PLD Bonus Stats

[TirionCrey]

VIT > STR > DEX. Vit is the absolute most important stat for Gla's as their HP pool is lower compared to a Marauder. Str comes in second for threat. Dex is a distant third for some additional Mit.

Take this with a grain of salt. Unless we got endgame to actually "evaluate" the importance of the individual stats, this is a "suggestion" at best.

If survivability is gonna be the smallest problem, you can compeltely ignore VIT on your bonus stat allocation.
If it's gonna be an issue, than VIT is gonna be first choice (unless you got enough VIT through gear to make up for it, then mitigating stats are gonna be better again)

No matter what...without actual endgame tests there is no way of saying which stat is gonna be the most favourable to raise.

[Eliseus]

Snip

It's not just a suggestion, just spend some time and research abilities (didn't mean this as an offense, just meant research so I don't have to type them all out) that benefit more from a tank with more HP, having more HP doesn't just allow you to have a bigger HP pool, but it allows some healing abilities to heal more, stoneskin to absorb more etc. From a tanking standpoint the 30 points in VIT is much more beneficial not just for paladin but for warrior also.

Remember, this is talking about the 30 points, this isn't a in general what is better, strength of vit, but the 30 points, which is more beneficial putting them into vit (sorry, some people like to debate str vs vit now in 2.0 gear wise when that doesn't really matter with how gear is designed now).

[LunarRei]

It's not just a suggestion, just spend some time and research abilities (didn't mean this as an offense, just meant research so I don't have to type them all out) that benefit more from a tank with more HP, having more HP doesn't just allow you to have a bigger HP pool, but it allows some healing abilities to heal more, stoneskin to absorb more etc. From a tanking standpoint the 30 points in VIT is much more beneficial not just for paladin but for warrior also.

Remember, this is talking about the 30 points, this isn't a in general what is better, strength of vit, but the 30 points, which is more beneficial putting them into vit (sorry, some people like to debate str vs vit now in 2.0 gear wise when that doesn't really matter with how gear is designed now).

Often times larger than necessary health pools just become MP dumps for healers. Health pools should never be looked at as the biggest is the best, for if that were the case the WAR would win hands down. Having sufficient health to absorb significant damage before requiring attention is the target. Now, what is sufficient health? That is really the question and one that cannot yet be answered for the factors are myriad.

Side note: Stoneskin is as of right now nearly useless as anything but a pre-pull buff. Cast time and MP cost are too high and efficacy too low to be of value during battle.

Your side note is wrong, and that is actually one prime example of how much a larger HP pool could help more then not, it could potentially open doors to cast stoneskin instead of spamming heals, also, name me a time that a bigger health pool is worse instead of not, because with the 30 points into vit then 30 points into str, not only will you still do all the content NP, but you will have almost 500 more HP to fluff around that will look more desirable to people. If you also saw my last post, I even gave examples of where more HP is beneficial.

In what way am I wrong? The mana cost at level 50 is 3x's the cost of Cure (399 for Stoneskin, 133 for Cure) has a 3 second base cast time (50% more than Cure) and only shields at best 18% of PHYSICAL!!! damage. There is a decent write up of Stoneskins problems in the healer forums if you want to check it out.

I'll make up some fake numbers here since you're 50 and I'm not so idk what health pools are at that level. At 4000 HP Stoneskin will shield 720 HP (that is not much for 399 mana) but at 5000 HP we are sill only getting 900 HP of physical protection. That is not a huge jump in bonus protection for a theoretical 125 VIT. You also mentioned heals that are better when health is higher. I've looked over CNJ, WHM and SCH and see nothing of the sort. What are you talking about specifically? The SCH does get a shield of sorts, but is is based off its healed amount, not target HP.

Ultimately what that means is Stoneskin is not good for the tank during the fight since Cure heals all damage, not just physical, has a lower mana cost and is faster. It is also not going to be used on DPS since it has such a long cast time which prevents it from being used reactionary to immediate threats.

When would higher HP be a bad thing? When mitigation is sacrificed for it, as might be the case with STR. There is a balance that must be struck between mitigation and health and both suffer from diminishing returns. Having a huge health pool that gets drained quickly becomes, as I already said, an MP dump for healers since they will be required to spend more time casting heals on the tank. If these basic points have some how gotten past you, I fear for your ability to do this job effectively.

However, you might be absolutely correct in saying that VIT is more important than STR (for these 30 points; though if for these 30, than for any). The fact is we just don't know how effective STR is in block and parry mitigation. Perhaps it will be too insignificant to be worth investing too heavily in. My point is that all things must be considered and just blindly saying VIT is better because it gives you a bigger HP pool is foolish. Tanks must be able to balance enmity generation, mitigation and HP. Not one is more important than the other.

