Will Parry become worthwhile in the next patch?

[Nalien]

Technically, Critical Hit Rate got an additional effect added to it with Heavensward, which also has it improve Critical Hit damage. Critical hits are still random? Kinda... Bootshines, Kassatsu, Life Surge, Heavier Shot, etc., there are a number of skills that force critical hits and Critical Hit Rate just straight up improves their output now.

That said, by far the main allure of Critical Hit Rate is the additional critical hits it earns you, this is why it was the primary secondary stat even before Heavensward. Scaling is definitely a contributing factor to that, but assuming they worked Counter properly, it's essentially the same as Critical Hit Rate, just for tanks... It's RNG extra damage, and that's never a bad thing... RNG mitigation sucks, just because you ideally want mitigation to be dependable and RNG just isn't... The only other way to solve that, is to give Parry a defensive Determination kind of effect, so it improves mitigation by a little bit overall and grants some lackluster RNG mitigation. They'd have to make that extra mitigation required for anyone to still bother with it though, and f*ck SE if they do that... The Vitality changes were irritating enough... I want freedom in how I gear my character, isn't that the whole point of even giving us stats options? Foregoing HP for offense was the last reasonable piece of itemization in this game, if they then turn around and opt to make me weaker again, by forcing Parry down my throat... F*ck it, I'll stop playing tanks...

[Neophyte]

You can work with extra damage given by crits.
E.g. if I want to kill the caster add in A7(s) and I crit with a ruin3, I'm either done sooner or be able to use 'cheaper'/weaker skills to kill it off in the same time as without a crit. Many crits on adds with Enkindle? Painflare would be overkill now, so I save the stack for better use.
You can adjust after the crit to make the most of this RNG, also more dps is almost always better (unless the crit was only overkill) so adjustments might not be needed at all.

With parry it's the other way round... To make the most out of parry you'd need to know exactly when it will proc, so you can adjust mitigation... you can't adjust mitigation on the fly like you can with dps (except with equilibrium or other self heals which can be adjusted after RNG mitigation).

[LineageRazor]

The Vitality changes were irritating enough...

SE has dumbed down their stat system to the point that you could scrap STR, VIT, MND, INT, DEX entirely, and replace them with a single stat called "Primary Stat". It's kind of a shame, to be honest. The secondary stats have more personality to them than the primary stats do - and that's not saying that the secondaries have a lot of personality...

While I don't miss how... cryptic FFXI's stat system was, I DID appreciate how nearly every stat had a purpose for nearly every job, and focusing too much on one at the expense of the others could cause you a lot of problems...

As opposed to this game, where you might as well not have a stat system at all. :P

[Kosmos992k]

Alright, sorry for the misunderstanding. So your wording confused me a bit here, but I think (again, correct me if I'm wrong) you believe that secondary stats should matter while leveling up but currently do not.

In effect, yes, I think that secondary stats should matter at levels lower than end-game content, if you wish to describe that as while leveling, that's cool. I'm referring to secondary stats being valid in content prior to the level capped end-game.

I'm not sure I follow here. Currently the Parry secondary stat does exactly what you describe - it increases your chance to Parry and that goes up linearly as you gain more Parry (might work in tiers, I forget the data on Parry since it's been so long since I've cared about it). However, it isn't modified based on the level difference between player and enemy... and I'm not sure why it would be. Like, I can't think of any situation where a high level player would be fighting low level mobs, and vice versa. I'm probably just missing something here, if you can clear up my confusion I'd really appreciate it.

I gave the example of high level vs low level monster and vice versa as an illustration. The point I was making was that Parry (and other attributes) could be weighted based on the disparity between the level of the player and what they are fighting in order to adjust the impact of the stat. If SE is worried about Parry becoming OP at high numbers, then they need to change how they apply parry so that it has a maximum base range of effect - say 10% to 25% chance of parrying. But based on the relative level of the player to what they fight, that could be modified up or down. So if you are fighting something at your level the base chance of parry as defined by the stat itself will apply, but if you're fighting an enemy, perhaps a Boss, wit a higher base level than yours, the Parry base chance is modified down. So for example if your base parry is 22% and you're fighting something 5 levels above your own level, your chance would be 0.22*0.95 = 20.9%. Where a player fighting a monster below their level (which obviously can happen a lot) let's say it's 10 levels below the player with a base 22% chance. It would be weighted perhaps to 24.2% - assuming 1% weighting per level of difference between player and enemy.

Applying weighting of this kind can scale stats power based on the content more dynamically and it avoids issues like having scaling issues on the stat itself.

What should be and what are are two different things. You are arguing with people that stats in this game matter before endgame (and you're being pretty abrasive about it, as well).

I'm not being abrasive, I'm reacting to being told that everything outside of end game doesn't matter - in essense being told I don't matter since I don't play end-game. If I were to start saying that end-game doesn't matter I dare say that the response would be colorful to say the least. But I'm not saying that at all.

