Stat tradeoff/customisation for DPS

[Sylkis]

Tanks can trade survivability for DPS/hate generation with VIT and STR

Healers can trade healing power for DPS with DET/CRIT and ACC (Coil only)
(WHMs can also trade any of that for "endurance" with PIE)

What about DPS? And Astrologian who doesn't need ACC to increase DPS? (card buffs can't miss right?) Can they trade in some secondary stats for ... say stats that help with boss mechanics?

E.g. movement speed, damage reduction(BiS for DRG), offgcd cooldown reduction etc. You can create a specialized gear spec to "pick up" forced targeted damage mechanics. Of course it doesn't have to be stats to do this, but I think this offers a good tradeoff by making the DPS and healers' jobs easier.

Currently, DPS can trade between DET, CRIT and speed but these aren't much different from each other because they are all stats for DPS (and so they all have to have roughly the same potency otherwise people will just pick one). VIT doesn't work because healers still have to heal through the same amount of damage and the damage lost through losing main stats (STR/DEX/INT) is just too high.

Astrologian is another problem, do they get to deal out damage (as expected to do in Alexander hard) for free by buffing the DPS, while the other healers need ACC? Perhaps this effect will be weaker compared to the other healers' direct DPS?

Thoughts?

[Lemuria]

The only trade DPS gets to make is for Vitality to survive some of the tougher fight mechanics.

[Canadane]

You seem to have some solid ideas of how AST will play without actually playing it yet.

[kyuven]

Since DPS is something any class needs to be able to do, the focused DPS classes aren't really going to be able to do much else.
The closest thing to "something else" would be BRD and MCH, which are DPS-Support, but even then you don't see any bards equipping PIE gear.

[Sylkis]

Since DPS is something any class needs to be able to do, the focused DPS classes aren't really going to be able to do much else.
The closest thing to "something else" would be BRD and MCH, which are DPS-Support, but even then you don't see any bards equipping PIE gear.

The extra length from PIE is really low for the amount of some secondary stat you are trading, and it can only come from materia...

You seem to have some solid ideas of how AST will play without actually playing it yet.

We already know they can buff party members damage and that they don't have many attacks other than AoE. Can safely assume buffs don't miss.

[Gardes]

You can't trade away what you don't have, even if you're classified as a dps.

[Saccharin]

I'd prefer if we could select secondary stats with our points since it can make things more interesting than stack best stat.

[Krylo]

movement speed, damage reduction(BiS for DRG), offgcd cooldown reduction etc. You can create a specialized gear spec to "pick up" forced targeted damage mechanics. Of course it doesn't have to be stats to do this, but I think this offers a good tradeoff by making the DPS and healers' jobs easier.

The problem with these is they'll either be a DPS increase (oGCD CD reduction), which will just make them stacking the better DPS stat for your class (like we have now with det/crit/skill&spellspeed depending on class), or it will be a DPS reduction (like movement speed and picking up damage), in which case one of two things will happen: Fights will be balanced around a certain amount of movement speed/whatever else and it will be mandatory that DPS stack that stat to beat the fights, OR they won't be balanced around it and the fights will be doable without them, in which case lowering DPS to get those stats would be considered suboptimal/non-viable (depending).

Also, DPS already trade str for vit when doing bleeding edge progression (and back in the day when titan was new and you needed so much vit to survive stomps) so they can survive the mechanics, just like tanks trade vit for str once they and the healers have out geared fights enough to have the HP necessary to survive with more strength.

Or, in other words, what you're asking for (DPS being able to trade out stats like Tanks do) already exists.

Plus there's fringe cases on DPS classes where you can put points into something other than your damage stat to do higher dps. Like stacking a little bit of Pie on BLM in order to get off one extra fire under astral fire, for instance, so you have slightly weaker burst (lower damage per spell) but higher sustained damage (more fire good).

[Sylkis]

The problem with these is they'll either be a DPS increase or it will be a DPS reduction

They won't be mandatory and will be suboptimal if you only consider yourself. But in a party if you can do a mechanic intended to be shared but you can count as 2 people, then it could be an overall increase in raid DPS. Some may also take movement speed to compensate for lag. The oGCD won't be a clear increase or decrease either e.g. NIN might be able to trick attack more often but his damage is now lower because of those stats he traded away, and it will depend on your party if that's worth doing so. BRD might have a spell speed + 500 available to them so their songs come out super fast but their damage got lowered because they lost 50 crit/det - it will be worth it if you sing X songs in a fight but a DPS decrease if you don't sing much.

[Krylo]

They won't be mandatory and will be suboptimal if you only consider yourself. But in a party if you can do a mechanic intended to be shared but you can count as 2 people, then it could be an overall increase in raid DPS. Some may also take movement speed to compensate for lag.

Again, it will either be an increase in raid dps or a decrease. In the former it won't be optional--it will become mandatory because people will call you bad if you don't have it. In the latter it will be suboptimal and people will call you bad for doing it. That's how MMOs work. Trying to add choice and customization when your character build directly affects between 3 and 23 other people just doesn't work. Those other people have just as much right, if not more, to expect you to be at your best as you do to want a gimmicky movement speed build or whatever.

The only places such things would see real use are in gimmick groups (everyone stack movement speed and run around!)

The oGCD won't be a clear increase or decrease either e.g. NIN might be able to trick attack more often but his damage is now lower because of those stats he traded away, and it will depend on your party if that's worth doing so. BRD might have a spell speed + 500 available to them so their songs come out super fast but their damage got lowered because they lost 50 crit/det - it will be worth it if you sing X songs in a fight but a DPS decrease if you don't sing much.

Except people will math out for which classes/compositions of raid group this is a DPS increase or decrease and where it falls off. Just like they've done with BLMs and piety.