PLD Bonus Stats

[Vilzen]

I'm trying to figure out the best way of thinking when it comes to bonus stats. What I gathered from the UI in game it boils down to:

STR=Threat
DEX=mitigation
VIT=Health.

There are three ways to look at it that I was able to come up with. Play on the strength of paladin, mitigation, and become even more potent at reducing incoming damage. Or, make up for pld's weakness (compared to war) threat generation. I will mention I've not played war. That was just what I've gathered from posts on the forums both here and in beta. The last way is some hybrid of 2 or all 3 stats to spread out the bonus but not focus on any one trait.

Any and all input is appreciated.

[Saltheart]

VIT > STR > DEX. Vit is the absolute most important stat for Gla's as their HP pool is lower compared to a Marauder. Str comes in second for threat. Dex is a distant third for some additional Mit.

[TirionCrey]

VIT > STR > DEX. Vit is the absolute most important stat for Gla's as their HP pool is lower compared to a Marauder. Str comes in second for threat. Dex is a distant third for some additional Mit.

Take this with a grain of salt. Unless we got endgame to actually "evaluate" the importance of the individual stats, this is a "suggestion" at best.

If survivability is gonna be the smallest problem, you can compeltely ignore VIT on your bonus stat allocation.
If it's gonna be an issue, than VIT is gonna be first choice (unless you got enough VIT through gear to make up for it, then mitigating stats are gonna be better again)

No matter what...without actual endgame tests there is no way of saying which stat is gonna be the most favourable to raise.

[Eliseus]

Snip

It's not just a suggestion, just spend some time and research abilities (didn't mean this as an offense, just meant research so I don't have to type them all out) that benefit more from a tank with more HP, having more HP doesn't just allow you to have a bigger HP pool, but it allows some healing abilities to heal more, stoneskin to absorb more etc. From a tanking standpoint the 30 points in VIT is much more beneficial not just for paladin but for warrior also.

Remember, this is talking about the 30 points, this isn't a in general what is better, strength of vit, but the 30 points, which is more beneficial putting them into vit (sorry, some people like to debate str vs vit now in 2.0 gear wise when that doesn't really matter with how gear is designed now).

[LunarRei]

It's not just a suggestion, just spend some time and research abilities (didn't mean this as an offense, just meant research so I don't have to type them all out) that benefit more from a tank with more HP, having more HP doesn't just allow you to have a bigger HP pool, but it allows some healing abilities to heal more, stoneskin to absorb more etc. From a tanking standpoint the 30 points in VIT is much more beneficial not just for paladin but for warrior also.

Remember, this is talking about the 30 points, this isn't a in general what is better, strength of vit, but the 30 points, which is more beneficial putting them into vit (sorry, some people like to debate str vs vit now in 2.0 gear wise when that doesn't really matter with how gear is designed now).

Often times larger than necessary health pools just become MP dumps for healers. Health pools should never be looked at as the biggest is the best, for if that were the case the WAR would win hands down. Having sufficient health to absorb significant damage before requiring attention is the target. Now, what is sufficient health? That is really the question and one that cannot yet be answered for the factors are myriad.

Side note: Stoneskin is as of right now nearly useless as anything but a pre-pull buff. Cast time and MP cost are too high and efficacy too low to be of value during battle.

Your side note is wrong, and that is actually one prime example of how much a larger HP pool could help more then not, it could potentially open doors to cast stoneskin instead of spamming heals, also, name me a time that a bigger health pool is worse instead of not, because with the 30 points into vit then 30 points into str, not only will you still do all the content NP, but you will have almost 500 more HP to fluff around that will look more desirable to people. If you also saw my last post, I even gave examples of where more HP is beneficial.

In what way am I wrong? The mana cost at level 50 is 3x's the cost of Cure (399 for Stoneskin, 133 for Cure) has a 3 second base cast time (50% more than Cure) and only shields at best 18% of PHYSICAL!!! damage. There is a decent write up of Stoneskins problems in the healer forums if you want to check it out.