Enjoy!

[Eliseus]

Often times larger than necessary health pools just become MP dumps for healers. Health pools should never be looked at as the biggest is the best, for if that were the case the WAR would win hands down. Having sufficient health to absorb significant damage before requiring attention is the target. Now, what is sufficient health? That is really the question and one that cannot yet be answered for the factors are myriad.

Side note: Stoneskin is as of right now nearly useless as anything but a pre-pull buff. Cast time and MP cost are too high and efficacy too low to be of value during battle.

Your side note is wrong, and that is actually one prime example of how much a larger HP pool could help more then not, it could potentially open doors to cast stoneskin instead of spamming heals, also, name me a time that a bigger health pool is worse instead of not, because with the 30 points into vit then 30 points into str, not only will you still do all the content NP, but you will have almost 500 more HP to fluff around that will look more desirable to people. If you also saw my last post, I even gave examples of where more HP is beneficial.

Fact is people like to see big numbers, just like big HP pools, but more often, people like to try and get big numbers damage wise. Someone somewhere thinks 30strength is going to give that when in reality RNG could make your numbers exactly the same still with how minimal that extra 30 points is. 30 points in VIT is much more beneficial, and being a tank and all, benefits more towards tank like things.

[Eliseus]

Rambling

Look at my links. It isn't blindly, without even testing you should be able to conclude which is better (reading is hard), MP costs don't really matter much considering at least what people were saying, the infinite pool of MP they had, like you said though, you aren't 50, so you don't know this. Just because you aren't 50, don't just accuse people of "blindly" saying how things are at 50. Just because you don't like it, doesn't make it wrong.

Also the burden of proof lies upon you to present a situation where healers just dump MP trying to heal someone with that 30 extra vit, but you know, like you said, you not being 50, might be pretty hard.

You mention physical damage, if we are talking about spell damage, HP > all since you can't parry or block or dodge magic. Stoneskin isn't just physical damage. Can we get someone in here that at least reads what abilities do or 50 trying to argue strength being better then vit? Thank you for supporting my VIT argument though.

[LunarRei]

Look at my links. Also, it isn't blindly, without any kind of testing you should be able to conclude which is better, MP costs don't really matter much considering at least what people were saying, the infinite pool of MP they had, like you said though, you aren't 50, so you don't know this. Just because you aren't 50, don't just accuse people of "blindly" saying how things are at 50. Just because you don't like it, doesn't make it wrong.

Also the burden of proof lies upon you to present a situation where healers just dump MP trying to heal someone with that 30 extra vit, but you know, like you said, you not being 50, might be pretty hard.

No need to get elitist because you have a 50. You obviously missed some things on the way, but I won't hold that against you. Yes, people are saying MP isn't a big factor, yet, but they also confess to not knowing what the endgame is like. The reason I am criticizing your conclusion as blind is because you don't know how much mitigation is gained by way of STR. That means you are blind to the facts. As am I.

What you seem to be missing that I am not, however, is that there are general principles to tanking that you are clearly glossing over. Mitigation is one of the prime aspects of tanking, as well as health pool. If only health pool mattered then why not let THM tank as long as they have sufficient health? This is an obviously extreme example, but clearly illustrates my point.

All you have done is say that because you are 50 and I am not, you are correct. Such hubris will get your party killed, fellow tank. There is no burden for me to prove, it has been proven time and time again in all MMO's that utilize the holy trinity. Besides, I am not the one printing conjecture and asserting it as fact. I have tried to stay objective and have explained my position with numbers and actual spell descriptions. I also stated that you may be correct. It would appear your reading comprehension is on par with your tanking knowledge.

Edit: Checked out your links and the only ones that scale with HP are the WHM full heal and the 20% heal from SCH (ignoring stoneskin because it has already been explained). The WHM heal is on a 5 minute CD so if you are building your char based on that, you are screwed. The 20% from SCH is more interesting, but you have to be in Aetherflow which in on 1 min CD and should probably be saved for when it is needed, meaning it won't be prime heal. So, decent bonus, but not more important than mitigation.

From all sources except the XIV database, Stoneskin prevents only physical damage. Until it can be confirmed tomorrow, I'll go with what I know. Even if it does block elemental damage, Cure > Stoneskin in all cases after battle has started.

[Eliseus]

Sigh

I am not blind, and there has been many tests from p4 even of people saying how much strength does from their tests, sadly, a lot of it is still on the beta forums which is closed. I am also not blind because like I said, just reading the tooltips is good enough to suggest what to do with your 30 points.

