Substat question!

Hi everyone! With 4.5 and the release of i390 augmented crafted gear, I've been thinking of upgrading some of my alt jobs but I recently found out while comparing caster gear that the augmented stuff can't be pentamelded, meaning I'd be losing out on about 76 crit in favor of around 6-10 more INT.

So basically, how much of a primary stat bonus makes it worth it to give up secondary stats?

Thanks in advance for any replies!

Go for primary stat.

The only job that can make a reasonable case for taking substat over primary stat is bard. And that's solely due to how much crit actually impacts their rotation.

So, it'd be better to go for 6-10 more primary stat over up to 70 points of a secondary one?

If you have a bunch of crit (such that it's better than det), a pentamelded crafted piece will likely beat out an i390.

I use Det as a baseline here. There's a Det entry in the damage formula that roughly / not precisely amounts to dmg = (damage before Det) * (100 + addedDet/166.66)%. In other words, each 166-185 points of Det (diminishing returns) increases your damage by 1%.

At 3000 INT, it takes 30 INT to add +1% to your damage, so we have let's say 180 Det = 30 INT, or 6 Det = 1 INT in a worse case. That means you wouldn't trade off 72 Det for any less than 12 INT.

Since DH is nearly always as-good-or-slightly-better than Det, and Crit also tends to be once you have enough of it (varies by job), you can use that 6:1 as a sane rule of thumb for questions like this.

Sorry for taking over the thread or for the dumb question. However, I have a question @Zerathor, does this apply even to BLM? I like the faster cast times and I still feel that 2.8sec cast time is too slow (in my opinion).

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Originally Posted by Zerathor

Go for primary stat.

The only job that can make a reasonable case for taking substat over primary stat is bard. And that's solely due to how much crit actually impacts their rotation.

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not to forget blm and spell speed. having a certain amount of that just makes the job a lot smoother.

crit dh and det though in most cases the mainstat will be equal or better from an upgrade.

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Originally Posted by Cetonis

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Thank you! Stuff like this is basically what I was wondering. In my head, it's hard to justify giving up a large amount of one stat for a smaller amount but I know that primary stats are weighed a lot more heavily than secondary stats when it comes to damage output.

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Originally Posted by Marianno

Sorry for taking over the thread or for the dumb question. However, I have a question @Zerathor, does this apply even to BLM? I like the faster cast times and I still feel that 2.8sec cast time is too slow (in my opinion).

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I believe that this is more up to personal preference. I know BLM's "optimal" spell speed is 1450, but you can go up to 1800 or as low as 1200 or so. Personally I use 1450 for my BLM and think it's just fine.

Nice! Thank you for that. This makes more sense now. I'll play around with my substats a bit more then. Thanks again.

Another quick question since I keep getting mixed answers... at what point is prioritizing crit/DH better than going for Det?

I've been told that while it varies on party composition, a rule of thumb is to meld for crit when you can get at least 2,000 and have a BRD in the party or 2,500 if you do not, while others tell me that Crit is king even without a BRD regardless of total and others tell me not to bother with crit at all unless I'm in a party with at least a BRD, preferably a BRD and a DRG/SCH.

I'm working on gearing up my RDM/SMN and DRG. At what point is it better to just stack on crit/DH as much as possible on those jobs for general use? (as in BRD isn't always guaranteed)

Having been a blm a main and now more or less Red Mage i can tell you this expansion determination is the least valuable stat.
For Red Mage i prefer Crit/DH and only time i do meld determination is if all other stats are capped on the gear.
I know not the impact of DH on Dragoon but this expansion seems Crit is one if not the best stat for most jobs.
The Ariyala website can help alot with planning your gear and melds and trying different combos.
http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/

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Originally Posted by Kaozurei

Another quick question since I keep getting mixed answers... at what point is prioritizing crit/DH better than going for Det?

I've been told that while it varies on party composition, a rule of thumb is to meld for crit when you can get at least 2,000 and have a BRD in the party or 2,500 if you do not, while others tell me that Crit is king even without a BRD regardless of total and others tell me not to bother with crit at all unless I'm in a party with at least a BRD, preferably a BRD and a DRG/SCH.

I'm working on gearing up my RDM/SMN and DRG. At what point is it better to just stack on crit/DH as much as possible on those jobs for general use? (as in BRD isn't always guaranteed)

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Crit is king at this point because of how the stat calculates. Crit increases not only the chance of your attack being a critical hit but also the additional damage that critical hit does, meaning it scales exponentially. The more of it you have, the higher your critical hit does, and this effects everything you do, down to auto attacks.

Direct Hit, conversely, scales linearly. A direct hit will always add 25% to the base of the attack no matter how much DH you have. Adding more to this stat just increases the likelihood that the attack will be a direct hit, with about every 40 points increasing the chance by 1%.

Determination is a flat increase to all attacks regardless. It's a bit more consistent than the other two, but also the weakest overall, and really only used by WAR because of how their skills work with the other two.

Also it's worth noting that for RDM it may be in your interest to stack enough Spell Speed to make sure that you have the appropriate black and white mana levels available to you to use Corps a Corps for a melee combo around the same time as it comes off cool down. I'm still tinkering with this number, but it seems to be around 600-700 SS. Since that's your biggest burst window, being able to smoothly go into that part of your rotation will likely be of value, but will be higher SS than perhaps a summoner might want.

Just as a small addendum, Det is about 94% as effective as DH, so you would pretty much never give up mainstat or total substat points or anything just to swap Det for DH.

Thank you everyone for the replies! Substats are still pretty confusing, but at least I more or less have a better idea about what I'm doing.