But they don't. Perhaps they SHOULD matter, but the sad fact is that they currently do not. And this seems to be a big goal of the devs. Anytime stats start to matter in pre-endgame content, SE steps in and nerfs it, hard, such as when healers started to have accuracy difficulties in higher level dungeons.

Correct me if I am wrong, but at the time that was a problem, those dungeons were the current end-game, or very near to it, were they not?

As it stands, as long as you meet the ilvl requirements for a dungeon, you can win it. It might take longer, but it's certainly far from impossible.

Personally, I'd love to see stats take on a bigger role in more of the game, but as it is stats only start to make a win-or-lose difference once you start getting into endgame content. It's not realistic to expect the devs to shift gears on that stance, either; they've made it pretty clear that pre-endgame is ez-mode that even a player throwing on random bits of whatever cheap trash gear they can find would be able to finish.

You've just described one of the major problems and why people are craving mid-core content. If all content prior to current end-game is so easy that a player in random class appropriate gear can clear it, then it's too easy. if that content, especially prior raid content retained more of it's sting, it might assist mid-core players in having something to challenge them. However that's not the discussion this topic is ab out.

This is about Parry, which is what I was responding to. In my opinion the stat should matter and it should be weighted based on relative levels of player vs enemy so that the stat actually has an impact at all levels, not just end-game. I would say that this needs to be the case for all stats. If the base game is intended to bring players into the end-game, then it needs to train them how to build a good gear set, and how to handle things, which means that the behavior of stats and the combat system in general should be the same from level 1 through level 60.

Fundamentally, I want the secondary stats to matter at all levels, it will serve to make the game a bit more interesting if the stat build we create with our gear has an impact on our performance.

SE has dumbed down their stat system to the point that you could scrap STR, VIT, MND, INT, DEX entirely, and replace them with a single stat called "Primary Stat". It's kind of a shame, to be honest. The secondary stats have more personality to them than the primary stats do - and that's not saying that the secondaries have a lot of personality...

While I don't miss how... cryptic FFXI's stat system was, I DID appreciate how nearly every stat had a purpose for nearly every job, and focusing too much on one at the expense of the others could cause you a lot of problems...

As opposed to this game, where you might as well not have a stat system at all. :P

That's precisely why the STR tank meta was so strong, STR was in effect the only Stat that mattered for tanks, and they stacked it in preference to everything else. I'd have to hope that SE learned from that debacle, but somehow I doubt it.

[Nalien]

snip

What annoys me, is that I should be happy about the Vitality change... It brings tanks much closer to how all Jobs were in 1.23, when they all made use of two primary stats... It's just... All tanks now use Vitality and Strength... That makes perfect sense for Warrior, IMO. Paladin and Dark Knight? I'd expect Vitality and Mind, then Vitality and either Piety or Intelligence... Dark Knights more about MP management though, so I'd go with Piety... Lord knows we can't have that though, people get uppity enough when Esoteric gear prevents them gearing multiple Jobs with one set... A shame, they're not totally limited in what they can do with Jobs like this, but having Jobs gear differently would really help make them more unique... You can do more with this concepts, when the gear itself is supporting them... Instead gear is just bland and does nothing to support a Jobs mechanics...

[LineageRazor]

I'm not being abrasive, I'm reacting to being told that everything outside of end game doesn't matter - in essense being told I don't matter since I don't play end-game. If I were to start saying that end-game doesn't matter I dare say that the response would be colorful to say the least. But I'm not saying that at all.

Actually, no, you were being told that STATS don't matter outside of endgame, not that EVERYTHING doesn't matter. And currently, that is true. However, you responded as though you were being personally attacked, with accusations of "elitist" - that's what I found abrasive.

Correct me if I am wrong, but at the time that was a problem, those dungeons were the current end-game, or very near to it, were they not?

Nah, when the Accuracy thing came up, there was a very clear endgame established. I think it was when the Arboretum was released? Can't remember for sure, but Alexander was still going strong at that point.

The Arboretum and Pharos Sirius (Hard) were never considered endgame content, in any sense - not even midcore. And as soon as stat-related difficulties showed up, SE laid down the nerfhammer. The acc requirement for those dungeons is now non-existent, and will likely be so for any future dungeons released, as well.

This is a symptom of a policy that SE adopted early on. It isn't the first time that SE has nerfed a non-endgame instance into the ground for daring to show a bit of challenge. Remember when the Demon Wall of Amdapor Keep actually caused a lot of wipes?

Pretty much anything that SE expects you to grind for tomestones is going to be tuned to the lowest common denominator.

You've just described one of the major problems and why people are craving mid-core content.

Oh, I don't disagree. I'd love to see non-endgame content with a bit more bite to it. Ozma is a step in the right direction, and I was thrilled when SE outright stated they have no plans of nerfing the difficulty. We definitely need more, however...