Any research into WAR DEX?

[Terabyt3]

Not to dismiss your tests or anything but you do realize that even if you can get Parry relatively high (say 30-40%) it's still not reliable in any way shape or form, and honestly would only be directly comparable to Shield Blocks from Paladin. It's all well and good to block sustained attacks frequently and reduce the damage by ~25% but when that big hit comes and you fail the parry check, what do you do then?

I'm only talking about the effectiveness of VIT vs. DEX/Parry over sustained fights (Majority of battles in game) not counter burst damage.

How does a PLD counteract a burst damage? I'm not wised up on the class all too much but as I understand they have 1.5k~ less health, rely on block and parry to avoid damage and pop cool down pre emptively to counter big hits?


Whereas a WAR seems to answer reactively to big hits. I.E. their cooldowns and larger HP pool allow them to take a hit and then heal themselves.




This whole DEX/VIT discussion is ONLY about the 30 bonus points right now. And main comparisons like i say are in sustained combat.

[C-croft]

It's also worth noting that unless there is some internal modifier that specifically applies differently to dex for WAR/MRD than it does for GLD/PLD, then if stacking dex is a viable strategy for WAR it will be even more viable for GLD/PLD due to them benefitting from increased block rate as well.

Unless things were changed, Valks already did the research for PLD. But it was older, so it may be worth looking back into.

[CurlyBruce]

...

Ah, sorry I thought you meant gearing for DEX as compared to VIT/STR. A PLD and WAR have the same effective HP because the 25% boost from defiance allows a WAR to stay alive for the same amount of damage as a PLD taking 20% less damage. The only HP difference is from base job advantage where the WAR has about 85 more HP. PLDs react to burst damage like you said by preemptively popping a damage reduction cooldown. The problem lies in how PLDs burst mitigation compares to WARs. WARs self heals are severely outclassed by mob damage at endgame levels. As many other people point out, PLDs mitigation scales with the mobs stats not the players and mob stats scale exponentially higher than players. WAR self heals are reliant on their own damage which scale at a rate that is almost invisible compared to how much damage you take from bosses.

[C-croft]

Ah, sorry I thought you meant gearing for DEX as compared to VIT/STR. A PLD and WAR have the same effective HP because the 25% boost from defiance allows a WAR to stay alive for the same amount of damage as a PLD taking 20% less damage. The only HP difference is from base job advantage where the WAR has about 85 more HP. PLDs react to burst damage like you said by preemptively popping a damage reduction cooldown. The problem lies in how PLDs burst mitigation compares to WARs. WARs self heals are severely outclassed by mob damage at endgame levels. As many other people point out, PLDs mitigation scales with the mobs stats not the players and mob stats scale exponentially higher than players. WAR self heals are reliant on their own damage which scale at a rate that is almost invisible compared to how much damage you take from bosses.

The way I look at it is, if his data is correct, he is one step closer to the 'solution' than naysayers regarding DEX, trolls, and 'qq'ers. With such a small sample, its hard to say either way. With increased parry rates coupled with our relatively lame CD's and self heals, maybe this is what they mean by research more. Still holding out judgement until the test sample grows. I am half tempted to see what happens when I dump everything in DEX and try to take some samples from that. Worse case scenario, 20k seals shouldn't be that hard to farm with FATES on a lower level character.

[CianaIezuborn]

I'm only talking about the effectiveness of VIT vs. DEX/Parry over sustained fights (Majority of battles in game) not counter burst damage.

When was the last time you died due to a healer that was only healing you running out of mana? That is the only scenario that sustained damage over the entire fight is even important in the manner that you're approaching it. No ifs, ands, or buts. No.

You die to burst, or you die to healers not putting enough heals into you. Average damage taken over the fight does not matter, what matters is surviving the fight.

I do believe that at some point, stacking enough Vit, you will then want to favor avoidance on a certain ratio. From what I've seen of stats, if they remain linear, it's a LONG way off but still possible. The first step is having a comfortable HP lead over the highest reasonable burst you will face. I'm actually a heretic in some tanking circles for even suggesting that much, but I've done math in other games to support it. Please continue to put together numbers to shed light on the effects of avoidance stats, but please, for the love of all that is holy.

Never suggest that sustained damage is even close to the importance of the ability to survive burst. Never. They aren't even the same concept when it comes to tanking.

I seriously thought you were trying to find a way to lower burst damage by stacking dex, which I was trying to explain was counterproductive when the alternative is EHp. But never suggest that average incoming damage is anywhere near as important as ability to survive burst.

