Tank Mitigation vs Tank DPS.

[WaterShield]

It kinda remind of the debate of GW2 back when it was launched. The game departed from the Holy Trinity system so there is no specific tank/DPS/heal, yet many people at the time still wanted to shoe-horn it in. One of the main sticking point back then was between class-cannon vs tanky/support build.

- Class-cannon: since the game was designed in a way that "EVERY" Damage can be avoided, people with this built rely on not taking hit while kill the bosses fast enough before the mistake creep in.
- Tanky/support build: people insisted on having tank and healer to "sustain" the fight.

There was this guy in my guild who played a Paladin and very proud of his tanky/support build. He always bragged whenever his group kill Lupicus (which was the hardest boss of the time), it's thanks to him, how he can survive the hit, heal his teams and res them when they are down. I came with him once to see what his team done, and god it was painful. The fight last somewhere between 20-30 minutes with people taking damage, dying left and right.

- By tanky, it didn't mean he didn't die, it just meant he died after 4-5 hits instead of 1-2 hits.
- By "healing the party", it doesn't mean he was able to heal his group through mistake, it just means he was able to pro-long their life a bit, so instead of a person dying 8 times during the fight, they may now only die 6-7 times.

Their clear mainly relies on corpse chaining aka hope that not everyone die at the same time to res other people and wear the boss down in the long run.

So I asked if he want to come see my class-cannon group, and he came. We nuked the boss down in less then 5min with no death, in fact, except for him none of us took any damage since we dodged all of them. The best part is even after that, he still insisted that his build is "superior". Note that I'm not talking about it was a debate of playstyle, somehow even after seeing it, he still insisted players like us was "bad" or "doesn't exist" because "if you take a hit or two you gonna die, while I can take 4 hits and survive!". I didn't press him further for his 'logic' because I knew better how it would end up anyway.

I played with a non glass cannon build myself. However that was because I primarily played WVW. High move speed with high flat damage and health as a greatsword / rifle warrior at launch.

It was really fun memeing with that build XD

I 100% agree with what you've said for PVE though. BIS is determined by what is demanded of the content, not personal feelings. Which is the trap tenacity tanks are falling into.

[Barraind]

I miss my scepter/focus guardian from back in the day.

Staff was great until they nerfed the easy farm spots for it.

[YojimboM]

I'm no expert but I can imagine the reason why tank gear isn't as important as dps gear for savage content is because bosses focus more on their mecanics and cause the group to react. Better gear for the majority of your party (the dps) means they can take a little more pain for their mistakes. An adequately geared tank will still survive a tank buster if they use their cooldowns well. It also means healers don't need to heal as much, keeping their mp up for when it's needed.

That isn't the reasoning. The reason that DPS get gear before tanks and healers is primarily because, as DPS, they stand to get the most statistical gain from higher stats. Statics that are organized will always want to get as much gain as quickly as possible, so raising the stats of their highest DPS first would be the priority, since higher DPS = higher gain from a flat stat increase. Higher stats on the DPS also has a higher impact on the speed of clear times, so that is less healing or mitigating that will need to be done in the long run, so you can view more DPS as less incoming damage as well.

Tanks and healers are already overequipped for their primary jobs (and have always been since after Midas), so they get geared last, since they already fulfill their role as they are and their DPS numbers don't stand to increase as much with higher stats since they're lower. Having more HP on DPS jobs is a bit of a red herring as long as they have enough to survive unavoidable damage, the amount of healing needed to be done will never change since there are purely finite amounts of damage in any content, and that amount of damage only decreases the faster the pull is over.

For people hanging onto Tenacity for some reason: There is no way to increase the impact Tenacity has like DPS-oriented stats can be, through the use of raid buffs or party synergy, etc. Tenacity is inherently an almost useless stat. Like Parry was in ARR and HW. Don't meld it. At best, you would be making a run slower than it needs to be and actually putting more stress on your healers since they need to deal with damage for longer.

[Nedkel]

For people hanging onto Tenacity for some reason: There is no way to increase the impact Tenacity has like DPS-oriented stats can be, through the use of raid buffs or party synergy, etc. Tenacity is inherently an almost useless stat. Like Parry was in ARR and HW. Don't meld it. At best, you would be making a run slower than it needs to be and actually putting more stress on your healers since they need to deal with damage for longer.

This is completely false and i have already pointed out why.

Between tenacity and D-hit melds there is 1.6 percentage point difference in the damage multiplier, tank damage makes up for 9-11% of the total raid damage. This number will at best decrease the time needed to finish duty by maybe 0.16%, and because it is so random and unpredictable you could as well just deal as much damage as tenacity tank, since 1.6% damage increase on the rng driven stat is likely not going to happen all the time.

