Tanks, please use strength gear.. :(

[Blitzace]

Full Str isn't to blame here, the terrible healer is. Even when you said you swapped to fending, you *barely* survived first pull then second you died again. This story has nothing to do with str vs vit, it's just simply the healer was terrible.

As i made my point over and over again. You can't simply tell someone to go full STR with randoms. If healer isn't keeping up its not a option.

[karateorangutang]

As i made my point over and over again. You can't simply tell someone to go full STR with randoms. If healer isn't keeping up its not a option.

I ran into this last night actually. I had a SCH that was somehow convinced ( in the Aery) that eos was capable of healing me and he only had to DPS. So I switched to a VIT setup.... and still died. The extra HP did absolutely nothing to save me. I just made the bad situation worse as I couldn't focus down a mob or two to let me life through the liberal use of CD's and stoneskin.

[Anubis_Nephthys]

It's not a matter of telling people to play like he wants them too; it's a matter if playing correctly.
You wouldn't let a DD get away with stacking vit.
Why should a tank?
Full vit tanking is wrong.

[JackFross]

These are the two sets I'm working with, since I have yet to bother wasting much Law on any tank accessories:

Full STR: http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/RMA3

Full VIT: http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/RMA4

(Note: Both sets will be running 35 strength in Attribute Points to remove that effect from the equation, since IMO AP is your personal preference due to the massive main stat gains on accessories at the moment)

Note the differences (My character is Raen with +35 STR):
Set 1 has 893 STR, 13k HP
Set 2 has 700 STR, 16k HP

Now for the damage. I'm comparing the exact same rotation in Sword Oath, since that will see the largest flat damage swing (since the difference is scaled down by ~50% in Shield Oath from previous testing I've done). Fun thing to note: RA with 1 does ~1300 normally. With 2, it does ~1300 with Fight or Flight active.

What I came out with was Set 1 netting ~860 v Set 2 ~660.
Basically justifies the +200 dps thing that was being thrown around. Swapping from full Vit to full Str gives you a net gain of ~30%. That's a lot. I'm not even a well-geared Paladin. So looking at this, we then compare/think about how this would affect a raid setting. Consider the fact that this effect would be multiplied by two when combining the gains for BOTH tanks. It could be the difference between two jumps and three in A1 Savage.

You may be saying "But what's the point?"

The point is that you are just one player. You're in a group of 8. This option allows you to take matters into your own hands. If your team isn't making dps checks, instead of yelling at your dps to "git gud" like an asshole, you can simply let them keep being scrubs and focus on boosting your own damage, instead.

I swear by full strength in anything that isn't Alexander Savage. Boosting how much damage you put out drastically changes the times in dungeons. Most pug tanks will be happy sitting in their full VIT/tank stances and doing sub-400 where they could be pushing 800-1000; the difference in time to clear bosses with that difference is noticeable.

And that's basically it.

It's about maximizing YOUR ROLE in the party and bringing what your team needs you to bring in order to make things happen, rather than relying on everyone else to "gid gud" as people love to say in this game.

[Kosmos992k]

It's not a matter of telling people to play like he wants them too; it's a matter if playing correctly.
You wouldn't let a DD get away with stacking vit.
Why should a tank?

Um...because our *job* isn't killing things faster, it's taking damage meant for others so that those more suited to killing things faster can get on with it. You want to talk playing correctly? Look at the descriptions of the jobs and classes, look at the skill sets and the stats our gear gives. Tanks are not DDs.

[JackFross]

Tanks are not DDs.

Yes, but why not? In my personal opinion, a tank has the most jobs of anyone. They're the most responsible for party mechanics as OT (because their dps/uptime on the boss matters WAY less than melee), they're responsible for surviving a lot of damage done to them (mostly through proper cooldown rotations, tuned to the content) and THEN, once you're doing all of that, doing as much damage you can WHILE dealing with what was mentioned before.

It's what separates the tanks you say are "good enough" from the ones that are "great." You want to push those first two bits as tight as possible. Survive things with as little room for error as you possibly can. The more skilled you are at your job, the less health you need to bring to survive those big hits. When your Paladin in A1S is aces at popping cooldowns for the tank busters, you're ALREADY getting 20%x40% reduction for 2 of them, and you take literally 0 from the other (and mitigate the proceeding cleave by 20%) not including Shield Oath's bonus. If you have enough health to slip through without dying with that much mitigation (which isn't hard if your healer(s) aren't sleeping), you don't NEED more. At that point, why are you running extra? All it does is make you fluffier. It does very little to improve survival.

