Why Avoid Parry?

[Sapphidia]

This entire thread has basically gone full circle and settled on the same old argument that my gigantic reddit/forum post from a month ago was talking about - http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...eta-feels-off-.

The OP is technically right - parry is the only stat that affects our mitigation, and if the focus of a tank is to mitigate as much as possible, shouldnt we be stacking it as priority? The same argument is true to a degree with Vitality vs Strength - if we're there to not die, then surely stacking the "don't die as much" stat is the favored option.

There's no disputing that a level 60 Tank who has stacked parry on every single item, wears full fending, and stays in Shield Oath/Defiance etc will be easier to heal than one who avoids all parry and stacks Crit/Det, wears full slaying and tries to stancedance into DPS stance as often as possible. Of course the first tank is easier to heal.

The question though is the -degree- in which it is easier... and it's not much. The way the game works, you just don't have constant incoming damage or spike damage of the magnitude where the parry/vit/shield tank's overall toughness makes any real difference to the success of a group. However, the strength/crit/det/sword tank will be pushing 30-40% more DPS than the turtley tank... and in -most- cases nowadays, that extra dps is just far far more useful.

No one is FORCING tanks to avoid parry or focus dps 100%, but the hard encounters the game currently has basically -suggest- it, and groups where a tank cannot contribute a meaningful amount of dps simply have much more trouble clearing it. There's no disputing that Parry/Vit makes a tank easier to heal, the fact of the matter is that it just DOESNT REALLY MATTER with the content we have given how dependant everything is on proper cooldown rotations.

By all means play the parry stacking "brick wall" tank, and in 4man dungeons and content where DPS checks arent especially important then the success of a group wont really be affected - heck, if your healer is undergeared or new then it might actually improve the chance of success. But for any meaningful difficult content tanks simply cannot ignore the fact that the benefits gained from Parry are virtually nothing, but the benefits gained from increasing the damage output can have meaningful improvement on group success when it comes to pushing phases, skipping mechanics, and hitting hard enrage timers.

Just because DPS do -more- damage than tanks, doesnt mean that tank damage isnt worth maxing too. And until the tanks that are advocating parry/turtle/defensive style tanking over a style that tries to prioritise damage output truly realise just how important to success tank DPS can be, it's unlikely that the dps-is-important crowd will be able to change their mind.

What it will take is a wipe on Living Liquid due to not hitting the hand-split DPS check by half a percent, or a wipe on Thordan because the bladedancing knights didn't die fast enough.

[Gooner_iBluAirJGR]

It seems like a lot of people forget a Parry/VIT stacking tank can also stance dance and optimize their DPS rotation while maintaining higher defenses.

[Sapphidia]

It seems like a lot of people forget a Parry/VIT stacking tank can also stance dance and optimize their DPS rotation while maintaining higher defenses.

Yes, they can. But as soon as you start stance dancing and optimising DPS, you're accepting that DPS is important. And as soon as you accept DPS is important and sacrifices can be made, you realise that you -never- need the minor mitigation boost from stacking parry, and you don't need a huge cushion of Vitality (just enough to be comfy).

As soon as this realisation is made, that 100% mitigation/vit focus isnt needed, then you start crunching numbers to work out the best balance of pushing your DPS whilst not dying.

And the best balance is to stack Crit/Det instead of Parry, and use as much Strength as you can instead of Vit.

Having +400 Parry on your gear is roughly +10% parry chance (figures quoted above said about 40 for 1%). 10% parry chance is very roughly 2% less physical damage taken. That 400 Parry could be 400 crit, which I believe has the same percent return per point, so that's +10% crit chance (and a slight increase in crit damage).

So when deciding between Crit and Parry, you're weighing up at the large values something like a 2% physical mitigation boost vs a 5% dps output boost for equivalent stat budget. That's the major reason Parry is rubbish, even outside of its unreliability on mitigating tankbusters.

[Kacho_Nacho]

*snip*

The question though is the -degree- in which it is easier... and it's not much. The way the game works, you just don't have constant incoming damage or spike damage of the magnitude where the parry/vit/shield tank's overall toughness makes any real difference to the success of a group. However, the strength/crit/det/sword tank will be pushing 30-40% more DPS than the turtley tank... and in -most- cases nowadays, that extra dps is just far far more useful.

No one is FORCING tanks to avoid parry or focus dps 100%, but the hard encounters the game currently has basically -suggest- it, and groups where a tank cannot contribute a meaningful amount of dps simply have much more trouble clearing it. There's no disputing that Parry/Vit makes a tank easier to heal, the fact of the matter is that it just DOESNT REALLY MATTER with the content we have given how dependant everything is on proper cooldown rotations.

By all means play the parry stacking "brick wall" tank, and in 4man dungeons and content where DPS checks arent especially important then the success of a group wont really be affected - heck, if your healer is undergeared or new then it might actually improve the chance of success. But for any meaningful difficult content tanks simply cannot ignore the fact that the benefits gained from Parry are virtually nothing, but the benefits gained from increasing the damage output can have meaningful improvement on group success when it comes to pushing phases, skipping mechanics, and hitting hard enrage timers.

