What is there to argue? SE took the easy solution and decided to give tanks the best of both worlds. Effective patch 3.2 no tank will ever have to think about balancing damage output with HP. Effective 3.2 we all get to have the most HP possible AND get the most damage possible at the exact same time. I finally get to eat my cake and still have it as well.

The point of stacking STR was to increase your damage, while you still did your job of holding emnity and surviving big hits. Desperately clinging to and crying about the loss of being a "lean" tank who could still survive encounters is petty. Good tanks have already gotten over this news. Good tanks were already prepping for this type of possibility. Good tanks are already looking at potential builds for when 3.2 arrives.

This decision, will absolutely wreck the majority of 3.0 content, with possible exception to A3s and A4s for tanks. Looking at Thordan EX as an example, a full STR (accs and stat allocation) can MT the entire fight of ThorEx. They can mitigate every single TB and the cleaves that can make things spicy during spots in the final portion of the fight. As of 3.2, I can use the exact same mitigation rotation, do the same amount of damage (most likely) and as an added bonus, go from 16k health to 21k health. Prepare for mass solo healing clears, or prepare for lazy tank buster mitigation.

One of my raid healers had this discussion with me this weekend. He made the comment that it will be much easier for him to heal my co-tank and myself after 3.2. I told him that if he didn’t think SE wasn’t going to adjust new content to absolutely crap out damage, either he is terribly mistaken, or he needs to meld accuracy on his raid gear so that he can SCH dps (or just start gearing up his NIN again). I believe that Syzygian is absolutely on point here, incoming tank damage will be severely increasing going forward. If you were a VIT tank who mitigated Heavenly Heel with just “Foresight” you are probably gonna have a bad time.

Going forward, 3.2 will mean that a good tank will be measured by their effectiveness to properly utilize cd’s and stance dance. DPS numbers will have a significantly shorter distance between floor and ceiling, but there will still be a difference.