Tanks are still taking STR accessories.

[JackFross]

Strength Warriors were doing quite well with their self heals, dark knight has two heal backs it can employ, and paladins got clemency which is a significant heal to not just themselves but anyone in the party which is broken (Make up your mind about your role Paladin!).

Clemency is still shit, let's not pretend like a spell that costs 2/5 of your mana bar is anywhere close to broken, especially with how significantly it was nerfed with the tank adjustments.

The damage output and HP gaps of Vitality and Strength builds should have been taken into account when designing new fights.

They were.

Fending accessories were being considered useless/trash because they WERE useless trash with both their main and secondary stats. The new take on vitality is good, but the damage ratios were slung way too low. It'd be better to go with the old damage ratios, but remove strength from tanking gear.

The new ratios were done in order to create tiers of damage, which were incredibly blurry before 3.2.

You had MNK>BLM>DRG>NIN>SMN>BRD>=MCH>=WAR=DRK>PLD>[heals]
They shifted this slightly in 3.2 to widen the gap between the bottom DPS characters and tanks. So rather than having MCH deal ~1300 and WAR deal ~1200 on the same fight, those numbers would be more like 1300 and 950, making the disparity actually notable. I main Paladin on my alt and had been waiting for 3.2 to decide if I'd continue to or I'd go about gearing my DRG there, too. I decided on PLD. The decreased damage isn't an issue. All of the tank stances got increased enmity, and with a few minor upgrades, tanks are getting right back to where they were pre-3.2. Those same upgrades on the dps are shooting them up another 100-200 dps, keeping the huge buffer between them and tanks.


The "choice" still exists for Fending/Slaying accessories, yes, but they've done such a good job of making Fending more attractive than Slaying (both because Fending naturally has more main stat gains than Slaying and because Fending works twice - damage AND defense) that I don't think it's an issue. I haven't encountered a full slaying tank in DF yet. Hell, I'm the ONLY tank in DF I've seen using ANY (read: 1) Slaying accessories (since the 220 Fending Ring is h o t - g a r b a g e.)

So, in short:



//EDIT: Decided to read back a few pages, because I'm a masochist.

There is no DR on critical hit rate, the rate changes as you level up.

Yes, there absolutely are diminishing returns for Critical Hit Rate.

The crit rate increases linearly. That is, x Crit will always give you an increase of precisely y% crit.

200 Crit gives you ~5% crit rate. If you have 1000 Crit, you already have a base 20% crit rate. Increasing that to 1200 bumps you to ~25% crit rate. That's an increase of 25%. (25/20 = 1.25). This means, in case this is going over your head, that if you go from 1000 Crit to 1200 Crit, you will see, on average, 25% more crits. 1/4 of all of your previous non-crits would be crits, on average.

If, however, you have 800 Crit, and you add 200 Crit to bump to 1000, you go from 15% to 20%. This is an increase of 33%. (20/15 = 1.33333). This means you will be getting a crit on 1/3 of all previous non-crit skills on average.

That's the very definition of diminishing returns.

The thing is, you do know when you'll need that extra HP. The answer is: Never. You've already got your cushion, more than your cushion.

The question isn't whether or not you need it, the question is "Why would you sacrifice extra cushion that gives you marginally less attack power than the alternative for negligible gains in a secondary stat that will more than likely never be seen in any meaningful way?"

This is now a secondary stat argument, which will benefit you more.

Yes, and your argument is as follows. Correct me if I'm wrong:
Trading 2400 health for 80 points of crit, because it will increase how often my Equilibrium crits, will increase my survivability much more than the 2400 base health would have; I don't need that extra health to survive any incoming damage in any content I am currently playing with my Warrior. All Warriors should be considering this.
( This argument directly involves the flat STR v VIT debate, since you address the health change, but I won't crucify you for that. c: )

And to that, I let you argue against yourself:

Healing is not mitigation.

Because, you're right. Bonus healing is NOT mitigation. Getting a lucky crit on your Equilibrium is super good, but let me actually break this down for you.

775 Crit = 15% Crit Rate
854 Crit = 17% Crit Rate

So, you will, on average, get crits on approximately 13% of the Equilibrium casts that you currently use for healing (which shouldn't be very many, let's be honest) that do not *already* crit. This of course doesn't take into account that Equilibrium and Internal Release share the same cooldown of 60s, so if you are doing what you say you are and trying to maximize your crits on Equilibrium, these two skills will always be used together, which makes these numbers significantly different.

You're now comparing 25% to 27% - and would now be getting a Crit on 8% of the Equilibrium casts that you use for healing which do not already Crit.


If you honestly think that this negligible increase in critical hits from a skill (which, by your own admission, is in no way an actual mitigation skill) will actually be more beneficial than the health you sacrifice to gain this much crit, you're kind of dumb.

[Bikkusu]

They were.

Sorry, no. What they did was not take those into account at all. They reworked a system that wasn't broken in order to give Paladin a role in it.

No, the new ratios were not done to create tiers of damage.

They want you to play a role. They have stated this numerous times. They don't want healers to DPS so they took accuracy away (healers are melding accuracy onto their gear). They don't want tanks to DPS so they took damage away and said this is not a significant portion of their calculations for fights (no point in trying to gear for damage at all). They want DPS to DPS, yet they created a class that relies solely on procs for burst. So no, it isn't about tiers. It's about them trying to force a new way of playing a game onto a community (CUSTOMERS!) that doesn't want that.

Anyone who is gearing with just vitality in mind doesn't know what their numbers mean. When was the last time a Final Fantasy game had a clearly defined role for a character that you could not pick to min-max? When was it you had a class where you could not blur the lines of what it did?

Yes, there absolutely are diminishing returns for Critical Hit Rate.

The crit rate increases linearly. That is, x Crit will always give you an increase of precisely y% crit.

200 Crit gives you ~5% crit rate. If you have 1000 Crit, you already have a base 20% crit rate. Increasing that to 1200 bumps you to ~25% crit rate. That's an increase of 25%. (25/20 = 1.25). This means, in case this is going over your head, that if you go from 1000 Crit to 1200 Crit, you will see, on average, 25% more crits. 1/4 of all of your previous non-crits would be crits, on average.

If, however, you have 800 Crit, and you add 200 Crit to bump to 1000, you go from 15% to 20%. This is an increase of 33%. (20/15 = 1.33333). This means you will be getting a crit on 1/3 of all previous non-crit skills on average.

That's the very definition of diminishing returns.

No. No, this is not the definition of a diminishing return, especially when the Critical Hit Rate also increases the Critical Hit Damage/Heal.

A linear increase is a linear increase. A diminishing return is when you start to lose, or plateau as you gain more; this doesn't happen if you're going up at a flat rate.