Idea to Fix Problems with Tank Main Stat & Accessories

[Lyth]

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The problem is that these "tanking responsibilities" that you speak of don't exist in raid content. Raid tanking in this game is the equivalent of a rail shooter. The boss positions itself.

We're effectively melee dps who alternate between invulns and supercooldowns at fixed timestamps. If you take away the melee dps aspect, you're left with nothing. There's a balance to be struck here, and we've already started to swing well past it. Given how slow SE is at reacting to player feedback, I'd rather they become aware of the problem sooner rather than later. Please, just hire some actual tanks to do your raid design.

[VaryaKimon]

The problem is that these "tanking responsibilities" that you speak of don't exist in raid content. Raid tanking in this game is the equivalent of a rail shooter. The boss positions itself.

We're effectively melee dps who alternate between invulns and supercooldowns at fixed timestamps. If you take away the melee dps aspect, you're left with nothing. There's a balance to be struck here, and we've already started to swing well past it. Given how slow SE is at reacting to player feedback, I'd rather they become aware of the problem sooner rather than later. Please, just hire some actual tanks to do your raid design.

Sure, I don't disagree with you. I just wish that wasn't the case, but I didn't design this game so we're stuck with it.

Tanks also have to manage enmity control, which largely consists of tank swaps with Shirk and reminding your DPS and Healers to use their enmity dumps when they inevitably forget to do it on their own. At least they have it on their hotbar now, so that's an improvement.

[Izsha]

I missed the QA. What exactly was the question and SE's response?

[HyperiusUltima]

On the topic of VIT and TEN, what was suggested about Tenacity would in fact make it a useful stat and we wouldn't have a 'useless' stat anymore that relates to tanks. They'd also be able to do away with melding STR on gear and instead allocate enough stats on Accessories so that we can tank and also do DPS...though, what I wonder is how we go about making sure that Crafted doesn't become super dominant even in late game.

Overmelding is the biggest reason why it's stronger than raid gear a decent amount of the time, along with the stats that some raid gear comes with. The Tome Gear and Raid Gear should typically be what comprises BiS while Crafted is what pushes you up as progression gear when you're first attempting the fight and don't have the gear from it; it'd keep people in the market for crafted gear while also fixing some of Tank's issues with needing that 10,000,000 Gil Crafted Ring just so that you can be BiS(since not everyone has that kind of money to throw around).

[MistakeNot]

On the topic of VIT and TEN, what was suggested about Tenacity would in fact make it a useful stat

Tenacity is pretty useful as it is. The only reason people think it isn't is because it is not the absolutely best stat for increasing damage output - and too many people seem to think anything which does not increase.damage output is useless.

[Deceptus]

Our main stat is Vitality, but our damage comes from Strength. The latter doesn't scale as well on our accessories, which is why tanks used to wear Slaying accessories when they could and why we wear crafted accessories now.

It hit me this morning that there's an obvious solution that wouldn't require too much work to fix on the development end.

Make Vitality contribute to tank damage and not contribute any HP. Then change Tenacity (which is currently a junk stat) to provide HP the same way that Piety provides MP. Adjust the jobs as necessary to scale their HP as they level, perhaps through a HP+ passive trait.

Umm last I checked this was already the case? Isn't the damage formula (AP) for tanks a mixture of a portion of STR + a portion of Vit?

Per the wiki:

"As of Patch 3.2, vitality is used in the calculation of Attack Power for tank jobs."

SE has decided they don't want the STR meta to be a thing because they don't want squishy tanks. Sorry you disagree with that, but it's in the realm of "just deal with it". Every Job has a main stat. STR is the DPS stat, Vit is the tank stat, just like Mind is the healer stat. I wish healer Acc's had some base Vit on them, but they don't and I don't complain about it. It would make healers tankier than they're supposed to be. Perhaps you should stop looking at tanks as a DPS? If you want to play as a DPS, play a DPS.

[Cabalabob]

Gotta keep in mind that VIT isn’t just for tanks, other jobs get HP from it too. If you make VIT a damage stat and tenacity into HP then everyone except tanks ends up like DoH/L where you’re level 70 with 5k HP.

Personally I’d rather see them put more STR on tank accs to match the STR on slaying accs, but reduce the scaling we get from it. E.G. a dps gets 1 damage for 1 STR while a tank gets 0.75 damage from 1 STR. That way tank stats scale the same as everyone else but our damage is still less than an equally geared dps.

