Parry...

[MythToken]

Is the question really between crafted 90 and i110 though ? I mean sure once it comes to that, you will probably want to go with i110. But for the foreseeable future, the question is only between crafted 90 and i100, if even that with the sol cap.

Yeah I agree Casper,one piece doesn't really matter. We are talking about maxing parry, or maxing dps stats. That would require a lot of different pieces of armor. Personally im still not sold on the DPS argument and would much rather stack parry.

[Rbstr]

I don't think you want to give up ilvl for crafted + melds on any left-side stuff. Secondaries just don't make that much difference. Plus you lose out on strength that way too.
So use it if you have cash and aren't going to have the soldier/coil drop soon.

There might be a case for i90 melded accs since you could meld str or vit onto them, depending. But those don't exist so that's just hypothetical. (I am quite mad those don't exist)

[ZDamned]

@MythToken: I honestly didn't start this thread to change the tanking paradigm, but to get accurate Parry information dissected.

1) Is there a diminishing return? (Example: Up to 550 it's 0.18% per point, and after it's 0.04% per point)
2) Can you ONLY parry X many times per minute? (PPM in other games)
3) Is there a Soft Cap on Parry chance? (After X parry Rating, all else is in excess entirely)
4) Is the weight per point heavy enough to go all in for? (Are the gains from parry strong enough to overshadow every other stat the way we think of it now?)

Ultimately, I would love to have all of those questions answered, so that we may all make highly informed choices when gearing up.

[Menae]

@MythToken: I honestly didn't start this thread to change the tanking paradigm, but to get accurate Parry information dissected.

1) Is there a diminishing return? (Example: Up to 550 it's 0.18% per point, and after it's 0.04% per point)
2) Can you ONLY parry X many times per minute? (PPM in other games)
3) Is there a Soft Cap on Parry chance? (After X parry Rating, all else is in excess entirely)
4) Is the weight per point heavy enough to go all in for? (Are the gains from parry strong enough to overshadow every other stat the way we think of it now?)

Ultimately, I would love to have all of those questions answered, so that we may all make highly informed choices when gearing up.

I agree that all of those are good questions, Z. I'd like to see them answered. My GUESSES are:

1) Perhaps. This is the sort of question you really need heavy testing for.
2) Unlikely; I don't think FFXIV has any other systems like this, so it'd be odd to have one here.
3) I''d lean towards no. I mean, there's obviously one when you hit 100% parry, but prior to that? I don't know, but with how limited gear selection is in the game, I figure you'll probably hit the attainable cap for stats before you hit any mandatory hard caps.
4) I'd guess probably not, but that's more a condemnation of FFXIV secondary stats in general. For WHM at least, pretty much every secondary stat is near garbage.

(And I'm not trying to pick on you - honestly I'm not! - but 1 is a soft cap, not 3. A soft cap is where a stat suddenly drops in value, but not to zero. 3 is a hard cap, where the stat literally doesn't do anything for you after a certain point. Diminishing returns are when a stat slowly and steadily loses value as it increases. REGARDLESS OF TERMINOLOGY, those are great questions and I hope to learn the answers too.)

[PetiteMalFleur]

My only real experience healing a dps geared tank is from a long while back. It was with a FC group trying to clear Titan HM for the first time. The MT died and the OT wearing dps gear was one shot by the next mountain buster despite having cooldowns up. He was a PLD.

I'm sure in content like t4 it isn't much of a difference with how geared out people are now, but if my tank were eating plummets with little parry I'm certain I'd notice this.

[ZDamned]

My only real experience healing a dps geared tank is from a long while back. It was with a FC group trying to clear Titan HM for the first time. The MT died and the OT wearing dps gear was one shot by the next mountain buster despite having cooldowns up. He was a PLD.

I'm sure in content like t4 it isn't much of a difference with how geared out people are now, but if my tank were eating plummets with little parry I'm certain I'd notice this.

