Am I bad for actually "tanking"?

[Astral145]

Until I see what happens in 3.2 I will continue to mix up my right side. I love SS on all classes except NIN and MNK. So what I do is I look at the jewelry and base it off which pieces have SS. For rings I just split up the difference 1 str and 1 vit. The rest will be based on SS if for some reason there is no SS in a higher piece I will usually look at my lower pieces (within 10 -20 item levels) to see if there is any pieces I can swap. On average I end up with more vit than str on my right side but its only off by 1 piece. I keep hate no issues and I feel I have a really nice ratio between vit and str + that SS gotta love it.

I like to have some kind of cushion when running in df and at the same time I like to have a little extra spice to keep that hate and try to maximize my dps. I try to take all figures into account such as crappy healers, crappy dps... or both at the same time. Its going to happen more often then not at least with my luck.

Anyway if you like all vit then go for it and if you like all str well enjoy those bigger numbers. If you are like me and like to find that happy medium well by all means enjoy. Happy hunting

[Pells]

A pure vitality tank :

- does 25% less damage (aand threat) than a pure Strength tank
- requires exactly the same healing input as a pure Strength tank, if not more due to less self healing from Bloodbath/Abyssal/Souleater
- can survive maybe 1-2 second longer on big pulls without a heal if the healer is slow/bad/DCs

This is mostly correct. For WARs and DRKs.

For a PLD, Bloodbath healing is pathetic, since they have no real spammable ae damage skills.

You've also forgotten the extra self healing through natural in-combat regen a full VIT tank would have over a full STR one, amounting to roughly 40% more. (22k/16k, given the max hp numbers in your post)
This applies 2% of their max health every tick, anytime the tank is not at full health--amounting to roughly 120hp/tick more self healing for the VIT tank. An extra 25% healing through single-target Bloodbath isn't going to overcome this loss.

As a result, a full VIT PLD is slightly easier to heal than a full STR PLD.

The bigger difference is still whether the tank can use their defensive CDs appropriately.

[MPNZ]

This is mostly correct. For WARs and DRKs.

For a PLD, Bloodbath healing is pathetic, since they have no real spammable ae damage skills.

You've also forgotten the extra self healing through natural in-combat regen a full VIT tank would have over a full STR one, amounting to roughly 40% more. (22k/16k, given the max hp numbers in your post)
This applies 2% of their max health every tick, anytime the tank is not at full health--amounting to roughly 120hp/tick more self healing for the VIT tank. An extra 25% healing through single-target Bloodbath isn't going to overcome this loss.

As a result, a full VIT PLD is slightly easier to heal than a full STR PLD.

The bigger difference is still whether the tank can use their defensive CDs appropriately.

TY!!!!! T_T

[Galibier]

As a main WHM, please, continue to do what you're doing...

I think some people who have never been a dedicated healer miss this. I was a pretty hardcore raiding Mystic Main in EQ2 for years and I alt raided as a Berserker. Now as a Zerker for a while I HAD to DPS but that was because if I didn't (in KoS, RoK) aggro managing was a PITA. I had to stance dance, macros to swap from DW to sword and board etc. I also knew, from healing, that as the Mystic I was MUCH happier with a Paladin or even SK as the OT because it was simply easier to keep them standing because they could maintain aggro without such tricks.

Now this isn't to say tanks shouldn't dps. It's more to say "ask your healer what makes them comfortable". If they are cool with you Str tanking awesome, if they would rather have you split the difference, or even Vit tank, if you have solid aggro management consider it. You and your healer are a team.

[Galibier]

In the end though it looks like next month this entire debate may well be moot with the changes they are making to damage calcs (whatever they may be) to encourage tanks to not use dps accessories.

[Houston009]

This is mostly correct. For WARs and DRKs.

For a PLD, Bloodbath healing is pathetic, since they have no real spammable ae damage skills.

You've also forgotten the extra self healing through natural in-combat regen a full VIT tank would have over a full STR one, amounting to roughly 40% more. (22k/16k, given the max hp numbers in your post)
This applies 2% of their max health every tick, anytime the tank is not at full health--amounting to roughly 120hp/tick more self healing for the VIT tank. An extra 25% healing through single-target Bloodbath isn't going to overcome this loss.

As a result, a full VIT PLD is slightly easier to heal than a full STR PLD.

The bigger difference is still whether the tank can use their defensive CDs appropriately.

Aren't DRK's aoe attacks magical, therefore not effected by Bloodbath? iirc.

