Strength Tanks and You.

[Tsunenori]

snip

This isn't to refute what you've said, because in a lot of situations (especially involving PUGs) you're absolutely right in that the safety is worth more than extra damage. In my own in-game experiences however I have definitely seen fights won and lost by extra damage output done by tanks and healers far more frequently (both raids and dungeons) than it probably should be. I'm talking about repeated wipes at low percentages in half-PUG groups where I finally tell our off-tank to put on all his strength gear and the wipes turn into clears.

And as far as dungeons go, granted this is optimal conditions, but the tank I spend the majority of the time playing with is always in strength gear and frequently in Deliverance doing as much damage as he can. I spend my time in Cleric the majority of the dungeon, and no one's less safe for it. He's never in danger of dying, nor is the group, and the result is that we'll frequently have sub-20 minute runs of the Heavensward dungeons for it. As far as the opening post of the thread goes, I myself as a healer have the most fun in these kinds of runs instead of the 40 minute slogs with low damage output from the whole group due to a variety of reasons.

Ultimately this debate feels the same as the Healer DPS debate. If you're alone with PuGs or you don't trust your group members (or you're undergeared!) you should probably be playing on the safer side of things with your vitality accessories rather than going full damage. There's a place for strength accessories, and if your healers are struggling for whatever reason, or the group isn't really clicking, then that is not the place for strength gear. Sometimes I pull tanks from the Duty Finder who seem to have a yearning for the grave and do their best to take huge damage, stand in everything, and never pop cooldowns. Those are the runs I can't DPS much in, but I don't think that invalidates the DPS. Much the same, I don't think strength accessories are less crucial to good play just because they can be marginalized in a rough group.

Edit: I also forgot to mention big tank busters. If you're getting hit in the face with those you should also probably be using vitality accessories.