What they mean by "change the damage calculations of tanks"?

[Alahra]

I honestly can't tell whether they want us to wear vit or strength anymore. The DPS checks are too heavy for full fending to make a similar contribution to full slaying.

Oh, in terms of the encounter balance, yes, they greatly encouraged Slaying/Pentamelds, especially for progression, but I don't think that was really intent. If I had to guess, they assumed, in their internal testing, full Fending, and intended for Savage to be cleared at much higher item levels. If they really intended for tanks to wear Slaying accessories, they would have given them Need privileges on them, and given that we were at an expansion breakpoint, this would have been the perfect time for them to do so.

I'm relatively sure the current metagame is an unintended one, brought about by the combination of harsh DPS checks and not-harsh-enough tank busters.

[Cynric]

snip

Yeah I can understand that mindset however, if they were assuming full fending while testing wouldn't the tank busters have been harder hitting? Maybe they didn't account for shielding, something. It's almost as if their projected health for us was much lower despite testing. Because I mean as it stands if you do for one reason or another go full fending /vit, you have far more health then you could ever need. We've had mechanics force us into fending gear (at least at first) before 3.0 what suddenly changed during 3.0?

I guess all in all we can just say things haven't been designed the best thus far.

[Freyyy]

I think that there is a big big chance that we might see tank Attack Power scale with VIT. Fending accessories would be desirable again and that'd be cool. I don't see them do some weird shit like scaling with both STR and VIT with a 40/60% rate or whatever. It's FFXIV guys. Look at the number of different stats, it's laughable compared to other MMOs. There's 0 complexity in this game. Everything is straight forward and I think it will stay like that.

[Cynric]

I think that there is a big big chance that we might see tank Attack Power scale with VIT. Fending accessories would be desirable again and that'd be cool. I don't see them do some weird shit like scaling with both STR and VIT with a 40/60% rate or whatever. It's FFXIV guys. Look at the number of different stats, it's laughable compared to other MMOs. There's 0 complexity in this game. Everything is straight forward and I think it will stay like that.

That's also another good point that I agree with. This game is extremely simplified and they've made their intentions to keep it as simple as possible very well known. This is part of why I find it hard to believe they would do some kind of Str /Vit split. Might as well just make the main stat vitality over doing something like that.

[Alahra]

Yeah I can understand that mindset however, if they were assuming full fending while testing wouldn't the tank busters have been harder hitting? Maybe they didn't account for shielding, something.

If I had to guess, they in part tuned the tank busters around AST's healing capabilities, which were weaker prior to the buffs. But they also probably underestimated how hard the top groups can and do push (they admitted they underestimated the playerbase with FCOB, there's no reason they couldn't do so again).

I don't know, though. Honestly, the whole raid design in 3.0 has been a mess, and it's clear they were trying to do things differently and still have a lot of kinks to work out.

[Shurrikhan]

I'm really hoping they make this a small step towards more gearing options and/or stat complexity, not fewer/lesser (e.g. scaling tank AP solely off Vit, removing all tank use for slaying gear). I like the meta where it's at, aside from how PLD is so far behind in MT and especially AOE dps (the latter I wish they could make up for in a different way, perhaps, than just actual spammable damaging AoEs, etc).

More fending accessory viability (especially in regards to enmity, parry/block value, and self-healing--all the non-dps components slaying accessories aid) would be great, but if anything I'd rather non-tanks see a bit more reason to wear Fending gear outside of cutting edge content 'cheese strats' than for tanks to have zero use for Slaying accessories.

[DarioSkydragon]

I'm really hoping they make this a small step towards more gearing options and/or stat complexity, not fewer/lesser (e.g. scaling tank AP solely off Vit, removing all tank use for slaying gear). I like the meta where it's at, aside from how PLD is so far behind in MT and especially AOE dps (the latter I wish they could make up for in a different way, perhaps, than just actual spammable damaging AoEs, etc).

More fending accessory viability (especially in regards to enmity, parry/block value, and self-healing--all the non-dps components slaying accessories aid) would be great, but if anything I'd rather non-tanks see a bit more reason to wear Fending gear outside of cutting edge content 'cheese strats' than for tanks to have zero use for Slaying accessories.

Im with you. A little complexity is aways good. If tank gear is going to be 100% fending in 3.2, i will be very desapointed.

[Freyyy]

Im with you. A little complexity is aways good. If tank gear is going to be 100% fending in 3.2, i will be very desapointed.

Well, healer gear is 100% healing, MNK/DRG gear is 100% slaying, caster gear is 100% casting, NIN/BRD/MCH gear is 100% aiming. If they want to bring complexity to the game, they should do it for everyone, not just tanks.

[Nadirah]

Id rather see them removing vit accessories and balance the game around tanks using str accessories. Cause if they end up making tanks scale fully from vit, itll become pretty boring role when you have so much hp always to just not even bother using cd's and letting healers carry all the weight.

You're under the assumption that they won't scale damage based on gear. Like they already do.

If the assumption is that every single tank is wearing full VIT gear, the bosses and mobs can hit harder because they know we'll have the HP to survive it.

I don't feel sorry for people that rip hate though if that's the case.

[DarioSkydragon]

Well, healer gear is 100% healing, MNK/DRG gear is 100% slaying, caster gear is 100% casting, NIN/BRD/MCH gear is 100% aiming. If they want to bring complexity to the game, they should do it for everyone, not just tanks.

Healers who want to pull more dps aways have been geared with accuracy melded gear or vit+ melded gear to survive hard progression. DPS are the only ones that used only non-melded tome/raid gear.