[Jamillion]

Aren't DRK's aoe attacks magical, therefore not effected by Bloodbath? iirc.

Yes but they scale with attack power as well and have their own built in self healing with Dark Arts

[Februs]

I'll definitely try and work in a little Str in my repertoire while staying above the effective health limit and see how it goes.

You'll have an easy time with it. Pld's can meet the minimum Hp without too much effort. Most of my Pld accessories are Str (except for one ring, I think), and I'm still well over. It's the way Pld's are kitted. Just don't expect to see a noticeable difference to your Dps by putting on slaying accessories alone. I was not kidding when I said that knowing when to stance dance (or just flat out drop Shield Oath, which is more efficient on your GCD) is more important for your Dps as a Pld.

[Februs]

I'm not going to say you're -wrong- here, but this is very much the opinion and attitude of someone who hasn't experienced Savage raiding when it first came out, and this is where most of the Str>Vit stuff has come from.

I'm aware of where the attitude came from, because I did go into Savage when it first came out. It's actually one of the reasons I leveled my Drk. That being said, Pld's definitely did not make the content impossible ... Just much harder than people liked.

I'm not going to say you're wrong here, either, but you're also not right. Pld's could clear Savage when it first came out. All of the world first clears were followed up with Pld parties shortly after, including A4. One of the tanks from the Greggy server talked about it these very forums, actually. You're right to say that a Pld in Savage needed to spend a lot of time in Sword Oath ... but so what? That's not a bad thing. I already stated that a Pld knowing when and how to stance dance is more valuable to their Dps than Str accessories. When I run as Pld, I swap Oaths ALL THE TIME. It's part of the job and does far more for my Dps than my str accessories can do alone.

Further, SE has already admitted that Savage was a complete oversight and mistake on their part. They outright said it was an error in judgement, and in response they will be no longer releasing content with such a steep difficulty curve (which I'm really hoping is only referring to Dps checks and not mechanics, since the mechs in Alex were not all that complicated). They're also adjusting the damage calculation specifically for tanks, because they did not intend Tanks to have so much pressure in end-game content. SE admitted that they wanted us to use the Fending accessories dropped from Savage. The did not want us to feel pressured to kit out in str or spend millions of gill on melded accessories. It was a mistake, and one that seemed to single out Pld's in particular, given their low Dps output.

[Februs]

Good tanks are the ones that truly understand what Strength and Vitality do for their class on an encounter-by-encounter basis and adapt their gear and build to the situation.

Nothing could be more true ... but that still does not mean that full Str is the best or only option.

Even from just an ability perspective, there are benefits to having a mix of Vit and Str. A good Pld knows that increased Vit provides a better buffer for their party when using Divine Veil. They know that they get a bigger benefit from Stone skin with a higher Hp pool, and that Clemency provides more self-healing than Bloodbath ever could with the Pld kit. They also know that an advanced Pld pull tactic is to use the healer as a proxy enmity magnet by allowing them to take aggro and covering them using Cover, and that Cover extends no additional Def to the covered target without spending an additional Def CD's. Meaning they stand to lose Hp much faster when using cover, possibly at as much as double the rate if overlapping AoE's are involved. This is easier to buff through with additional Hp, and they have more effective healing in Vit gear than they do in Str gear.

Now, does any of this mean that you should go in for full Vit? Absolutely not. None of the above (or any of the unmentioned benefits) require a full Vit kit. However, you are definitely not taking the best advantage of these skills if your Hp is at or lower than a Dragoon's. Just as in, on the flip side, you're not taking advantage of your max potential dps if you don't use Str accessories or learn how to stance dance out of Shield Oath whenever Flight or Fight is up. You're right to say that it's a balancing act. Given that most Plds kit full str and completely ignore moves like Divine Veil or Cover, it's a balancing act that most Pld's get wrong. Ignoring specific moves in your kit just because they are not offensive is definitely not playing the job to it's fullest.

As you said, it's all about knowing when and where to take the most advantage of your kit. Right now, largely thanks to the misconceptions brought on by SE's mistakes with Savage, the majority of the player base think that there is only one way to fully take advantage of a Pld, but that's just outright false. There's nothing wrong with having slightly higher than the minimum required Hp (which pld's get regardless of having full Str, so no biggy there) so long as they are actually using that Hp efficiently. That means taking full advantage of their skill set, which means using DV, Cover, Stone Skin, Clemency, etc.