(05-21-2015, 07:45 PM)Kellach Woods Wrote: So, uh, it's useful for a very minor subsection of people, in very limited context.
Sounds like they could just do away with that, roll the extra VIT into Shield Oath/Defiance, and save people the headache.
The game isn't balanced for casual players, its balanced for hardcore raiders. Everyone else is balanced off the needs of the 4 or 5% of people who progression raid.
They really only take balance into context based on raid content.
As an example, Black Mages always had bad single target dps, especially when moving, but they never cared. However when 2nd coil came out, they realized after a few weeks that black mages weren't as competitive. So they buffed their single target. Same thing with Dragoons in final coil.
If you've never done the raids in progression they all have aggressive rage timers and other dps race mechanics. Shaving off a bit of vitality for more STR and more dps is one of those little balancing acts.
Also other classes often had to wear VIT gear to survive t13 before nerfs came out, so it wasn't even just for tanks.
Accuracy caps and total HP are two things that are incredibly important for gearing in progression, but other than that you'd never run into them.