Tanks, please use strength gear.. :(

[Nektulos-Tuor]

It is the fault of those people advocating it to an extent because of the way most games player base works if they see the top players doing so and so they will try to copy it regardless of the good or bad. As you said the message is not being conveyed properly so then its up to all the players especially the ones coming up with these things to get the facts right for the rest of the players. I see too many tanks using a full side of STR accessories but have multiple issues as every tank changes dungeon to dungeon. One will think he is the best tank ever and have no tanking stance but full STR acc and die repeatedly. One has no idea about this other than what they hear from other players in towns or FCs or something and they come in wearing STR and cannot perform their jobs properly. This even happens in Alexander where i have had WAR and DRK thinking they are amazing and pull the group only to die in 5 seconds due to lack of proper gearing and wearing STR of just not using CDs. Which is another thing not for this thread. So sorry if i ranted a bit.

I also have to say you cannot comment on whether or not people lose it over a dungeon taking a minute or two extra. Seeing as you have not had it happen to you where as it has happened to me numerous times. I don't doubt it has happened to others. A minute difference is not a big difference sure if you can save one or a few good, but not at the cost of badgering your party and being an A**hat.This almost always ends up causing the dungeon to take longer because someone couldn't have some patience. Just because you can does not mean you should always.

Thats the issue. They are going a full way instead of a part way.

I am always in Tank Stance unless i'm just not getting hit or the boss is casting something and not attacking me. So most of the time i'm in Tanking Stance. I have full strength for that extra 27% damage and I always keep my damage buffs up. I do fine DPS.

However, when I go on my healer to heal strength tanks. They are NOT in Tank Stance a lot, and switch out often when they are going to get spiked, which is BAAAAD! (VERY BAD!)

I don't mind going to DPS stance to use a Fell Cleave twice. However get back to tank stance quick!

[karateorangutang]

snip

the short answer to your question is yes. It is their fault.

Taking a snippet of the knowledge and applying it without understanding its effects is ignorance. Whether or not that ignorance is innocent or if it's laziness isn't the fault of the playerbase, but the player itself. If people are trying that hard to emulate high lvl players then they are already researching its effects. If someone refuses to read the whole thing and the process fails because of their lack of knowledge then that is their fault.

For the second paragraph: Really?

At this point I have run well over a thousand dungeons. That's a pretty decent sample size. I have maybe once or twice a month somebody that has a bad attitude. Of those one or two maybe one of them even concerns the time spent in a dungeon. Additionally, I'm speaking from the perspective that your using accessories and performing the job the way it should be performed. A VIT tank cycling and stance swapping intelligently will out perform a STR tank. That's elementary logic... I bet anyone with a brain could figure that out.

I really don't know what your poking at here. If a tank has a good handle on his job and knows how to play and has proper gearing on the left side, they will perform better with STR accessories in most situations. There are no absolutes here, but most of the time with dungeons that I enter in DF STR accessories are more efficient than VIT ones.

[TheLastRaven]

Well if you had read you would know I am not saying it is completely their fault but it is theirs to a degree as I said but i don't think you read it. The lower players always follow what the higher level players do and a lot of them do not have the time to research or figure out all the finer points. You can't blame people for lack of time some of them don't play this game as a full time job. Where as the higher end players can clarify and explain things for other players in game and out they have plenty of chances but don't seem to use them.

Also where as i'm trying to explain my point you seem to be busy trying to insult the posters more specifically me.

That's elementary logic... I bet anyone with a brain could figure that out.

Where as I have not done that to you. So i suggest even if it wasn't the worst thing said you try to post in a way that does not make you seem like an A**hole. You're missing my point that people still over react to a delay in the completion of the dungeon be it a minute or more not every dungeon is gonna be fast. It happens enough to be a problem just because you experience it less than others doesn't make it less of an issue. You said that people are generally misinformed and can be taught so why is it an issue that I say that the end game raiders or whoever it is making these setups and figuring these things out also inform people properly or better? STR accesories can be and have been a factor in this not the sole factor but one of them and it would be a good thing to minimize incidents for everyone. I'm not poking at anything I think my points are clear.

TLDR: Everyone should try to inform and educate the player base so everyone can become a better player for themselves and to make the experience better for the whole. Have some more patience in general a bit of extra time won't kill you.

[JackFross]

Everyone on this page seems to either be parroting or ignoring this post I made.

To reiterate: It's not about tanks pumping out more damage. It's not about telling people how to play. It's about discussing ways to maximize your role in the party composition. If you can do your job (survival and threat generation) just fine with less VIT, then dropping that VIT to increase your offensive output is a way to improve beyond where you are currently.

Please note, though. If one of the following is true:
1. You don't know the fight well enough yet to manage cooldowns optimally to keep yourself alive
2. You haven't mastered the dps rotation for your class, so running STR accessories gives you marginal gains for your suboptimal rotation
3. You hate how everyone always cries BUT DO MORE DAMAGE and you much prefer seeing those really really sexy health scores and shrugging off massive hits

You should probably not be running Strength gear. I ran a Sohm Al yesterday on white mage with a full strength DRK who was doing the same damage as a full VIT DRK could do. In that situation, you're forcing me to DPS less and causing an overall drop in DPS to the raid because you simply cannot use the bonus STR to its fullest.

Using STR gear isn't about "DO MORE DAMAGE" it's about optimizing the class. If you haven't done the base legwork to reach that optimization, taking this last step is not advisable.


