Serious Point Allocation Discussion

[SionDurant]

DEX my affect block rate and accuracy, but it's not enough to be worth putting points into, IMO. With the new Divine Veil, Aegis Boon and Outmaneuver, you can force a good amount of blocks.

PIE is in the same boat. The amount of MP you get is 1 to 1, so it's not worth it for that. You don't really get enough M.Evasion to matter from the (at most) 23 piety.

The real question is:

1st: STR or VIT?

2nd is definitely Mind. More healing magic potency and it enhances your Flatblade combo. No question there.

Not to sound like an elitist, cause I definitely am not but if you're pondering anything but STR, VIT and MND you are wasting your time on PLD at the moment.

I've personally tested it all, and MND seems to be the "winningest" stat we have.

I think Arcell here says it best: do we take the VIT or the STR for some attack power.

I guess to get to this theory we need to look at what SE really gave us in a positive way.

1. Cover
Some it's lame, some scratch their head, a lot think its only useful to protect a healer or a really good damage dealer but it can honestly be used to redirect "oh no!" moments away from an MT such as a crazy enmity doling warrior.

This does not mean we cannot be mts because a few paladins I've played with in recent memory conducted themselves just fine in boss fights, but the truth remains warrior naturally outperforms us as an mt.

2: Holy Succor
I don't like to offend our devs, they work hard, but this feels cheaply taken from WoW paladins as a poor substitute for simply giving us cura and access to a better mp regen mechanic; never the less it can be useful some situations with enough MND.

Divine Veil speaks for itself, and lastly we have an invulnerability tactic. On wow and other Mmos they give tanks these saving throws to avoid big wig raid bosses from totally laying down the law on them. This is not wow and it makes me feel like its to make up for our inevitable sub par physical mettle in comparison to a warrior.

We are the cornerstone of defense, we have a lot of mechanics that support the party. Trouble is, we either need more base line def from the PLD job, or we need mp regen and increased enmity production from heals.

Back to point:
VIT at 23 points added, the max, is only 7 def and it calculates very poorly into results. VIT was not our favored stat on artifact gear and it seems everyone's main stat is for other jobs.

MND, we get plenty of, also some interesting healing pot. So I personally feel I should cap out MND, but also think its down to a personal choice whether to sub STR or MND.

I imagine SE will reconcile some day with all the data that is out. Unless.. This is working as intended and we all are being stubborn wanting to be strong arms and not blessed swordsmen as portrayed in our quests.

SO! Which...

MND>VIT

VIT>MND

MND>STR

STR>MND

[Sortis]

DEX my affect block rate and accuracy, but it's not enough to be worth putting points into, IMO. With the new Divine Veil, Aegis Boon and Outmaneuver, you can force a good amount of blocks.

PIE is in the same boat. The amount of MP you get is 1 to 1, so it's not worth it for that. You don't really get enough M.Evasion to matter from the (at most) 23 piety.

The real question is:

1st: STR or VIT?

2nd is definitely Mind. More healing magic potency and it enhances your Flatblade combo. No question there.

The point is though, is dex does increase block rate, and GLA/PLD is the only job in the game that is actually going to even think about going after block rate, casters sure as heck don't care about it. So why even make a stat effect block and why let us allocate stats if there isn't some grand reason to do so. If these stats are just plain better than these stats then why is the point of this system?! To give us some kind of false sense of customization when there is none...thats dumb.

Furthermore the point of my post is to show that PLD is spread much more thin than WAR is. WAR is more successful because they can just balls to the walls go for 2 stats and thats all their job relies on, our job however relies on almost 3 times as many stats. I'm not saying we need to put points in them, but they can increase practically everything they do with 2 stats, we however have to be content with just letting most of our stats go in favor of something more potent, ergo we are spread thin on our needs. What would a world look like if we could increase our damage, MP pool, Block Rate and damage mitigation with MND?

As it stands WAR gets to increase with VIT : damage mitigation, HP pool, and damage all in one stat. VIT helps them hold hate through dmg, take dmg through mitigation, and survive with a high HP pool. STR is just icing on the cake. It's literally everything the job needs. If we could put points in MND to increase everything a PLD needs it would be a better job. That is my 2 cents. I could be wrong, but it seems like if MND was for PLD what VIT is for WAR we may not even be having this discussion.

If we aren't going to use point allocation to make unique builds then take it out of the game, it's pointless. Just give every job 2 stats that increase everything they can possibly do, and boost those stats beyond others every even level, that would go a long way towards making jobs balanced. (IMO)

[Sortis]

Not to sound like an elitist, cause I definitely am not but if you're pondering anything but STR, VIT and MND you are wasting your time on PLD at the moment.

I've personally tested it all, and MND seems to be the "winningest" stat we have.

I think Arcell here says it best: do we take the VIT or the STR for some attack power.

I guess to get to this theory we need to look at what SE really gave us in a positive way.

1. Cover
Some it's lame, some scratch their head, a lot think its only useful to protect a healer or a really good damage dealer but it can honestly be used to redirect "oh no!" moments away from an MT such as a crazy enmity doling warrior.