I'll make up some fake numbers here since you're 50 and I'm not so idk what health pools are at that level. At 4000 HP Stoneskin will shield 720 HP (that is not much for 399 mana) but at 5000 HP we are sill only getting 900 HP of physical protection. That is not a huge jump in bonus protection for a theoretical 125 VIT. You also mentioned heals that are better when health is higher. I've looked over CNJ, WHM and SCH and see nothing of the sort. What are you talking about specifically? The SCH does get a shield of sorts, but is is based off its healed amount, not target HP.

Ultimately what that means is Stoneskin is not good for the tank during the fight since Cure heals all damage, not just physical, has a lower mana cost and is faster. It is also not going to be used on DPS since it has such a long cast time which prevents it from being used reactionary to immediate threats.

When would higher HP be a bad thing? When mitigation is sacrificed for it, as might be the case with STR. There is a balance that must be struck between mitigation and health and both suffer from diminishing returns. Having a huge health pool that gets drained quickly becomes, as I already said, an MP dump for healers since they will be required to spend more time casting heals on the tank. If these basic points have some how gotten past you, I fear for your ability to do this job effectively.

However, you might be absolutely correct in saying that VIT is more important than STR (for these 30 points; though if for these 30, than for any). The fact is we just don't know how effective STR is in block and parry mitigation. Perhaps it will be too insignificant to be worth investing too heavily in. My point is that all things must be considered and just blindly saying VIT is better because it gives you a bigger HP pool is foolish. Tanks must be able to balance enmity generation, mitigation and HP. Not one is more important than the other.

Enjoy!

[Eliseus]

Often times larger than necessary health pools just become MP dumps for healers. Health pools should never be looked at as the biggest is the best, for if that were the case the WAR would win hands down. Having sufficient health to absorb significant damage before requiring attention is the target. Now, what is sufficient health? That is really the question and one that cannot yet be answered for the factors are myriad.

Side note: Stoneskin is as of right now nearly useless as anything but a pre-pull buff. Cast time and MP cost are too high and efficacy too low to be of value during battle.

Your side note is wrong, and that is actually one prime example of how much a larger HP pool could help more then not, it could potentially open doors to cast stoneskin instead of spamming heals, also, name me a time that a bigger health pool is worse instead of not, because with the 30 points into vit then 30 points into str, not only will you still do all the content NP, but you will have almost 500 more HP to fluff around that will look more desirable to people. If you also saw my last post, I even gave examples of where more HP is beneficial.

Fact is people like to see big numbers, just like big HP pools, but more often, people like to try and get big numbers damage wise. Someone somewhere thinks 30strength is going to give that when in reality RNG could make your numbers exactly the same still with how minimal that extra 30 points is. 30 points in VIT is much more beneficial, and being a tank and all, benefits more towards tank like things.

[Eliseus]

Rambling

Look at my links. It isn't blindly, without even testing you should be able to conclude which is better (reading is hard), MP costs don't really matter much considering at least what people were saying, the infinite pool of MP they had, like you said though, you aren't 50, so you don't know this. Just because you aren't 50, don't just accuse people of "blindly" saying how things are at 50. Just because you don't like it, doesn't make it wrong.

Also the burden of proof lies upon you to present a situation where healers just dump MP trying to heal someone with that 30 extra vit, but you know, like you said, you not being 50, might be pretty hard.

You mention physical damage, if we are talking about spell damage, HP > all since you can't parry or block or dodge magic. Stoneskin isn't just physical damage. Can we get someone in here that at least reads what abilities do or 50 trying to argue strength being better then vit? Thank you for supporting my VIT argument though.

[Zirnent]

STR also affects how much damage you are able to block with your shield so it helps with mitigation too. As for the VIT I would say it is second most important with strength in first. Strength allows you to do more damage affecting your hate and it does the shield thing I said before while VIT only helps with health. Im not saying it's right but just what I think.

[waka_swag]

How exactly does DEX effect mitigation? Is it one of those things where it just does, or does DEX have anything to do with shield skill?

[Incarnatus]

Correct me if I am wrong but does not Dex improve your chance to block as well as to parry?