the mood ever strikes me I can just buy a potion and reallocate. However, at the moment, I'm quite happy.

I don't have to Min-Max a build to be good at it.

[Velstriker]

Regarding STR gear. I have to point out that VIT doesn't.... DOESN'T give you more Defense or Magical Defense... Someone with 2000 more vit is same squishy... VIT is only necessary or helps if there's a cap in some mega boss of raid attack... Or if the healer is not too alert to your vit. By far, when I use tanks I prefer to go STR, even if I still using CDs and stuff.

I'm not sure if your reply was to my comment, but if it was I'd like to address a few things. I never said VIT gave extra defense/magic defense. I was simply pointing out that a DRK in VIT accessories is more equivalent to PLD & WAR in STR accessories. Bad tanks not using CD is a different problem than using VIT or STR accessories. I bolded a part of your response to bring up a very important issue, Magical Christmas Land. A lot of times people will say STR is better than VIT because you only need enough HP to take a tankbuster plus an auto attack, or in your case, the healer just needs to heal you after getting hit. Things happen, no one is perfect at their job, cast times happen, reaction times differ between people. If you and anyone else arguing DRK taking STR over VIT really sit back and think of the multitude of things that can go wrong in a fight, you'll see that DRK is better in VIT. I agree, in a perfect world, where your healer precasts heals, where you have the perfect CD for every hit coming, sure go use all STR accessories. I can't count the number of times I i dipped below 1000 HP, and full VIT gear gives me a bit of a buffer to survive more of the non perfect fights. I like what someone said at the start of this thread, have 2 sets of accessories and switch out when you need more HP or more damage. Thats probably the best course of action, bring both and be prepared.

[MythToken]

tldr; my playstyle is different than yours, deal with it

[KingOfAbyss]

But if no one plays tank at all, queues just become a bloody nightmare and it affects everyone involved.

With SE's love for anything RNG and Roulettes, They should make it that you will enter the dungeons (not Raids) as either a TANK, HEALER, or DPS.

That would force everyone to play at least one of them (but then that would force players to level up jobs they aren't interested, so SE won't do it), and until you have completed the task, you won't be allowed to get out, re-enter with the hopes of being a DPS instead.

Everyone would then have their own views about what the other jobs are, and would stop complaining.

*I know I'm dreaming, still..