From one tank to other tanks..STR Gear is not a thing anymore..Get used to it now!

[Singularity]

when a tank buster brings them down to 5% health rather than 45% health no amount of calculations will tell me STR is better. Sorry.

Why does it matter whether they are at 5% or 45% though? They're still alive either way, and the absolute number of HP they need restored to be at full is the same.
So what is that extra 40% HP doing? well, you can think of it as one or two heals you don't have to cast over the course of the encounter, but if you put that time towards healer damage instead, you'll almost certainly add less party DPS than the tank wearing STR would (possibly an exception for a Holy or Gravity on a large number of targets in a short encounter)

As a white mage, i can tell a remarkable improvement with tanks who wear tank gear. And I can definitely tell when a tank is a "i want to really be a dps person" because their health drops faster than the 1929 Stock Market

If they "want to be a DPS", then they are most likely not using their cooldowns very well. That is why their HP is dropping faster, remember, VIT does nothing to reduce incoming damage at all.

it has nothing to do with how I want them to play. Every possible bit of evidence clearly shows that tanks are suppose to wear Vitality gear....not STR! They even stated that in patch 3.05 that all STR based accessories are going to be locked out from tanks....so when SE is saying and doing these things....how is that solely my opinion?

The thing is - we're not bound to do what SE intends at all. SE set the rules of the game, anything we do within those rules is fair play. If SE doesn't like the way we as a playerbase play the game, it is within their purview to change the rules, but until and unless they do, their intentions have no binding hold over us whatsoever.

[Kosmos992k]

This isn't about emnity.

Vitality is not mitigation, vitality increases the pool of health **snip**
Tank heals scale of STR; this is especially true for DRK who's AD+DA combo and Grit+Souleater return HP based on damage dealt. This provides a form of active damage mitigation..**snip**[/B]

If VIT increasing the health pool - aka HP is not mitigation, then why do you in turn call the combination of "AD+DA combo and Grit+Souleater" that you described, a form of "active damage mitigation". By your own definition of what constitutes active midigation, more VIT = more HP = passive mitigation.

Remember any ability you or a healer uses that is based on your max HP will scale with VIT.

[MerleSirlos]

Ah but you see, tanks like you and me who swap accessories situationally don't exist, or so the soap-boxing healers keep telling me

Tanks who wear str accessory to do double trash pull are crazy even I don't dare to do such a thing

On vit I barely survive with all the cd with a average healer on DR

I think those two have the core of it all. A tank has to adapt to the situation. You don't use the same accessories in every situation.
The first time you fight a raid boss is not the same situation as when you are farming it. A raid or dungeon with your static is not the same as doing it with random people.

The problem is people blindly following the trend that str accessories are BiS and use them everywhere everytime!

[Kaonis]

Every possible bit of evidence clearly shows that tanks are suppose to wear Vitality gear....not STR!

And? Healers aren't supposed to be able to DPS in group content, yet here we are with mobs hitting like wet noodles and healers able to add in a lot of extra DPS. NIN had a different intended rotation back when it was released, and people quickly discovered a way to play it differently and better. Tanks were intended to stack parry, but instead avoided it like the plague with its horrible returns.

The point being there are lots of things the devs intend, but its not how it plays out. The fact that tanks can wear melded 270 acc for added STR and do content just shows there's an issue with their design. And a lot of it stems from there being neither enemies that hit hard enough or meaningful tanking secondaries. Extra health does nothing in a fight if you have enough to survive it conmfortably. So with gear adding nothing to help you mitigate, the only way to improve is to contribute DPS.

Until they make things hit hard enough (without pulling 2-3 groups at a time) and give us mitigation stats, the DPS tank meta will remain, as there is simply nothing else there.

[Kosmos992k]

Why is everyone ignoring the fact that vit accessories actually do affect how easy a tank is to heal? I lack the time or skills to do the math on it... but vit accessories typically have tenacity, which while yes I do understand has negligible effect on how much dmg a tank does it also does have the effect of how much HP cure spells restore and how much dmg a tank takes. That being said, tanks do need to have a viable way to increase damage done. It might not be the primary focus of their role but they do have to have some increase, if nothing else to enable them to do content outside of grouping.