So what you are basically saying is, killing boss 0-0.16% faster is going to make it easier on healers than 4.3-5% mitigation increase, which is absurd statement. It wont be even noticed by a parser.

If that healer is overhealing 50% of the time... then the saved heal isn't likely to be saved... because they are already healing you wayyyy too much. What makes you think they would then heal less?

Perhaps they should heal a bit less and the tank should cycle their damage reducing cool downs when they need to instead.

It seems the answer is that player skill is important during relevant content that you cannot over gear. Meaning having additional tenacity for minuscule gains in damage reduction is pointless. Because if they do not play properly in the first place, no sub stat in the world will save them.

The amount of heal may not be changed (prove needed), but the time in which a tank need a heal going to change.
Tank with tenacity will need to be healed less often than a tank without one, it wont be nothing that you will be able to notice as a healer since its below the 10% perception point where humans are able to notice the difference, but it will be there the same way the additional 1.6% of a total RNG stat is, but it couldnt be.

I say 4-5% additional mitigation is something worth having, than 1.6% of rng bonus damage which may or may not be working as intended.

-snip-

Also played GW2, and i cannot count how many dungeons and raids i failed in there because everyone was a glass cannon dying in one second. Without dedicated healer and one tank in gw2 raiding is a nightmare.

[YojimboM]

This is completely false and i have already pointed out why.

Between tenacity and D-hit melds there is 1.6 percentage point difference in the damage multiplier, tank damage makes up for 9-11% of the total raid damage. This number will at best decrease the time needed to finish duty by maybe 0.16%, and because it is so random and unpredictable you could as well just deal as much damage as tenacity tank, since 1.6% damage increase on the rng driven stat is likely not going to happen all the time.

So what you are basically saying is, killing boss 0-0.16% faster is going to make it easier on healers than 4.3-5% mitigation increase, which is absurd statement. It wont be even noticed by a parser.

I have no idea where you're coming up with those DH numbers from, and you're entirely excluding crit for some reason. Tank BIS this tier have approx. 1300 DH, which is a 3.8% bonus, and around 3500 crit, which is a 14% bonus. Remember that damage stats stack multiplicatively on top of that. (http://theoryjerks.akhmorning.com/stats/crit/, http://theoryjerks.akhmorning.com/stats/dh/)

If you brought tenacity to absolutely maximum levels possible right now (3582), the damage and mitigation bonus would still only be 9.7%, not even close to the combined crit/DH bonus. At more realistic levels (around 2000), you can expect around 5% both ways like you said, almost three times less effective than crit alone. (http://theoryjerks.akhmorning.com/stats/ten/)

This isn't even beginning to go into other details, like the number of raid buffs that favor DH and crit (Battle Litany, Battle Voice, Chain Stratagem, etc). Overall, DH and crit are both much more effective than Tenacity. In short: everything you've said about the comparison in DPS increase is wrong.

Tenacity might be useful as a bleeding-edge prog stat currently, as I've heard of at least one E4S clear where a tank with 3000 tenacity saved a run with only 3k HP after mistiming a Shadow Wall, and even in that case it was due to a player mistake and not required. At absolute best, Tenacity is padding for progging where a tank might be expecting to mess something up. In any other case, using Tenacity is essentially preparing yourself for failure, because if it benefits you in any large amount it would ultimately be due to failed mechanics.

[RareItems]

People think that by stacking Direct Hit your going to deal 10,000 more DPS lol when in actuality its just 500-800 DPS on single target mobs, 1000-2000 on AoE.

Also while your DPS increases, your defense lowers, so that Random Healer your going to get is going to be DPSing less which results in DPS loverall resulting in the same clearing speed if you just stacked Tenacity/Crit/Det/Skillspeed.

Keep in Mind, Tenacity also gives a nice Damage boost as well as Damage Mitigation and Self Heal.

Your literally trading in "A chance to deal 1-3% more DPS" for " 100% chance to increase your DPS/ Damage Mitigation and Self heal"

The only time you should be stacking Direct Hit on Tank Melds is if you Raid/Ex Trials otherwise Tenacity is a better option.

The only reason Raiders stack Direct Hit is to meet DPS checks on so called "Endgame Content". For some reason, they think the Twinning has a DPS check.

