Idea on changing tank damage calculations

[xvshanevx]

Just a Sunday morning think tank...

I looked back at some of my old gear and new and compared the STR to VIT differences between some ARR, HW, and SB tanking gear. One trend I noticed was that the higher our ilvl, the closer of the gap between STR and VIT gets.

For example, the High Allagan Coat of Fending (i110) the difference between STR and VIT was about 19%, for the Diabolic Mail (i260) was about 10%, and Augmented Lost Allagan Coat (i340) is about 5% difference. If the current trend follows, the percent difference between STR and VIT come ~4.5ish will be about 1-2% difference.

With this in mind, I was wondering why tanks have STR on their gear at all? I understand that our damage calculations are based off of STR and AP (which is directly affected by STR), but do they have to be? If it is possible to rework tank damage calculations and base them off of VIT, which I believe is possible with their current engine, then why not just have tanks calculations and AP scale off of VIT? As it stands, in a few patches, at least for tanks, the gap between the 2 stats will almost be identical (there will always be a small variance).

So, an idea I had was that they could make Primary Stats and VIT scale 1:1 on gear, for all gear. Have tanks scale AP off of VIT, and Tanks would also have a passive that would increase their VIT based off of gear by 5%.

Well, that passive would also make tanks 5% stronger than they should be! Well, yes, fights can also keep this in mind, but they could also change our damage calculations to something akin to: (Damage Calculation) - (Damage Calculation * 0.05), this way our damage would never actually scale off of that passive.

Anyways, just a random thought. What you guys think? I am pretty sure I am missing some critical info.

[MistakeNot]

During a large part of HW (3.x patches) tank damage was actually based on both STR and VIT (each contributing 0.45 AP)
This was changed back to having tank damage based on STR only in 4.0. The reasoning given was something about this making it easier to balance damage output and health.

Since they have already tried this once and then gone back to the old system, I doubt the devs will change the damage calculation for tanks again any time soon.

[koroko220]

At least they locked STR accessories so tanks can't use them past level 60.... do not miss the days of tanks going full STR and dying because less HP and couldn't rotate CDs properly..... but as for the topic, I wish they'd just make it vit too. I see why they separated it but being the only role to manage 2 main stats is just meh.

[Aana]

They have toyed with this already. Stopped using vit as a damage stat so that they could independently adjust health and damage output as needed over time. For example, if they need to tune tank damage up (or down) they can just adjust the strength on gear without it impacting our health up or down without having to confuse the playerbase by changing behind the scenes stats in an obtuse way.

2.0-3.X: Str was AP. Fending Accs were junk. Pentameld/Str accs were king.
3.X-3.9: Str/Vit were AP at .45 each. Tanks were happy. DPS tanks were happy, Turtle tanks were happy. Devs unhappy trying to balance content.
4.0-Now: Str is AP again, removed tanks off str gear. Pentameld king again. People unhappy again (but not as much as 2.x)

I don't particularly like the way they have done this (looking at you dumpy accessories), but there is some merit in that line of thinking. But there are no shortage of alternatives that avoid the pitfalls of the current situation. Mostly because Tank accessories are crap again and watching tank gear drop in raids is depressing when they are worthless.

The simple solution is keep str the same, but redistribute it between left and right side so it scales with ilvl more evenly and all slots are valuable. instead of 100 str on all 5 left sides and 0 str on right side, make it 50/50 (or whateer the exact numbers needed to match the design used on DPS/Heal AP but slightly lowered for tank needs) so all ilvl upgrades are valuable. You can keep AP and Health independent for balancing. You can stop making pentameld low ilvl crafted gear BIS. Raid drops will mean something. Turtle tanks get to wear vit gear. DPS tanks get to wear vit gear. No more gap between gear playstyles splitting the community and making PUG/Roulettes annoying.

[MauvaisOeil]

The simple solution is keep str the same, but redistribute it between left and right side so it scales with ilvl more evenly and all slots are valuable. instead of 100 str on all 5 left sides and 0 str on right side, make it 50/50 (or whateer the exact numbers needed to match the design used on DPS/Heal AP but slightly lowered for tank needs) so all ilvl upgrades are valuable. You can keep AP and Health independent for balancing. You can stop making pentameld low ilvl crafted gear BIS. Raid drops will mean something. Turtle tanks get to wear vit gear. DPS tanks get to wear vit gear. No more gap between gear playstyles splitting the community and making PUG/Roulettes annoying.

It would even be easier to scale tank health using only left side, and scale tank damage using both left and right side with STR only accessories. No more "I'm forced to wear VIT trinkets" or "Tank gear is boring". Just like STR DPS, but with either more Vit on gear, either a bigger Vit to HP conversion.

[Aana]

It would even be easier to scale tank health using only left side, and scale tank damage using both left and right side with STR only accessories. No more "I'm forced to wear VIT trinkets" or "Tank gear is boring". Just like STR DPS, but with either more Vit on gear, either a bigger Vit to HP conversion.

True, that would be simple as well, but still runs the "I don't get better at tanking from all my gear upgrades" which is the problem with Str AP on Vit accs we have now. (We only get HP). This would just reverse that problem. Tank Acc drops (We only get AP). Then the turtle tanks wouldn't like it as they dont get tankier with upgrades. Shoes just on the other foot.

Since tanks actively need both to do their job better (unlike dps), just split it up so we get a 'little' damage and some HP on every upgrade instead of 'a lot' of both on left side and only 1 on right side.