A little help with gearing

[Ninster]

At the moment I'm gearing up casters in Lore gear and now I'm up to gearing accessories. I'm confused by stat weights and BiS, though. If most stat weights are based off the main stat and look like this:

Main Stat = 1
Weapon = some high number
Secondaries = some miniscule number

then why do the secondaries become a major decision in gear comparisons and best in slot decisions? Do I really trade off my main stat in favor of better secondaries?

Also, I'm confused by crit and det. If crit does double work (both damage and crit chance), then why is determination even considered at all?

My apologies if the tone comes off wrong, I'm just wanting to make my own decisions as far as gearing instead of having to look up what's best.

[Krindor]

then why do the secondaries become a major decision in gear comparisons and best in slot decisions? Do I really trade off my main stat in favor of better secondaries?

Also, I'm confused by crit and det. If crit does double work (both damage and crit chance), then why is determination even considered at all?

My apologies if the tone comes off wrong, I'm just wanting to make my own decisions as far as gearing instead of having to look up what's best.

If by themselves the secondary stats of course have no significant difference but with 50-100 stats that's different. Say there's a SMN piece with 81 INT, 69 accuracy and 48 spell speed. With Dervy's stat weights that would be 87 INT. Now say there's a lower ilvl piece with 75 INT, 65 crit and 43 det, the resulting INT would be 100 which is a lot more INT than the other SMN piece. The reason to consider other stats are because of there being at least 2 stats per item.

[Maero]

Well back in 2.X determination was actually a better stat then crit for blm, now it is sort of reversed.
Crit=% of chance for damage to crit and more damage, however determination has no rng like factors and is a constant damage not reliant on % of chance.
The more crit you have the higher chance for it to happen.
What caster class are you thinking? I have not played smn for sometime so do not know how different from blm it is but blm it is WD> Spell Speed> Crit> Determination

[Ninster]

If by themselves the secondary stats of course have no significant difference but with 50-100 stats that's different. Say there's a SMN piece with 81 INT, 69 accuracy and 48 spell speed. With Dervy's stat weights that would be 146 INT. Now say there's a lower ilvl piece with 75 INT, 65 crit and 43 det, the resulting INT would be 258.45 which is a lot more INT than the other SMN piece. The reason to consider other stats are because of there being at least 2 stats per item.

Oh ok, thank you. Given your example, which would be in an accessory slot, is there any time that this would occur on a left-side piece, that is, would taking a VIT loss be okay in any situation?

[Jamillion]

Oh ok, thank you. Given your example, which would be in an accessory slot, is there any time that this would occur on a left-side piece, that is, would taking a VIT loss be okay in any situation?

There are times where that happens, usually with high level crafted gear.

[Krindor]

Oh ok, thank you. Given your example, which would be in an accessory slot, is there any time that this would occur on a left-side piece, that is, would taking a VIT loss be okay in any situation?

Yes, there are a few cases of it, especially with this tier of raiding due to crafted gear. This is especially true if your accuracy is already over cap were any additional accuracy would be a loss of stats and even with the weaker stats weights make a lower ilvl item better than a higher, a perfect example is the crafting casting chest piece for BLM which is better than the i230 and pentamelded is better than the i240 lore chest piece.

I'm currently doing A8S with both legs and chest being i220 and do not have any HP issues so no, in most cases the vit loss is worth it and won't affect you too much (If you're on A7S/A8S chances are you recieved a couple of i240 pieces that would be bringing you over VIT required anyways).

[Ninster]

Ok, thanks for the info guys. I guess I'll do a bit more research myself before dropping Lore blindly like I've been doing so far. Not sure if my Lodestone is showing my SMN (my "main", I guess), but I really haven't taken too much consideration about stats; just ilvl. That being said, I like to play Bard some on the side, so maybe I can make better judgment calls on gear selection with Bard.

All being said, I want to raid, or at least try out some of the harder content, but I don't have a group and I also want to make sure I'm geared up appropriately before I try to find one.

[Maero]

Also the gear calculator helps a ton for gearing as you can load your character and try different gear, add melds, etc..
http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/