Weapon Stats Explanation Needed (New Player :/)

https://gyazo.com/afea84673dfb9a423c1311d42f06436f

Could someone briefly summarise everything there is to know about these figures and what they effect? Like Auto Attack, Delay, and what's Potency?! xD I'm kinda lost as this is my first MMO :/ Sorry

Your image does not display. The simplest thing to look at to determine which weapon is better is the "item level" on it. Below 50, this will be pretty close to the minimum level required to equip it. Beyond 50, though, they get significantly higher (with the current highest being 275 while the maximum character level is currently 60).

It's slightly more complicated as a conjurer since you have both one- and two-handed weapon options, but you can just calculate the average of a one-handed weapon and shield to compare to that of a two-handed weapon.

As for your specific questions, auto attack refers to basic attacks performed periodically and automatically on enemies (as opposed to specific special abilities you manually activate). It's more relevant for classes that focus on damage rather than healing, but you can walk up to enemies and whack them with your cane or wand. On a weapon, the auto attack number refers to how much damage such attacks do. The delay refers to how far apart those attacks are in time. Potency is how strong an ability is. All of these numbers are relative and based on additional factors like the stats of you and the enemy, so the "potency" numbers allow you to meaningfully compare one ability versus another.

EveK already explained the different stats, but basically all you need to know is that higher item level weapon (a weapon with as high physical / magic damage) is always the most powerful option for you, since the weapon damage scales much higher than any other stats.

Ok, first off you can basically ignore auto-attack and delay. Those aren't really useful for mages (and tbh aren't things most people care about even for melee). The main thing you want to look at for a weapon is the Weapon Damage stat. This affects the effectiveness of ALL your actions, and is one reason why your weapon is the most important thing one can upgrade.

After that, comes your primary stats. The only ones you'll care about as a healer are MND (increases effectiveness of spells), and VIT (Increases HP). The VIT that comes standard on non-accessory gear should be sufficient, but it is worth noting that if gear does not have MND on it, it's not made for you and will be quite ineffective. Technically, you'll care about INT for the damage of spells like Stone, but in practice you just use Cleric's Stance to swap your INT and MND when you want to deal damage, then swap back to heal. Also technically Piety is a primary stat, but in practice it's more of a secondary stat.

Then there are your secondary stats. They're all useful in varying degrees except for skill speed (which shouldn't be on gear made for healers anyway). Some ARE more useful than others, but until you hit endgame you'll get more of a benefit just from boosting weapon damage and MND by increasing item level, rather than holding onto a piece for 20 levels just because it has spell speed and the upgrades don't.

Finally, you asked about Potency. Potency is a way of comparing various skills against each other. It can just be used as-is to get a rather close approximation of the skill's effectiveness, for instance one can assume a 200 potency attack is twice as effective as a 100 potency one. When it comes to damage/heal over time effects like Aero, just take the duration, divide it by 3 (they work every 3 seconds), and multiply that by the potency to get the TRUE potency (Also spell speed affects these, or skill speed for physical jobs, so they can wind up a fair bit more effective depending on stats)

Thanks for all the help, EveK, that helped alot-
Thank you too, Urthdigger; I couldn't change my active character last night- I'm actually playing a Gladiator as of right now, lol

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Originally Posted by Trussblink

Thanks for all the help, EveK, that helped alot-
Thank you too, Urthdigger; I couldn't change my active character last night- I'm actually playing a Gladiator as of right now, lol

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Ah ok. A few tank-specific notes: Tank actions are boosted equally by strength and vitality... but vitality ALSO boosts max hp, so just go for vit over str (really only a concern with accessories, more str and vit go hand in hand on main armor). Also, as a physical job, you use skill speed over spell speed.

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Originally Posted by Taika

basically all you need to know is that higher item level weapon (a weapon with as high physical / magic damage) is always the most powerful option for you, since the weapon damage scales much higher than any other stats.

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Well, item level gives a general idea of what's likely to be better, but it's not always accurate, particularly when looking at crafted gear (since High Quality crafted gear shares the same item level as its Normal Quality version, but has better —often significantly better— stats). Often a High Quality item from a few levels lower beats out the normal quality one that's on-level. Or some of the green-quality dungeon drop armour beats crafted armour several levels above it.

In the case of weapons, they're the only one that gets the Damage stat, and it's the most important stat you have. (Despite being called "damage" it's actually about the effectiveness of all your actions, whether for damage, healing, or aggro generation. It's like an overall power level for all your skills.) Whenever two weapons have different Damage stats, the one with the higher Damage is better. In rare cases, you might see two weapons with the same damage, and in that case, you'd go with which is higher on your main stat, Mind in this case, (but if comparing a one-hand to a two-hand, remember to add in the value of MND from both the one handed weapon and the shield you'd use with it).

In the case of armour, look at both the defense stats (regular and magic) and your main stat (MND). With any that take up multiple slots (like a robe that includes a hood, so doesn't let you equip a hat), take that into consideration, for instance comparing the stats on a robe to the sum of stats on both a shirt and a hat. (The green numbers in the Item Comparison screen do not do this for you, so it tends to overestimate the value of multi-slot equipment.)

Jewelry won't have significant defense, so there you mainly look for the highest value possible on your main stat, and post 50 also try to get some good secondary stats on it.

The Auto Attack and Physical/Magic Damage numbers are something plugged into some kind of damage algorithm that no one really knows. As a result, the numbers are ironically unimportant to pay attention to. Suffice it to say, even just a few points increase in Physical/Magic Damage will noticeably increase your damage/healing, so it has a huge weight. The Auto Attack number is the same thing but for only auto attacks, which are only based off Attack Power, which Casters and Healers don't really have.

Delay is the interval in seconds between auto attacks.

As for Potency, I just look at it like it's saying % Damage for Attack Power users. For Attack Power users, one auto attack's damage is about 100 potency, so 100% damage; that makes sense. Gladiator's Savage Blade Weaponskill is 200 Potency, so think of that like 200% damage because it will do about 2x the damage of an auto attack. For Attack Magic Potency users, again, no one really knows the damage formula, but one thing that's clear is that Spell Potency is NOTHING like Weaponskill Potency; that is, 200 Potency from a Spell is far more than 200 Potency from a Weaponskill. However, Potency is linear no matter the source, so a Spell that deals 200 Potency damage will deal 2x damage of a Spell with 100 Potency.