The "tenacity" Problem (other melds aswell)

[Rithy255]

Tenacity in it's current state is not really great for a ton of reasons, A lot of it has to do with the lackluster defensive benefits outtop of defensives not being as important, plus making a "defensive set" for progression runs would likely just be more of a hassle then it currently is. I also don't think just increasing it's flat damage to be the best stat would be the best solution, at that point it can just be removed lol.

How could we "Improve" Tenacity
-Tenacity Could Increase Targets HP more.
-Tenacity Could Increase the effectiveness of Defensive cooldowns (Like Rampart, could go from 20% to 25% if you put in max Tenacity as a example).
-Increase the effectiveness of the current passive effects.

All Of this would certainly improve that stat, I doubt it would be as useful as crit/DH, so maybe tuning bosses to actually hit harder with autos could also help encourage the stats use, My main hope is that melding has a little choice in it (even if its the illusion of "choice" at the high end) with at least having the option be viable and have actual upsides.

Other Melding issues.
-The lack of having "sets" such as three different melding sets on a same gear, this can fix issues where one job favours another stat, or you could make a more "defensive" set and a offensive set for tanks.
-Skillspeed/spellspeed, Tanks such as Paladin/Dark Knight suffer from having Skillspeed more then any other jobs, due to having spell attacks... Personally I think both stats should be merged into "recastspeed" which would help jobs that use Phys/magic.
-Piety kind of weak? I heard this stat was also kind of bad.

Maybe theirs other issues with melding or it's fine? But I just thought that maybe improving the melding stats to be more functional would at least add some semblance of "customisation" (make skill speed paladin would be slightly less of a meme!)

[MikoRemi]

I would like to see Tenacity be useful since having defense and damage as well as increased HP recovery is pretty neat, but the formula makes it significantly weaker and it would just create an odd problem in particular. Direct Hit is always needed for that extra boost in damage, but if Tenacity was particularly strong then Determination would lose out as a result. I don't know how they could make more melds viable but I always just called it an illusion of choice anyway. If we just had a substat menu that we could freely change at any time based on class, and assign a certain amount of points to it(like SHB and EW relics), we'd mainly just pick whatever increases damage.

The melds are just sort of a relic of an older time but one that isn't the easiest to phase out without impacting a fair few things like hunts and market value, along with older materia still being needed for random things like ARR relics. The problem is the most we can customize is just damage output by the end of the day, and anything that doesn't give the best damage increases isn't really worth it since kits in general are more than equipped.

That being said, having Tenacity not be a meme anymore would actually be a really welcome sight. I would like if Skill Speed was primarily based on preference(go fast or go slower, whatever is more comfortable), but I don't see how they could change it too much without just swapping meta materia around or completely reworking certain substats entirely. That'd be the only real way to provide a more measurable fix, because as it is not there isn't too much outside of like, going for a doctoral degree in math for the .1% maximization.

[Arohk]

Tenacity provides less dps than Determination and will always be worse because of this, the game is DPS focused and therefore anything that dos not increases your DPS is bad.

See Piety, it gives you 0 dps, that makes it a worthless stat, Skillspeed and Spellspeed is also debatable, because it does not reduce the cooldown of Talents and is useless for most jobs because it disrupts your rotation.

[Rithy255]

Tenacity provides less dps than Determination and will always be worse because of this, the game is DPS focused and therefore anything that dos not increases your DPS is bad.

See Piety, it gives you 0 dps, that makes it a worthless stat, Skillspeed and Spellspeed is also debatable, because it does not reduce the cooldown of Talents and is useless for most jobs because it disrupts your rotation.

I'm not here to argue if Defensive value vs offensive value which one is better in the highest end of duties in speed kills. Offensive value will win out. Offensive value has been consistently better usually in all content; then again people would bring BLM over SMN all the time if that was the case... Theirs still some instances of utility and mobility beating out damage "meta" wise.

