Artifact aremor (Chest + Legs) are better than VA, right?

[Nezerius]

I think its a pretty educated assumption; Parry can't be counted on for mitigating tank busters, CDs can. Therefore, parry was not designed to mitigate tank busters and judging the stat by that criteria is something of a straw-man argument.

We'll just have to agree that it's a badly designed stat, that will only bring in mediocre results in the most physical-heavy fight in the game (A2S).
It can't be counted on for tank busters, nor is it capable of having a significant impact on individual auto-attacks. No healer is gonna care about how you reduced the damage of an auto-attack by 400.

The stat needs to have a complete overhaul, as whatever its current design intent is, it clearly isn't a useful one.

[Launched]

Parry is RNG. So is crit. Guess why people don't have a problem with crit being RNG? Because its damage. Really simple concept.

Crit is fine because getting a crit is never really wasted. Every time you crit, it removes even more HP from an enemy, HP that they won't get back. It all contributes towards killing that boss at the end of a 10m+ fight. You have a chance to crit on (almost) every GCD, off-GCD, DoT and autoattack. Parry's RNG is different because of the size of your HP bar and the fact that it's physical only. You can't rely on a parry to keep you alive because enemies do a bigger percentage of your HP bar than you do to them per hit, and you can't rely on it to save MP or help healing because often a precasted heal would heal for the amount you parried anyway.

[Brian_]

What people are forgetting here is the ACC on the VA chest. The WAR esoteric chest has SS / Parry.

As long as you can drop ACC for Crit and Det on your other gear to take advantage of the ACC on the VA chest, the comparison is much closer. Overall, you will have less stats on your gear but Parry is completely worthless and SS is the least desirable DPS stat.

So, the Crit on the VA chest is ~9.5 stat weight worth of STR (which more than makes up for the gap between i200 and i210 STR) and you have the ACC which converts to Crit and Det on your other gear vs. the SS on the esoteric chest. It's a very, very minor difference but the VA chest is potentially better for pure DPS.

[Syzygian]

Crit is fine because getting a crit is never really wasted. Every time you crit, it removes even more HP from an enemy, HP that they won't get back. It all contributes towards killing that boss at the end of a 10m+ fight. You have a chance to crit on (almost) every GCD, off-GCD, DoT and autoattack. Parry's RNG is different because of the size of your HP bar and the fact that it's physical only. You can't rely on a parry to keep you alive because enemies do a bigger percentage of your HP bar than you do to them per hit, and you can't rely on it to save MP or help healing because often a precasted heal would heal for the amount you parried anyway.

I mean... you're using 5x as many words to say essentially the exact same thing I was. RNG that removes HP from the enemy=good, RNG that prevents you from losing HP=bad. RNG mitigation=no RNG DPS=yes.

[Brian_]

He was saying crit's RNG is neutralized by the length of fights and the size of boss HP pools.

Whereas parry's RNG is not neutralized because our HP pools in relation to incoming damage does not offer any noticeable gains to effective healing.

If we had massive HP pools, then maybe the accumulated mitigation from multiple parries could save the healers a few GCDs worth of healing. The reality is a parry won't do anything because it doesn't really change how we are healed.

So no, it's not RNG mitigation = no, RNG DPS = yes. It's a consistent DPS gain over a 10 minute fight = yes. Effectively no practical mitigation gain = no.

[AlexiIvaniskavich]

….So, the Crit on the VA chest is ~9.5 stat weight worth of STR (which more than makes up for the gap between i200 and i210 STR) and you have the ACC which converts to Crit and Det on your other gear vs. the SS on the esoteric chest. It's a very, very minor difference but the VA chest is potentially better for pure DPS.

The total stat weight math for the VA chest is 102.48, (93+(60*.158))
The total stat weight for the ESO upgraded chest is 101 (ignoring sks for the moment). This means the secondary stat upgrade on the VA piece over the ESO + piece is 1.45%.

What you fail to consider is the upgrade in defense. VA is 424, ESO+ is 456. Or a 7.1% upgrade, favoring the ESO. You have to weigh out both sides of this coin when you are a tank, and this percentage bump on the defense is a pretty significant increase. IMO, the ESO+ is worth the minimal DPS loss over the VA ** ASSUMING** you have the ESO and twine to spare.

I do this type of math when determining my upgrade order (ESO to ESO+) for my other classes I am gearing, after my main class is well loaded. If upgrading my monk head piece is an 8.5% upgrade going to the 210, I would upgrade this piece over doing a different item on another class that would equate to a smaller percentage increase in stats – ie. PLD feet is an 8.3% upgrade.

You can make a stronger argument between the VA pants and the ESO+ pants - depending on which tank class you are. The secondary stat split on PLD is 3.8% in favor of the VA piece. It is 11.6% advantage (VA) on WAR, unless you are starving on accuracy. As I haven’t seen DRK stat weights, I borrowed the WAR formula for now and I got a 1.3% split (it is closer to 3% if you use the PLD sks weights .104). So I give it a yes to VA legs for WAR, a probably for PLD, and a probably not for DRK.

***Please remember, we are still debating the value of Secondary DPS stats vs the value Defensive stats. Someone please get bored and go do A1S for unmitigated HCP in all 190 gear, 200 gear and 210 gear. My healer made the comment last night that I take significantly less damage now than I did 8 weeks ago. There is value to this, but it is value that is more difficult to measure.

Consider the possibility that this extra defense could allow you to drop your tank stance more frequently.

My major question involves the balance and value of the Skill Speed stat weight. WAR needs 480, but the .125 multiplier seems…..high. In fact, it is by far the highest of any of the classes I have seen theory crafted thus far. Can somebody smarter than I explain the transition from a soft cap on sks (2.x prevailing thought) to where we appear to be presently??? Are we getting out an extra gcd or something?

[Brian_]

I specifically said "potentially better for pure DPS."

I didn't fail to consider the upgrade in defense. That was not the point of my post.

[AlexiIvaniskavich]

@Brian_
Perhaps some better re-arranging in my post would have been wise. None of my statement should be considered if you and your group are able to handle tanking in full DPS stance. If you are not within this classification, and you have to spend some amount of time in your tank stance, additional defense may allow you to drop into DPS mode more frequently and it may allow your healers to DPS a bit more (increasing your DPS at a greater rate, and possibly the entire raid group as well).

Perhaps I didn’t make my point clear enough, or took too long getting there. I was looking at what route has the better value for 8 man content. I stated that the VA chest is an upgrade over the ESO+ by a very small margin when looking at it with DPS blinders on. I debate on whether that small upgrade is of greater value to my team over the much larger defensive upgrade. And yes, the stat weight difference in the chest piece is quite small, so small in fact that I believe I can get more out of having that extra defense by dropping my tank stance sooner and for longer periods of time.

Of course, value is very subjective. I admit(ed) that it is extremely difficult to quantify the value of what added defense brings for both you and your party. I do think that you can easily debate both sides of this coin when the percent you gain based on just the stat weight increase is so small.

[Brian_]

The tiny amount of DEF and MDEF and VIT is not going to allow you to drop your tank stance sooner.

And, even with that logic, any gains you see from defense will only be relevant in the span of time you gain out of tank stance.

Whereas if you stack a passive gain in offensive stat weight, it's relevant 100% of the time regardless of your stance.