It's been informed to me that WAR's wearing STR gear isn't correct.

[Huntington]

I would recommend VIT if possible but with str being better then some of your VIT gear or accessories, it shouldn't be much of an issue. It sounds like everyone was messing up in your run. Dps taking too many hits, healers prioritizing wrong and if the monks are saying they won't use mantra because people are dying too quick that's another hint that people aren't dodging well. Doesn't sound like it's solely your issue.

Also in party based content everyone need to improve we're they can, if they are all pointing the finger at you but they won't do virus or eye for an eye, then they are equally to blame.
Everybody gotta do what they gotta do to succeed as a team, people can't just cry about one person and refuse to use all of their own abilities because they never had to before. Eye for an eye is amazing everytime

I guess this is what I'm going to have to ask when joining random groups now:
"Should I go full VIT accessories, balanced mix, or full STR?"

I asked one of the people I ended up having a telling match with, why are we so quick to blame me for what accessories I had on, but you and no one else can come up with a justification on why you're using your class at half effectiveness and refusing to use actions?

Each time I told that person to explain to me why them and the others weren't using something, it either came back to the one time a healer raised me as Shiva just switched to Bow, and I was too out of range to get behind her in time for me to then get one-shotted by Glass Dance, to which they said I was bad and didn't know how to handle Bow Form.(Even though one of the healers also died to that Glass Dance too). Or that they aren't responsible for helping the tank recover or persist in tanking and therefore would not use it to help just the tank, even though several AoE attacks happen constantly that are unavoidable, and Mantra from a MNK, would greatly help heal through them faster. Such as the Absolute Zero spam that Shiva does in Bow Form. There was no way to get through to this person that it still helps the rest of the party as well, it was as if having to help the tank survive in any shape or form was due to the tank being terrible.

[Huntington]

Learn how to play War then come back to this, - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkUuBQ7VPug

Vitality is not everything for a War. They do more than just hold hate. Accept that the job can put out numbers while tanking correctly. Better yet, respect a War taking his effort and play to the next tier. You only need a base amount of HP, having 1200 hp will not help you clear any of the primals.

I'm puzzled at who you're directing this to. I've been spec'ing for extra STR in my WAR for a long time now and have know about the additional enmity generation in relation to higher DPS, I feel that this would make more sense when quoted to who you might be referring to.

[Huntington]

Shiva should be Ruby until you have a bunch of i130 left side.

If you don't have Ruby, get Topaz. If you don't even have that, well sounds like you have work to do.

I had one Ruby piece, the Ring. 15 + VIT in it, as much Determination as possible in the rest of the slots. But when I got my 110 Gloam Ring, it didn't seem as effective with what I was gaining for the 110.
I gained 5 STR with the 110, gained two more Determination with the Ruby, lost a little bit of Skill Speed, and would have to remember what else was there.

[AIex]

Going back to your original post, I would have to say that you've had bad RNG with people and that you've geared your tank just fine. If your healers cant heal you when your in the 8.8k-9.5k hp region as WAR while you are using cooldowns, then they are retarded. If they are complaining and saying healer dps is more important than tank dps, then they are retarded. You ARGUABLY hit the boss more (not deal more damage, but land more attacks) than anyone else in the party, so your dps on the boss does matter because as you are "tanking" you are ALSO "dps'ing", whereas healers who feel the need to dps have to stop "healing" to go into "dps'ing". That's not to say that healers shouldn't dps when they can because I'm a huge supporter of that, but their priority is keeping people alive.

tl;dr - you had retarded healers, you're tanking fine, go find a good fc that can appreciate that

[Sleigh]

When deciding to use STR, VIT, or Ruby, just ask yourself if you're going to dip below 1K on average with the VIT stuff. If the answer is hell no, then use Ruby. If you're probably not even gonna dip below 2K, which is quite a lot of content, even certain ones with mega-attacks, use STR.

If/when we get i110 accessories in 2.5, they will completely outclass the raw VIT accessories for tanks in all current content, including T13.

