So lets talk magic accuracy VS. Piety

[NoMX]

From my experience, piety does NOT increase DoT damage at all. I tested it in a manner I feel was rather thorough. First off, I tested it on the level 3 marmots with 50 piety, and it took 11 ticks to kill it, with the last tick being overkill. It was doing exactly 75 damage per tick. I killed the same monster 4 more times for a total of 5 kills, all of which produced the same results, 11 ticks of 75 until the monster died. I then boosted my Piety to 120 and tried again on 5 more marmots, exactly the same result; 11 ticks of 75 damage.

To conclude the test, I went out to kill Dwarf Diremites, the level 45 ones. It took 29 ticks at 50 piety with Poison II to kill one, and the results were identical for 11 out of 11 kills. That equates to 75 damage a tick, once again, as the last tick was quite a bit of overkill. I then reallotted my points to 120 piety, and killed 4 more. They all took 29 ticks of Poison II to kill. Thus, I'm pretty certain piety does not effect damage over time damage at all, it only effects the likelihood that they will stick, and the duration the effect will remain active for. I intend to test INT when the servers come back up, as well as magic potency to see if either of them makes a difference, but I am doubtful, as I alternated between different weapon types and armor during the entire process.

Edit: Oh, I wanted to mention one other thing... I believe Piety probably works in a similar fashion that certain stats in FF11 worked. There is most likely a cap at which it will be beneficial to you, because the check the game performs is your piety vs the target's piety. Piety also governs your chance to resist a spell, mind simply boosts the magic defense (meaning mind makes you take less spell damage, while piety allows you to completely avoid it). After your piety exceeds a certain number above what your particular target's piety is at, it is most likely useless.

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

PIE does not affect the duration or the amount of DMG. The damage tics are based on the mobs HP and takes a percentage of it's max HP to calculate the damage. There is a cap to how much damage each DoT spell can inflict as well. So, while you're fighting a NM, the DoT spell is usually strong per tic when applied, but the spell is not going to stick as long as it would on a normal field mob because it's completed it's capped dmg amount so quickly. Still... even so, the damage done with these DoTs is a pretty healthy chunk of inflicted damage.

This is what makes DoT spells for THM incredibly deadly, overpowered, and one of the big reasons THM are such great soloers offensively. You can get by with just allocating 80PIE and use m.acc rings on top of an Ornate Scepter to save most of your points for capping VIT and having enough MND for a viable amount of MP. The modifiers through stat allocation are pretty marginal past a certain point anyway and you start to get diminishing results whether it be a melee or a mage anyway. This is why you mostly see VIT and MND builds with little focus on the att, acc, m.acc, m.att stat modifiers.

Long story short, atm stacking magical acc is superior to stacking PIE through gear. Let's not forget though that all of this will inevitably change in the future when they simplify stat modifiers and nerf DoTs. There is no question that it will be in effect very soon. Soon being when Japan gets back on their feet.

[AriNahoki]

PIE does not affect the duration or the amount of DMG. The damage tics are based on the mobs HP and takes a percentage of it's max HP to calculate the damage. There is a cap to how much damage each DoT spell can inflict as well.

I never heard of this theory, but I'm interested in if it's true. Is there any evidence supporting this you can cite?

[shots]

I never heard of this theory, but I'm interested in if it's true. Is there any evidence supporting this you can cite?

I can't say it's true for the damage part however, it is true for the time deference. My DoT's on the NM's I notice last for about 10-15 seconds and they're gone. But on a field mob they could last up to the whole duration of the fight or long enough for me to even re-cast them on to it. The damage from what I can see on field mobs are deadly. DoT's alone can sometimes kill the mob. For NM's it seems the longer into the fight though, the more resistant they get to any type of DoTs you try to cast on it.

For my THM, I have all Pearl Rings (Mag acc.) set of 4. Piety may raise the magic acc., but I do not see a direct result of magic acc. boost when I apply more piety rather then adding the rings I see my magic acc. rise in the gear/equip screen. I figure it this way, the more acc you have the better chance of your spells/dots landing the more damage in the long run. I am a firm believer of "If I can't see it, it isn't working." and since I can't see piety boost and it doesn't feel like it kicks up magic acc. then it doesn't work imo.

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

I never heard of this theory, but I'm interested in if it's true. Is there any evidence supporting this you can cite?

It isn't EXACTLY concrete, but when you do a solo build it's pretty obvious when you take on Red conned monsters.

When fighting Orange conned Drakes, sticking Poison II, Bio II, Dia II would deduct 8% (low balling this) of it's total HP per tic. Inferno Drakes have between 4800-5200 HP. With all debuffs applied that is 384-412 DMG per tic.

If the DMG based on PIE were true, and my 80PIE causes 384-412 DMG per tic when I land all debuffs, it should apply to other mobs I fight. However, this isn't the case. It actually has a base amount of HP per tic then expands based on the mob's max HP. You can apply all debuffs to a mob with just 1,000 HP and the per tic will retract to a lower figure (not extremely low, but certainly lower than 384-412). When, according to my numbers based on a mob with 4800-5200, should kill it in just a few tics.

[Umo]

I have always thought that we can find "stats hints" on the higher rank equipment that fits each class, faction NM equipment specially. Taking a look at Harlequin Set you can notice there's no Mag. Accuracy on any part, but we do find Piety (along with MND and INT).
I know that official information, experience, data collection, theorycrafting and such are the best way to get knowledgment (msp?), but sometimes we tend to get lost and don't pay attention to things that we are seeing almost everyday.
I guess this is a poor contribution to the thread and I'm not trying to say that this is the only truth, but maybe it's a good idea to pay attention to the stats put on (supossed) good items by the dev team.

[Yisi]

Thanks for all the great input. I guess the real issue behind the Magic Accuracy VS. Piety was what stat is more effective in landing nukes and debuffs? For example, I want to use Abosorb ATK, Absorb DEF, Abosrb EVA, and Absorb ACC to transfer via Initiation for melee's in an NM fight. What helps those spells actually land on the mobs? does does Piety in any way help land the spell better than Magic Accuracy?

By the way this is a great point

Also you can use Purge to render the enemy neutral to all elements. At this point almost all Enfeebling spells will land effectively.

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

Thanks for all the great input. I guess the real issue behind the Magic Accuracy VS. Piety was what stat is more effective in landing nukes and debuffs? For example, I want to use Abosorb ATK, Absorb DEF, Abosrb EVA, and Absorb ACC to transfer via Initiation for melee's in an NM fight. What helps those spells actually land on the mobs? does does Piety in any way help land the spell better than Magic Accuracy?

Magical Acc is a more potent version of PIE as Acc is a more potent version of DEX. What people were saying, and I guess I'll repeat again, PIE starts to give diminishing results past a certain point. 80-90 is sufficient enough to stick debuffs. What allows you to have a greater chance is to stack magical acc making your spells more concentrated.

Of course you need PIE there as a resistance check, but stacking high m.acc seems to bypass that more than not if it would usually fail. I have only 80 PIE (I use -10 dex > +10PIE conversion trait so let's say 90 actually) and I stick debuffs on all NM just fine using an Ornate Scepter and pearl rings.

PIE should be less potent because PIE isn't used for just landing spells, it also is used for magical evasion. This could be their reasoning for taking the stat and having it be less effective past a certain point and to deter players from being too overpowered or min/maxing.