Character Attributes descriptions inaccurately describe attributes and properties

Date & Time: Currently noticed on Dec 29, 2025 at 7:26pm PST
Frequency: Always
World name: Famfrit
Character name: Elsandra Tal'korim @ Famfrit

Attributes and Properties inaccurately describe how Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Mind, Attack Power, Attack Magic Potency, and Healing Magic Potency.

Currently, the following descriptions are listed as hovertext on the Attributes tab of the Character screen:

Attributes

• Strength = Affects physical damage dealt by Gladiator's arms, Marauder's arms, Dark Knight's arms, Gunbreaker's arms, Pugilist's arms, Lancer's arms, Samurai's arms, Reaper's arms, Thaumaturge's arms, Arcanist's arms, Red Mage's arms, Pictomancer's arms, Conjurer's arms, Astrologian's arms, Sage's arms, and Blue Mage's arms.
• Dexterity = Affects damage dealt by Rogue's arms, Viper's arms, Archer's arms, Machinist's arms, and Dancer's arms.
• Intelligence = Affects attack magic potency when role is DPS.
• Mind = Affects healing magic potency. Also affects attack magic potency when role is Healer.

Properties

• Attack Power= Affects amount of damage dealt by physical attacks. The higher the value, the more damage dealt.
• Attack Magic Potency = Affects the amount of damage dealt by magic attacks. The higher the value, the more damage dealt.
• Healing Magic Potency = Affects the amount of HP restored via healing magic. The higher the value, the more HP restored.

However, in most cases, these descriptions are inaccurate to some degree.

Example 1: Paladin
Paladin physical damage, magic damage, and healing all see to scale based on the Strength attribute or Attack Power property (hard to tell which of those two since they're identical).

Steps:
1. On a paladin with gear that increases Strength, note the Strength, Intelligence, Mind, Attack Power, Attack Magic Potency, and Healing Magic Potency. (The gear that paladins can wear at higher levels only increases Strength and Attack Power, and does not affect the other attributes/properties.)
2. Cast Clemency several times and record healing values. Cast Holy Spirit several times and record damage values. (Confirm that Holy Spirit deals Magic Damage.) It can be helpful to exclude critical hits and direct hits for gathering data.
3. Remove the gear that provides a bonus to Strength. Note that the values for Strength and Attack Power decrease, but the values for Intelligence, Mind, Attack Magic Potency, and Healing Magic Potency do not change.
4. Cast Clemency several times and record healing values. Cast Holy Spirit several times and record damage values. Note that the damage/healing values for these spells decreases even though the attributes/properties that are listed as affecting them have not changed. (The damage/healing amounts are proportionate to the values from Strength/Attack Power.)

Example 2: Red Mage
Red Mage physical damage, magic damage, and healing all see to scale based on the Intelligence attribute or Attack Magic Potency property (hard to tell which of those two since they're identical).

Steps:
1. On a red mage with gear that increases Intelligence, note the Strength, Intelligence, Mind, Attack Power, Attack Magic Potency, and Healing Magic Potency. (The gear that red mages can wear at higher levels only increases Intelligence and Attack Magic Potency, and does not affect the other attributes/properties.)
2. Cast Vercure several times and record healing values. Use the Riposte weaponskill several times and record damage values. (Confirm that Riposte deals physical damage.) It can be helpful to exclude critical hits and direct hits for gathering data.
3. Remove the gear that provides a bonus to Intelligence. Note that the values for Intelligence and Attack Magic Potency decrease, but the values for Strength, Mind, Attack Power, and Healing Magic Potency do not change.
4. Cast Vercure several times and record healing values. Use the Riposte weaponskill several times and record damage values. Note that the damage/healing values for these spells decreases even though the attributes/properties that are listed as affecting them have not changed. (The damage/healing amounts are proportionate to the values from Intelligence/Attack Magic Potency.)

Broadly speaking, it appears that physical damage, magic damage, and healing are affected by a job's primary attribute, specifically:

• Strength for tanks and striking/maiming DPS (PGL, MNK, SAM, LNC, DRG, RPR)
• Dexterity for scouting/aiming DPS (ROG, NIN, VPR, ARC, BRD, MCH, DNC)
• Intelligence for casting DPS (THM, BLM, ACN*, SMN*, RDM, PCT, BLU)
• Mind for healers (CNJ, WHM, SCH, AST, SGE)

*The only exception I'm aware of for this is that Arcanist and Scholar healing (via Physick) appears to scale on Mind based on the test steps described above.

More testing is needed for jobs I did not list above, but it would seem that if the attributes/properties worked as the tooltips describe, there would be a notable difference in physical damage/magical damage/healing done by jobs that do at least two of these three actions, as the tooltips indicate that the job's primary attribute would only increase the values of one of the damage/healing types.

Suggested remedy: Update the hover-text to accurately describe how attributes and properties actually affect physical damage, magic damage, and healing.

It may be easier for the devs to accurately identify exceptions where the class/job's primary stat does not increase the values for damage/healing rather than the playerbase providing that data, as I assume they have tools to see how these attribute/property values actually relate to the observed results.

(Additional note: I'm told that Strength is used to determine damage for auto-attacks performed by casters and healers, and this appears to be the case.)