Please fix tank accessories already, it's been 3 patches

[Kabooa]

IMO it was just for arguments sake, I never liked the idea personally. So we can both leave the bad idea alone to collect dust lol



I don't think this was the idea. Obviously if you take the 25 str out without giving it back it's going to upset the comparison. Like, you're nerfing the amount of str overall then we end up in a situation where the 270 accessories come back in to play because the str difference.

Hey, the numbers are what they are, and we'll adjust to them like we always do, right?

This is actually a more than equitable change because you're getting a -far higher- upgrade ratio than DPS get by comparison. DPS stats on accessories go up about 10% (135 to 149) where as a tank would be coing up close to 30% (43 to 57) while also regaining the ability to meld a materia slot, -and getting meaningful gear progression-.

This literally ticks every box.
It makes crafting not BIS
It makes raid gear / end tome gear the best.
You get your materia slot back.
It allows for a fluid vertical progression because crafted gear will be just slightly better in the next tier while raid maintains the lead, so it has scaleability (30% more of say, 60 from the i380 crafted is +18 strength compared to +14 now)

That sounds pretty damn good to me for giving up your strength meld, -like DPS do-

[whiskeybravo]

This literally ticks every box.

Except the one about 270 str accessories being higher dps than anything under item level 370

You have to add the str in to prevent that from happening.

[Kabooa]

Except the one about 270 str accessories being higher dps than anything under item level 370

You have to add the str in to prevent that from happening.

No, I don't.

ballparking because it shouldn't be this ridiculous.

105 strength (21 x 5) would be approximately 4.5%, so close to 5% more damage for using Alexandrian.

However you're also losing approximately 166 substats per accessory, so about 830 substats.

Doing the easy one: 200 Direct Hit just from melds comes out to 1.25% damage.
The harder one: Assuming major crit on the other five pieces, that's approximately 365 critical, which at 0 is 3.6% crit rate for 40% more damage per crit, so about 1.4% more damage.
The remaining 265 substats, if just using Determination, is about 1.8% more damage

Compound it all together and you're looking at close 4.5% damage.

However seeing as critical rate is currently being stacked, you are more than likely gaining 3.6% critical rate at about 52% more damage per crit, so it's closer to 2.1, bringing this to about 5%, very possibly still edging towards strength.

Actually forgot you can do 60 DH in the alexandrian, so they still edge ahead by like... .1-2%

You want to dump about 30% of your vitality for that, go right ahead.

Also in the more immediate sense -370 is about to be the catch up gear and any point before that isn't relevant because those same people who aren't here yet won't be raiding alexander for accessories-

[whiskeybravo]

No, I don't.
....
Actually forgot you can do 60 DH in the alexandrian, so they still edge ahead by like... .1-2%

Are you comparing to 370? Because if they still edge ahead of your hypothetical 370s, then yes indeed any gear you get before 370 is going to be obliterated by 270 str accessories. (maybe obliterate is too strong of a word.. /shrug). And look, you, I, and most others on this forum probably would not gimp their HP like that but I would not at all put it past some people to try. They were already doing it at the start of SB and now we have even better left side gear. All in all it's still a moot point because it's a sketch af idea to begin with, and probably the most unlikely of all suggestions to be considered for adoption.

That sounds pretty damn good to me for giving up your strength meld, -like DPS do-

I think it should be pointed out that DPS don't lose a str meld, they are already capped on str - unlike tank. Technically tanks are the ones giving up a meld slot because the first one has to be str. So yea, give me an accessory that's capped on str and I won't give a damn about str melds

[Kabooa]

Are you comparing to 370? Because if they still edge ahead of your hypothetical 370s, then yes indeed any gear you get before 370 is going to be obliterated by 270 str accessories. (maybe obliterate is too strong of a word.. /shrug). And look, you, I, and most others on this forum probably would not gimp their HP like that but I would not at all put it past some people to try. They were already doing it at the start of SB and now we have even better left side gear. All in all it's still a moot point because it's a sketch af idea to begin with, and probably the most unlikely of all suggestions to be considered for adoption.

It's a comprehensive solution that works from now and moving forward, touching every point of concern except for the tanks who would risk getting double crit auto attacks and dying so they can do 20 more DPS.

Okay.

But it's 'sketch'.

I think it should be pointed out that DPS don't lose a str meld, they are already capped on str - unlike tank. Technically tanks are the ones giving up a meld slot because the first one has to be str. So yea, give me an accessory that's capped on str and I won't give a damn about str melds

Well strength wasn't supposed to be on your accessories anyways, and frankly if it was me, I'd wipe it out altogether and lock out any abuse cases as well.

You'll adjust to it.

[ArianeEwah]

Lowering weapon damage isnt an inherent problem. Brds have had lower weapon damage for the entire game. Mages magic damage is on an entirely different level of scaling all together. Books and staves have entirely different phy damage. Weapon damage makes no fundamental difference. It just sets the bar on how much damage a class does without changing the interactions of all the other stats in the game.

