Hoplite Tabard garbage?

[Mamba1]

Why does this chest piece exist. I'm almost in full darklight and about to have my myth tome chest, so I don't care much for hoplite to begin with. But I managed to get my hoplite a long time ago and I absolutely hate the stats on it. I'm trying to figure out why people use it over their artifact piece, at least for us paladins.

Artifact chest
146 defense
str 14
vit 15
parry 23
determination 11

Hoplite Chest
148 defense
str 16
vit 18
accuracy 24
skill speed 17

Now the outright gains in some stats are apparent. You gain +2 to defense, +2 to str, and +3 to vitality (in my case +44 health). With the skill speed I also gain +.01 to my cooldown reduction. You lose -23 to parry and -11 determination. I'm not sure why a tank would choose accuracy and skill speed over parry and determination in any capacity.

[Mamba1]

Is the 44 additional health and +2 str (which probably wont put you into a higher str tier anyways) worth losing those additional tank stats? I have a hard time believing it is when accuracy and skill speed are, in my opinion, wasted stats for a tank. Thoughts?

[Sapphidia]

I believe Determination is worked out as being about half as effective as strength when it comes to pure damage increase, a little less. So you're getting about 5 strength-worth in dps increase from that (so about 3 strength total as hoplite has 2 more). The parry stat is quite minor too, I'm not sure on the precise breakpoints but I have a feeling that would equate to less than 1% more parry chance.

I'd say the chests are pretty equal, as the extra HP and defense kind of equals the slightly higher damage and minor parry. The Skill Speed boost is negligible but makes a tiny difference in speeding up your rotations. I heard some tanks swear by it for threat but the numbers seem tiny to me.

The key factor is the accuracy really. From what i understand, accuracy is very important for hitting things when -not- in a group... but then you get some kind of huge accuracy buff from being in a party that gives you near 100% hit chance. vs much higher level bosses (bahamuts coil?) you'll probably need SOME accuracy to be able to hit anything. As it stands it's a wasted stat, but helps a bit solo.

The hoplite chest is okay, the Vit alone makes it worth taking as the rest of it is a sidegrade. The main issue is that the AF Chest is level 50 whereas the other AF gear is 45, so it's always going to be a smaller upgrade for that slot compared to other hoplite parts. If they ever change the party buff for accuracy to make the stat useful in 4mans, though, it'll shine.

[Mamba1]

I actually cared little about the damage increase from determination. Was more concerned about the added healing potency (however minimal) the stat gives for tanks. The added damage is just bonus. If I'm not mistaken, the combined determination of the tank paired with the mind of the healer grant more effective healing towards the tank. So the parry (however minimal) and the determination (however minimal) certainly don't go to waste as far as making you more durable than the accuracy and skill speed, which again are completely wasted. So that basically takes me back to two chests where I can't help but ignore some of the stats on one entirely because as a tank, I care very little for added accuracy (especially when threat generation is so overwhelming) and adding .01 to cooldown.

Artifact chest
146 defense
str 14
vit 15
parry 23
determination 11

Hoplite Chest
148 defense
str 16
vit 18

[Viridiana]

Determination increases outgoing healing, not incoming healing. The only heals it would affect if you stacked it would be the ones you cast.

[Mamba1]

Sorry, but I don't see how that makes sense. Tool tip suggests otherwise, as well as what I hope to be general consensus.

Tool Tip: Determination - Increases the amount of damage dealt by all attacks and the amount of HP recovered by spells.

And here is some more info on the stat from Mr. Happy himself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjp5C4GoYJk

7:50 in particular.

[Thyrllan]

Sorry, but I don't see how that makes sense. Tool tip suggests otherwise, as well as what I hope to be general consensus.

Tool Tip: Determination - Increases the amount of damage dealt by all attacks and the amount of HP recovered by spells.

And here is some more info on the stat from Mr. Happy himself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjp5C4GoYJk

7:50 in particular.

He actually doesn't show any math for determination. He seems to read the tooltip and make a judgment based on that.

Going by the tooltip is an incredibly bad idea. "Increases HP recovered by spells" could mean HP you gain from another's spells, increased HP from spells you cast, or both. Sword Oath's tooltip, for instance, gives the impression that your auto attacks will hit harder, instead it causes your auto attack to hit the target twice. There is also a monk tooltip that says an ability costs mana when it costs TP.

[Mamba1]

It's a very good point you make, and I agree for the most part. I would like to get a little deeper into this. I was just testing it out and I noticed larger personal gains when healing myself as Viridiana suggested. When my scholar buddy was working with me to figure this out, I actually had some surprising results. The more determination I had, the less on average he healed me for. I'm uncertain if my sample size was just not significant enough (that may very well be the case) but the differences were noticeable. Regardless, an odd and unexpected result. I expected either a higher healing average, or no change at all to be more in line with Viridiana's suggestion. More info on this and mathematical proof behind it would be great. If it's already out there, awesome, but I haven't seen it yet.