Buffing VIT Nerfing STR - Some simple math...

[Archaell]

I have to wonder. Wouldn't it be more appealing to keep STR as the main AP attribute? But at higher HP price?

Something like gaining 5% dps, while loosing 50% HP? (Extreme example.)

So that you could still play str tank, but the negatives would be high enough to discourage it?

[Phoenicia]

I have to wonder. Wouldn't it be more appealing to keep STR as the main AP attribute? But at higher HP price?

Something like gaining 5% dps, while loosing 50% HP? (Extreme example.)

So that you could still play str tank, but the negatives would be high enough to discourage it?

People will still look for, and find, the happy middle where they have just enough HP to survive the biggest baddest thing, and then build strength from there.

The main concern here, and I agree with Syzygian, unless they put in mechanics that force tanks to play defensively, which are totally non-existant, then there is no need for tanks to use the vitality gear. By having Vitality giving us more damage than Strength would, while having Strength give us less than it should, is just a placebo solution to "force" tanks to wear what was considered bad itemization choices.

Tanking is not about how much number your tank has on top of their pink bar, it's about how "effective" that pink bar is. My 13.8k STR DRK (yeah, I don't gear my tanks anymore ) is fully capable of tanking and surviving any boss in expert roulette without forcing the healer to do more than refresh Regen and the occasional Cure every 10-15 seconds on bosses. Whereas my 14.5k black mage or ninja alt would knock the healer out of cleric stance and keep him out until I die, boss dies, or tank takes back aggro.

[karateorangutang]

This is probably the best solution to a multitude of problems, it gets rid of the accessory wars that we have right now. It also cuts WAR's self healing down quite a bit. I'm banking that equilibrium, second wind, and bloodbath (we'll have to see calculations for this one) will still be STR based. So, if they make STR worthless in the build out because the damage equation favors VI then WAR loses the most.

Unless they fix clemency... then PLD loses a bit there too. DRK stands to gain the most, since STR is purely a damage stat for them, swapping it out for another stat doesn't affect their kit at all that I can see. However, it puts living death in a worse place because of a larger HP pool.

I'll be interested to see how SE handles this.

[Reynhart]

I'm banking that equilibrium, second wind, and bloodbath (we'll have to see calculations for this one) will still be STR based.

They're not STR based. They're based on "Attack Power", since they're increased by Berserk.

Needs testing, but I also think that DRG and NIN using Second Wind will give the same results, proving the same thing.

[karateorangutang]

They're not STR based. They're based on "Attack Power", since they're increased by Berserk.

Needs testing, but I also think that DRG and NIN using Second Wind will give the same results, proving the same thing.

My bad then, forgot they were AP based.

[Phoenicia]

I'll be interested to see how SE handles this.

As Reynhart said, those are scaled off Attack Power. Since STR = AP, they were the same. But next patch they won't be.

As who loses out or gains the most? All tanks already have the same scaling off the stats, and the starts are obscenely and boringly linear! So no one would lose out more. Since ALL mitigation tools happen to be % of health, and all 3 tanks having the exact same effective health (with a slight variation in effective healing received) any gain to one class is the same to the other. Keeping the classes at roughly the same place.

The only difference will be heals that scaled of AP will be lower, but will still be the same in relativity between the tanks. For example any change to Bloodbath (being available to all 3 tanks again) will be the same on all tanks in relativity. WAR will still benefit from it the most because of longer duration and higher burst with Berserk, PLD being on the opposite end because of no-damage AOE, low per-hit damage and shorter BB duration. And DRK being somewhere in between having good burst but lots of magic damage moves (mainly AOE).

Any gain/loss in max HP will remain the same, any gain/loss in DPS will still keep the same variance (example: WAR is 0-5% ahead of DRK, WAR is 8% ahead of PLD). So if WAR ceiling becomes 1k for example down from 1.15k, DRK will be doing 950~1k instead of 1045~1100 DPS. No tank has any more to gain or lose as opposed to the other.

