Question about damage Dex vs. (Str + Attack power)

[Davern]

I'm a bit confused here on how all the stats work in favor of Arch damage. Not know the mod limits of arch and only that dex and pie increase it's damage I went ahead and maxed my dex as much as it will let me and put the rest on pie. With all Dex gear on I have 178 dex at lvl 35. I was starting to wonder about the cap so I asked a lvl50 arch if he knew what it was and he said he did not but before 1.20 it was 174. Well that made me think that maybe I've overdone it on dex and before I add any more I better test out to see if it has any effect. So....I set out and did a little experiment and these are my results.

(Only swapped out DEX gear, leaving everything else the same)

DEX 175, Mob lvl30

High: 146
Low: 129

DEX 155, Mob lvl30

High: 145
Low: 124

That's with 30 Mobs each.

Next test.

DEX 175, Mob lvl35

High: 118
Low: 102

DEX 155, Mob lvl35

High: 118
Low: 101

Again doing 30 each.

Finally just too see if maybe it effects weaponskill damage only I did 10 Heavy shots with 175 and 155 Dex and got...

DEX: 178

High: 262
Low: 226

DEX 158

High: 257
Low: 226

I do understand that this is not a thorough experiment but the numbers looked so close I didn't even bother increasing the sample size. So I'm left wondering what the cap on dex is % wise and what would increase my damage more substantially, Pie or Attack Power?

[carraway]

The old stat caps are from a very long time ago, pre-1.18. PIE should be worth more than ATK point-for-point.

[Arya]

Can anyone recommend a good parser that currently measures DPS accurately?

The best parser I've seen is ParseMod (you can find the main website if you Google - IDK if I'm allowed to link it directly here so have left it out to be safe), however, once it starts DPS calculation from fight #1, the timer keeps going even when you've stopped fighting so that when you start fight #2, if there has been a gap in time, your DPS calculation will take a hit as it's working out continuous DPS and not what you're actually doing in each fight (and then averaging that). The creator is working on a fix for this, but it's not available yet.

Until then it might be difficult for us to accurately/easily measure changes in stat alterations (I prefer DPS numbers over highs/lows).

If/when I do get an appropriate parser to do the testing, I was planning on doing 20 or 30 mobs for control/3x str+7 rings/3x pie+7 rings/3x dex+7 rings just to see for myself.

As we don't know what caps might be for stats now, i'll probably try and do this without other gear and using a simple non-materia'd bow to ensure all stats would definitely be significantly below any useful cap as my dex is now 272, and i'm not sure if that may be too high to see a difference with rings on if i'm close to cap.

If anyone else has experience of proper parsing tests (carraway?), then can you confirm if there are any other numbers you might want to see in the dataset? If i'm going to try and do this properly, i might as well try and do it properly the first time.

[carraway]

http://www.bluegarterls.com/forums/topic?id=8

+21 DEX vs +21 PIE vs +21 STR should be enough to observe an effect against L50 mobs (Amalj'aa Drubbers outside Zahar'ak are a great choice because they always spawn at the same level).

[Arcell]

Can't wait to see the results here. Judging by the Str or Pie thread, Piety > Strength as far as Archer is concerned. The stats were listed as Bonus 1 and Bonus 2 so it's possible that Dex = Piety > Strength

[Murugan]

Based on parses from the Moogle fight.

A comparison of Whiskerwall, Pukna, Pukni, and Woolywart. It appears based on our initial limited testing of 3 of our linkshell's archers that Attack Power has a significantly higher impact on damage when the mob in question itself has a high defense.

Archer 1:
Dexterity 287
Piety 233
Strength 215
Attack Power 531
Crit Attack Power: 34

Archer 2:
Dexterity: 315
Piety: 267
Strength 220
Attack Power: 502
Crit Attack Power: 0

Archer 3:
Dexterity: 316
Piety: 242
Attack Power: 502
Crit attack Power 36

Average of 3 parses (may do more testing now that we have the fight on farm status, however we are not guinea pigs our gear will probably have changed by the time I test again):




Now based on this it appears that Archer 2 comes out ahead. Supporting the hypothesis that DEX/PIE > ATK for endgame archers. Note the inconsistencies however, Archer 1 retains comparable damage and has top damage in certain areas. What's more interesting is that Archer 3 also shows very good damage in many areas, despite having a lower overall damage (and lower stats for the most part, other than the crit attack which could explain it).

Still overall looking at this, and as I'm sure many of you have done looking at full encounter parses (not filtered by individual moogle) I'd guess that an archer's priorities should be DEX>PIE>ATK in that order. Though given the wide damage ranges, it is hard to say for certain.

