"Changing Tank Damage Calculation"

[Brannigan]

I don't have a source but I'm fairly certain the reason they gave for making changes in the first place was to make it so getting a new tanking accessory actually felt like an upgrade. As it is, i150 crafted items are a lot better than i210 fending items. Additionally, even those without crafted items will ignore fending accessories in favor of slaying. There's a few different solutions to this but one of them involves altering the items themselves.

But basically the changes aren't necessarily intended to alter tank DPS levels (though they'll probably end up doing this as well), but rather to properly reward players when they get an item drop. Like I haven't actually equipped a (raid dropped) fending accessory in battle since I got my first crafted/materia items back in 2.0.

edit:

Well, that's what I get for not reading the thread. First page:

Many of those attempting instanced raids in the early stages tend to use advanced materia melding on accessories, which lead to tanks being required to meld STR or VIT. Due to this there were times where the melded accessories were better than the accessories which dropped from clearing the instance. In order to resolve this issue, in Patch 3.2 we will be making adjustments that will change the damage calculations of tanks into a more appropriate state.

As an overall plan moving forward, we will be making adjustments so that a burden is not placed on any particular role in order to challenge a high-difficulty raid.

I still think the best way to address this is to actually adjust items (going forward). A small amount of STR on fending, class restrictions, and materia slots would put it in the perfect place. Non-tanks are probably going to end up melding VIT in their slots anyway so it wouldn't be unfair to expect tanks to shell out for 2x materia V for each accessory slot.