Tank Balance

[Whiston]

All this would do is make tanking 10x easier than it is now. At least with DPS maximization you're putting yourself at risk if you don't play correctly.

And, lo and behold, it seems the playerbase has embraced this playstyle also.
It makes it interesting, engaging and fun.

For those around for the 2.0-2.2 ish era, this meta didn't really exist.
This was also a period that significantly lacked tanks in the playerbase, to the point that SE implemented multiple incentives to try and get more people playing the classes.

Now, I feel, the jobs are pretty well balanced in the playerbase and we don't have the severe deficiencies we used to see.
Anyone who thinks we should go back to that is doing the entire community an injustice.

[SpookyGhost]

For those around for the 2.0-2.2 ish era, this meta didn't really exist.

It's actually existed since 2.0, but was only pursued by the higher echelon of tanks. Gryphonskin accessories were pretty much the best accessories we ever got - i70, STR + VIT + DEX, easily capped with plenty of room to meld other secondaries. These were ideal for everything up to T5 MT (when you had more gear, they were ideal for that as well).

STR was a huge benefit for 2.0 WAR, as our only form of "mitigation" was our self heal in IB, which scaled from STR. It also boosted Bloodbath + Berserk + IR + Unchained healing (super good in T4), and though still pitiful it boosted Storm's Path healing as well.

2.2/SCoB was the biggest boon for STR tanking and where melded accessories saw their biggest use. This followed into 2.4 with FCoB and eventually saw it's way into every tank's mind in 3.0 due to the popularity of Xeno.

It's sort of a popular misconception that STR tanking just showed up randomly in FCoB and in 3.0, it's been here the whole time and it's always been as useful as it is now. I personally don't have a problem with STR tanking, but I think if we went the VIT only route we'd need something akin to WoW or Tera's tanking model - active mitigation. Auto attacks currently hit for 3k~3.5k (5.k-ish crit) in Savage, which is essentially nothing. If we had abilities or even a stat (hello Parry wherefore art thou) that mitigated larger incoming damage to the reasonable level it's at now, then we'd have a reason to stack VIT. Obviously Parry doesn't work because it's RNG (even at a high %, larger spikes of damage randomly = nonono) but if it were shifted to something like +Defense then we'd have a worthwhile tank stat.

Anyway, it's really weird that SE hasn't done anything about this tbh. They know it exists but they really just can't seem to be bothered to fix it. Donjo's post implies it's an accident that the STR focus exists, but it seems like they're okay with it sticking around. I dunno, I feel like they forgot what tanks actually are meant to do and instead made DPS that occasionally press a CD to mitigate big damage.

[Alahra]

Anyway, it's really weird that SE hasn't done anything about this tbh. They know it exists but they really just can't seem to be bothered to fix it. Donjo's post implies it's an accident that the STR focus exists, but it seems like they're okay with it sticking around. I dunno, I feel like they forgot what tanks actually are meant to do and instead made DPS that occasionally press a CD to mitigate big damage.

They probably don't *like* it but have decided the development time needed to address it wouldn't be worth the gain, as I imagine they'd actually want to keep tank potential for damage roughly the same (given their stance on healer DPS in progression, they probably want people to be able to push tank DPS just the same as healers can). That would mean not only a retooling of tank stats, but more than likely adjustments to tank stances and most of their abilities, too.