[Nedkel]

I have no idea where you're coming up with those DH numbers from, and you're entirely excluding crit for some reason. Tank BIS this tier have approx. 1300 DH, which is a 3.8% bonus, and around 3500 crit, which is a 14% bonus. Remember that damage stats stack multiplicatively on top of that. (http://theoryjerks.akhmorning.com/stats/crit/, http://theoryjerks.akhmorning.com/stats/dh/)

If you brought tenacity to absolutely maximum levels possible right now (3582), the damage and mitigation bonus would still only be 9.7%, not even close to the combined crit/DH bonus. At more realistic levels (around 2000), you can expect around 5% both ways like you said, almost three times less effective than crit alone. (http://theoryjerks.akhmorning.com/stats/ten/)

This isn't even beginning to go into other details, like the number of raid buffs that favor DH and crit (Battle Litany, Battle Voice, Chain Stratagem, etc). Overall, DH and crit are both much more effective than Tenacity. In short: everything you've said about the comparison in DPS increase is wrong.

Tenacity might be useful as a bleeding-edge prog stat currently, as I've heard of at least one E4S clear where a tank with 3000 tenacity saved a run with only 3k HP after mistiming a Shadow Wall, and even in that case it was due to a player mistake and not required. At absolute best, Tenacity is padding for progging where a tank might be expecting to mess something up. In any other case, using Tenacity is essentially preparing yourself for failure, because if it benefits you in any large amount it would ultimately be due to failed mechanics.

I am not advocating for making maximum tenacity and take the maximum possible tenacity from equipment, because for most of the players they will not have a choice, since ilvl is the first most important thing to focus on as a tank.
I am just comparing melds because here is where the choice we really have, tenacity with mix of D hit where you cant put more tenacity against pure D hit melds.

Right now the difference sit at exact 1.7% on damage and 4.3% mitigation, with few d-hit melds its basically about 1.6% and 4.0%.
My advice, melds whatever you want, it will still give you something useful, tenacity is not useless otherwise it would be buffed.

[IttyBitty]

If you are not saving me actual healing GCDs (as opposed to theoretical GCD savings from cumulative tenacity mitigated hits) then you may as well have just filled your gear with Perception for all the good it does for me as your healer.

Damage in this game is spiky.
Regens and embraces are pretty much always rolling so incidental damage from AAs are pretty much covered until the next big hit comes along and demands attention regardless of how much you're Tenacity mitigating them.
I am going to heal you for 45-50k regardless of if you take 46k damage or 40k damage (because that's how much non-crit Cure II/Solace + Tetra will heal you for).
It will take the same number of GCDs to heal you to a safe place after a 100k hit as it will to heal after a 90k hit.

One of my former static tanks used to maximize tenacity. I didn't notice any difference between when he did and when he didn't.

I personally think all substats are pure garbage because the gains on them are so small, but I'd still recommend you Meld DHit, Crit or Det (and Spd if you're trying to hit a breakpoint) if you're trying to optimise, because pushing phases and clearing faster are more important than taking a little bit less damage. Any of them are "better" than Tenacity as far as I'm concerned. Hell, meld Tenacity if that's what you really want, it really doesn't make an iota of difference to me. But acting like you're helping me or any other healer by doing so is patent nonsense. You'd help me more by rotating your cooldowns properly (and bothering to use Arm's Length as a cooldown during trash pulls) because most tanks don't.

[Melichoir]

snips

Pretty much this? Mitigation only matters if it can save a GCD or stop a 1 shot broadly speaking. As pointed out, there isnt gonna be a whole GCD saved between a few k difference (unless were talking LD). Beyond that, stats like Tenacity are decent prog stats if your tank is squishier than they should be, but they are by no means optimal or a go to stat currently. That mitigation you get from Tenacity wont really 'show up' unless you take a hit or hits that wouldve otherwise killed you. And if thats the case, then things are already looking pretty iffy.

Rather, its better to clear faster and manage cooldowns better. More bang for your buck to use Ramp or Shadow Wall correctly then spend money getting tenacity and stalling out the fight. It's not a bad stat, its just no where near as optimal as other stats in content that has enrages and dps checks.

[Raven2014]

The only reason Raiders stack Direct Hit is to meet DPS checks on so called "Endgame Content". For some reason, they think the Twinning has a DPS check.

I'm sorry but ... I think you're the only one thinking like that? 19/20 times when people talk about meld/optimization/BiS it IS about end game content. If I wasn't reserve that 1/20 slot for your specifically I would have said 20/20 tbh. You had stated you don't do end game content, and you also said your "experiment" only came from expert roulette, and also more than one person already politely pointed out the context here is within the end game.

tbh, speaking as a healer, for dungeon run as long as you are not undergeared, like 2+ level behind the dungeon (story/lvling) or 2+ patch cycle behind (for expert) I don't think anyone really care about what you meld. Put all +CP or +GP on your dungeon gears and I don't think most people will notice the difference.