DEX with War

[Mishini_Dracoto]

Why Militia, and not Darksteel? That's what has me confused about this post. If you are going to spend money into melding Materia, you should hold off until you at least have the good suit of armor. I used AF -> AK -> DL -> AF+1. The only real plausible deviation I respect from that, is at any step, moving to HQ Darksteel & melding.

[Gamemako]

Why Militia, and not Darksteel?

He got an ilvl90 AF+1 helm, and needed to fall back on something. I do think, though, that it would have been better to use ilvl60 Hoplite instead.

From what I've read online spending full attribute points on DEX only gives you a ~1% chance TO parry.

This is simply false. Ninjiitsu found that with 486 parry, adding 30 points of Dexterity (216-246) increased parry rate by 3.55%. This is about 0.118% parry rate per point. At 456 parry, he tested 216-266, an increase of 50 DEX. This yielded an increase in parry rate of 4.72%, or about 0.0944% per point. These are all subject to random error and so on, and nobody has the volume of data needed to make a good prediction on the exact formula.

[Yunnie]

The correct answer is... If your considering melding dex, then you should instead meld DET! If you cannot meld DET, you should then go for CRIT... If you cannot do that either... Then you should then go to ACC...

This is considering you cannot meld VIT

[Gamemako]

The correct answer is... If your considering melding dex, then you should instead meld DET!

Determination is generally a poor stat for tanks. The impact of determination on weaponskill damage is negligible, so it offers little in terms of enmity gain. It is just a small boost to DPS primarily through autoattacks. It does not affect anything else that happens to a tank -- not damage taken, not evasion, not healing received, not parry, nothing. Quite the opposite to your claim, DEX should be fourth in line: VIT & ACC to content requirements, then STR, then the two parry stats. DEX is more valuable per point than Parry in every known test, but the two may be better in combination than by pumping one or the other -- not enough data to say for sure.

[Ryan420]

Or you could just meld parry instead unless that's capped if you are really trying to boost your parry rate.

[Phreak]

Or you could just meld parry instead unless that's capped if you are really trying to boost your parry rate.

Yeah what this is coming down to is what to meld after capping VIT > STR > ACC > PARRY > ?.

I stand by that above all else it is the tanks job to reduce/control their damage intake as much as possible, not DPS, so I was seeing that whether or not DEX was such a small increment to parry that it wouldn't out weigh a minuscule threat/self heal through put gain from Crit > Det as far as 'reduce my healing/damage taken load as much as possible'.

I'm in the group to take damage, not deal it. From a progression stance it is always the tank that can take the biggest beating, not the one that dishes out the most damage, that pulls through.

[Ysarel]

Adding DEX in every tested case that anyone has done has increased parry rate. The exact formula isn't known, but nobody has managed to find a case where adding DEX did not increase parry rate. That does not mean the addition of a small amount of DEX will be noticeable, however.

I am not aware of any testing involving sufficiently small variations in DEX at a sufficiently high level of confidence as to support your assertion. Care to provide a link to your source(s)?

[Riyos]

I melded the cuirass with acc+6, dex+4, dex+4, chr+4 and acc+4. I think it's quite good, maybe better than the hoplite, mainly because of default bonuses(Parry+23 and chr+16 instead of acc+24 and ss+17). In any case a will soon take the af+1 body, that is mush better(33 vit, that's gorgeous) than both armors

[Yunnie]

Determination is generally a poor stat for tanks. The impact of determination on weaponskill damage is negligible, so it offers little in terms of enmity gain. It is just a small boost to DPS primarily through autoattacks. It does not affect anything else that happens to a tank -- not damage taken, not evasion, not healing received, not parry, nothing. Quite the opposite to your claim, DEX should be fourth in line: VIT & ACC to content requirements, then STR, then the two parry stats. DEX is more valuable per point than Parry in every known test, but the two may be better in combination than by pumping one or the other -- not enough data to say for sure.

So the tool tip about increasing healing received via spells is false? I'm surprised SE would would advertise a false statement on their tool tips.

[Paikis]

So the tool tip about increasing healing received via spells is false? I'm surprised SE would would advertise a false statement on their tool tips.

It does not say anything about healing received. It specifically states

"Affects the amount of damage dealt by both physical and magic attacks, as well as the amount of HP restored by healing spells. Auto attack potency is also affected."

Your interpretation is incorrect. The wording could be done better though.