This is not Titan HM were talking about.
This is deep end game content, post Coil.
And Eating Plummets with less parry is something you would NOT notice, because it's an attack that doesn't happen enough, nor does it hit hard enough. 2000~ Damage is a 300-400 Damage mitigation with a parry, and it comes randomly baked in with an added Auto Attack for another 1.1K as well. You won't notice 300-400 damage fluctuating because of double and triple hits, and even full on parry tanks don't parry every single plummet.

PS: You can tank Titan HM on a Dragoon if your healers are good enough thees days.

But DPS Geared in this thread does NOT mean Strength accessories! I'm so tired of people thinking that I am sacrificing Vitality... I have 7100 HP tanking in T6/7, and I do not dip below this number.

[MythToken]

I agree with your theory zdamned, I just wanted the times, so I could calculate exact amount mitigated and dps increase.

Time is very important to the things we are discussing because that would give us how much damage you mitigated per minute. Where as all we have now are how much total damage you mitigated.
If your crit/det gear damage taken of 173k was done in 3 minutes(rounding), then you actually took 346k theoretical damage compared to the 169k in the 6 minute fight parry geared.

Obviously I am exaggerating, but with damage taken per minute/second numbers we can get a better idea of dps increase vs damage taken. And weigh the trade offs.


I am very interested in your gear choices though, and your general approach.

I am still wondering if this applies to warriors since we can't block. Parry is our shield.

[ZDamned]

Basically, what my theory is set out to prove, is that Parry isn't working as well as we all like to think it does, so in that respect, I feel that it would give similar if not better results for warriors. Unchianed gives you essentially a 20% boost on the Crit/Determination stats and as such, your buffing you best stats.

[MythToken]

I would like to forego parry for dps in an ideal scenario, but until accurate testing can be done on the dps gear, I have to agree with casper. We shouldn't all jump on the dps train until we have some facts.
And 1 parsed fight, with missing info is not enough to declare parry sucks.

I would also like to point out, it may be that its best to just go for a mix of stats and get the most of everything you can.
Parry Crit gear, Parry det gear, Crit Det gear, avoid SS and = win.
This would give you a balanced mix of dps and parry and probably be the best rounded tanking experience.


To the point about ending a fight sooner = to taking less damage. While yes you would take less overall damage, the spike damage you would incur would not be affected and in fact you would take more spike damage.
Healing isnt about running out of mana in this game so length of fight is not really a mana healer issue. Healing is about keeping the tank alive during large spikes of damage. If we reduce those then healing is easier, so parry might still be the better argument here.
Now specifically Turn 6 or 7 (dont remember which) with its 7 minute hard enrage, it certainly makes sense to gear for more dps to push you through it.

While I do agree ending a fight earlier means less mechanics do dodge, and less chance of a wipe. Def not arguing that point.
But if we are strictly talking keeping a Tank alive, it is about how much damage per second are you taking, not how much damage do you take over the course of the fight. Just some more food for thought on this whole issue.

I would like to personally thank casper and zdamned for the this discussion, it has been quite thought provoking and these are questions we should be looking to solve.

[ZDamned]

After all had been said and done, I personally will be going with Determination and Crit almost entirely because those stats work 100% of the time, as opposed to parry working only 50% or less. If you honestly want to mitigate damage, just use a Buckler shield. =P
Parry is not working well enough in my case. The fight ended 9 seconds faster in my DPS gear, but like people all pointed out, there are too many variables. However my damage output difference is a massive show of how much the Crit/Det can add.
It's entirely possible that my groups DPS got shriek more often in my DPS Set, and it's entirely possible that my groups Healers all got Shriek consistantly in my Parry set. In both cases the damage dealt can vary... But 9K is a large number for variance to totally explain.

I brought up the thread entirely for the sake of discussion, not to change anyone's entire motive behind tanking.

ALSO! I mixed up a number in my head. the fight started at 6:18 PM, not lasted that long. It's an 11 minute enrage, and we beat the fight in 9 minutes and 23 seconds with my DPS Set on.

The Damage I took per second differently between the 2 was exactly 13 higher in DPS gear. If you calculate that out, it's roughly saying 10 points of parry equate to 1 less DTpS,
IMO Thats too low to spend point on for my personal taste.

I would just like to thank everyone who did join in this discussion for being civil, and humoring my theory. =)