Why Avoid Parry?

[Dante_V]

Hold on, the logical conclusion of your thoughts here would suggest that a Dragoon could be a viable tank since healers can pre-cast everything in scripted fights and you're leaning heavily on dps output as a form of mitigation by proxy.

Actually no, that's not a logical conclusion at all, that's an informal fallacy. Tank viability isn't /solely/ on dps at all, nor has anyone or myself proposed that it was. We are specifically discussing secondary stats in conjunction with tanking in regards to parry vs other secondaries. Context seems to be a little hard for you to grasp but either way your conclusion isn't "logical" in any sense of the word. Dps synergy with certain TANK moves and cool downs was what we are saying, the increase in damage secondaries in conjunction with these abilities is greater mitigation than that from stacking parry. This isn't an opinion, it's been tested many many times. Because you choose to misrepresent the argument due to your inability to either understand or compose a counter argument doesn't change that. If you want to get upset and foot stamp off because parry isn't a good stat then that's fine with me, go play Bard. Either way it isn't going to stop anyone from researching or discussing the issue at hand. If you want parry then stack it until you are blue in the face, it won't matter or affect me one iota. Good luck.

[Jpec07]

Actually no, that's not a logical conclusion at all, that's an informal fallacy. Tank viability isn't /solely/ on dps at all, nor has anyone or myself proposed that it was. We are specifically discussing secondary stats in conjunction with tanking in regards to parry vs other secondaries. Context seems to be a little hard for you to grasp but either way your conclusion isn't "logical" in any sense of the word. Dps synergy with certain TANK moves and cool downs was what we are saying, the increase in damage secondaries in conjunction with these abilities is greater mitigation than that from stacking parry. This isn't an opinion, it's been tested many many times. Because you choose to misrepresent the argument due to your inability to either understand or compose a counter argument doesn't change that. If you want to get upset and foot stamp off because parry isn't a good stat then that's fine with me, go play Bard. Either way it isn't going to stop anyone from researching or discussing the issue at hand. If you want parry then stack it until you are blue in the face, it won't matter or affect me one iota. Good luck.

Technically, that's argumentum ad absurdum, wherein he ignored other important details to present an absurd conclusion as a grounds to debase the argument (when the argument itself precludes such a conclusion from its given facts).

Tanks are tanks because they have a greater ability to mitigate incoming damage, and are built to generate more enmity. Those are the two fundamental goals of tanking (because if you do those two and those two only, barring any failure to perform on the other party members, the group will succeed). In the current paradigm, the thought seems to be that Parry isn't as valuable because you'll gain more "proxy" mitigation by killing the mob(s) faster, preventing their damage. If that was the only source of mitigation? The highest DPS should be the tank. Hell, outside of tankbusters, there really isn't much benefit to bringing tanks to Alexander Savage.

I'm not denying that damage contributes to mitigation. What I'm trying to understand is whether Parry's scaling is really so poor that the mitigation by damage increase from not having Parry is greater than the mitigation that having Parry would provide.

RNG arguments don't really fly, as long as the presented rate translates (roughly) to "real world" performance.

EDIT: I also am not denying that current encounter design might be counterproductive to the effectiveness of Parry, as there is a very clear lack of outgoing damage to make tanks value mitigation. This is more just asking about general job design for tanks, and whether Parry really is such a subpar stat.

[Kosmos992k]

If you want to get upset and foot stamp off because parry isn't a good stat Good luck.

Hmmmm?

Actually, what I said was that if superior DPS == tanking, then I'm gone. There's no need to repeat your arguments, I read them, and I'm not disagreeing with them, or arguing the apparent facts about the current meta. I signed up to play a tank, not DPS. Tanks in my view are protectors, not damage dealers. You can feel 'right' all you want in your argument, but do not belittle people who want to actually play tank, and not dps.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Hmmmm?

Actually, what I said was that if superior DPS == tanking, then I'm gone. There's no need to repeat your arguments, I read them, and I'm not disagreeing with them, or arguing the apparent facts about the current meta. I signed up to play a tank, not DPS. Tanks in my view are protectors, not damage dealers. You can feel 'right' all you want in your argument, but do not belittle people who want to actually play tank, and not dps.

Well, honestly as a protector its your job to also remove the threat.

In a real fight you can't just stand around and take hits, that will protect nobody. You have to get rid of the problem so it doesn't hurt the people your protecting. So in actuality the current way "is" the proper way to be a tank.

A real protector has to learn to defend himself, his target and disable and remove the threat.

The other thing people don't mention is, what is a Tanks job in real life?

A tank rolls in, protecting allied infantry to soak and take care of high priority threats on the battlefield with its main cannons and suppressive fire.

It doesn't have to be that complicated.

I didn't say remove tank damage, I said remove "stances." Make it so you can't stance-dance while in combat. In exchange, you lower the HP pools of future raid bosses to compensate. Hell, add more mechanics and team-function tasks OTHER than "durr hurr DPS more." T12 in Coil did this beautifully.

The point is that building content around DPS is just plain stupid. The balance of the game should not be based on damage. The balance of the game should be based on tanks tanking, healers healing, and DPS hitting things. You can still put non-damage mechanics in for all 3 roles to deal with. The current raid community is obviously not happy with the damage-formula SE moved into for 3.0. It's time for a massive overhaul of raid design.

