Dragoon Equipment Advice/General Advice on Stats?

I've been searching for a "Dragoon Tutorial" so to speak, that would essentially offer different builds for dragoon gear for end-game. After researching though; I've read about stat maxes, double melds, Darklight Gear and different GC options. I still don't know enough about what's better vs. what. As in "AF vs. a double meld" or when you've hit a stat max and it'd be better to go with GC gear.

I also don't quite understand things like "a capped out strength of 350," I don't know if that's referring to the actual stat in the Attributes section of the main menu, or if you have to do calculations to get the stat. I'm fairly new when it comes to maxing out stats, and gear building. So I guess I'm searching for some help with a table. Something like this for example-

Darksteel Haubergeon/ Officer's Coat (Gridania)/ Dragoon Breeches

"So, here's what you should do, but if you can't get that yet, get this instead" type of thing. I guess in the end I'm just needing help building my dragoon the best I can and help to eventually hit my stat maxes. I know one major thing I need is Accuracy. But I never know when to sacrifice Strength for Accuracy, or Attack Power for Accuracy. As far as I've read, Piety is the least important, but people are still maxing it out. I'm just a little overwhelmed by the wealth of information out there.


This is the gear I have for my Dragoon as of now, and also my grand company is the Twin Adder.

-Ifrit's Harpoon
-Drachen Armet
-Gridanian Officer's Overcoat
-Explorer's Belt
-Drachen Breeches
-Drachen Greaves
-Drachen Gauntlets
-Explorer's Earrings
-Serpent Sergeant's Choker
-Raptorskin Wristbands
-Explorer's Ring
-Electrum Ring

If anyone could help me with where I should build next, or help me with a table like in the above example to get me on a path toward stat maxing it would be much appreciated. Any help with understanding stat maxing would be great as well. I would love to be able to know where to look and how to tell if I had hit my stat max or not.

Thank you for all your help in advance!

Stat caps are determined by weapon dps. After your primary and secondary stats are "capped" they no longer contribute to your weapon skill damage. They're not anything explicitly stated anywhere in game, but players have discovered them through testing. General rule of thumb is that Ifrit, Moogle, and Skirmish weapons will have caps around (meaning not exactly; it varies weapon to weapon) 330/290. Garuda weapons and all the Lieutenant GC weapons have caps around 350/310.

The stats you see when you open up the attribute or gear interface are your current stats taking into account all your equipped gear, allocated stat points, and food if you've eaten any. You'll always want to cap your primary and secondary stats before stacking attack power.

The accuracy "cap" will vary from mob to mob, so it's something you just need to figure out as you go. If you're consistently missing more than a few auto-attacks in a fight, you should probably add some accuracy. If you're routinely missing multiple weapon skills, you definitely need more accuracy. To give you a ballpark figure, I generally parse in the high 90s to 100% on garuda with 386 unbuffed accuracy before food (I eat tuna miq'abobs). Anything lower evasion (most things in the game currently) and I just eat attack food.

As far as gear recommendations, the first thing you'll probably want to get are double melded strength gloves. Felt Bracers are the best option for the base item imo, and you'll want to aim for 30-34 strength to start out.

If you're looking to upgrade to the Lt. Spear, the 4 pieces I used to complete the set bonus were Officer's Overcoat and Cap, Choker, and Earring (this was filler, but you're only giving up 5atk and getting 25 for completing the set).

If you have the gil, you'll want to grab HQ str and acc rings and at least NQ str bracelets. You probably won't need the accuracy rings for most things if you eat accuracy food, but they're good to have on hand just in case.

I think generic advice for melee jobs would be something like this:

1. Get best weapon you can. Ifrit, Moogle and Skirmish are all good weapons. Garuda and GC Lt. weapons are upgrades for you.

2. Make sure your accuracy is good for what you are doing. I aim for 400 acc on Garuda and less for anything else. For me, it's Explorer's Choker, food, then rings when looking for more accuracy. I also use tuna miq'abobs for acc and jerked beef for atk.

3. Work towards the stat caps for you weapon. STR first, PIE second when you have a choice. This means STR melded to hands (Felt Bracers are great for DRG and can be used on multiple jobs). STR/PIE rings and wrist (unless you need wrist for a GC set bonus).

That's pretty much it. Normally a DRG would have to decide between PIE or Crit Atk melded to a body, but the Twin Adder coat looks hard to beat with Sanction active. Crit Atk is nice for DRG in particular because the entire Chaos Thrust combo line of weaponskills has a crit rate bonus and Doomspike is naturally paired with Blindside to guarantee a critical. Ring of Talons also has a crit rate bonus when finishing a combo. I don't use a parser, but I bet a large portion of DRG's damage comes from critical hits. Anyone with some parsed examples?