Fending vs. Slaying accessories at this point in the game

[Phoenicia]

You are so wrong. If you have any certainty in a real raid encounter 10 minutes in, you're either getting carried or not doing it before it was cool (aka overgearing it/post-nerf)

Certainty here meaning: "Will I take AT LEAST 20% less damage" vs "Hmm, will that 20% even happen?".

Popping Rampart/IB/Shadowskin is 100% chance of the first happening. That's certainty. Praying for a parry to happen.... That's uncertainty.

Now if you are popping a CD and healer(s) knows you're eating a buster and hence pre-casting big heals, you should be topped before the damage shows on your par. (Certainty)

If you are not popping a CD and praying for parry every time a buster is on its way. You either: 1) Lucky and survive because you parried. 2) Have stellar healers that prepped Stoneskin, Adlo, Virus, what-have-you and you survived. 3) You die or come very close to dying because none of the above happened. UNcertainties.

Now a parry happening on top of CD? Sure, but based on the very first scenario above, any damage parry/block reduce is translated into overhealing.

[Seshayn]

The uninformed who stack parry will reduce total damage taken by 1-5% at most. If you want to go out of your way to stack parry knowing this that's on you. But it's a mediocre build.

hahaha fine. I will take my mediocre build and continue to be thanked by the healers I meet for not being retarded. I will continue to perform my job better than those who apparently have superior builds.

If you would humor me for a moment, how about you do a quick google search and find me some definitive theorycrafting regarding this topic. Because every time I search, all the links I find point to discussions that prove you wrong. However, for the last 8 months, there have been no discussions. No new theorycrafting that I can find. It's as if everyone just woke up one morning and said... You know what? Let's all hate parry now.

Please link me the enlightened in depth old elitist-jerks forums level of theorycrafting that proves you right and me wrong. I will wait.

[pandabearcat]

What is odd is that OP's question is slaying vs fending.

Slaying doesn't have parry, ever, nor vit.

So really the question is vit vs str rather than parry vs...nothing?

Also just remember than 40 str is about 3% dps increase, which is a whopping 1-3 second faster kill times. Vs ~800 health. Shrug!

[SpookyGhost]

Also just remember than 40 str is about 3% dps increase, which is a whopping 1-3 second faster kill times. Vs ~800 health. Shrug!

+DPS (always useful) vs +Excess Health (only useful if you are bad)

I'll take the DPS.

[SirTaint]

Why was parry even brought up. It's terrible and is in its worst place since 2.0. SE nerfed parry into oblivion, when before it was just for bads.

[whiskeybravo]

hahaha fine. I will take my mediocre build and continue to be thanked by the healers I meet for not being retarded. I will continue to perform my job better than those who apparently have superior builds.

If you would humor me for a moment, how about you do a quick google search and find me some definitive theorycrafting regarding this topic. Because every time I search, all the links I find point to discussions that prove you wrong. However, for the last 8 months, there have been no discussions. No new theorycrafting that I can find. It's as if everyone just woke up one morning and said... You know what? Let's all hate parry now.

Please link me the enlightened in depth old elitist-jerks forums level of theorycrafting that proves you right and me wrong. I will wait.

It's been a thing since first coil when tanks (warriors mainly) used i70 gryphonskin accessories. These old accessories were pretty awesome because they had str, dex, and usually 2 other stats built in such as crit and accuracy, plus 5 slots for melding. At that time str and dex offered boosts to parry and block rate, so on top of a bit of extra dps you had built in a little additional mitigation.

i90 crafted accessories were used extensively for world/server first clears of second coil. Healers melded extra vit to survive mechanics, tanks did the same as now and melded ruby accesorries for extra str and thus dps. Final coil was the same way with 110 accessories.

These accessories allowed groups to clear content faster than anyone, hell people are still trying to get clears with lv60 gear now lol. But the top groups did it the first few weeks, and they did it larger in part because of availability of melded gear (not just accessories).

An earlier comment of mine called this a "theory" and that was a poor word choice, I meant something more like mindset. Theorycrafting is for things like "is skill speed better than crit?", BiS builds and analyzing rotations, etc (at least how I think of it). Building for str is real, it has real returns such as faster clear times, larger self heals, pushing phases and helps with dps checks. There really doesn't need to be a lot of math or "theorycrafting" to justify it. More str = more dps. It's pretty cut and dry.

You already said yourself that you would trade 5 vit for 120 str. So why haven't you already? Lol, I haven't because I don't really want to spend all that gil watching materia disappear. I have horrible RNG >.< But other than that I would in a heartbeat. For now I'm content with a few slaying mixed in, serves the same purpose. Now if you're going all slaying with no fending or extra vit, that's just pushing it a bit in my book. Keep that stuff for your progression/hardcore statics trying to 100% max everything. I don't want to see a tank in DF doing A2 wearing all Slaying ._. That doesn't mean I deny the validity of gearing str, though.

[Seshayn]

If I could get 120 str for 5 vit? How do I get this? Full 150 accessories would net me a loss of 30 vit provided I cap it, which would require FOUR vitality four materia in each to cap the vit. No thanks. Even if it was presented to me, 30 vit? That's around 600 health. If STR still increased block and parry amounts, sure. I might. But that is a whole lot of money for a whole lot of pretty sure do not want. In addition, it's ONLY a 30 vit loss because I only have 1 alex accessory, because I went for my belt/head/boots first due to the defense increase. As I acquire more alex accessories (2 next and the final the week after) This will be a loss of... 45 vit? If my math is right. No thank you.

[SpookyGhost]

I have an idea. Hear me out:

You wear all the VIT you want.

It's alright.

Enjoy the game and I hope you do well in Savage.

[VargasVermillion]

^ I mean it's not actually 'needed' to have str, no ones forcing you to go str. It's just helpful to do so, especially if you actually know how to mitigate damage.
Although having said that you should still be doing good rotations and all that, doesn't mean you still can't try to deal damage within your abilities.

[Perzeval]

I get the feeling that the hardest content Seshayn ever did was some Ex primal fight where most PUG healers were thankful for the parry/vit stacking he used for tanking. The only real tank buster used by any Ex primal is blinding blade, which is no joke. And no tank is going to rely on parry when he is solo tanking Ravana.

Once again, if you are only doing roulettes and some primal fights, great, parry works for you because it's nice to have extra random mitigation. But that's not real raid environment. Try tanking Bahamut synched, without echo, I dare you relying on parry for the mitigation. Every MT would ensure he is going to survive Flatten with or without parry, and every healer would ensure the tank is topped off before the triple flare breath. T13 is full of certainties, and cannot be beaten by relying on random stuff. The DPS check was kinda tough before echo, too, so every class tried to squeeze out extra DPS. My first clear involved killing Bahamut during his enrage giga flare cast. So yes, every second that shortens the encounter matters.
Btw, I asked you why STR is mathematically wrong for a tank when he has enough HP to survive the hardest hits from the encounter, and you couldn't provide any explanation. Why dodging the question?

P.S. Yes, I understand when I'm pugging, I'm using a much higher HP threshold than with my static, and I'm staying in Defiance much longer. Things can go wrong when you have random people around you. Obviously Seshayn was thanked mostly by random healers he met in roulette because there are, I admit it, a lot of bad tanks out there.