[Huntington]

Going back to your original post, I would have to say that you've had bad RNG with people and that you've geared your tank just fine. If your healers cant heal you when your in the 8.8k-9.5k hp region as WAR while you are using cooldowns, then they are retarded. If they are complaining and saying healer dps is more important than tank dps, then they are retarded. You ARGUABLY hit the boss more (not deal more damage, but land more attacks) than anyone else in the party, so your dps on the boss does matter because as you are "tanking" you are ALSO "dps'ing", whereas healers who feel the need to dps have to stop "healing" to go into "dps'ing". That's not to say that healers shouldn't dps when they can because I'm a huge supporter of that, but their priority is keeping people alive.

tl;dr - you had retarded healers, you're tanking fine, go find a good fc that can appreciate that

I think my HP range in an 8 man party right now is just below 9K, so 8,700 or so with Defiance up, need to check again because my short term memory for small details isn't the best. It's not heavily high since I'm preparing to upgrade two pieces that desperately need to be upgraded(my legs for the 120 Poetics, and 110 for my gauntlets), but as soon as those are in, it should be around 9,300 in 8 mans if I keep using all that I am right now.

I was rotating cooldowns as much as possible, I popped more though when it looked like I was going to bite one so at some points like when the other tank would take over, I would have them all be cooling down besides Holmgang.

It wasn't that the healers were DPS'ing at any point besides when the Ice Soldiers were coming out either, I just think with two WHMs, that we didn't have any proactive healing for damage reduction from a SCH, so they were spamming Medicas and healing DPS often before me, and before I know it Shiva slams me and I would drop, right as everyone else was near full health too. If that isn't a dead giveaway that their prioritizing was off I don't know what else could be.

[QuinceTaru]

You sound like you did fine ive seen many tanks do shiva in STR accessories, i for one think ruby stuff is great and cant wait for crafted 110 rings!

[SpookyGhost]

T10: Ruby if OT, maybe MT

Ruby for both, can even be done in i110 STR accessories tbh. Only thing that hits hard is the Death Sentence, as long as that's mitigated you're fine.

T11 - 13: VIT on PLD, VIT/Ruby on WAR with current strats.

T11 is Ruby, can make an argument for VIT but it's really not necessary unless you're soloing the swipes for whatever reason.
T12 PLD can wear Ruby, damage is pretty predictable like T10 and 11.
T13 VIT for PLD is right, need as much buffer health as possible for the first and second phase. Eventually will be Ruby with more gear. WAR is fine in Ruby for OTing.

Ruby + 30 VIT is 10k+ health for WAR, and... whatever the equivalent is for PLD. Don't really need more than that for T10-12, T13 is of course a different story for the MT at least at this ilvl.

Also, if people are messing up, then your health requirements are going to go up. While you can do the content in less health, sometimes it pays off to have more of it. Your goal is to not die, and once you've achieved that HP threshold where that doesn't happen, the rest goes into STR.

[Wakajinn]

Learn how to play War then come back to this, - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkUuBQ7VPug

Vitality is not everything for a War. They do more than just hold hate. Accept that the job can put out numbers while tanking correctly. Better yet, respect a War taking his effort and play to the next tier. You only need a base amount of HP, having 1200 hp will not help you clear any of the primals.

Thank you so so much for posting Xeno's WAR guide. If you didn't i was. After watching his guide over and over i can safely say that my tanking has changed for the better. I haven't had a single aggro issue since (Being a WAR thats hardly an issue but still) and my 1.2+ IB crits are so worth it

[JonBigwood]

Hi, my main is PLD but recently leveled WAR. Xeno's guide is very good. But he recommends going STR accesories once you reach certain HP level. I mean, when you are learning (like me) or your HP is not high enough it's safer to go VIT accesories. (I don't imply that OP's HP is not high enough, I don't know, this is for other learning WARs to see.)

Once your HP is high enough (and you are experienced enough), STR seems to be better, since WAR abilities and health recovery depend on damage done.