But I find it untrue that DPS is always the best stat in every situation as theirs benefits for defensive value in progression runs at least their used to be when tanks had different values (such as DRK/WAR being powerhouse MT options in SHB). Sure currently offensive stats have become the best in every sort of content but that's because of how absurdly tanky every tank is currently.

Tenacity even if not a non meta stat shouldn't be in the state it currently is and should provide benefits (even if crit/Dh is better "meta wise") Even if you just added flat damage to the stat that would be pointless as currently thats what every other stat does lol.

[GoatOfWar]

Either the meld provides identical damage or you make the meld mandatory to survive tank busters.
Those are the only ways to make it relevant.

[Rithy255]

Either the meld provides identical damage or you make the meld mandatory to survive tank busters.
Those are the only ways to make it relevant.

1. Making stats have identical Damage would mean you'd just meld tenacity anyway, this doesn't fix the issue.
2. Doesn't need to be mandatory to be a actual benefit, it's just that tanks are already so defensive and the defensive value tenacity gives is so small that melding anything defensive wouldn't make a difference in current content.

Like I said even if it's a non meta stat, it would be nicer for it to actually bring actual upsides for the 95% of players who don't care about meta speed killing and squeezing every semblance of damage out anyway, having tenacity as a safety net stat while running a fight for the first time would actually be helpful for learning a fight, then that player can switch to a damaged focus set if they're struggling with checks, problem is you can't really easily switch between stats? almost like I suggested a way of having multiple meld slots on the same gear.

[GoatOfWar]

The only alternative way i can think of making it more interesting would be movement speed maybe? Which is a stretch. But besides that, i just don't think the stat will ever be desirable.

[Rithy255]

The only alternative way i can think of making it more interesting would be movement speed maybe? Which is a stretch. But besides that, i just don't think the stat will ever be desirable.

It's reasonable that it would be more desirable if the stat actually helped you survive a lot more even with mistakes made or just surviving more for progression. Honestly even if they added more value to the stat without fixing the other major issue (that defense is already super high in ew), it would honestly be better then the really bad upside it currently brings, but in general yeah you'd still meld crit/dh over it

I really do understand your point that the most important thing in the game is DPS and I'm not trying to discredit that, I don't think you can change tenacity to work on current tanks designs as tanks are already super defensively built, personally I want to reduce some of that. Make autos hit harder ect. (even casual stuff should do more damage then it should lol)

Personally I view it as a stat that should be really helpful with progression and learning a fight, more then the meta stat that is already recommended. I think that's why easy meld switching would be great in addition to this, not just for Tanks (or healers if they somehow made piety semi useful) but also for dps (like casters spell speed is a big issue)

I think even if tenacity wasn't "hard meta" (it shouldn't be) at least making the stat more interesting and engaging (even if it's illusion of choice for ultimate's and high end duties). Is better then leaving it in the state it currently is.

[Lyth]

I would just rework DH, Tenacity, and Piety to all increase DH, along with an additional role specific effect. It's unfortunate that there's no 'Mastery' equivalent stat that works on a job-specific basis.

Skill Speed and Spell Speed should also be reworked into a single Haste stat. If it's not possible to merge the two stats, just change the effect such that they both act on Weaponskills and Spells.

[Rithy255]

I would just rework DH, Tenacity, and Piety to all increase DH, along with an additional role specific effect. It's unfortunate that there's no 'Mastery' equivalent stat that works on a job-specific basis.

Skill Speed and Spell Speed should also be reworked into a single Haste stat. If it's not possible to merge the two stats, just change the effect such that they both act on Weaponskills and Spells.

Yeah this would be fine, I rather tenacity be actually more role specific and work as more of a "tank" stat, but theirs certainly issues with viability and usefulness (because dps is plainly more important anyway), I think what you suggested is better then just tenacity being a meme stat that doesn't barely even effect tanks defensive value anyway. (like current tenacity)

Skill/spell merged would just be great in general aswell, It's really frustrating getting gear with skill speed on PLD.