You are right, mitigation is usually best, but we are talking about these 30 points, and you are presenting arguments that really don't exist in FFXIV anymore of what is better vit or str, because besides the 30points, there really isn't much room anymore to have different pieces of gear etc.

Don't take what I say out of context being 50 and try to use it to successfully argue your point of view.

Yep, I'm a bad tank, caught me, just as you feel, I hope no one has the luck of being in my party through the duty finder .

Usually defeat results in attacks towards other things, but whatever, if that makes you happy, I'm fine with that, as long as you don't pop a blood vessel or something.

Also, read my post still at end of page 1 before accusing me of not linking any spells or whatever. Apparently you finally read it, but completely missed the entire point. Oh well, guess you can't help everyone.

[Nosiahk]

Have to agree with Eliseus. You can take 1.0 for example where a bigger HP pool is better than any other stats for tanks.

[LunarRei]

I am not blind, and there has been many tests from p4 even of people saying how much strength does from their tests, sadly, a lot of it is still on the beta forums which is closed. I am also not blind because like I said, just reading the tooltips is good enough to suggest what to do with your 30 points.

This is precisely what I mean. The tooltips don't tell you that you get 8 HP per VIT. They don't tell you how much mitigation you get from STR. The parry and block ratings don't even tell you what they mean other than higher is better. Testing told us that 1 VIT = x HP and 1 STR = x Parry/Block rating. So, no, the tooltips didn't tell you anything. Testing did.

However, the amount of testing from 4 days of beta is not sufficient to determine stat weightings.

Don't take what I say out of context being 50 and try to use it to successfully argue your point of view.

I would never!!!

like you said though, you aren't 50, so you don't know this
Just because you aren't 50
how things are at 50
you not being 50
Can we get someone in here that at least reads what abilities do or [sic] 50

Have to agree with Eliseus. You can take 1.0 for example where a bigger HP pool is better than any other stats for tanks.

This isn't Kansas anymore though, right? Can't we hope that they actually tried to fix broken systems?

snip

I'll take a look. Data is good. My entire point is that one should not hastily draw conclusions and say HP is ALWAYS better. It's not. Too much health is pointless.

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Sorry, I was trying to save my reply space... and now I've ran out... ugh! Posting limits for noobs sucks...

I don't understand what you are trying to do here Lunar except be difficult for no reason. All the math and testing points to Vit being better as well as common sense says it should be better. The burden of proof is on you if you disagree and I have not seen one thing come from any of your rambling to say otherwise. It doesn't matter one bit that you aren't 50 but that doesn't mean you aren't wrong either.

Do you seriously believe Str is a better stat right now? If so explain why.

I've never said that STR is better, only that we don't know for sure and that pumping VIT by default is not necessarily a good idea. It is not common sense that higher HP is always better and I'll explain why below. Oh, and I really hate Stoneskin and will always vigorously fight against using it in its current form.

Think of it like this: is a THM with 10,000 HP a good tank? No way! Even with that many HP, their ability to mitigate damage is so weak that the healer will have to spam heals to keep them alive. If the received DPS is greater than the HPS output of the healer, then they will be outpaced and if the fight does not end quickly, the tank will die. If the DPS and HPS more closely match, then this can strain a healers MP which in long fights (possibly, hopefully, endgame) will lead to loss through attrition.

Conversely, if you have a PLD that mitigates ALL (w/ resistances) damage at 90% (what is cap in this game? 90% seemed like a sufficiently high number), but only had 500 HP, that would also be of little use. This would handcuff the healer as all of their investments and spell power would be wasted but would also make the PLD incapable of handling burst damage or successive hits for too long since the healer has to keep the PLD capped on HP for him to stay alive between CD's.

So what does that mean? Well, we start creeping more toward the middle with more reasonable HP numbers and high, but not excessive, defense ratings and resistances. It is when we hit this middle ground that each point starts to show its true value. We have these 30 points and materia to play with, so it is worth paying attention to when the diminishing returns start to bounce between HP and defense.

How much HP is enough to give the healer some breathing room and allow you to get through some burst while the healer might have to aoe heal instead of focus?
How much mitigation is enough to where each point of defense or block is better spent on the extra 8 HP?
What fights are you building for and what enemies are you going to face?

To me, and the people I protect, it is a much more important decision than just saying "meh, HP".

I guess my question to you all is, how much health does your GLA (were job crystals available to you legacy in p4? if so, what numbers were your PLD's pushing?) have at 50 and does 240 more make that big of a difference? From what I am seeing, maybe so. But I'll never take somebody's word for it. (Hint: that makes the question rhetorical.)

Elisius: the discussion is good and should be had every time SE adjusts stat weights. Never close your mind to the idea that there might be better options than the obvious.