Quote Originally Posted by Rydia13 View Post
I agree. We need testing done to see how good 31 Det is vs the couple of magic damage increase from High Allagen but I'm pretty sure the Det is better.
No. NO. Did I mention no? Yeah, the Det isn't better.

Let's see. We're looking at BLM, right? The last weight I saw for Determination was 0.2 points of "damage potential"(DP), compared to the 1 INT gives as the central comparison point. People seem to be valuing Det more these days for BLM, however, so it may be wrong.

To really illustrate this point, though, let's throw out that Det weight and say it's 0.5. Whatever it actually is, I think we can agree that it can't be quite that high.

Here's the approximate DP of your BiS Novus with this inflated weight:

Weapon Damage: 75 WD X 8 DP = 600 DP
Intelligence: 42 INT X 1 DP = 42 DP
Determination: 31 DET X 0.5 DP = 15.5 DP
Spell Speed: 44 SpS X 0.26 DP = 11.44
Total DP: 668.94

Here's the High Allagan Weapon
WD: 77 X 8 = 616 WD
INT: 45 X 1 = 45 WD
Crit: 32 X 0.26 = 8.32
SpS: 46 X 0.26 = 11.96
Total DP: 681.28

As you can see, the High Allagan weapon provides more potential damage than the BiS Novus with Determination, even when I grossly overinflate the stat weight.

However, there's another thing worth looking at. Look at how much DP Weapon Damage provides by itself. Let's combine that with INT to create the "Primary Stat Bonus". Let's take all of the secondary stats, put them together, and call it the "Secondary Stat Bonus".

Now we play with the ratio of (Secondary Stat Bonus) / (Primary Stat Bonus) to see how much of a weapon's DP is theoretically provided by Secondary Stats.

The BiS Novus(with inflated Det) (15.5 + 11.44) / (600 + 42) = 26.94 / 642 = 0.0419 X 100 = 4.19%
High Allagan: (8.32 + 11.96) / (616 + 45) = 20.28 / 661 = 0.0306 X 100 = 3.06%

Yeah, the numbers are that low. Mind you, this is just for the Weapon. The numbers end up pleasantly higher on any other piece of gear. That 10 Million gil you're spending on the most perfect Novus will likely make your weapon slot confer less than 1% more Damage Potential to you. To some, this is worth it. To others, this is completely dumb. That tiny increase in DPS won't be the straw that breaks T9's back. The long story short, however, is that the i110 weapon you're going to be holding in your hand after this quest is going to be better than the i100 you used to have as long as you aren't completely stupid with the secondaries(give a BLM Parry/Piety and watch people scratch their heads). It'll even be better if you replace a damaging Secondary with Accuracy. In fact, since Secondaries provide so little benefit to the weapon slot, it may be the best place to put Accuracy(Or Parry, or Piety, depending on your job)!

So, go ahead and make your 25 Crit/25 Det/25 SpS Novus if you want to save money. You'll only need 1 Grade IV materia(for the 25th Det infusion, I think) and the Damage Potential loss over a "BiS" Novus will be so infinitesimal that skill would easily close the gap.