As for lowering the value of str (.9, .45, whatever) this also has negative consequences. The lower the ratio of str becomes, the more value the unchanged secondary stats become. This (in the extreme case) is why accessories are broken now. we gain so little str value (1 in 20 ilvls) that the increase in secondary stats is MORE important than the actual str gains and why the extra 72 secondary stats on pentamelds beat 20 ilvls of str. Lowering overall str values (like we have now) is the same thing as increasing the str number, but then lowering the str scaling. Both just make secondary stats more important.

However, if yuo raise the secondary stats to DPS levels (and therefore lower the value of secondary stats) ilvl reigns supreme. But to dial tank damage back, you cant just lower the value of str because that defeats the purpose of raising it in the 1st place. So you need to reduce tank damage in a way that doesnt affect str vs secondary stat relationship. Enter Weapon damage. It is a flat multiplier of ALL damage and doesnt discriminate. No side effects.

Raise str. Fixes progression, brings pentamelds in line where they should be. Reduce weapon damage to keep tank damage where it should be.

Actually, with lowering WD of tanks %-equivalent to DPS (any other job) WD, you will create just what you wrote about my suggestion, but worse. That's why I wrote I can handle 1 STR loss due to value adjustment.
Your suggestion risks getting no WD for higher iLv at a certian point. And when that happens we are back to HW problems, there e.g. DRK iLv 270 was better than iLv 275 weapon because all secondary stats on iLv 275 were totally worthless (parry + SkS).
Well, if you get no WD increase, and secondray stats are better on the "lower" weapon, you have an incredibly similar situation to HW.

Now, as I stated in my post, lowering the value of STR to attack power doesn't require re-designing/working the whole tank weapon arsenal, and more importantly it doesn't make raid accessories worse than crafted ones.
The situation you describe only affects those which secondary stat are totally worthless. But tanks are not an exception here, the same goes for healers and certain DPS jobs, e.g. BRD. And my goal is to make tank gear not an exception.
Furthermore, regarding the WD change: You just stated there that "Brds have had lower weapon damage" as in the past. I bet there was a reason they changed this.
Also, WD isn't a flat multiplier for all damage only, the same goes for STR, DET, even TEN. It may be calculated in a different way, yet the results are equal or very close.
A change to STR:secondary stat from ~1:10 to ~1:11/12 (~0.9:10) will be barely noticed. WD on the other hand seems like an all-out change.

Maybe we seek different goals here.

[whiskeybravo]

But it's 'sketch'.

I was actually referring to the whole stat redistribution thing as being sketch af/unlikely to be adopted. My apologies for tying that in with your suggestion.

Well strength wasn't supposed to be on your accessories anyways, and frankly if it was me, I'd wipe it out altogether and lock out any abuse cases as well.

You'll adjust to it.

No but SE had to do something to keep people from wearing 270 lol

And, it doesn't particularly matter to me what the baseline is. I was one of the few around here actually defending SE's decisions to reduce tank DPS back at the start of SB. I actually quit tanking back in HW when tanks needing to wear str accessories started to be a thing, "if I have to roll on DPS gear then I might as well be a DPS" and so I mained DRG.

So yea, I'll adjust to it just fine. The point is what's going on now makes no sense and it needs to be addressed one way or the other.

[Kabooa]

I'd be perfectly happy if they continue to 'ignore' this. I get a good amount of entertainment from it.

[Fytayn]

**All quotes used as examples and are not intended to single out that poster**

Tanks are for tanking. I know the meta is all about pushing phases, and I'm not disagreeing, but the core focus of any Tank should be to keep hate and reduce incoming damage. Each Tank has varying levels of damage, support and utility but their core purpose is the same. For most this means keeping hate and being able to survive a tank buster followed by an auto-attack. Once that minimum is reached they can focus on doing more damage. It seems like most arguments in the thread assume this optimal level of tanking has been reached and the Tank doesn't need to worry about their primary purpose because it's not difficult to hit that point.

Additionally the safety net the extra vitality on the 370 accessories provides is useless because you've clearly demonstrated that you didn't need it to clear the fight, hence having the accessory in the first place.

If you can down the boss to get the 370 gear then obviously your tanking is fine so extra Stamina or Tenacity isn't needed. Thus crafted accessories melded with Strength are superior. It's straightforward.

They could also stop making bosses hit like a limp noodle and actually have tanks stay in their defensive stance for an attack however I don't think that would happen given SE's fixation of damage > everything else.

From there we say the extra HP isn't necessary to kill the fights, so are we actually getting an upgrade from the raids? Not really. However, every other job gets to benefit from raid drops* because for every other job the highest DPS comes from the highest level gear. All we are asking for is some parity on tank gear.

Just because the accessories give a tank more health, doesn't actually make them better, since the content isn't tuned with the expectation of a tank wearing full i370 gear. It's like stacking accuracy (pre-SB) after already hitting the cap, just not worth it over getting higher dps.

