Strength Tanks

[Drood424]

Any time I pull hate off a tank consistently in a dungeon, I look at their gear. 100% of the time, they are wearing all VIT accessories. When they're wearing mostly strength accessories, they have no problem holding hate. Seems pretty cut and dried to me.

[Sapphidia]

I am, and always will be, a VIT tank.

*EDIT*
In my defense, as a tank, I always mentally think I'm always the MT. That said, I have no STR builds.

That's fine enough for non-cutting-edge content. Don't confuse Strength with not being the MT though. Played properly tanks can contribute large amounts of damage even when the sole tank that's actually being hit. FFXIV is not like other MMOs, the damage on a tank comes in predictable bursts and you have a multitude of cooldowns to mitigate it. Tanks in WoW Burning Crusade stacked pure vitality because incoming damage was so high they'd die if they took three hits in the space of a couple of seconds without a heal between. That doesnt exist in FFXIV - healing requirements on tanks is very light outside of predictable big tank busters.

People hugely overvalue what Vitality actually does. It just gives a small healer cushion for huge amounts of burst. The only time a healer should notice that you're wearing full Vit is if they're lagging, or die, or are distracted, or you're hugely undergeared for the content.

The only things that hit hard enough to warrant a cushion of vitality accessories are some of the savage tankbusters and... they dont really need it either, because you have a static of healers you trust and you can always manipulate cooldowns to account for it.

I'm not trying to be condescending, I'm just saying - if you're a dedicated vit tank, and havent tried full strength, TRY IT. See if you notice whether your healer has any issue keeping you up, see if you notice that the ingame threat meter is putting you far ahead of what you were before. See if you notice your own DPS being noticeably more impactful to group.

I understand the desire to be a brick wall and to feel tanky, I have that desire myself. But vitality is a stat that doesnt do anything at all until your health reaches critical levels. A full vit tank requires just as much healing as a full strength tank. The best they give is maybe letting their healer stay in Cleric Stance for 1 GCD longer than normal before they have to swap out to heal them. At worst the vit serves no purpose (especially in easy content) and they're gimping themselves out of 25%+ extra damage.

[Freyyy]

gud stuff

White VIT knights are gonna stay white VIT knights even if we try hard to explain them how much they are wrong. If they want to stay a burden for their parties, we STR Vikings cannot help them.

[CGMidlander]

Adamant "VIT tanks" just want to absolve themselves of the responsibility that may come with what they perceive as a potentially dangerous build choice; their perception likely stemming from a lack of practical experience with the game's encounters. They're afraid of healers playing the gear card against them if they happen to wipe.

[Cheraa]

I am, and always will be, a VIT tank.

*EDIT*
In my defense, as a tank, I always mentally think I'm always the MT. That said, I have no STR builds.

So, in that case, you are and will be ever a bad tank?
Beeing a good Tank means to know the Dungeons, know the bosses, know the Tankbuster.
As you can survive anything at the moment with 17-18k HP as Paladin, it doesn't make sense to put in more VIT. It is a dead Stat giving you nothing, where STR would give you more DPS, better Heals, better enmity.
As for VIT, if you wipe with 17-18k HP as Paladin, you would wipe with 20k HP, too.

[Hayward]

Adamant "VIT tanks" just want to absolve themselves of the responsibility that may come with what they perceive as a potentially dangerous build choice; their perception likely stemming from a lack of practical experience with the game's encounters. They're afraid of healers playing the gear card against them if they happen to wipe.

Or maybe they've played both roles and actually have some degree of respect for healers and give them as much leeway as possible.

I can trust a good tank with STR accessories--which I really believe should be locked to DRG & MNK--as long as they're keeping to their actual job, tanking. My problem lies in the fact there are too many Leeroys trying to be DPS who pull entire sections of enemies and get all bent out of shape when healers are unable to keep these dolts standing upright.

[Donjo]

So, in that case, you are and will be ever a bad tank?
Beeing a good Tank means to know the Dungeons, know the bosses, know the Tankbuster.
As you can survive anything at the moment with 17-18k HP as Paladin, it doesn't make sense to put in more VIT. It is a dead Stat giving you nothing, where STR would give you more DPS, better Heals, better enmity.
As for VIT, if you wipe with 17-18k HP as Paladin, you would wipe with 20k HP, too.

To ignore any aspects of efficiency, there is a point of having enough Strength from a Tank to win an encounter just as there is a point of having enough Vitality. Any more is just gravy in both directions. Neither of them magically become dead stats at a threshold. Only Accuracy gets to claim that honor.

That being said... don't you dare run around calling people bad solely because of the accessories they choose to wear. Those who wear Fending are only doing what the devs want them to do. What the game itself tells them to do. And, most of all, it says absolutely nothing whatsoever about their personal skill as a player!

There is a reason that Strength Tanking is called a meta. There is a reason that players hear about the strategy only from other player's mouths. There is a reason that Tank Stats are getting mucked with in 3.2. It is not the intended design. We, as a community, have no right to attack others for choosing not to conform to a strategy that is either ignored or outright discouraged by information obtainable inside the game.

Granted, I'm not here to defend the merits of actually using either build. That's been done to death. The point here is that, when push came to shove, we were supposed to be in Fending this entire time. We can only hope to the Twelve that 3.2 makes that happen again. Unless that happens, however, Fending Tanks aren't wrong. None of you are.

[Ashkendor]

So, in that case, you are and will be ever a bad tank?
Beeing a good Tank means to know the Dungeons, know the bosses, know the Tankbuster.
As you can survive anything at the moment with 17-18k HP as Paladin, it doesn't make sense to put in more VIT. It is a dead Stat giving you nothing, where STR would give you more DPS, better Heals, better enmity.
As for VIT, if you wipe with 17-18k HP as Paladin, you would wipe with 20k HP, too.

I'd like to think we can have the STR vs VIT discussion without resorting to calling people bad. The game itself tells you to wear VIT, and last time I checked, we still can't Need roll on Slaying accessories. Not to mention the fact that as a healer, I've run across some hideously bad STR tanks and some really good VIT tanks, and vice versa. Player skill is completely independent of what accessories they choose to wear. I know I for one am looking forward to 3.2 and the possibility of a meta shift.

[Launched]

That being said... don't you dare run around calling people bad solely because of the accessories they choose to wear.

Why not? If you're in full VIT you have extra HP that you don't need and you're doing way less damage than you could be. You're not playing optimally and you're holding back any group you're in. That's on the same level as a DPS that uses no cooldowns and spams their basic rotation, or a healer that never uses Cleric Stance.

[Atoli]

Just popping in as a healer:
I prefer healing tanks with less HP. WARs are annoying to heal, especially if they go full VIT. Yeah it may look cool to have those 25k HP or something, but to me it's the difference between having to throw 2 heals at you or 5, to get you to full HP again.
So many tanks still believe VIT raises their defense, not just HP, so they assume they are super bulky and don't need CDs to survive. No x.x
Please use STR and CDs and healing you will be a lot less stressful to your healers because 1. using CDs properly is all the defense you need (well, and the +def on tank gear) and 2. the opponents die faster so they have to heal you for a shorter time.

What's especially bad is that these turtle-tanks are usually super scared of their HP dropping. So instead of going into Cleric Stance and also dealing DMG, I'm forced to heal this giant unnecessary safety margin again and again when the only redeeming value of VIT tanks would be that I can let them drop to <10% of their HP because that's still more than 2k HP. But nope, they panic and get mad when they drop to 50%, so I spend all the time healing away DMG that doesn't even drop the tank below 14k HP, when I could be dealing DMG instead =.=