This does not mean we cannot be mts because a few paladins I've played with in recent memory conducted themselves just fine in boss fights, but the truth remains warrior naturally outperforms us as an mt.

2: Holy Succor
I don't like to offend our devs, they work hard, but this feels cheaply taken from WoW paladins as a poor substitute for simply giving us cura and access to a better mp regen mechanic; never the less it can be useful some situations with enough MND.

Divine Veil speaks for itself, and lastly we have an invulnerability tactic. On wow and other Mmos they give tanks these saving throws to avoid big wig raid bosses from totally laying down the law on them. This is not wow and it makes me feel like its to make up for our inevitable sub par physical mettle in comparison to a warrior.

We are the cornerstone of defense, we have a lot of mechanics that support the party. Trouble is, we either need more base line def from the PLD job, or we need mp regen and increased enmity production from heals.

Back to point:
VIT at 23 points added, the max, is only 7 def and it calculates very poorly into results. VIT was not our favored stat on artifact gear and it seems everyone's main stat is for other jobs.

MND, we get plenty of, also some interesting healing pot. So I personally feel I should cap out MND, but also think its down to a personal choice whether to sub STR or MND.

I imagine SE will reconcile some day with all the data that is out. Unless.. This is working as intended and we all are being stubborn wanting to be strong arms and not blessed swordsmen as portrayed in our quests.

SO! Which...

MND>VIT

VIT>MND

MND>STR

STR>MND

Yeah it's kinda...bothersome, are they telling us "your default vit is enough, just pour everything into mnd and str" ? I mean most WAR i talk to do that with VIT and STR and just get acc gear in place of DEX, we can't really do that with our VIT =\

[SionDurant]

Oh don't get me started on DEX. I put in 11 points thinking about block and acc, I was excited, didn't see a single point of acc.

Working as intended or broken?

IMO SE should make MND effect block, in addition to what it does for PLD, or something different. Has anyone petitioned SE about these stats being borked so?

[Arcell]

The point is though, is dex does increase block rate, and GLA/PLD is the only job in the game that is actually going to even think about going after block rate, casters sure as heck don't care about it. So why even make a stat effect block and why let us allocate stats if there isn't some grand reason to do so. If these stats are just plain better than these stats then why is the point of this system?! To give us some kind of false sense of customization when there is none...thats dumb.

Furthermore the point of my post is to show that PLD is spread much more thin than WAR is. WAR is more successful because they can just balls to the walls go for 2 stats and thats all their job relies on, our job however relies on almost 3 times as many stats. I'm not saying we need to put points in them, but they can increase practically everything they do with 2 stats, we however have to be content with just letting most of our stats go in favor of something more potent, ergo we are spread thin on our needs. What would a world look like if we could increase our damage, MP pool, Block Rate and damage mitigation with MND?

As it stands WAR gets to increase with VIT : damage mitigation, HP pool, and damage all in one stat. VIT helps them hold hate through dmg, take dmg through mitigation, and survive with a high HP pool. STR is just icing on the cake. It's literally everything the job needs. If we could put points in MND to increase everything a PLD needs it would be a better job. That is my 2 cents. I could be wrong, but it seems like if MND was for PLD what VIT is for WAR we may not even be having this discussion.

If we aren't going to use point allocation to make unique builds then take it out of the game, it's pointless. Just give every job 2 stats that increase everything they can possibly do, and boost those stats beyond others every even level, that would go a long way towards making jobs balanced. (IMO)

And my point was that DEX is useless to pour points into because the effect it has on block rate is negligible at best. If you put points into it hoping to see a higher block rate you will be incredibly disappointed, especially against any bosses. If I want higher block rate I'll go with gear, not waste points in my allocation.

With Paladin you can put points strictly into two stats and be just fine. I would go with STR/MND with some HP gear but that's just me. I wouldn't be any worse off for it. WAR can benefit from DEX and PIE as much as PLD would. Parry rate and M.Evasion are great for Warrior, however allocating points into those stats is equally useless for them as it is for Paladin so people don't. In reality Paladin has a single additional stat to consider over Warrior.

Each job essentially DOES have two stats that it focuses on. Useless as it may be, that is how the current system is designed.

[Estellios]

Oh don't get me started on DEX. I put in 11 points thinking about block and acc, I was excited, didn't see a single point of acc.

Working as intended or broken?

IMO SE should make MND effect block, in addition to what it does for PLD, or something different. Has anyone petitioned SE about these stats being borked so?

DEX doesn't actually add to the "Accuracy" stat but it does factor into your hit rate.

[SionDurant]

See I have heard that argument about DEX, but I know a paladin who actually tanks very well may I add, and he misses the same amount I do without any DEX. But I also use two acc rings, and seafood to make up for my loss.

I just wish I hit harder for solo purposes. Does STR even dent your damage or is it a lot like other stats for us right now?

[FraenirVolsung]

See I have heard that argument about DEX, but I know a paladin who actually tanks very well may I add, and he misses the same amount I do without any DEX. But I also use two acc rings, and seafood to make up for my loss.

I just wish I hit harder for solo purposes. Does STR even dent your damage or is it a lot like other stats for us right now?