Now let's look at Whiskerwall on the same 3 fights:



The results here are far more clear, with Archer 1 seemingly having a significant advantage in many areas due to his higher attack value. Again the damage range plays havoc on consistency.

Now as I said these tests are extremely limited, and while I'm thinking right now that endgame Archers should focus on ATK>DEX>PIE (which really boils down to choosing Heaven's Fist on your gloves) I wouldn't recommend you go out and spend millions you can't afford just yet.

What I will say is this though, testing on normal mobs has extremely limited usefulness if it is true that Mob Defense and Player Attack are checked against each other, We have also tested and there does appear to be a damage cap in place (using lower level arrows and increasing stats).

[Kiara]

Hi Murugan,

Thanks for posting some data on the subject.

What was Archer 3's STR? (it's missing from your stat list above)

(And if STR raises Attack Power, which you think might be useful, have you tried switching in more STR to test?) Thanks.

[Murugan]

Archer 3 I believe had 226 STR, however I'm not 100% on that #.

As for Strength being useful, well it doesn't raise attack on the character sheet so it is hard to say what the formula is for STR>Attack Power.

It is probably worth testing especially since all the tests I have seen promoting DEX/PIE were either done on regular mobs (which as I have said I believe to be pointless) or if done on the Moogle/Ifrit fight were wracked with inconsistencies which could as easily be explained by the wide damage window (something my limited test tries to address even without statistical analysis by at least openly showing a variety of data, and people can look at that and clearly see how that data can skew the results), however right now I believe Heaven's Fist materia to be the meld of choice on hands.

As far as gear goes, hands seem to be the battleground. Materia melding on Hands is where people differ most, and where the most significant changes to attributes affecting damage can be made by their choice.

[Zdenka]

Nice post Muragan though it seems some inconsistencies.

Archer2 Heavy Shot did vastly more damage in the 3rd attempt, its not even a min-max at that point. Either both crit or both were stacked w/ Blood for Blood. The same with the Quick Nock that did 276, it was either a crit or a BfB and Archer 1 didn't ever get a crit on it to have a comparable "max". Overall Archer2 seems peculiar, attempt 2 he did not have Raging Strike up or something?

Archer2 also has superior gear to Archer1, but sorta ties him? I guess is what the chart says overall. Moogle is just sorta a blah fight to do tests on because theres too many random factors and the sample sizes are often small. Also you did not test anyone with stacked STR, all 3 archers in that have similar gear sets.

My ARC stats are 298 STR, 271 DEX, 545 ATK, 240 PIE and I do 20k+ more damage than the 2nd highest ARC in the Moogle fight. Theres not really any way to tell if its my gear, skill, rotation, etc thats causing that due to how many different scenario's can unfold in the particular fight.

I would like to know though is your damage %'s. My set up gets me 35-40% of my damage through LS/Barrage and the other 60% through WS's. It would be interesting if these high DEX set ups get 50%+ damage through LS/Barrage, then you could make a case such as:

DEX/PIE only increase LS/Barrage damage where STR/ATK increase WS damage. If DEX and PIE also increase WS damage then the ratio of a high DEX/PIE build should still get 35-45% roughly of its damage through LS/Barrage.

That was my original assumption when I allocated my stats on ARC, is that DEX/PIE is only going to affect LS based damage moves (just LS and Barrage) and STR would have a more profound effect on WS's. Its already clear STR and ATK have a very marginal effect on LS/Barrage but it doesn't seem like anyone did a solid test of WS damage yet.

This would also lead to more variants of ARC to test to find out if its better to pump WS damage or LS damage, or find a happy medium between the 2.

[Kiara]

Archer 3 I believe had 226 STR, however I'm not 100% on that #.

As for Strength being useful, well it doesn't raise attack on the character sheet so it is hard to say what the formula is for STR>Attack Power.

It is probably worth testing especially since all the tests I have seen promoting DEX/PIE were either done on regular mobs (which as I have said I believe to be pointless) or if done on the Moogle/Ifrit fight were wracked with inconsistencies which could as easily be explained by the wide damage window (something my limited test tries to address even without statistical analysis by at least openly showing a variety of data, and people can look at that and clearly see how that data can skew the results), however right now I believe Heaven's Fist materia to be the meld of choice on hands.

As far as gear goes, hands seem to be the battleground. Materia melding on Hands is where people differ most, and where the most significant changes to attributes affecting damage can be made by their choice.

Hi Murugan,

Great thoughts.

And as you say, it's unfortunate that the Character Sheet doesn't change to reflect when you increase STR for Attack Power.

I would be curious as you say (and as Zdenka mentions) if someone does a pure STR / Attack Power test (as the only change) vs. DEX vs. PIE to see the value of STR.