The design of the game promotes this. Comments in the thread and the general attitude seem to agree that survival isn't hard and that damage should be the focus of any high-end raid Tank.

Healers should be expected to do damage when possible, tanks should be maximizing both their damage given while minimizing damage taken, DPS should be expected to manage their own enmity, and so on.

(emphasis mine) This is an extension of that. Now that we assume the Tank is doing their job and focusing on damage things shift to the Tank beginning to expect others to cover their job so they can DPS more. They have grabbed hate and are even trying to help the DPS so why wouldn't the DPS help the Tank? This shift in mentality is caused by how easy it is for the Tank to hit the optimal tanking threshold for the fights. Tanks demand more damage output and gear that supports it.

The other is "My tanking accessories aren't DPS upgrades", and there isn't going to be a single bandaid fix, or even a permanent one, that's going to make everyone happy.

Add +3 str per 10 ilvls "Why do we still have to meld Strength"
Remove strength melding "Why don't our accessories have more strength"
Accessories get more strength but other stats suffer because Tanks already do too much damage "Why do tanks not have full scaling on all gear"

Leading to this. There's no concern given for upgrades improving the ability to tank. The complaint is entirely focused on improving damage to the point that it can't really be satisfied.

We are asking for tanks to have the same, meaningful upgrade path as other jobs.

The logical "upgrade path" leads to higher damage output. The gear being dropped from high-end instances isn't along this path.

So I'll propose the bandaid being ripped off.

No more strength melding. Raid gear comes with the same increase DPS get.

There are numbers to support this idea. The work is impressive and complete. It changes core mechanics and numbers, certainly, but it is also a bandaid of sorts. An adaptation to make the gear fit the current meta and desires of Tanks.

But what if we shift the path instead of the gear?

Rather than changing all of this math, reworking the weights and values, what needs to happen is a concerted effort by SE to stop being so soft on Tanks. Increase the Savage damage outputs, have more attacks that can weave together and require careful use of mitigation, include more mechanics that encourage a Tank to "take one for the team" to reduce party-wide damage and just generally kick sand in Tanks' faces. Shift the battles so that when a piece of tanking gear drops that has higher Stamina and Tenacity a Tank will seriously consider whether they'll need it for the next leg of progress. Stop making survival so easy.

Rather than ripping off the bandaid they should punch us in the arm hard enough that we need it.

If Tanks once again have to worry about their survival, especially if risking themselves softens blows on others, the focus on damage output falls away. Their most effective contribution is then something only they can do which can't be easily compared to sheer damage or healing numbers. There have been times in the past when managing to avoid death while tanking was an accomplishment not because the Tank pulled the party through someone's mistake but because the fight made it that hard to stay standing. Challenge Tanks to fulfill their role of keeping hate, absorbing damage for their allies and surviving it all.

...But if you really want some kind of answer about Tank damage (though I don't think it's the real problem) how about... Hm... Make uncraftable accessories have two materia slots. When they can have two VIs it closes the gap enough that 20iLvls difference is noticeable but 10iLvls favours the more expensive pentamelded crafted accessory. Two guaranteed slots means avoiding any failed melding (unlike putting a second VI in a crafted piece) and this requires no reworking of mechanics or constants -- just add the extra slot. You could even limit it to SB gear. Because Tanks can meld in Strength they get more benefit to damage output than other roles.

[Kabooa]

So this is going to be a placeholder because, and I recognize my madness, I read the whole thread just now and have multiple points to respond to. My solution is very simple but I want to address things first.

*gets the calculator*

*puts calculator away*

Making Defense a primary concern requires reworking itemization. (i'm not against it)

Using a recent though hardly contemporary example in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

"Tanks" that are tanking focus primarily on increasing their Avoidance (Take no damage) and Mitigation (take reduced damage) and their gearing and stats allow for this. Tank mechanics also encourage this through their resource generation (Taking damage), their offensive abilities (Based upon taking / mitigating damage), and their threat output (Heavy modifiers to make up for the lack of damage dealt.)

in that game, Tanks deal approximately 25-35% the damage of a DPS, but their gearing choices heavily affect their ability to survive. This is not the case here.

FF14 does not currently support the choice to gear to be an immovable brick wall. The encounter design if it did go that route would find Tank kits here severely lacking for high sustained damage intake.

While I am all for redesigning tanks, gear, and encounters to incorporate this, this is not a universal desire.

It also worth noting that healers in SWTOR can't 0-100% in a GCD or two. Tanks having periods of heavy avoidance and mitigation is required in order to stay alive for their healing to work, else they run the risk of running themselves empty, and then everyone is in trouble.

FF14's encounter design is about fighting the encounter, not the system. I try to argue within the context of the thread, but moving out of that for this purpose, FF14's overall system would be well invigorated by the nuance of more mechanics and gearing decisions.