It comes down to skill and knowledge of a fight. The better you know it, the fewer mistakes you'll make. When you make fewer mistakes, you need less breathing room. With less breathing room comes more opportunity to do things such as running less VIT and being out of tank stance more to bring more utility to the raid by cutting down time on the fight. It's not a requirement, by any means, but it's the only way to up your game when you're already clearing content cleanly as a tank.


If you're not constantly looking to get better, be better, and do better, what are you doing, really?

[Kosmos992k]

If you're not constantly looking to get better, be better, and do better, what are you doing, really?

Yes, but this evaluation of 'better' is entirely dependent on "MOAR DEEPS". That's great for DD classes, but tanks should (IMHO) be evaluated/judged on things other than DEEPS... When you adopt the stance you seem to have, you are effectively telling tanks that focus on being tankier that they are bad at their job. Not very friendly IMHO.

[ArdorGrey]

Um...because our *job* isn't killing things faster, it's taking damage meant for others so that those more suited to killing things faster can get on with it. You want to talk playing correctly? Look at the descriptions of the jobs and classes, look at the skill sets and the stats our gear gives. Tanks are not DDs.

yes, tanks have a lot of defensive cooldowns. but as the class considered the "worst" of the tanks offensively, let's look at some of paladins offensive potential:

Circle of scorn: aoe damage with bonus aggro

spirits within: damage based on hp, great as an opener and when you have things like convalescence up. no bonus aggro, this is purely more damage.

Fight or flight: 30% extra damage with a lot of uptime

Sword oath: people dog it because it isn't as "flashy" as warriors offensive stacks or drk's...flat damage bonus? I don't really get why people bash it other than pure ignorance tbh. In any case all the extra damage adds up, and it doesn't complicate your rotation *at all*.

Let's not forget all of paladins new combos either. Royal authority and goring blade both have no aggro bonus and very high potencies.

Even if damage dealing isn't our primary responsibility, even the tankiest, least offensive tank has a lot of offensive options on hand. Willfully ignoring these abilities or deliberately trivializing them is not playing your class anywhere near its full potential.

[ArdorGrey]

Yes, but this evaluation of 'better' is entirely dependent on "MOAR DEEPS". That's great for DD classes, but tanks should (IMHO) be evaluated/judged on things other than DEEPS... When you adopt the stance you seem to have, you are effectively telling tanks that focus on being tankier that they are bad at their job. Not very friendly IMHO.

It doesn't sound like you're listening to Jacks whole elaborate point. Rather you're whittling it down to the fact that it runs contrary to your perception of what a tank is and should do and saying that makes it a hostile point. It isn't, so I'll reiterate:

Doing things like stacking vit doesn't actually make you any tankier, it just gives you more room for more error. If you are already surviving incoming damage without inconveniencing your healer, if you are already maximizing your defensive cooldowns, the only room for further improvement is to hone the part of your kit that you seem to be willfully overlooking.

You can say it's terrible game design if you like, but it's the way tanks are designed in this, and by spurning it you are kneecapping your contribution to your party, assuming you have already mastered handling your defensive abilities.

[Sleigh]

Yes, but this evaluation of 'better' is entirely dependent on "MOAR DEEPS". That's great for DD classes, but tanks should (IMHO) be evaluated/judged on things other than DEEPS... When you adopt the stance you seem to have, you are effectively telling tanks that focus on being tankier that they are bad at their job. Not very friendly IMHO.

There's not much you can do beyond a certain point for survival. Just use your CDs appopriately, survive the tank busters, otherwise mitigate as much as you can without jeopardizing tank buster survival. It's not too hard or complex, and ultimately just doing this is not useful to a group. It's useful in the sense that you are finishing the survival check but what about the party-wide DPS check? Or killing a boss so fast that you have to get healed that much less?

Funny thing is, in a dungeon boss, a PLD going Sword Oath with full STR gear on, is going to fulfill his survival role almost as well as a Shield Oath PLD with full VIT on. Will the Sword PLD have much less eHP on paper? Yep. Will he ever actually need all of it? Nope, even if a healer is DPSing a lot. I dare say the PLD with Sword Oath is doing his job more effectively in terms of survival, because the fight is going to end that much quicker, requiring less MP and mechanics done that could endanger the party.