I don't post very often, and when I post I make it count. While my posts are thorough to the point of tedium, I ask your patience. I've seen a lot of chatter around the new stats and some sloppy tests that are compelling but need better precision. My goal is to establish what we know now, do some simple tests to figure out more, and highlight the areas where Developers and our helpful community reps should step in to make this game's obscure stat system more accessible to the average player. Please give us better stat and formula information. I'm not spending another 3 months parsing battle logs, and I haven't seen anyone else conclude anything parsing in the last 10 months.
RAW TEST DATA
Please see my blog for complete details on my test cases involving each STAT as well as a proof on how the items are rounded to support the conclusions below (removed from this post so the large amount of data does not take the focus off the conclusions):
Deus Diabolus's Blog
We know this from the devs (THANK YOU!):
STR: Attack Power
DEX: Physical Attack Accuracy/Block Rate/Parry Rate
VIT: Defense/Enhancing Magic/Max HP
INT: Attack Magic Potency
MND: Healing Magic/Magic Accuracy
PIE: Magic Evasion/Enfeebling Magic/Max MP
Now lets see what I concluded based on the effects I observed in the status menu while equipping full ring sets and additional gear stat bonuses:
CONCLUSIONS
4 STR = ? Attack Power
4 VIT = ? Defense, 1 Enhancing Magic, 4 Max HP
4 DEX = ? Physical Attack Accuracy, ? Block Rate, ? Parry Rate
4 INT = 1 Attack Magic Potency
4 MND = 1 Healing Magic, 1 Magic Accuracy
4 PIE = 1 Magic Evasion, 1 Enfeebling Magic, 4 Max MP
1) Higher tier stats (such as Magic Accuracy) increase by 1.0 due to a 4.0 increase in the corresponding core stat. If you look at the increases as a whole, you can see they converge around 4. The rounding test case also confirms this.
2) Higher tier stat fractions are modified by ROUNDING UP at .50001 to .99999, and DOWN .00000 to .50000 based on the core stat increase. Look at the case in my blog where the starting stat was 389.0 with the case of Rounding.
3) Prior to 1.19 only changing your status allocation would seem to provide benefits. Now gear bonuses finally provide benefits. Matsui, thank you for making gear fun again!
4) Bonuses with respect to accessories AND dated gear AND 'new' gear have the same effect.
5) Bonuses with respect to innate gear bonuses VS Materia bonuses have the same effect.
6) The effects of STR on Attack, VIT on Defense, DEX on Accuracy, DEX on BlockRate, DEX on ParryRate either do not exist or are not observable in the status menu. Experimentation and parsing are necessary to establish the effects. See theories below for a possible explanation.
Pray the DEVs have mercy on us and provide us an explanation on the fully scaled effects of these parameters so we do not have to theorize and parse.
THEORIES
1) The effect of STR and VIT is not shown because the damage formula factors in STR, VIT, attack, defense, Gear DMG, and Gear DEF is a complex formula. Square Enix decided to not show the effect at all so that players did not make the mistake of assuming a simple relationship. The following items may or may not be true and may indicate a complex damage formula.
-- Adding Defense via VIT or via Materia has the SAME effect point for point as adding Defense via new armor (lets call this Innate Defense on gear description main section). Should we bother HQing armor or just add a Defense materia a million times to a NQ armor until it sticks?
-- Adding Attack via STR or via Materia has the SAME effect point for point as adding Attack via a new weapon (lets call this Innate Damage on gear description main section). Should we upgrade our weapon to one with higher Innate Damage, or just add Attack materia a million times until it sticks?
2) The effect of stats on Evasion may also be hidden for the same reason, so that players do not assume a simplistic formula. Note how Evasion no longer appears on the gear description main section at all after 1.19, aside from the 'bonuses' subsection. Also note how Magic Attack and Evasion DO have simple relationships to the stats (defined above). This may be because Attack, Defense and Evasion use complex formulas but the magic parameters do not. Or it just may be a glaring omission that these stats do not have an observable effect.