I appreciate you so much, Sapphida!

You don't talk down to us tanks more accustomed to a turtle tanking paradigm. You also take the time to explain why STR tanking works in the current content. Thank you!

Something occurred to me earlier while I was thinking about this thread. Please bear with me, I am having a BAD fibromyalgia day. I might not be completely clear. Mind is foggy as hell.

ANYWHO...

Couldn't a tank going balanced STR/VIT also be good strategy? That would mean the tank would require less healing but still put out decent damage. The extra MP the healers save would allow them to dps more.

Or is this a case where the extra dps a full STR tank provides trumps the extra dps the healers would provide above?

[braneri1]

Couldn't a tank going balanced STR/VIT also be good strategy? That would mean the tank would require less healing but still put out decent damage. The extra MP the healers save would allow them to dps more.

Or is this a case where the extra dps a full STR tank provides trumps the extra dps the healers would provide above?

It can be useful to have a balance of str and vit. This depends on the content you're doing and your gear, like if your left side gear is not so great you may want to still have maybe 2 vit accessories and even use some cheap food like kaiser rolls (a low level HW recipe with cheap, easy to get mats that gives you about as much vit as if you were to swap your attribute points to full vit). As for tank busters in raids, make sure you have enough vit to survive it in combination with proper mitigation, with a bit of room left for any potential auto attacks that may follow after it. Play around with it and see what you can manage while still remaining reasonably comfortable.

It also varies depending on the type of pulls you are doing. If you get into a dungeon and do not have a strong group composition for aoe (like double melee or newer players with less gear), you may be better off doing smaller trash pulls with a heavier str setup so that you can help kill stuff faster without putting undue stress on your healer by doing larger pulls [which you would normally do with a stronger group comp] that will take far longer to kill, thus you will run out of defensive cooldowns when there are still a lot of enemies left. Dungeon bosses do so little tank damage however, that you can easily go full str and even drop tank stance once you have solid aggro, and just pop a cooldown to mitigate what few higher damage skills the boss has. In most cases, maintaining a regen and tossing you an occasional cure is all the healing that is necessary.

Also, having more vit doesn't mean you require less healing. Firstly, it will mean that it would take 1-2 gcds longer before your healer has to start healing you, which is a non-issue because any large pulls you do should be combined with using one of your higher mitigation skills as well as a stoneskin, adloquium, or nocturnal aspected benefic, which will easily provide the extra amount of time for healers to put out dps before having to switch out. (On a side note, having more vit as a drk can be counterproductive if you end up having to use living dead, as if walking dead is triggered, your healer will have to heal more hp to remove the effect, which can end up increasing your risk of death, depending on what burst heals your healer has available and ready to use.) Vit does not provide direct mitigation, it only does so in combination with certain skills that are based on it such as thrill of battle or divine veil. Incoming damage is the same regardless of how much vit you have; vit is an entirely separate stat from defence/magic defence.

Secondly, having more vit will mean that your self-healing will be weaker, thus making your own contributions to mitigation in that way weaker. Clemency, bloodbath, soul eater, inner beast, equilibrium, second wind, storm's path, dark arts abyssal drain...these will all provide smaller returns if you have more vit and less str.

As for the last part of what I quoted, being a full str tank does not in any way make healers incapable of putting out dps. If the tank and healer both know their jobs well, both of you can put out great dps easily while surviving anything. It all comes down to the ratio of incoming damage to incoming heals + self healing.

Having more str is also not only useful for higher dps and better self-healing, but stronger enmity generation as well. Enmity is calculated based on the amount of damage you do, times enmity multipliers of the skill, times enmity multipliers of your tank stance. So the more damage you do, the faster you are able to generate enmity, and this can get to the point where you only really need to, for example, start a boss pull on tank stance for 1-2 enmity combos, and then drop tank stance for the remainder of the fight while never losing top aggro.

I hope all this helps!

[Izsha]

Couldn't a tank going balanced STR/VIT also be good strategy? That would mean the tank would require less healing but still put out decent damage. The extra MP the healers save would allow them to dps more.

Or is this a case where the extra dps a full STR tank provides trumps the extra dps the healers would provide above?

You just discovered penta melded hybrid accessories. About 2/3 the str and vit combined. There's a reason they have been the gild standard for raid tanks since twintania. At the beginning of patch cycle tanks spend millions and millions of gil to make full hybrid sets. Then as their left side gear improves they slowly replace the hybrids with slaying as able and as the encounter demands. What your suggesting is exactly what's always been happening at the higher end.

Broke tanks just mix n matched slay/fend accessories for a gimpy version of the same idea.

[Kacho_Nacho]

You just discovered penta melded hybrid accessories. About 2/3 the str and vit combined. There's a reason they have been the gild standard for raid tanks since twintania. At the beginning of patch cycle tanks spend millions and millions of gil to make full hybrid sets. Then as their left side gear improves they slowly replace the hybrids with slaying as able and as the encounter demands. What your suggesting is exactly what's always been happening at the higher end.

Broke tanks just mix n matched slay/fend accessories for a gimpy version of the same idea.

Hey! I'm learning!

You all are good teachers.