This change is not here to balance tanks with one another, but to fix a glaring issue with tank itemization where they could NOT roll need on their BiS or having to fork 20mil in gil for the alternative. And the item that was meant for them being "utter trash".

As for tank balance, it takes lot more than normalizing the item choice that scales the all three tanks up or down in the same relativity.

[MiniTyra]

Is there any reason that the ratios for VIT and STR have to add up to 1? Couldn't they do something like VIT*0.7 and STR*0.1 if they wanted to?

There's absolutely no point SE doing that, as you can just convert those values to equal 1 and do the math that way, then rescale it down if need be.

(0.7*1.25) + (0.1*1.25) = 1

So 0.7:0.1 is exactly the same as 0.875:1.25

SE have usually taken the most simplistic approach to their formulas. It's just, because everything is a multiplier and has a base value, it's harder to convert linear regressions into direct formulas. SE are very good at hiding the real numbers.

[SolarusOthmithus]

Nerfing a tank's ability to self-heal would cripple the role. A selfsustaining tank is a huge factor in a lot of scenarios, enabling healers to vary their roles, and dps to really cut loose. Cutting the effect of Equilibrium, Bloodbath, Thrill of Battle, Inner Beast, and even Souleater would force healers to only focus on the tanks. Even Dark Knight's Blood Weapon and Syphon Strike will be affected.
I've read a lot of threads about the dps, but tanks use this dps to sustain their abilities, and it's what gives each its distinction.

[karateorangutang]

Nerfing a tank's ability to self-heal would cripple the role. A selfsustaining tank is a huge factor in a lot of scenarios, enabling healers to vary their roles, and dps to really cut loose. Cutting the effect of Equilibrium, Bloodbath, Thrill of Battle, Inner Beast, and even Souleater would force healers to only focus on the tanks. Even Dark Knight's Blood Weapon and Syphon Strike will be affected.
I've read a lot of threads about the dps, but tanks use this dps to sustain their abilities, and it's what gives each its distinction.

Well if anything Thrill of Battle will get even better as its based on a percentage of HP. This is all highly dependent on how they approach the AP equation for tanks. Our HP healing might not go down, but it will go down in our relation to HP %.

[Cynric]

I think I have to agree with what spooky said. We don't really gain anything at all from this except the ability to Need on gear that will increase our damage. However that damage is probably going to be straight nerfed compared to before. Which is kind of.. Meh? Tanking doesn't have a lot of interesting things going on with it in FFXIV unfortunately, and if they meant what they said and they're bringing Midas down to Coil levels.. I mean do any tanks remember how tanking in coil was? There wasn't really a lot of involvement outside of a hate swap.


I see a lot of people saying DRK stands to gain the most, however I personally feel the opposite.

Warrior is guaranteed to be the OT if things remain the same per current tank balance regardless of a damage nerf since it'll happen across all tanks.

Paladin is being buffed. We don't know how they're buffing it, what they're buffing, or how much they're buffing, but we know they are buffing it.

Dark Knight buffs or changes were not mentioned. Living Dead unless changed will be even more stressful than it is now, and self healing will be reduced since that scales off the most likely reduced AP. Dark knight without changes is fighting for an MT spot with Paladin.

They said in a previous Live letter the next Alexander will be more about physical damage going out to the tank.

With these design decisions coming in the future , between PLD buffs, War staying the same, DRK staying the same, Midas being more Physical damage, and only PLD/DRK fighting for a spot in a raid. It just doesn't look very good to me and just looks like a flip of our current situation with less damage and more health.

And honestly if things literally just flip with more health, less damage but with PLD/WAR being the go to MT/OT, then it shows me Square can not balance tanks at all and frankly I'd rather not deal with a role they can't figure out how to balance because they have odd design decisions.

Also I'm not saying this will happen. I'm just saying if they make no other changes to tanks aside from the Vit/Str flip, and buffing Paladin, while making Midas more physical. It's just not a good outlook to me personally.