3) To repeat this KEY point, the Innate Damage rating on Weapons and Innate Defense rating on armors MAY be different factors in the damage formula beyond their contribution to the global Attack and Defense ratings shown on the status screen. DEV clarification on this item would dramatically simplify our perception of the damage formula.
4) Armor part targeting and breaking may effect damage.
5) Mob to player orientation (front,back,side) no longer results in more damage. This bonus was abolished in 1.19 per patch notes.
These theories will only be brought to light with empirical experimentation and log parsing. See my other blog post on how to perform these experiments.
OR if the DEVs had mercy on us all, they will provide the formula or at least explain these parameters.
WHY WE NEED ANSWERS FROM THE DEVS
Being able to compare parameters is important! Here are two examples of why we need a breakdown of the relationships between STR, VIT, Attack, Defense, Innate weapon Damage, Innate Armor Defense, Evasion, etc.
1) Consider these two items. They are the best all-purpose caster class pants.
Sorcerer's Tights DEF86 Attack Magic Potency : +10, Int : +5, Vit : +2 (No Materia) *RARE/EX*
Felt Gaskin's (Brown) DEF82 MP : +24, Vit : +4, Pty : +4 (MND+PTY Materia)
Now that we know 4 INT = 1 Attack Magic, we would need +40 INT to make up for the 10 Attack Magic Potency difference. So there's no point in using INT+PTY or INT+MND materia on the second pants since we wont be using those for nuking at all. We will add MND+PTY only so that way they can be used for this purpose instead of nuking:
Healing Magic, Magic Accuracy, Magic Evasion, Enfeebling Magic, Max MP
We can make sets of gear that specialize for certain situations, but without a way to compare the unknown attributes (Innate Weapon Damage, STR, Attack, Evasion, Defense, and Innate Armor Defense values) we are left guessing what gear or materia to use for what purpose, and wasting time and money melding only to end up having a different effect than we desired. Let us know quickly before we waste any more resources.
2) Next consider these two items. They are the best all-purpose hats for Attack Magic CON+THM nuking:
Felt Cavalier's Hat (Brown) DEF:57 Int : +3, Pty : +5, Attack Magic Potency : +6
Mask of the Mortal Hex DEF:52 Attack Magic Potency : +20, Wind Resistance : +10 (No Materia melding possible) *RARE/EX*
Now that we know 4 INT = 1 Attack Magic, to make up for the difference of 14 Attack Magic Potency, we would need an additional 14*4 = 56 INT. Since the hat already has 3 that means 53 INT. Probability of melding a +17 materia to a +15 is about 22%, then the third would be about 8%. That is a less than 2% chance to add 3 materia which probably will only go up to 50 INT at most unless you have an even lower success rate. Assuming the ONLY effect on your spell damage is the Magic Attack contribution of this added INT (it's possible INT may have some other profound effect in and of itself), you are doing all this melding and item breaking and still won't even touch the Mask of the Mortal Hex.
Why do we have a materia system at all if it's not going to produce the best gear? In this case we might as well move the ability to put INT materia on some other gear slot. Fine, whatever, at least we have one less gear to not waste time and gil with the materia system. At least in this case we can compare the two items side by side. We CAN'T say the same for ANY gear with respect to Innate Weapon Damage, STR, Attack, Evasion, Defense, and Innate Armor Defense values. We have no idea which gear would be better, and are looking at the prospect of wasting days melding and millions of Gil.
IN CLOSING
Please LIKE this post if you want the Devs to come forward with SCALABLE formulas of what ALL the parameters do for comparison purposes so we can determine which gear is best for different situations, saving us ridiculous amounts of time, gil, and disappointment. The status and materia systems are currently far too complex AND obscure with regard to optimization and should be more accessible to everyone given the huge demands of forbidden materia craft.