I was actually playing around with STR and MND last night before I used one of my stat reallocation items. I wanted to see how much of an effect STR had for PLD. I fought the same rank 50 Ixali outside of Natalan and only made one gear swap. I used a Cobalt Winglet with +30 STR then swapped it to a Cobalt Winglet with +30 MND.

The range of auto-attack damage spread out over 10 battles with each weapon was 146-172 with the STR Winglet, and 144-169 with the MND Winglet. This does not include crits and attacks while sentinel was up on the Ixali. The highest crit was 201 with the STR sword (no +crit attack equipped) and 198 with the MND sword.

Not the best sample size, but I also performed 10 non-critical Fast Blades with each sword and the averages for each were 438.67 with the STR sword and 442.89 with the MND sword. Again not a huge sample size, so take it with a grain of salt.

For solo/damage STR and MND seem to be fairly inter-changable. It seems as though the single biggest factor in damage is the physical attack stat. This might be obvious, but adding +ATK materia or gear will raise your damage potential more than adding an equal amount of +STR or +MND materia or gear.

MND does make a more noticeable difference for Cures. While it may not be a huge difference, +30 MND over +30 STR will create noticeable increases in HP cured by both Cure and Holy Succor. I have yet to test it, but just from eyeball observations last night I would not be surprised if MND is an additional modifier for Holy Succor.

[SionDurant]

I was actually playing around with STR and MND last night before I used one of my stat reallocation items. I wanted to see how much of an effect STR had for PLD. I fought the same rank 50 Ixali outside of Natalan and only made one gear swap. I used a Cobalt Winglet with +30 STR then swapped it to a Cobalt Winglet with +30 MND.

The range of auto-attack damage spread out over 10 battles with each weapon was 146-172 with the STR Winglet, and 144-169 with the MND Winglet. This does not include crits and attacks while sentinel was up on the Ixali. The highest crit was 201 with the STR sword (no +crit attack equipped) and 198 with the MND sword.

Not the best sample size, but I also performed 10 non-critical Fast Blades with each sword and the averages for each were 438.67 with the STR sword and 442.89 with the MND sword. Again not a huge sample size, so take it with a grain of salt.

For solo/damage STR and MND seem to be fairly inter-changable. It seems as though the single biggest factor in damage is the physical attack stat. This might be obvious, but adding +ATK materia or gear will raise your damage potential more than adding an equal amount of +STR or +MND materia or gear.

MND does make a more noticeable difference for Cures. While it may not be a huge difference, +30 MND over +30 STR will create noticeable increases in HP cured by both Cure and Holy Succor. I have yet to test it, but just from eyeball observations last night I would not be surprised if MND is an additional modifier for Holy Succor.

So,

What you're saying is SE definitely needs to to give us an offensive stance increasing acc and dmg, similar to whm cleric stance.. At the cost of enmity production and some def to assure it not be used for easy mode dungeon runs.

( the same to mrds for fairness )

Or...

Fix how stats calculate and help all melee classes.

WoW addressed this issue by creating a mechanic called vengeance that boosts a tanks dmg in long with how much damage he or she takes. This isnt wow, but something sure would be nice by way of some kind of love for pally on the solo and group front.

[FraenirVolsung]

So,

What you're saying is SE definitely needs to to give us an offensive stance increasing acc and dmg, similar to whm cleric stance.. At the cost of enmity production and some def to assure it not be used for easy mode dungeon runs.

( the same to mrds for fairness )

Or...

Fix how stats calculate and help all melee classes.

WoW addressed this issue by creating a mechanic called vengeance that boosts a tanks dmg in long with how much damage he or she takes. This isnt wow, but something sure would be nice by way of some kind of love for pally on the solo and group front.

Well, I think stats remain fairly broken, although not as broken as they were 6 months to a year ago. It takes a ton of any one stat to make a real observable difference. I don't think that's exactly news either.

Since I've been playing WAR quite a bit lately, it's been fun making some comparisons. Take PLD with a Cobalt Winglet with +30 MND and WAR with a Demilune Bhuj with +30 VIT. My PLD's total STR and MND are within a few points of my WAR's total STR and VIT, so they should be fairly equal with one exception, the weapons. Just looking at auto-attack on a level 50 Ixali, my WAR hits for an average of 280 per swing with crits in the 330s. My PLD hits for an average of 160 with crits in the 190s. The delay on the sword is 2.6s and the delay on the axe is 4.0s. Now taking these numbers, and with the understanding that they are close approximations but not 100% exact, my WAR's DPS is 70 while my PLD's is 61.5.

Obviously, there are a ton of variables such as crit rate, accuracy, berserk, etc that figure into the final calculation of each jobs' DPS potential. I don't think SE ever intended PLD to be able to compete with a WAR in DPS. The fact that PLD isn't exactly a defensive stalwart just makes the difference stand out even more, but that topic has been discussed in a dozen other topics so no need to discuss it here.

WAR has Rampage and Berserk, so I would agree that a similar stance or ability that allowed a PLD to trade attack for defense or vice versa would be awesome.