War stat priority

[stanrir]

ok so I play pld as a main and today while on my War someone told me no i was doing it wrong that the stat priority for war was

Str, Vit, Det, Crit, Parry

the only tank accessory i needed was vortex ring and the rest should be strength stuff.

can I get someone to help me out here is this correct?

[Kitru]

can I get someone to help me out here is this correct?

No. That's so horribly wrong it hurts. The only difference in priority is that WAR actually gets some minute survivability benefit from +speed. Also, because Parry only appears on VIT gear, STR and VIT are basically set values (the only time you'd want to use STR gear, is for pentamelded crafted accs and, even then, it's somewhat questionable). As such, the priority is (acc)>parry>speed>crit>det.

[SwordCoheir]

Actually most will probably argue the viability of Skill Speed when it scales so poorly to other stats

[Kitru]

Actually most will probably argue the viability of Skill Speed when it scales so poorly to other stats

Some will also argue whether the offensive stats make any real difference to tank performance whatsoever since damage isn't really a tank's job. Crit provides the most damage over time, but it's not reliable, which is a pretty desirable trait for a tank so Determination has a reasonable argument for higher priority. Speed provides some modicum of increased survivability, unlike the other 2, but it's got such laughable returns that you have to wonder why the devs have it in game at all.

The most valuable aspects of Speed isn't so much the damage as it is increased uptime on your debuffs and increased number of attacks getting the benefit of your CDs. While BB>SE and BB>SP maintain full uptime on their relevant debuff while generating useful amounts of enmity, SE>SP maintains both debuffs but doesn't generate useful amounts of enmity. BB>SE>SP, which is the most useful of the rotations because it's the highest damage of the SP rotations (enmity is something of a nonissue if you're generating more than DPS, which just means using BB every once in a while), only keeps up SE for SP and BB and there's 1 GCD where Storm's Path isn't up (lasts 20 seconds and its' a 9 GCD rotation, which is 22.5 seconds with a 2.5 sec GCD). The further advantage of shortening the GCD to fit 9 attacks withing 20 seconds is that 20 seconds is the duration of Berserk and Unchained, so you're getting an extra buffed attack into each of those, increasing their damage contributions. As such, there are some very tangible benefits to both damage and mitigation by GCD down to 2.22 seconds (20 / 9) until and once you get there, speed is basically worthless, but there is a certain amount you could be aiming to get, but that's something of a pipedream since I'm pretty sure that requires an obscene amount of skill speed, such that you'd basically have to be stacking *just* speed to get there.

The real goal of tank itemization isn't so much maximizing stats or following a priority but rather minimizing det/crit/speed while getting just enough acc without going over because all of those are just taking the place of parry, which is the only stat that tanks really care about. The fact that there's only a single "tank stat" is one of my only complaints about the game, honestly. It'd be nice if there were something like determination for mitigation purposes which provides less than parry over time but does so constantly so that there's some option to tank itemization (e.g. better mean mitigation or more predictable incoming damage) beyond "acc and parry and the rest is just kind of there taking up space".

[Zourin]

The damage on a tank is generally abysmal, as everything that *would* be damage is actually 'fake damage' ("threat").

Damage is not a Tank class's priority beyond what is necessary to hold enemy attention and generally have a large enough HP pool to give the healer something to do.
-Trash is more strenuous for tanks than boss fights, as you have a lot of active damage going around and there's a greater risk of something being pulled off you if a DPS is being derpy.
-Bosses are typically tank & spanks with footwork. Very, very rarely do you get anything that requires brainpower like Coincounter dodges, ADS silences, and Garuda EX Phase Matrices.

Gear for Warriors and paladins alike reinforce the balance of strength/vit in general, in fact, 'pecking order' among tanks is usually done by HP.. while Strength and Determination may seem 'helpful' for soloing, it's maybe a .0001% improvement and a misguided notion that you can 'make up' for the lack of damage output.

[Kitru]

The damage on a tank is generally abysmal, as everything that *would* be damage is actually 'fake damage' ("threat").

I'm not sure how bad your damage is, but, at worst, I'm do half of what a DPS does. Oftentimes, I'm pushing upwards of 2/3rds, and, in the case of pug runs, oftentimes I'm tied or overcoming one or more DPS.

Damage is not a Tank class's priority beyond what is necessary to hold enemy attention and generally have a large enough HP pool to give the healer something to do.

If the only damage that a tank needed to provide was what is necessary to hold aggro, I would barely ever be attacking because I can generate enough enmity in the first 30 seconds to hold aggro off of all of the healers and DPS for the rest of the fight (for longer fights, I would just repeat my 30 sec starting rotation every 2 minutes or so). A tank that only attacks to generate sufficient enmity to keep aggro off of the rest of the group is doing their group a disservice.

Since we're talking about gearing here, yes, tanks shouldn't be prioritizing speed, crit, or det above parry or acc, but it's impossible to *only* have parry and acc itemization. You're going to *have* to have some degree of DPS itemization on your gear and, if you're not optimizing said DPS itemization, you're hurting your group. Even if you *don't* think tank DPS is all that high, it's still DPS, and it does actually add up. 10 more DPS on a tank and 10 more DPS on a DPS are the same exact thing.

Ignoring tank DPS just because it's a secondary functionality is just as bad as a DPS refusing to dodge survivable bad shit. It's that kind of mentality that leads to PLDs swapping over to become utterly horrible WARs.

[Zourin]

Ignoring tank DPS just because it's a secondary functionality is just as bad as a DPS refusing to dodge survivable bad shit. It's that kind of mentality that leads to PLDs swapping over to become utterly horrible WARs.

Actually, to correct you, that's like DPS ignoring survivability stats.. which, if I'm not mistaken, is what every last one of the bloody glass cannons does anyway by default.

Yeah, tanks do deal damage, but that's mostly built in for solo combat balance. We DO have to kill stuff on our own from time to time and can't have a monk follow us around to handstand everything to death (Or lancers pogo-sticking, or Bards being grossly fabulous). Even at 50% of the output of a dps class, that means you're only accountable for 1/5th of the total damage output in the party. .001% per-point increases in offensive stats are not going to mark any significant increase in performance in the grand scheme.

By comparison, there isn't a tank out there that lacks stories of entire runs been saved by the skin of a few points of extra hp.

[Kitru]

Actually, to correct you, that's like DPS ignoring survivability stats.

If I were talking solely about discussing itemization, you'd be correct. I was referring to DPS in general. DPS are still required to take VIT, which is a survivability stat, anyways, and it's entirely the same situation as for tanks. The only difference is that, just like for tanks, there isn't any options concerning survivability stats so they just have VIT and that's it.

By comparison, there isn't a tank out there that lacks stories of entire runs been saved by the skin of a few points of extra hp.

Well, actually, I don't really have any of those stories. The only times I've ever dropped to single digits and not had the run wipe were those where I used Holmgang. The survivability stories I talk about are those where I completely ignore a massive attack like Death Sentence because those actually happen to me (and, honestly, they're a lot more impressive than nearly dying as I see it).

The more important point of all this is that you're acting as if the improved DPS we're talking about comes at the cost of survivability. VIT is basically a static value, and it's been said over and over that parry is still the most important stat to have as a tank. It's impossible to have a tank that *only* has parry rating so you might as well optimize the DPS stats that you're basically forced to have so talk of optimizing tank DPS via itemization is entirely appropriate since you're going to have those stats no matter what you do.