Question about bonus stats

[ProfGuard]

Hi I'm new to Heavensward and was wondering about bonus stats while lvling my DRK

Is it true that all tanks should max out strength on their bonus attributes?

My FC member noted that strength is a must if I want to keep aggro during lvling phases (since you could party up with end game players), but frankly I'm not having any issues regarding aggro at all.
Yet considering Alexander Savages have tight dps checks and there are small advantages like being able to kill mobs and lvl up faster, I was a little convinced.
If I'm not facing aggro issues, would it be okay to raise vit and give healers a breather, or would capping str grant more merits I don't know of yet?

[Pence]

The issue is....VIT is kinda meh. It doesn't increase DEF, just HP - which is pretty much useless in most situations outside raids, healers can heal you in full STR while DPSing on their own no problem. The extra VIT is hardly noticable. (and even then...). STR is the better choice.

[Blitzace]

Untill next patch VIT is out of the question. Its not needed if you are half-decent and have enough confident in yourself and your party.
99% of the current content can be done in full str. Only a few fights you will need some VIT stuff, But to answer your question. Full STR all the way for stats. You can wear accessories to boost VIT where ever you please.

[Lan_Mantear]

This is a matter of preference. At any given level, you can wear an STR or VIT accessory to offset whatever stat your pour your bonus points into. As far as leveling is concerned, you shouldn't have any issues with keeping aggro in VIT or STR gear, so long as you are properly using your CDs to keep the mob's attention on you.

The question of VIT vs STR only really comes into significant play during end game, where everyone is pushing their limits or out gearing the content.

[Jpec07]

As a DRK, if you're talking from a survival perspective, Strength has two roles for you:

1. Living Dead: Prioritizing Strength allows your healers to recover you from Living Dead more easily. Every point in Vitality will make it so they have to heal you that much more to get the buff to fall off. Of course some may argue that you should almost never have to use Living Dead if you're doing your job correctly, which would make the point moot, but Vitality actually works against it.
2. Souleater and Abyssal Drain: Both of these attacks heal you relative to how much damage you do, so maximizing your ability to do damage with them will help you self-heal for more.

Vitality has two functions as well, but they're generic to every tank:

1. More HP: Inherently, having more HP will mean you can take more damage before you die, plain and simple. But it in no way allows you to take less damage--it just means the WHM may be able to get another Stone II out before having to heal you. This will also be more accommodating to newer/undergeared healers, who might not have the throughput to keep up (if you net 16,000 HP loss over an encounter because the healer had to get some coffee, having only 15,000 means you're dead, while having 17,000 leaves you alive).
2. In-Combat Auto-Regen: While you're in combat, you regenerate 1% of your max HP every three seconds. In endgame, 210 gear, this can mean the difference between a 150 HP tick and a 200 HP tick. In general, this is pretty minuscule, but it is an effect of Vitality. If they wanted to make this more substantial, they'd need to raise it to 5% at least.