what stats do i need? what cross job skills should i use?

[Estellios]

You really don't need to debate whether or not to gear for INT anyway since INT doesn't compete with any other materia in the head slot, except for possibly Magic Evasion. I suppose accessories would be an issue but food and potions coming next patch should help you offset any of your deficiencies.

[silverdragontyr]

For the record, that Archer test shows that stats did not cap at 280, but gave diminishing returns. Furthermore your own tests show increasing Str by +20 gave only an increase of damage by 3 points of damage. You also did not show what exact enemies you used or how many of each. For the most accurate test, you need to use enemies of all the exact same type, of the exact same level, and at least 500+ kills to negate any form of variance.

However, for all those wondering to use, use what gear you feel is best and makes you feel you are doing your best damage. Don't worry too much about increasing your damage to as much of any miniscule amount you can, it will kill you and may make the game not fun haha.

For my own personal gear(I'm still working on, all materia x2/3 melds), I am aiming for gloves with atk+ materia, Felt Trousers with Str/Vit materia, Head piece with Int materia, and Body piece crit+ materia. For feet, well it doesn't matter much. You can either use Element potency+(which itself is debated), or evasion materia. Other slots I'm not too concerned about, probably going to go for some enmity- belt so when Mnk comes I don't get myself killed doing 1,000 Fists/Kick attacks/Element Fists haha.

[Almalexia]

First, you don't need to speak for any record. There is a record already.

From the ARC thread:

After reaching a threshold of 280 Dexterity, adding any more dexterity (up to 325 in my data collection) appeared to add no damage whatsoever to Light Shot or Heavy Shot.

Also, similar to Dexterity, Piety seemed to “cap” at 280.

Seiken found that these two stats were capped. Not capped with diminishing returns, simply no returns at all.

Second, the increase of STR from trial 1 to trial 2 was 23 STR and of 2.79 average damage. The increase from trial 2 to trial 3 was 24 STR and 1.64 average damage. Hence, "~23 STR" for "~2 average damage"--an average of the averages to compare it to ATK. It is entirely possible STR has diminishing returns, and if I had more STR gear I could probe further, but that's not at issue here. What matters is that STR doesn't cap at 280 and gives returns on into the 300s, and ATK has even greater returns than STR.

Next, I stated at the beginning that my target was Lv. 52 Zaharak Halberdiers.

Finally, yes, the one thing you can fault me on is neglecting to mention my sample size. I generally do 500 hit (excluding critical hit) trials. Allow me to add that to my post to avoid further confusion.

I strongly advise against using gut feeling to judge character optimization. Eyeballing figures will almost always make you see things you want to see, and none of what you don't want to see. That's why we have parsers, and math, so we can know.

[silverdragontyr]

This is very true, gut feelings often misinterpret what is there. I appreciate you clearing that up. Thank you. It's possible why Str appears to give greater and continuous returns, is people have theorized that Str gives atk+ as well, but doesn't appear on stat page. Is it true? I can't say.

Honestly I hate parsers. Trying to optimize your character is one thing, and I have used some of these tests to try and better myself. The problem I have with them, and I have experienced this with LS mates too, is when people start micro-managing stats. Claiming they are a better DD then you because they did 100-1000 more damage then you, when the fight lasted 15 minutes and every DD had 60k damage. Or some of these cases, increasing your damage by such small points that it'd take 200 hits/cure/WS w/e to even affect your damage, then advising people to spend millions of gil on materia to get these results.

This thread was started asking for advice and I just want to give people the best general idea without forcing it down their throat. If people want to spend the gil for this, by all means go ahead. If it helps you enjoy the game more, sure go right to it. But don't feel you don't do this you'll suck. Or if you don't think it will justify the increase/vs work. It will give you a headache. Trust me.

[Almalexia]

I'm sure you have seen from reindeer Moogles and swimsuit Ifrits that the awful truth of FFXIV is how stats don't mean much. The right weapon, the right skills and the right brain are all you need to succeed (though the left brain can help).

My goal is not to force a PGL paradigm down anyone's throat; this is just an attempt to understand game mechanics. If someone wants to use this information to set a standard for elitism, fine. If someone wants to ignore it completely and play dress-up, whatever. I can only hope people will use the knowledge and discussion here to become better PGLs instead of resorting to mental magic or internet rumors.

[RinMorikaze]

Almalexia, you my friend, have some of the best posts (only seven!?) I have read in quite some time. You should post more, simply because I said so.