The Tenacity you mention on VIT accessories, has 3 effects and is a bit stronger than the initial testing suggested. It's a bit less strong than DET for damage dealt, but at the same time it also impacts how much damage you take and how much you are healed for. Personally, I still think it's too weak, because for a stat specifically designated the *tank* role stat, it should have a pronounced effect such that players who stack for it (where they can) are at a measurable advantage over those who do not.

The difference between a tank using their melds wisely and stacking Tenacity -their tanking statistic, vs a tank who tries another method, should be greater than the margin of error in a statistical analysis of the battle log. Currently it's not.

Tenacity is too weak for that to be the case, but because of it's multi-faceted impact on things it's still worthwhile, making all those lovely VIT accessories better still for it's inclusion. STR tanking is still a thing because numerically STR accessories have a direct impact on our attack power, it scales linearly. As we move away from being able to use ilvl 270 STR accessories, we will only be able to meld so much STR on things. Ultimately this will silence the debate.

[RichardButte]

Either they should revert it or add STR to tank gear.

Like someone said, tanks that self-heal via damage get more mileage out of STR right now so that actually means healers need to heal them far less.

As a healer main, i can appreciate that...

[EdwinLi]

I'm saying that if someone is going to start messing with STR/VIT trade-offs, they'd better know what the hell they're doing and do it right. See my above comment.

While ideal to always know what they're getting into that a not quite the mentality of the newer and more "sheep" following tank players who only make the tank STR because they "heard from someone" or "this source say so".

It gets annoying when the "Sheep" tanks only go STR because they were told it is better and ignore all suggestion that it is better to balance between VIT/STR accessories if they're going into a DF random group since no one know the skill level they may get from other teams and their only response to sticking with pure STR Accessory is "this source proves I am right" and "the forums disussion say other wise".

There are more "Sheep" tanks than people believe

("sheep" are what I call players that only follow a certain trend because they saw others do so or because they are told to do so without knowing the full aspect of both benefits and consequences. They don't really play for themselves but play becuase it is the "big thing" right now before following the herd to the next new "big thing")

[RyuujinZERO]

Why is everyone ignoring the fact that vit accessories actually do affect how easy a tank is to heal? I lack the time or skills to do the math on it... .

Because the people who've done the maths came out with a figure of 3-5% mitigation for every 1,000 tenacity. A full set of Lv320 fending accessories plus melds yields something in the region of 400 tenacity.

[Zephyr]

Why does it matter whether they are at 5% or 45% though? They're still alive either way, and the absolute number of HP they need restored to be at full is the same.
So what is that extra 40% HP doing? well, you can think of it as one or two heals you don't have to cast over the course of the encounter, but if you put that time towards healer damage instead, you'll almost certainly add less party DPS than the tank wearing STR would (possibly an exception for a Holy or Gravity on a large number of targets in a short encounter)

The crit auto attack that comes at the same time as the tank buster that wipes said 5% and kills the tank. It's also the difference of your healer being able to heal up as needed or panicking over a tank with hardly any HP

[Klongol]

Because the people who've done the maths came out with a figure of 3-5% mitigation for every 1,000 tenacity. A full set of Lv320 fending accessories plus melds yields something in the region of 400 tenacity.

So, if we assume the higher end, Tenacity provide the following boost of 5% per 1k: 5% reduction in ALL damage (magic or otherwise), 5% increase in ALL damage done, and a 5% increase in ALL healing received.

Add in melds to both left and right side for tenacity and you're easily exceeding 2k Tenacity total. On top of this, you keep your 25% larger HP pool

I don't think I'd call a 10% adjustment to ALL 3 areas to be a miniscule bonus. Hell, I'd argue that taking these increases far outweighs the, at most, 15% increase in DPS a tank does with STR accessories.