Oh, I agree. It is stupid, no fight should be based on Enrage and how fast you can DPS. However, removing playstyles and options from the game when there is already very few: is also stupid.

However, they need to focus the fights more on mechanics that are not just: "Kill this fast or raid wipes."

[Risvertasashi]

Actually, what I said was that if superior DPS == tanking, then I'm gone.

Which is, unfortunately, a large part of why PLD is so behind in the current meta. I don't end up touching mine too much, unless the healer queues are completely unbearable (which some have been lately).

[dank1]

Hmmmm?

Actually, what I said was that if superior DPS == tanking, then I'm gone. There's no need to repeat your arguments, I read them, and I'm not disagreeing with them, or arguing the apparent facts about the current meta. I signed up to play a tank, not DPS. Tanks in my view are protectors, not damage dealers. You can feel 'right' all you want in your argument, but do not belittle people who want to actually play tank, and not dps.

You signed up to be a tank? Is tanking even your main class?
Most real full time tanks know there's only so much tanking you can do, once you can tank said content without dying anyone with a brain knows you then use your remaining time/effort dpsing

You can roleplay all you want as that noble holy paladin who swore an oath to the sword and board and will lay his life on the line to protect his comrades and save the princess and that's fine it doesn't change the reality that you have a job that needs to be executed efficiently which is eliminating a threat quickly which I will get done by maximizing my DPS and making everyone in my group's lives a little easier. You can choose to be lazy and RP getting by doing minimal DPS, that's fine, but personally I'm going to stick with the guy who understands his job is not only surviving/holding the boss in place but also killing the fucker asap

[Kosmos992k]

**a great example of why people don't like tanks in this game**

Did it ever cross your mind that people play for many different reasons and do not treat this game as an exercise in math and efficiency?

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Did it ever cross your mind that people play for many different reasons and do not treat this game as an exercise in math and efficiency?

Going pure defensive and just holding threat really isn't that hard to do. I can do that watching a movie at the same time. I would have no reason to play a tank class because that just sounds extremely lazy and boring. I had to group with several tanks like that already. If a Warrior or Dark Knight plays like that, they usually are less survivable then ones who focus on DPS because they have overall less sustain, and most don't even actively use their defensive moves often.

However, trying to deal as much damage as possible while tanking is both fun, active, rewarding, challenging.

Most full defensive tanks I meet, pretty much do their threat combo and stack high vit and never use defensive moves. Some don't even avoid AOEs. Its almost like they are watching Netflix more then playing the game.

I mean, sure that probably sounds fun to you but its really not that hard.

[dank1]

Going pure defensive and just holding threat really isn't that hard to do. I can do that watching a movie at the same time. I would have no reason to play a tank class because that just sounds extremely lazy and boring. I had to group with several tanks like that already. If a Warrior or Dark Knight plays like that, they usually are less survivable then ones who focus on DPS because they have overall less sustain, and most don't even actively use their defensive moves often.

However, trying to deal as much damage as possible while tanking is both fun, active, rewarding, challenging.

Most full defensive tanks I meet, pretty much do their threat combo and stack high vit and never use defensive moves. Some don't even avoid AOEs. Its almost like they are watching Netflix more then playing the game.

I mean, sure that probably sounds fun to you but its really not that hard.

Thank you for this, most str based tanks play better overall than those who stack vit spam their 123 aggro rotation because they have to.
Being full str means you have to increase your survivability to full levels by using cooldowns.
Being full str also means you more than likely care about your dps which means you will put in effort into your combos to pump out damage and not play lazily, all this will amount to better aggro management and survivability because we all know a dead tank cant dps, why would we risk dying and wiping the party?

The people who are against tanks dpsing usually have a one track mind and believe there's only 2 diff types of tanks, those who want to tank or want to dps so they to fit into a certain mold. They fail to realize that this is a game where a party all has the same common goal, you need to be versatile to complete and said goals and put the party's interest before your own wants and conceptions of what a class should or shouldnt do

[Jpec07]

Thank you for this, most str based tanks play better overall than those who stack vit spam their 123 aggro rotation because they have to.
Being full str means you have to increase your survivability to full levels by using cooldowns.
Being full str also means you more than likely care about your dps which means you will put in effort into your combos to pump out damage and not play lazily, all this will amount to better aggro management and survivability because we all know a dead tank cant dps, why would we risk dying and wiping the party?

Huge fallacy with this logic when compared to the prevailing argument in this thread (it's kind of ironic, actually).

This thread suggests that people in full Fending gear don't really have that much of an advantage over people in Pentamelds or full Slaying gear. If Parry is utter crap (and I don't think anyone will contend that Vit isn't really that helpful for tanks), then how can you possibly argue that the Slaying tank will tend to play better than the Fending tank? If the prevailing argument in this thread holds true, then the two will be taking just about the same amount of damage, and the only difference will be that the Fending tank has to work harder for enmity. So by this logic, the natural conclusion of Slaying > Fending is that Fending gear actually makes enmity gameplay harder for the tank, while they'd have to cycle their cooldowns just as effectively as the tank in Slaying gear. So if they are able to hold threat and survive in Fending gear, and if the mitigation gains by Fending gear are marginal at best, then it stands to reason that the tank in Fending gear is better at the mechanics of their job than the tank in full Slaying, because they have to be.