Strength Tanks and You.

[Makado]

Because it's the truth. The majority of normal players will say "I already have enough HP for this or that so I don't need to use a cooldown here." Also, having so much HP makes it so you really don't even need cooldown for most things anyways, so people again get lazy and dont use them plus you have all that extra HP that could be damage if you were just using cooldown right in the first place. Also it doesn't matter who is closer to death (wtf?) When you aren't dead. Healers heal on, fight goes on.

[KoutaAtaire]

It is a very valid parse. If their exceptional healers can keep up two STR tanks while in clerics stance for almost the entire fight (it was only off while he was untargetable) then surely average healers can keep up two STR tanks by never using clerics, or using it sparingly. Two raid tier healers could synergize their clerics with one another.

"My DPS is more important than yours."

No it's not. There's a reason SE is accounting for healer DPS now and there's a reason the parse you listed has both healers DPSing. Assuming that every PUG healer is your static's healer is not a valid assumption and thinking Ravana EX is hard to heal is almost insulting.

Also, you do crap damage on AoE pulls. Just get threat, pop a CD, and watch me do more than the BLM or SMN. Thanks.

I've seen a difference when using things like Vengeance. Unless the damage from the orbs are wildly fluctuating and I've just been 'lucky' enough to always get the lowest possible when using Vengeance.

Even if orbs count as darkness damage, they still count as damage, and CDs that reduce damage taken will still work. Cooldowns that specifically work on either magic or physical damage, or that raise defense (looking at you, Foresight!), on the other hand...

Do you realize how easy this is to test? Go get a BLM, have him pop manaward and wall, then have him run into an orb. Did any of his buffs fall off? Did he only take a fraction of the damage?

No. Guess what? None of your tank mitigation matters except ones that increase your HP or provide a shield like adloquium/divine veil. Congratulations on popping a huge CD like vengeance for nothing. I'm sure your healer appreciated it.

I thought STR tanks were all about knowing the fights like the back of their hand? Yet I see people like you pop foresight on bosses that do strictly magic damage.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Honestly i've been wearing full Strength gear, then putting my points into Vitality. Due to useless stats like Parry.

[Tyrial]

Also, you do crap damage on AoE pulls. Just get threat, pop a CD, and watch me do more than the BLM or SMN. Thanks.

If you're talking PLD AoE damage sure. If you're generalizing that to all tanks then come to Sarg, we'll go run something together and I'll show you just how "crap" my damage is on AoE pulls. You should get educated before you make statements like that.

[Dhex]

people again get lazy

people get lazy

lazy

This entire thread is really about lazy play - Vitality is useful to a point but eventually you'll start shifting your points towards Strength if you wish to improve; dedicated players will always seek out more efficient methods for completing content and progressing.

[Freyyy]

Do you realize how easy this is to test? Go get a BLM, have him pop manaward and wall, then have him run into an orb. Did any of his buffs fall off? Did he only take a fraction of the damage?

No. Guess what? None of your tank mitigation matters except thrill of battle, defiance, and divine veil. Congratulations on popping a huge CD like vengeance for nothing. I'm sure your healer appreciated it. I thought STR tanks were all about knowing the fights like the back of their hand?

Manaward and Manawall are not damage reduction buffs. They are stoneskin-style barrier effect that equals to a % of your max HP (20 for Manawall, 30 for Manaward). If they do not work for A4 balls, Divine Veil do not either, because it's a barrier effect too, just like adlo, SS and nocturnal field. But I do believe that they all work tho I haven't tested it. Maybe your BLM wasn't hitting the button fast enough before taking the hit for the buff to be taken into account.
Anyway, damage reduction cooldowns do work, I can guarantee it. Today again I did some A4 runs to get my last weekly token and I, like in every runs, ran multiple times into 5-6 balls without any heals, using Shadowskin or Shadow Wall + Dark Mind to survive the damage, out of tanking stance. There is no way to survive that with no CD at 14.5k HP. Sometimes instead of CDs, I use Living Dead to do the same thing, and it only takes 3 balls to make me Walking Dead. The balls hit for an average of 5.1k damage on a tank with no CD, with CDs up I can reduce it to 2.6-2.8k most of the time. My co-PLD was also doing it with Sentinel sometimes and it was clearly noticeable.

And BTW, Vengeance is not a huge CD. It's the highest mitigation a WAR can get, but it still has only 2 min CD. It can be used fairly often during an entire fight, and soaking balls with it is really good.

[Gyson]

This entire thread is really about lazy play - Vitality is useful to a point but eventually you'll start shifting your points towards Strength if you wish to improve; dedicated players will always seek out more efficient methods for completing content and progressing.

See, what you see as thread about lazy play, others see as a thread about responsible play versus reckless behavior.

It's all in where you stand on it. I do not consider completing a 30 minute dungeon run ~4 minutes faster at the cost of lowering the tanks health by 25% and introducing more risk of a wipe (which is a waste of time) a wise choice. If STR tanks were completing dungeons in half of the time without introducing additional risk, it would be a no-brainer, but that isn't the case (although the pro-STR crowd would have you believe that's how it's working).

[Dhex]

See, what you see as thread about lazy play, others see as a thread about responsible play versus reckless behavior.

It's all in where you stand on it. I do not consider completing a 30 minute dungeon run ~4 minutes faster at the cost of lowering the tanks health by 25% and introducing more risk of a wipe (which is a waste of time) a wise choice. If STR tanks were completing dungeons in half of the time without introducing additional risk, it would be a no-brainer, but that isn't the case (although the pro-STR crowd would have you believe that's how it's working).

Dungeon content? Really?

[Zfz]

Dungeon content? Really?

Replace "dungeon" with "raid". Same thing.

[Gyson]

Dungeon content? Really?

Picky about choices of terms? Really?

Raids, Trails, etc.. I consider all of that dungeon content. Simply put, the longer one of these runs stretches on, the more time a STR Tanks can claim to "save" with his additional DPS. And what you are thinking of as "dungeons" is usually designed to be the longest of the lot. If you want to debate about the pitiful time savings versus increased risk on an EX Trial or something, then we're looking at an even sillier choice.