Strength Tanks

[Sapphidia]

Just to clarify my thought on Paladin with Vit - in terms of single target DPS, yep, all tanks benefit identically from Strength. If you're talking about a single boss and purely using DPS as a judge, then yes, all tanks have parity.

However - DRK and WAR both have a LOT more self healing that's tied to their damage output (inner beast, extended Bloodbath, Souleater, DA Abyssal), whereas paladins purely have a crossclassed Bloodbath. Thus they're losing less survivability from doing less damage. In addition, their AOE tanking relies much more heavily on Flash which does -zero- damage, so in an AOE situation you wont really notice much difference between a STR and a VIT PLD, but you'd notice HUGE difference between the output of the DRK/WAR.

In a single target boss raid situation, there's not much difference (and yes, I'd also support the above that Paladin has such innate natural defenses that they dont need the Vit) but in terms of general content with trash like Expert Dungeons (which is where you actually SEE most of the Vit-loving paladins, as most of the raiders already understand the importance of strength) a Paladin is sort of okay with Vit for general performance, whereas STR on a DRK/WAR will have a much more marked effect on their self sustainability and group damage output.

Again, not arguing that paladins should go Vit, just stating that as the OP of this thread was mostly speaking from an Expert Dungeon / non-raiding perspective, that in those environments Paladin is the tank whose performance is least noticeably increased by being strength spec.

[Syzygian]

(and yes, I'd also support the above that Paladin has such innate natural defenses that they dont need the Vit)

Where do these arguments come from? What innate natural defenses do they have that make a marked difference in how they take damage to the extent that how much Vit they do or do not have makes a difference? I'll bet my next paycheck that the difference in "innate natural defenses" (passive mitigation, I'm assuming) between PLD and DRK/WAR doesn't even add up to the eHP of a single i180 fending accessory.

[SwordCoheir]

Where do these arguments come from? What innate natural defenses do they have that make a marked difference in how they take damage to the extent that how much Vit they do or do not have makes a difference? I'll bet my next paycheck that the difference in "innate natural defenses" (passive mitigation, I'm assuming) between PLD and DRK/WAR doesn't even add up to the eHP of a single i180 fending accessory.

I think people are still hung on the notion that Shields still offer extensive mitigation strength, but haven't come to realize how hard it got nerfed when 3.0 hit. But your right, PLD's mitigation doesn't hold weight since they revamped Shields and Parry.

[Callidus]

However - DRK and WAR both have a LOT more self healing that's tied to their damage output (inner beast, extended Bloodbath, Souleater, DA Abyssal), whereas paladins purely have a crossclassed Bloodbath. Thus they're losing less survivability from doing less damage. In addition, their AOE tanking relies much more heavily on Flash which does -zero- damage, so in an AOE situation you wont really notice much difference between a STR and a VIT PLD, but you'd notice HUGE difference between the output of the DRK/WAR.

Actually Clemency scales off of Attack and therefore STR as well; though in fairness to you it is not used much given its quirks. Flash does too and, while Flash itself doesn't do damage, more potent Flashes means fewer Flashes and more GCDs spent doing actual damage.

Even untraited, a FoF+Bloodbath is still pretty powerful. It isn't that hard for a well geared PLD (i200+) to sustain ~1k DPS (until you run out of TP...) while tanking in SwOath if mechanics aren't too disruptive. Considering you'll try to time as much damage into FoF as possible, burst during FoF around 1.4k is perfectly reasonable and even a bit conservative. Some quick math (.25 x 1400) makes that about 350HPS during bloodbath for a total of about 5250 total HP recovered. Even round that down to 4500 and it's still significant if not exactly epic heals.