Strength Tanks and You.

[nssixn6]

Guys this forum is fun. Makes me wonder what would happen if professional trolls started subbing just to troll in game and the forums.

[Velox]

I'm more concerned about healers waiting for you to lose half your life to start thinking about casting a cure I.

The amount of DPS a healer can dish out in Cleric Stance massively trumps the DPS of a tank in STR gear. A healer will sometimes allow a tank to drop a bit in health to stay in Cleric Stance longer (this is more true for WHM and AST because they don't have the luxury of free heals from a fairy). A tank with VIT gear can take more hits before he hits the 50% HP mark, allowing for the healer to DPS more, and thus, decreasing the run time significantly.

Basically
A bad STR tank = certain death
A good STR = managable but not optimal
A bad VIT tank = mobs running everywhere but can limp through if DPS back off
A good VIT tank = healer and DPS can go all out and have trash dead before a heal is even needed.

[HakaseNyan]

The problem lies within the human condition. It likely does not matter what the tank's accessories are, or if the healer is stance dancing for extra dps. As a player who mostly heals DF content, there are several play-styles for everyone. I've seen everything. From players who know exactly what they are doing, during and between pulls, to those who completely suck, know nothing about their job, and do whatever they want because it's somehow fun for them. This applies to everyone.

Some tanks pull off STR accessories just fine. Some even switch between VIT and STR; VIT for trash and STR for boss. I don't know about raid content, like coil and Alex, but I'm sure everyone has their own opinion they'd like everyone else to follow.

[lololink]

The amount of DPS a healer can dish out in Cleric Stance massively trumps the DPS of a tank in STR gear. A healer will sometimes allow a tank to drop a bit in health to stay in Cleric Stance longer (this is more true for WHM and AST because they don't have the luxury of free heals from a fairy). A tank with VIT gear can take more hits before he hits the 50% HP mark, allowing for the healer to DPS more, and thus, decreasing the run time significantly.

That would work if most healers would be DPSing or know how to manage their mana and I would do big pulls, Indeed if I do big pulls I'll go in VIT gear and pull a lot to let the healer DPS, but in situations where I can't do big pulls for whatever reason I prefer to use STR gear, same on bosses that usually don't hit a lot.

As I am now with my tank I'm leveling (lvl 57 ) If I take big pulls in VIT gear I would be sure to have the melee doing monotargeting skills and the healer stick on healing instead of using big spells ( and I have seen healers heal so bad that having more STR for more life drain would actually help me ), so I'd rather take little packs and go in STR, if I get a good AoE team I change but that doesn't happens a lot.

[Launched]

STR on tanks is fine. I use it now, I used it in 2.x, I healed STR tanks in 2.x while having no problems going into Cleric Stance. Problems come from the tank player, the healer player, or both, but not the accessories.

[ZeratoTyrael]

There a few issues with the line of thinking that goes into opinions on all sides of the vit/str accessory situation and they 99% of the time deal with DF. The number 1 thing to always remember is, ADAPT to your situation. Regardless of what is going on, adapt your strategy or you will always be upset at everyone else. Next, using STR acc. does not automatically make someone an idiot. That's stereotyping and stereotyping makes YOU the idiot as you seem to think that everyone is the same. A bad tank is a bad tank, regardless of which stats they choose. It all boils down to if they know how to use their cooldowns and if they're stance dancing effectively or not. The expansion has increased the skill cap on tanking quite a bit, but the floor with it as well. Lastly, for tanks, accessories are situational, having all vit is not needed for all group content, some yes, but not all. If they're trying to do speed runs with huge group pulls, or MT a boss that hits hard consistently and they're using str, then yes they're most likely an idiot. On the other hand if they're in a situation with low inc dmg with maybe a burst or 2 of dmg or they're OT and don't need the vit and they're using vit? I also classify them as someone who isn't doing the best they can as that can also hinder a party.

TL;DR: Adapt or die. Complaining only works with customer service and sorry but customer service can't help with this one.

[Kassiekane]

What's really bad is warriors in full str accessories that 'tank' in deliverance. Pisses me off to no end.

