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

[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.

[Murugan]

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?

However damage is calculated one thing is for sure, there is a very wide margin in damage.

In the third attempt (on Pomburner) notice that Archer 2 only used Heavy Shot twice. It did not have the highest max damage, but merely the highest average damage. That average is skewed because again there are only 2 heavy shots from Archer 2 that fight.

On Whiskerwall Archer 1 is clearly ahead. Yes there are still some areas where it is inconsistent, but far less than in support of DEX/PIE.

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.

Based on quick testing on patch day I did not feel it was worth testing STR at this time.

Also what the chart says is that Attack appears to play more of a factor the higher the defense the mob has, and that in general it appears to be more consistent with higher damage (when controlled for outliers caused by the wide margin of the damage formula)

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.

That is because you are focusing on the wrong numbers. Your total damage will be skewed if for example you hit Wide Volley and hit a bunch of Moogles (unintentially even), this contributes little to the fight unless as a group you are fighting them this way. The moogle will likely regen, and that extra damage and DPS you show overall may have actually meant very little.

This is not a comparison of DPS or Total Damage, this is a comparison of Max and Average damage. It is unaffected by how the scenario unfolds (except where you see invalid where I've had to invalidate Average results due to an archer hitting an immune Balloongle).

None of the abilities were used with buffs, there are no debuffs which could affect them. They are fighting a unique enemy (which should have identical stats every time), and they are wearing the same gear between the attempts. They are all using Ifrit's bow, with Cobalt Arrows.

The number of attacks is noted alongside the averages so that you can tell if the sample is smaller than usual (explaining inconsistencies in some areas).

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.

I have seen very little so far to support that hypothesis. As you see Archer 1's average light shot was higher in both fights with an Attack build.

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.

Most people are testing theories on normal mobs. However if there are checks comparing the player against the mob, fighting a mob lower than you (with a much lower defense than your attack) would likely not show how useful Attack Power actually is in encounters that actually matter (which if we are talking about Parses generally means endgame encounters).

They may be encountering either the aforementioned issue with the large damage margin on attacks, or hitting the damage cap *which is possibly tied to weapon damage* (assuming there is one, and I am as a member tested it using Dated Red Coral Arrow and hit a max of 906 in damage with 15 additional points in both DEX and PIE alternatively).

Again I realize my sample is too small to draw definite conclusions, and I'd encourage others to contribute to the discussion with similar data to see if they can verify it. However, parsing against normal mobs means nothing to an endgame archer if it can't be verified that those results/conclusions actually translate to endgame encounters.