Novus weapon upgrade system findings

[Donjo]

Hi All,

Great thread and thanks for everyone's contributions. Very helpful information.

@ SirTaint: If I may ask, why would you add Crit & Determination on the Bravura, over Parry & Accuracy? Are WAR's Accuracy capped naturally from High Allagan?

For Healer weapons (SCH and WHM), what are the recommended "ideal" add-ons and why? (haven't been keeping up with Healer in a while.)

Thanks!

To try and answer the Warrior Question, there are people who believe that Parry is literally useless and the benefits to maximizing it just aren't worth the trouble. This is because they pour through statistics to find that, say, adding 44 Parry(An approx. 3% increase in Parry Rate according to the last theorycrafting I've seen on the subject) makes you take less than 1% less damage throughout the course of a fight(The numbers might be wrong but the point is that the benefit looks negligible when one looks at it this way). A Warrior is better at making big numbers than a Paladin and should thus ignore Parry and use secondaries to do more damage.

I personally disagree with this because Tanks shouldn't be stacking Parry for the "Hey, took X% less damage through that whole fight! Neat!" aspect. They should be stacking Parry for those situations where you're close to death and the healer(s) got you back up not because they were being awesome, but because you parried that one attack that would have killed you if something hadn't been done to reduce it. If you didn't have that extra 3% rate, you could have wiped. That's why I stack Parry; so it can save my life in individual situations.

To answer the healer question, Scholars want +44 Crit and, well, whatever. There's arguments for any other other stats, but I'd personally go for Piety. I know Scholars have little trouble managing their MP, but more MP never hurts because more Adlo never hurts... and some situations in the Second Coil can be made easier by judicious use of Succor. A full 31 Det will increase your average heal by... 3 or 4? Spell Speed will make them go out a little faster, and use your MP faster if you are DPSing.

White Mage BiS is 31 Det, 33 Piety, and 11 Spell Speed. I don't think anybody will question this unless even White Mages think Spell Speed is so detrimental that Crit is somehow better.

Noooo....you out of you mind? that's totally not gonna happen...

OMG this guy has a Gae Bolg with +31det +22crti +22acc.....BiS is +31det +44crit....kick him

I appended that comment with "/sarcasm", meaning I was being sarcastic. This means that I was actually saying that people shouldn't be persecuted for being slightly off BiS.

[Kiara]

...I personally disagree with this because Tanks shouldn't be stacking Parry for the "Hey, took X% less damage through that whole fight! Neat!" aspect. They should be stacking Parry for those situations where you're close to death and the healer(s) got you back up not because they were being awesome, but because you parried that one attack that would have killed you if something hadn't been done to reduce it. If you didn't have that extra 3% rate, you could have wiped. That's why I stack Parry; so it can save my life in individual situations.

To answer the healer question, Scholars want +44 Crit and, well, whatever. There's arguments for any other other stats, but I'd personally go for Piety. I know Scholars have little trouble managing their MP, but more MP never hurts because more Adlo never hurts... and some situations in the Second Coil can be made easier by judicious use of Succor. A full 31 Det will increase your average heal by... 3 or 4? Spell Speed will make them go out a little faster, and use your MP faster if you are DPSing.

White Mage BiS is 31 Det, 33 Piety, and 11 Spell Speed. I don't think anybody will question this unless even White Mages think Spell Speed is so detrimental that Crit is somehow better.

Thanks Donjo. Very helpful. Some follow-ups:

* I wonder if "future proofing" the Novus (e.g., adding in more Accuracy than you currently need for T9) is necessary? Or would future content come with future Upgrades to the Novus as well? (so that you'll always be able to add / upgrade your Relic/Novus to keep up w/ future Accuracy needs in the same patches?)

* I agree w/ your point on Parry (and that save situation).

On a side note, I really wish Yoshi P and the Combat Team made Stats worth more and be more tweakable. For example, for Tanks, I find it fascinating that in *theory* you could have multiple stats that could affect your performance in battle:

* Strength for Shield Block Amount / Damage Reduction. Also for higher damage, which is more enmity.
* Vitality for Health.
* Dexterity for increasing Parry & Shield Block percentages.

Then the secondary stats like "Parry%" or "Determination".

In reality, the core stats are locked out by Yoshi P for each weapon / armor, and we're just left with a few secondary stats. It just feels like there'd be a lot more excitement, investigation, championing of different Builds (STR Tank, DEX Tank, VIT Tank, etc.) if there were more Side Grades, if Materia Melding / Craftable Equipment was actually on par (or close), or just if some of these Core Stats were more freely accessible to the players. Oh well.