[Freyyy]

You people complaining about STR tanks give me cancer. Just so you know, VIT does not decrease the amount of damage we take, it only inflates our HP pool, and being full VIT is not necessary at all to survive. It's in fact completely useless and makes the fight take longer. Damage are reduced by using correctly our defensive abilities. If the damages a tank takes are superior to the healer's healing output, he will die no matter if he has 13k HP or 17k. He will just last 2 more seconds. It's a fact. Having a huge chunk of VIT is only useful in the case an enemy has a really big tank buster ability, big enough to still one shot the tank even with defensive CDs on, which still doesn't exist in this game.

I myself play all 3 tanks at 60 (and cleared all of ARR's endgame as both WAR and PLD) with 3 STR accessories and 2 VIT accessories most of the time, with all STR in attribute points. At i184 I have 15k HP on party (out of Defiance for WAR), which is plenty enough to tank everything in this game and having absolutely no healer complaining about me being squishy and stuff.
For expert dungeons I even go full STR and I have something like 13k. I never, NEVER had any healer complaining. I even often get complimented about fast and smooth runs with absolutely no issues.

Having STR on a tank does so much more than VIT. A STR or at least hybrid tank can deal a really high amount of damage (often as much as the majority of the DPS you can meet in the duty finder, sometimes even more lol), while self healing a lot more than a full VIT tank. So a STR tank does not only have MOAR DEEPZ but also more self-healing. You'll say "Self healing is useless if you don't even survive the attacks first" which is completely true. The fact is that a good tank does not need to have a big HP pool to survive everything. Heck even with my 13k HP full STR build in expert dungeons on really big pulls, by using my defensive CDs correctly and dealing a lot of damage while self-healing, my healer is most of the time DPSing, rendering the fights even shorter. (as full STR WAR, I often do a huge pull, build my agro, build 5 stacks of wrath, activate bloodbath and all my defensive CDs, switch to Deliverance, Berserk, Decimate, Infuriate, Decimate, spam Overpower a bit and everything is dead because the WHM was even able to holybomb at the same time, litterally burning everything)

I would say that in good hands, STR tanks are really, really good and the most efficient. But it has to be played at 100% of the job's capabilities. If you are struggling with keeping a STR tank alive, it's just because he doesn't use all of his job's defensive potential, and this kind of tank, even full VIT, will be a pain to heal.
If as a tank, you find yourself in need to equip a full VIT build, you either are bad at tanking or simply lack confidence in yourself (and/or your healer) and should definitely try to get rid of your VIT jewelry progressively piece by piece to get used to it, if you are a good tank, you'll find out that you benefit more from STR than VIT.

I was myself using crafted i110 STR jewelry with VIT meldings on my tanks before the expansion, now I have both VIT and STR sets at i180 and I mix and match depending on what I do. ATM I find that 15k HP is the "safety cap" to easily survive everything as main tank (in current ex primals and Alex NM, we'll see for savage) so I recommend to wear 3 slaying 2 fending.

[GalkaBikini]

But this is on the same level as those ''Did you die'' healers....the ones who would rather DPS then heal. So our community suffers from ''different playstyle'' healers as well. I hate having to POP Rampart..Then a Sentinel just because my Astro thought it would be a good idea to DPS or the SCH is letting Eos take the wheel in AF2 ....
So this goes both ways ... I never bash the full community of healers, but those imbeciles know who they are

So, you'd rather NOT use your abilities that you have, like you should be, so that a Healer who want to DPS, like they should be, can use the abilities they have that they DO want to use? Does not compute.

[GalkaBikini]

If you truly believe that max HP does not help you as a tank, then I don't even know what to say. These tanks don't realize how much DPS a healer can do. Just how much of a DPS increase do you think your STR accessories are netting you (I'm not against STR built tanks, but at least know what you're talking about)? When you have a bigger HP pool, it gives healers a much bigger window to pop cleric stance and get their dots and maybe a few nukes in before having to turn off cleric stance to heal you. If you think that your STR accessories are out damaging what a healer's DPS can do, you are wrong. By wearing STR accessories and having all of your stat points in STR, you are not making things die faster, you are making them die slower because you are lowering your group's overall DPS by not giving the healer any room to DPS.

Again, I'm not against STR builds, but it seems the general tank community just isn't being very smart about the issue at all.