[MistakeNot]

Umm last I checked this was already the case? Isn't the damage formula (AP) for tanks a mixture of a portion of STR + a portion of Vit?

Per the wiki:

"As of Patch 3.2, vitality is used in the calculation of Attack Power for tank jobs."

It was that way for a while, with STR and VIT contributing equally to damage for tanks, and then they changed it back with 4.0.
Now VIT does not contribute to damage at all.

[Kalise]

Umm last I checked this was already the case? Isn't the damage formula (AP) for tanks a mixture of a portion of STR + a portion of Vit?

Per the wiki:

"As of Patch 3.2, vitality is used in the calculation of Attack Power for tank jobs."

I believe that the Wiki is wrong on this one, since in-game Vit just states "Increases HP" and only STR notes any benefit for Tanks damage.

I gather that to mean that some point since 3.2 they removed the Vit being part of tank AP calculation (When, I haven't the foggiest to be honest...)

SE has decided they don't want the STR meta to be a thing because they don't want squishy tanks. Sorry you disagree with that, but it's in the realm of "just deal with it". Every Job has a main stat. STR is the DPS stat, Vit is the tank stat, just like Mind is the healer stat. I wish healer Acc's had some base Vit on them, but they don't and I don't complain about it. It would make healers tankier than they're supposed to be. Perhaps you should stop looking at tanks as a DPS? If you want to play as a DPS, play a DPS.

Well, the thing isn't just about wanting to be a DPS as a Tank, it's the fact that, once you reach a point where you can survive all sources of burst damage in the game, VIT does nothing for you.

Heck, we're already easily to the point where you can be in DPS stance AND not need to be stacking VIT to safely get through every single burst damage ability in the game.

So... What else can a Tank do to improve themselves and make fights easier for their party/raid? Stack STR and do more damage. Stack Det for more damage. Stack Ten for more damage. Stack Crit for more damage. Stack Spd for more damage.

That's it. That's all that's left. Do more damage, make the boss die faster.

Meaning that the options for SE are: Let Tanks more easily build for damage using our main stat (VIT) or have more access to Accessories with the stat we actually care about (STR). Or invent some reason for Tanks to want to keep stacking defences well past what is actually necessary to do content (Especially Health, the most useless of all defensive stats in any video game since raw health just means you survive by needing more raw healing compared to if you mitigated damage instead). Bearing in mind, that our enmity is also tied to our damage output, so we literally NEED to do at least a decent amount of damage so that DPS can go ham without having to worry about ripping threat off us.

For the many ideas and scenarios I can come up with, I honestly cannot think of anything that would satisfy the latter option that doesn't revolve around some form of damage boost. Given that honestly, the primary thing that getting better gear does for a group is let the DPS kill the boss faster, let the healer spend less time healing and more time DPSing to kill the boss faster...

[Xtrasweettea]

If you want to play as a DPS, play a DPS.

This thread is not about us wanting to play as a DPS. This thread is to discuss the de-empowering of a whole role because the creators of the game want to fit the role into a specific box, but don't change or create any of the encounters to force the players who play that role to confine themselves into that box. Ie: They want tanks to do less damage, but do nothing to the encounters to warrant tanks to stack Tenacity versus Strength. Instead, they try to just "lower tank damage" by giving accessories that have poor STR (or no STR) compared to the other's role's main stats.

Yes, each role has a "main stat", as you have stated. Though, Healer and DPS roles' main stats 100% contribute to the "damage race (or damage paradigm)":

Get the enemy to 0 health before they get you to 0 health.

• DPS main stats help get the enemy to 0 quicker while having other abilities tied to that stat (if applicable).
• Healer main stat helps them perform their advertised function (healing) which helps with the slowing of "get you to 0 heath." At the same time, that same stat is what is used for Healer damage.

Tanks, on the other hand, have two stats for that paradigm: VIT to slow down getting them to 0 health. STR for the "getting the enemy to 0 health."

Whenever Healer or DPS gets an accessory drop, it contributes to both parts of the damage paradigm. When Tank's get an accessory drop, it doesn't contribute very much to both ends of the paradigm... only 1/2 of it (slowing down you getting to 0). If a tank wants to contribute to both ends of the paradigm, they have to have over-meld crafted accessories. No other role has to do this.

Plus, there is a certain point where that one extra point of VIT or Tenacity isn't going to save the Healer that 1 point of MP. In order to save on limited resources (healer's MP), the other option is to kill the enemy quicker. VIT doesn't help with that, and TEN doesn't do good enough job. There is no other option but to stack STR and pro-damage substats.