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

[Alahra]

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.

DPS used VIT-melds at various points in early progression as well throughout ARR, so they could hit various VIT-checks, though they often only needed one accessory, perhaps two. It's something the developers weren't fond of, though, which is why they started delaying the release of crafted accessories.

[Nadirah]

Now that I think of it, didn't they say they had lower level accessories than dungeon gear because they didn't want crafted accessories breaking progression like in Coil?

[InfiniDragon]

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.

Then don't start by going backwards and making all jobs basic. Start by supporting the tank accessories remaining as they are and the other jobs getting additional options too.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Now that I think of it, didn't they say they had lower level accessories than dungeon gear because they didn't want crafted accessories breaking progression like in Coil?

Pretty much. The whole reason for the 3.2 changes to Materia melding and tank damage calculation is because as they stand now pentamelded i150 crafted accessories give a benefit comparable to i260 accessories.

3.2 is likely to be the first patch since 2.0 that has accessories with ilevels comparable to the best crafted gear on release.

Then don't start by going backwards and making all jobs basic. Start by supporting the tank accessories remaining as they are and the other jobs getting additional options too.

They needed to. Pentamelded Str/Vit accessories are scaling to well for tanks. A 10 ilevel increase on level 60 gear raises a non-crafted accessory's primary stat by about +2.5 but currently increases a pentamelded accessory's primary stat bonuses by twice that.

[Ashkendor]

Yeah, not so sure they're going to make VIT the damage calculator. If they did, they'd have to go retroactively remove STR from all the previous tank gear and replace it with VIT, as stated above me.

Why would they have to do that? Strength wouldn't do anything and Vitality is already on all gear, regardless of class.

[Nadirah]

My tank accs are only three crafted(neck, wrist, ears), double melds(cheapass), and I feel dirty using them. :/

Had an argument with both my raid lead and our summoner today about the damage changes. Both are freaking out about the possibility of VIT scaling. "Omg what about warriors what about their self heals they scale off damage done omg".

Oye. Neither of them play warrior, the RL has PLD 60 but is AST for raid...

[Xyphon]

Even though looking at this I could easily see them doing exactly what they did for ninja, making vit be a source of damage for tanks. Though, I highly doubt its that simple. They mentioned changing the calculation all together, which makes me think of WD and stat weighting. Its even possible they ment how secondary stats effect over all dps. Remember how they nerfed DET in 3.0 (which effected over all white damage *auto attacks* that people always forget about). So its possible they could scale those as well.

I'm also wondering if they ment damage in terms of mitigation. Guess I'd have to see the raw Japanese to make sure those no mistranslation.

[Alahra]

They mentioned changing the calculation all together

I'm relatively sure they mean adjusting the damage formula for tanks in some way, which could mean a lot of things, but since they mentioned it specifically in the context of STR and VIT melding, the safest bet is that they'll be modifying the way tank main stats figure into damage. Changing Weapon Damage or secondary stats wouldn't do anything to discourage melding, which is their goal.

[Xyphon]

@Alahra - According to what I just read regarding melds, after 3.2 you cannot overmeld anymore. They said they will increase the base stats of the crafted gear, but not allow you to meld primary stats. The plus is you can also meld secondary stats to tombs/raid gear.

Source from Octopus over at BG:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ussion/cwcc04d

Here's another source of all the slides from the Live Letter:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...XDRxjDt3YI/pub Towards the bottom is the materia info.

So that basically takes care of melding, outside of secondary stats. So like you said, it won't discourage melding for secondary stats. The reason I brought up WD and secondary stats is they all have some kind of stat weighting for how dps can be increased. WD being the highest, primary stats being the second highest, and secondary stats. Depending on how they want to change damage output, they could hit any one of those three. Though, I will agree that WD and secondary stats seem to not be something they will do.

[Alahra]

-snip-

I know what they're planning to do regarding overmelding. But you'll also still be able to meld main stats on the base melding slot, and the impression I got from the Live Letter was that they don't want tanks feeling the need to meld STR or VIT at all, not just overmelding. None of the other classes really have reason to meld primary stats anymore (though there were a few cases where VIT melds were used to meet HP checks in older raids, that hasn't been common for awhile).

If they keep things as they are regarding the primary stats in terms of damage calculations for tanks, melded accessories will still be rather powerful, since primary stats have such greater value than secondary stats in terms of weights. I don't think they intend for tanks to have vastly better melding options than all the other classes.

I don't think they actually plan to adjust tank damage itself--that is, their DPS ceilings. They're adjusting the calculations to remove the need to meld STR and/or VIT, at least going by the official Live Letter info from the update thread:

Many of those attempting instanced raids in the early stages tend to use advanced materia melding on accessories, which lead to tanks being required to meld STR or VIT. Due to this there were times where the melded accessories were better than the accessories which dropped from clearing the instance. In order to resolve this issue, in Patch 3.2 we will be making adjustments that will change the damage calculations of tanks into a more appropriate state.

Messing with secondary stats and weapon damage wouldn't do anything to make melding STR and VIT less attractive, so I can't see them doing much there.