(Though, important to note: You can still do so. It's fine. If you have more fun seeing bigger damage numbers, even if you're NOT optimizing damage output, and you aren't dying due to unskilled healers / inefficient cooldown usage, by all means GO FOR IT! Have fun, first and foremost! It's a video game, after all. C: )

[Sapphidia]

Everyone on this page seems to either be parroting or ignoring this post I made.

I'll actually respond directly here, because you make some good points, but I feel there's one key element that you've missed when comparing the tank dps thing to the other classes improving their overall performance.

I should probably make a new post on the topic of "Power Fantasy" and why half the playerbase is torn, but the basic concept is simple : Healers improve their DPS via optimising gaps in their need to heal, but still wear the same gear. They arent nerfing their healing output because it's due to how they play, and gearing up increases healing + dps together. If they suddenly need to pump out a tonne of healing, they just turn Cleric off and take full advantage of their gear. DPS players only gain more and more DPS with gear upgrades, but also gain increased survivability as a matter of course as they get free vitality on every left side upgrade. Maximising the class for these two roles is more about playing better, finding opportunities to do other things, and have a "one gearset fits all" system.

With tanks it's different. Now, I'm not going to argue against the merits of Str vs Vit, it's been done to death. Yes, Strength is better in most cases. Yes, Vitality is pointless beyond certain levels. But one thing is present that goes beyond just the stats and figures:

Vitality makes you "feel" tankier. You see big numbers on the health. You see your health bar going down slower.

Now this doesnt really mean much, but "power fantasy" is a key element to enjoying the game. Players who gravitate towards DPS roles generally love seeing big numbers on their hits, they love seeing huge crits pop up, they love seeing a DPS meter with their name at the top showing they've done huge amounts of damage, and they love how getting an upgrade increases all of these.

Now, tanks can also gain just as much enjoyment from this dps fantasy, but the power fantasy of a lot of tank players (particularly those gravitating towards the less aggressive styles, or the PLD class in general) is to be as tough as nails. They care about maximising their class, they care about doing lots of DPS, but they get MORE fun out of feeling like an immovable wall.

This is the problem a lot of players face - regardless of the actual facts, they have to make a SACRIFICE of Vitality in order to stack strength. It's not like healers. They don't just wear one universal set of gear and then maximise their dps by just playing better, knowing the rotations and stance dancing more effectively. They have to make an active choice before a fight starts that they are going to purposefully reduce their effective hitpoints, make themselves able to take less damage without healer intervention, in order to do more damage.

This is a tradeoff, not just a matter of being better. Yes, the best tanks will go strength and understand the lack of impact vit stacking has, but the psychological effect is there. If there's a wipe and the tank explodes, be it due to bad play or more likely something like lag, or the healer gets distracted, or someone accidentally pulls an extra pack... if that happens, some tanks just can't stand the idea that the pre-battle choice they made to nerf their health might have contributed to their death.

It's simply a power fantasy thing, and for players who DON'T have the power fantasy of wanting to feel like an immovable wall I can understand it's difficult to grasp. The game is telling them that they have to give up the feeling they play their class for and optimise towards a different feeling.

The best players will do it anyway, but they don't have to be -happy- about that.

A counter : imagine if Healer DPS scaled entirely off Intelligence and Cleric Stance didnt exist. Healers would be pressured to wear entirely INT gear on the right side, have 35 points in Int, and the community would be saying "just get as much Mind as you need to heal an encounter, then put the rest in your DPS". They'd feel like they were nerfing their potential healing output in order to optimise a secondary role. The best players would do it and it would be fine, but there'd always be that devout core of healers that gain most pleasure out of seeing huge healing numbers that would really resent it.

[Paladinleeds]

Snip.

And this is exactly the reason why I chose the PLD. As a PLD, I'm trying to be this giant titanium impenetrable shield that can shrug off tank busters like it ain't no thing. That's why I play a full VIT tank. Thing is, despite being i188 (I was i186 on my last A1S encounter), I was still the first to die every time. And we couldn't beat it. Now imagine if I had STR accessories, I'd be even more toasted!

[AnimaS]

And this is exactly the reason why I chose the PLD. As a PLD, I'm trying to be this giant titanium impenetrable shield that can shrug off tank busters like it ain't no thing. That's why I play a full VIT tank. Thing is, despite being i188 (I was i186 on my last A1S encounter), I was still the first to die every time. And we couldn't beat it. Now imagine if I had STR accessories, I'd be even more toasted!

i have seen this happen with another pld on 1savage tank busters, the Paladin had no idea how to rotate cooldowns.

[Paladinleeds]

i have seen this happen with another pld on 1savage tank busters, the Paladin had no idea how to rotate cooldowns.

Do ya wanna know what was even more embarrassing for me? This was on Faust... the adds on Faust specifically.

[JackFross]

Yeah! I definitely agree with all of what you said. That post you actually quoted from goes into those exact concerns without using the same words. You said it much better than I did, though.

[JackFross]

Gear only gets you so far. Even if you have a dps who's been keeping up with gear, buying all the esoterics stuff they can get... if they were doing 800 on week 1 (which was low on week 1) they'll still only be around 900-950 if they're lucky, which is still 200-300 shy of where they should be.

Alexander Savage isn't really for the players who get by doing "good enough" - that's the main issue people have when they come into it saying "but a full VIT tank in tank stance should be good enough"

It's not for everyone (yet) and some people are really not okay with that. The DPS check on Faust is still real, regardless of gear. Slacking off or having bad dps means you'll still see enrage. My i200, 1400+-Faust-only dps drg self went in with a pug group. We saw enrage on Faust; he killed the tank before we killed him. That was just last week.