How important is attribute point distribution?

The subject heading basically says it all. Obviously I expect there to be some difference between players who min/max their stats towards the classes they like to play, but how important is stat distribution actually?

At high levels, will a player who completely stacks Str/Dex be the only feasible physical damage dealers, while more balanced players get the "lolnoob" treatment?

Edit: I would ask the same thing about the element points. What do they even represent? I'd initially assumed elemental defenses, but do they also effect crafting or combat abilities? Would players be encouraged to stack their element points?

Attributes seem to have a VERY skewed effect on Land/Hand classes, in that they barely benefit from the change, and the gear is more important. Regarding the combat classes, its more important to have a balanced build if you are trying to make a hybridized character to be most efficient (Ex: Leveling Conjurer and Thaumaturge for Cure/Sacrifice/Shell/Protect, then switching back to your War class).

Unless they change it in today's patch (1.17), just cap your VIT and use the rest wherever you want to.

Stats are not working right now---everything just sort of curves into an average number after 80-90 points---but HP is always HP.

Hopefully this gets addressed today, or in the next patch, but until it does...VIT.

How does respec work in this game? Assuming that we can even do that?

I think it's every 3 hours. It's not a complete respec- but you get a significant % back.

When I know I'm gonna want to respec (say for a specific night/event), I hit "reallocate" before going to bed at night, then again when I log in the next day. That'll get you most of your points back right there.


You can reallocate as much as you want, there's just a delay between reallocations. It works best if you don't plug in any points after you reallocate, so you can get twice as many taken out.

As far as the elemental points go, they do a couple of things.

First, they apparently effect the rates at which you get certain types of crystals. If you've got a ton of points in fire, for example, you'll supposedly get more fire shards as drops/rewards. (I'm not exactly sure how this works, though.)

Second, they effect your ability to do magic of that type. So if you put points in fire, you can do more fire damage on fire spells. (It gets a little more in depth when it comes to astral/umbral magic. Since you're just starting out, I'll leave that for another time.)

Third, they effect your magic defense. But this one's a bit different. FFXIV uses an elemental wheel. (link to a picture of the elemental wheel) If you put points in fire, it increases your defense against ice attacks. If you put points in ice, it increases your defense against wind attacks. If you put points in wind, it increases your defense against fire attacks.

Oh, and a little piece of side advice. Always listen to Pang Tong. That dude is awesome. :D

Thanks for the advice. What's the VIT cap at? Would it hurt to start putting all my points in VIT from the very beginning?

Stat cap changes for your job rank. Here's a post on Zam where someone did some testing based on Vitality/Mind. So, for example, the max at level 20 is 76 points. If you're playing your level 50 Gladiator, and you've got 174 points in Vitality, and you switch to your level 20 Pugilist, you'll only get the benefit of 76 points.

But it's your character. Have fun with it. Play around. You can always reallocate your stat points in the future.