There needs to be some adjustments with fending accessories

[sirDarts]

Well this is already one of the most easy and straight forward gearing systems in an mmo. Opinions are opinions and all, but I don't think many people would want it to be made even simpler.

Don't really see why you're having that much trouble with it either. Hit cap, continue on with life. How is that frustrating?

I have explained the situations where it's frustrating.
When you are just below the cap.
When the boss suddenly turns around and you are hitting him from the front.

I wouldn't mind missing, if missing didn't cause a broken combo, which can cause incredible issues - like for example losing Dragon Blood, or Greased Lightning.

[Ibi]

Well maybe in the next zone of Alex, you will need Vit accessories to survive a tankbuster, and there won't be such tight DPS checks?

The difference in HP between five i210 fending and five i150 penta-melded is 100 VIT, which corresponds to 1450 HP. I have almost 19k in Defiance, without food/party bonus, and I'm not even full i200 left side yet.

The gap is currently too small, relative to both tank HP and the amount of damage you can mitigate with cooldowns/stoneskin/adlo/etc, for them to make a tank buster that would require VIT accessories.

The only way to really do it would be to make it hit for so much that it requires VIT accessories and every possible type of mitigation, but then you start running into issues of needing certain party compositions to ensure you have the necessary buffs/debuffs.

[Firepower]

I must agree with this, VIT accessories are the only ones in the entire game that are completely outclassed when gearing up. All other jobs progress in item levels through their accessories and the only reason people get pentamelded crafted accessories is to add VIT for the first timers and ultra hardcore that need the extra HP to survive major attacks. When the most optimal path of gearing a tank is to completely ignore ALL fending accessories and start with melded accs and then convert to higher item level STR accessories simply because the higher item level left side gear then makes up the VIT deficiency and the VIT accessories just bloat out the HP pool without any extra gain.

There are multiple ways of fixing this but all have drawbacks.

You could just add STR directly to tank accessories and then make them Tank only (so not to destroy STR accessories) The drawbacks of this mean that crafters will no longer need to supply any tank based materia melded equipment because the standard gear will now have STR+VIT but there will still be demand for jewellery for DPS and healers that need the VIT.

Changing tanks to VIT based damage - This could potentially make the Tank class slightly overpowered in a case where it can stack a substantial amount of VIT and produce respectable DPS, leading to parties of multiple tanks and a few healers to cruise through content that don't have extra hard DPS checks and outdated content.

Force tanks to be unable to wear STR accessories - This would work well in crafters favour as the materia melded accessories would then be the best, drawbacks being the tank class then lacks choice and could cause enmity and DPS problems later on when the damage added by str/dex etc.. accessories give the DPS classes a much higher damage output than the tank.

Develop new content that encourages the use of VIT accessories - this is problematic simply because it also ramps up the item level entry for tanks immensely, if right side vit accessories are required to survive a big hit then you are likely to need a significant amount of gear for the left side too. Then it just falls to the same issue later on, when the left side gear provides adequate VIT for the content the right side will change to STR for optimising DPS.

Finally the last option would be to add Defence or damage reduction on VIT accessories making them much more appealing this is unlikely to fix anything since soon as it is not needed STR gear will come out again and then you revert back to the last point where if you are forced to create content to force the use of the accessories then it makes the gearing burden on tanks hardest.

Personally I think adding STR to VIT accessories is the least intrusive method of fixing them and you could easily compensate by upping the DPS checks by the equivalent % of damage that STR accessories add to the tank if they are factoring in tank DPS as part of the check.

[sirDarts]

The difference in HP between five i210 fending and five i150 penta-melded is 100 VIT, which corresponds to 1450 HP. I have almost 19k in Defiance, without food/party bonus, and I'm not even full i200 left side yet.

The gap is currently too small, relative to both tank HP and the amount of damage you can mitigate with cooldowns/stoneskin/adlo/etc, for them to make a tank buster that would require VIT accessories.

The only way to really do it would be to make it hit for so much that it requires VIT accessories and every possible type of mitigation, but then you start running into issues of needing certain party compositions to ensure you have the necessary buffs/debuffs.

Yeah, I get it, it was just an (semi-ironic, since we know SE) idea.
As a healer I don't see much use in tanks with VIT either. Unless there is noticeable downtime after every major hit, then more HP only makes me waste more MP on topping it up, while more STR = stuff dies faster = less MP used.

[Kaurie]

I've never understood why tanks needed either two sets of accessories, or pentameld.
Don't see healers needing pentamelded accessories with int to be able to do some dps, or a monk needing mind for their self heal, maybe give some strength to all vitality accessories like they did for accuracy on healer gear, before they took all that away. xD

Sword Oath and Deliverance should convert all vit to str!

For reals time: I agree with OP. If you are going to design the end-game around such tight DPS checks, tank accessories should have str or something of the sort.

[Ibi]

Personally I think adding STR to VIT accessories is the least intrusive method of fixing them and you could easily compensate by upping the DPS checks by the equivalent % of damage that STR accessories add to the tank if they are factoring in tank DPS as part of the check.

Add 50% of the main stat value in VIT to the STR/DEX/INT/MND accessories and add 50% of the VIT value in STR to the Fending accessories.

(And possibly adjust the values on waist slot items accordingly.)

i150 would still beat out i180 with that distribution, and on par with i190, but at least Fending accessories wouldn't be obsolete before the raids are even released that way.

[Phafi]

What if that's not enough? Or if the tank buster happens too often for Virus/E4E/Holm/etc? Though yeah, it's SE we are talking about I am not really expecting something like this to happen.

If it's not enough then they designed content that players beat without the gear from said content.

[Souljacker]

Something does have to be done. Someone in my guild flipped out because we were talking about using STR on tank and his take is "I'm going to gear as a tank should and no one is going to tell me different" and I can't say he's necessarily wrong. It's not efficient and doesn't work in this game, but he should absolutely be able to wear the gear intended for a tank without getting raged at in every dungeon because all tanks are just supposed to automagically know about this STR > VIT in the game.

[Kenji1134]

So twould seem this issue has successfully migrated from the tank forums to the general forum... Is this a sign of progress? A call for change? Or the cries of yet another tortured soul destined to fall upon deaf ears?
...maybe if we typed this in Japanese...

Btw, what's the JP tank's take on this issue?
Same as ours?
MOAR TANK DEEPS!!@!!? - ?
Or are their economies so healthy and thriving that every raid tank can easily afford a full set of pentamelded VIT/STR acc's?

[Selli]

My static is on A3S and since we're still doing progression, our tanks are in 4 fending/1 slaying (which is something we've never done, usually they're both full fending until we clear/Healers are comfortable enough for them to lose a couple thousand HP), and because of the amount of AoE healing in that fight, I am constantly ripping hate off the MT... even though I'm the least geared member of our static, lol.

I think VIT should effect enmity more viably instead of STR. VIT accessories are meant for tanks (as in, they're the only ones they can roll Need on), yet really hinder their ability to hold aggro sometimes. I think there needs to be some better balancing between VIT and STR when it comes to aggro. It was especially annoying in the CTs, someone would call MT, throw on some Fending (yes this does happen, I'm not making this up), and immediately lose hate to a full STR PLD in Sword Oath... for the whole fight.