Why don't people like to pick/use Tenacity over Determination?

[Warskull]

Most people have no clue how the stats work and just follow the meta. The meta stems from the balance discord which pushes max DPS above all. People keep repeating it and using the best in slot gearsets without understanding them. The reason the balance promotes DPS is because a lot of them rush the content and spend more time optimizing and less time progressing. So they talk about progression less. People mistake this for progression being less important.

Tenacity is a fine progression stat. I wouldn't focus on tenacity for your gear, but melding tenacity works great. Then you just swap over to DPS as you get better gear. You burn like 1% damage to get 2-3% damage reduction. It doesn't seem like a lot, but when it counts it saves a run. It covers for little mistakes on tank or healer.

Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn't, and most people don't understand things well enough to know when to use it.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Most people have no clue how the stats work and just follow the meta. The meta stems from the balance discord which pushes max DPS above all. People keep repeating it and using the best in slot gearsets without understanding them. The reason the balance promotes DPS is because a lot of them rush the content and spend more time optimizing and less time progressing. So they talk about progression less. People mistake this for progression being less important.

Tenacity is a fine progression stat. I wouldn't focus on tenacity for your gear, but melding tenacity works great. Then you just swap over to DPS as you get better gear. You burn like 1% damage to get 2-3% damage reduction. It doesn't seem like a lot, but when it counts it saves a run. It covers for little mistakes on tank or healer.

Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn't, and most people don't understand things well enough to know when to use it.

This isn't purely about Balance promoting DPS-efficient stats, this is also about Tenacity at large not being useful as a mitigation stat outside of Ultimate or the final floor of the current Savage tier. Running a max Tenacity build does end up reducing your total dps by I believe 2-3%, but as you describe, it isn't as groundbreaking. But even so, the gain from using Tenacity is hardly ever worth it. The last time I saw some tanks going for a high Tenacity build was The Epic of Alexander (a friend of mine to be precise, who also happens to be among the players pushing high DPS), and even there it is hardly needed for progression.

And regarding melding Tenacity, keep in mind it takes 330 Tenacity per full percent (both damage and mitigation), so this would be 5.5 Tenacity VIII Materia you'd need to use, which given how small that increase is, could be spent better. Tenacity on gear is fine, but ideally you use a Crit Tenacity piece, with Det Tenacity being "ok too". The only time you should meld Tenacity if you go for a maximum Tenacity set and you can increase it further with melds (if not maxed out) or if you are Warrior and your Crit + Det on a piece is maxed out already and you have the Skillspeed you desire.

Also I would like to note that while Balance discord generally gives tips on how to improve your DPS, it is also helping people with questions other than DPS, such as "how do I do this mechanic" or "how should I use mitigation in a fight to get the best out of it?" or "I feel weak / I die a lot, I am probably doing something wrong, can you help me analyze how I play?". Even encounter-specific tips are given if asked for.

[Makeda]

Most people have no clue how the stats work and just follow the meta. The meta stems from the balance discord which pushes max DPS above all. People keep repeating it and using the best in slot gearsets without understanding them. The reason the balance promotes DPS is because a lot of them rush the content and spend more time optimizing and less time progressing. So they talk about progression less. People mistake this for progression being less important.

The problem there is that in progression the two things that seem to cause the most wipes are, and in order:

1. Learning the mechanics. Stand here, stack there, move to there and face that way...
2. Beating the enrage timer.

You spend about 5/6ths of progression just learning where to stand when... and then the final 6th is getting past the wipes that keep happening when the boss is at 1% or less...

That is why even progression starts to hyper focus on DPS...


If tenacity was to mean more...

Incoming damage would need to outpace all possible healing even outside of tankbusters. A boss auto-attack hitting a non-tank would need to be a death, 2-3 hits from a 'trash mob' likewise (and raids here don't even have trash mobs... so that's basically a moot point)...

And tanks would only be able to survive by stacking a lot of mitigation...

Then you would have to reduce their DPS contribution, and likewise that of healers... so that it was rarely useful for them to focus on DPSing... and do this without making them unplayable when solo leveling...

Basically you'd need a game design similar to WoW of about 10-years ago (but not modern WoW)...

And it's not really a sure thing that's a good idea... no actively-updated game has that kind of design anymore.