Serious Point Allocation Discussion

[SionDurant]

I was actually playing around with STR and MND last night before I used one of my stat reallocation items. I wanted to see how much of an effect STR had for PLD. I fought the same rank 50 Ixali outside of Natalan and only made one gear swap. I used a Cobalt Winglet with +30 STR then swapped it to a Cobalt Winglet with +30 MND.

The range of auto-attack damage spread out over 10 battles with each weapon was 146-172 with the STR Winglet, and 144-169 with the MND Winglet. This does not include crits and attacks while sentinel was up on the Ixali. The highest crit was 201 with the STR sword (no +crit attack equipped) and 198 with the MND sword.

Not the best sample size, but I also performed 10 non-critical Fast Blades with each sword and the averages for each were 438.67 with the STR sword and 442.89 with the MND sword. Again not a huge sample size, so take it with a grain of salt.

For solo/damage STR and MND seem to be fairly inter-changable. It seems as though the single biggest factor in damage is the physical attack stat. This might be obvious, but adding +ATK materia or gear will raise your damage potential more than adding an equal amount of +STR or +MND materia or gear.

MND does make a more noticeable difference for Cures. While it may not be a huge difference, +30 MND over +30 STR will create noticeable increases in HP cured by both Cure and Holy Succor. I have yet to test it, but just from eyeball observations last night I would not be surprised if MND is an additional modifier for Holy Succor.

So,

What you're saying is SE definitely needs to to give us an offensive stance increasing acc and dmg, similar to whm cleric stance.. At the cost of enmity production and some def to assure it not be used for easy mode dungeon runs.

( the same to mrds for fairness )

Or...

Fix how stats calculate and help all melee classes.

WoW addressed this issue by creating a mechanic called vengeance that boosts a tanks dmg in long with how much damage he or she takes. This isnt wow, but something sure would be nice by way of some kind of love for pally on the solo and group front.

[FraenirVolsung]

So,

What you're saying is SE definitely needs to to give us an offensive stance increasing acc and dmg, similar to whm cleric stance.. At the cost of enmity production and some def to assure it not be used for easy mode dungeon runs.

( the same to mrds for fairness )

Or...

Fix how stats calculate and help all melee classes.

WoW addressed this issue by creating a mechanic called vengeance that boosts a tanks dmg in long with how much damage he or she takes. This isnt wow, but something sure would be nice by way of some kind of love for pally on the solo and group front.

Well, I think stats remain fairly broken, although not as broken as they were 6 months to a year ago. It takes a ton of any one stat to make a real observable difference. I don't think that's exactly news either.

Since I've been playing WAR quite a bit lately, it's been fun making some comparisons. Take PLD with a Cobalt Winglet with +30 MND and WAR with a Demilune Bhuj with +30 VIT. My PLD's total STR and MND are within a few points of my WAR's total STR and VIT, so they should be fairly equal with one exception, the weapons. Just looking at auto-attack on a level 50 Ixali, my WAR hits for an average of 280 per swing with crits in the 330s. My PLD hits for an average of 160 with crits in the 190s. The delay on the sword is 2.6s and the delay on the axe is 4.0s. Now taking these numbers, and with the understanding that they are close approximations but not 100% exact, my WAR's DPS is 70 while my PLD's is 61.5.

Obviously, there are a ton of variables such as crit rate, accuracy, berserk, etc that figure into the final calculation of each jobs' DPS potential. I don't think SE ever intended PLD to be able to compete with a WAR in DPS. The fact that PLD isn't exactly a defensive stalwart just makes the difference stand out even more, but that topic has been discussed in a dozen other topics so no need to discuss it here.

WAR has Rampage and Berserk, so I would agree that a similar stance or ability that allowed a PLD to trade attack for defense or vice versa would be awesome.