Dark Knight in all slaying accessories... please no..

[Faytte]

Vitality over what you need for a buster allows for more party mistakes. This is not exclusively -your- mistakes, or the healers, but the dps.

Dps messes up. Healer goes to heal them--you wernt topped off, boss hits you again--now lower than what you would like to be. A healer has to decide who to heal, and might let the dps to die because you are in danger, or who knows the reason.

Keep in mind im not advocating stacking vitality, but that vitality beyond the 'amount needed to survive' only works well in statics where people seldom 'mess up'. So determine vitality based off your group performance.

[Phoenicia]

Vitality over what you need for a buster allows for more party mistakes. This is not exclusively -your- mistakes, or the healers, but the dps.

Well, no one is going to have "Just enough" to survive a tank buster with 1 HP or so where they would die to the next auto attack obviously. The point is after the tank buster, you have enough HP to survive long enough for the healer to heal you. Anything more than that is wasted stat allocation.

Currently the biggest tank busters do what, 7k damage? (not counting a not-shared Blinding Blade because that SHOULD be shared). So 13k HP should be more than enough. Maybe more if A4 tank buster did more than that, but I don't remember as I managed to MT that as DRK with around 14.5k HP when I got my kill and item and haven't been back there since.

Good CD management and self heals (while a lot of people neglect to count them while all tanks have them) lowers that HP threshold even more.

[GeekMatt]

Vitality over what you need for a buster allows for more party mistakes. This is not exclusively -your- mistakes, or the healers, but the dps.

Dps messes up. Healer goes to heal them--you wernt topped off, boss hits you again--now lower than what you would like to be. A healer has to decide who to heal, and might let the dps to die because you are in danger, or who knows the reason.

Keep in mind im not advocating stacking vitality, but that vitality beyond the 'amount needed to survive' only works well in statics where people seldom 'mess up'. So determine vitality based off your group performance.

^this. Man it's nice to have a buffer when healing--especially with DRKs, as-is they aren't like PLD, they get bursted down crazily fast. And they aren't like WAR, they don't quite bounce back so well/don't have the HP buffer naturally. When crap hits the fan and the healers are trying to keep everyone up and I watch you dip down to ~200 HP before the healer catches you, I'm just really greatful for those Fending pieces. On the other hand if we actually had a DPS check or you overgeared the content considerably, then DPS is boss.

But yes, tank CD usage is super important, and if you're not offering the healer a Fending-buffer through out the fight, you really better be on top of them all of the time or thank the healer for the carry. As a PLD I have natural mitigation from my shield and enough buffs to cycle them through out a run while still buffing heavily for tank busters, but I've still been down to a couple hundred HP when party mishaps happen. I have 2 sets of accessories, Fending for uncertainties and DPS for overgeared content or DPS checks--not for content where you and/or the healer is new or min ilvl.

[Kienkarajo]

Had issues with a warrior yesterday at A4 he was tanking on a dps stance and with strg accessories he was the MT and I was OT, he just died with 2 or 3 hits I didn't say anything but he realized that he was doing pretty bad and he changed his stance and armor, no issues after that but its becoming a trend with many warriors. I saw a lot of that yesterday when I was farming the Alexander raid with the duty finder.

[Kaedan94]

Vitality over what you need for a buster allows for more party mistakes. This is not exclusively -your- mistakes, or the healers, but the dps.

Dps messes up. Healer goes to heal them--you wernt topped off, boss hits you again--now lower than what you would like to be. A healer has to decide who to heal, and might let the dps to die because you are in danger, or who knows the reason.

Keep in mind im not advocating stacking vitality, but that vitality beyond the 'amount needed to survive' only works well in statics where people seldom 'mess up'. So determine vitality based off your group performance.

This.

The "survive the biggest spike damage" argument only applies to statics. It's essentially a form of Min/Maxing that can only be accomplished by a group that both knows what they're doing and can communicate.

For Duty Finder, it's not an intelligent way to gear at all. Your DPS ARE going to make mistakes. They are going to need to be healed... which means less attention from the healers. So you need the HP buffer to account for all the mistakes that are definitely going to be made.

I have both STR and VIT acc. I use STR for dungeons and and VIT for Alexander, with maybe 1 or 2 STR mixed in if the healers are good and DPS don't suck.