[CianaIezuborn]

There is one thing to consider, and I'm setting it in a separate post so that it is not confused with the above point.

It's possible that at a certain level of Dex/Parry that 100% of hits taken could be parried. This would effectively change Parry from Avoidance to Mitigation. With the current numbers I've seen, I highly doubt this is possible in reality, however I have noticed that the increases appear to be linear with no current sign of a soft cap or built in diminishing returns.

That would then cause Parry to effectively increase your EHp against physical damage mobs, and would make it acceptable to rush stack Parry/Dexterity to reach that point. This would be similar to WotLK era tanking where you first needed to rush avoidance to remove crits off the table before stacking HP.

Which brings up another interesting point, and that is has anyone done any testing with high amounts of avoidance and crits taken?

[C-croft]

When was the last time you died due to a healer that was only healing you running out of mana? That is the only scenario that sustained damage over the entire fight is even important in the manner that you're approaching it. No ifs, ands, or buts. No.

You die to burst, or you die to healers not putting enough heals into you. Average damage taken over the fight does not matter, what matters is surviving the fight.

I do believe that at some point, stacking enough Vit, you will then want to favor avoidance on a certain ratio. From what I've seen of stats, if they remain linear, it's a LONG way off but still possible. The first step is having a comfortable HP lead over the highest reasonable burst you will face. I'm actually a heretic in some tanking circles for even suggesting that much, but I've done math in other games to support it. Please continue to put together numbers to shed light on the effects of avoidance stats, but please, for the love of all that is holy.

Never suggest that sustained damage is even close to the importance of the ability to survive burst. Never. They aren't even the same concept when it comes to tanking.

I seriously thought you were trying to find a way to lower burst damage by stacking dex, which I was trying to explain was counterproductive when the alternative is EHp. But never suggest that average incoming damage is anywhere near as important as ability to survive burst.

In the same token, at end game, for WARs with the lack of any real defensive cooldowns, wouldn't every hit be like a burst? From the sounds of it, people are making it sound like healing a WAR is hard, which to me sounds like MP management issues. Spamming cure II isn't effective on MP but if every hit is coming in hard like that, anyone would go down quickly due to attrition. So in a sense, you are right, considering a dead tank is still a dead tank, but I would like to think that in the whole grand scheme of things average incoming damage is very important when it comes to WARs in a group setting, so the WHM/SCH has enough MP to heal the burst.

Second thought: You are definitely right, you have to live through the burst.... no amount of mitigation helps if you can't survive the burst at all.

[CurlyBruce]

...

If WAR can get 100% parry rate then PLD can get it too. PLD and WAR share all gear and have pretty much the same stat spread. I've mentioned it before but if Parry was supposed to be a main form of mitigation for WAR they would not have changed Foresight from 1.0 (parry boost) to what it is now (worthless). They moved the parry boost to LNC for some reason and unfortunately LNC is not one of WARs sub classes. As far as avoiding Critical Hits, the only ability in the game that prevents critical hits is Awareness.

[CurlyBruce]

...

It is harder to heal a WAR, but that's mostly because SE apparently doesn't understand how division by % works. 20% damage reduction is 25% HP and 25% better cures but in SE's mind it apparently means 25% HP and 15% better cures, hence Defiance. They then seem to have forgotten Rampart existed and functions the same way Shield oath does, granting 20% damage reduction which in turns means 25% more healing for 20s. Technically its more than 25% because damage reduction has increasing returns. Going from 1/.8 to 1/.6 is going from 1.25 to ~1.67 so about a 42% boost. Just to get WAR regular healing up to par with PLDs they need to increase Defiance healing boost to 25% and make it permanent, and WARs cooldowns all need to grant some form of healing boost one way or another.

[C-croft]

If WAR can get 100% parry rate then PLD can get it too. PLD and WAR share all gear and have pretty much the same stat spread. I've mentioned it before but if Parry was supposed to be a main form of mitigation for WAR they would not have changed Foresight from 1.0 (parry boost) to what it is now (worthless). They moved the parry boost to LNC for some reason and unfortunately LNC is not one of WARs sub classes. As far as avoiding Critical Hits, the only ability in the game that prevents critical hits is Awareness.

Unless there is a way to boost a WARs parry to the point a parry boost is moot. If DEX is the hidden modifier for doing that, it could be WAR specific. Just because WAR gets it doesn't mean a PLD has to as well. According to the OPs data, PLD and WAR do not share the same affect on DEX.

PS Foresight in itself sounds like a parry boosting ability. Should have renamed it to Itsjustafleshwoundsight.