The Crit, Direct Hit and Det system needs an overhaul.

[Ryaz]

As we saw in the Live Letter, they are making changes to Crit/Direct Hit so that party buffs aren't wasted on job like Warrior and Samurai who have auto-crit/dh attacks. Honestly I feel this is like a band-aid fix.

Right now, substat gearing doesn't really have much choice. Depending on the job, it's always SKS to what tier you want to avoid drift and hit burst windows (which is a whole other topic), then Crit > DH > DET.

The problem is, Crit and DH basically do the same thing. Crit is just a lower chance for a much bigger hit, with increasing damage the more you stack, while Direct Hit is a higher chance for a smaller amount of increased damage at a fixed damage percent. Sometimes both proc at once and then SE nerfs your job because it causes too much unpredictability.

Direct Hit itself was mostly a band-aid- a stat brought in to replace Accuracy and honestly, I don't think it was really needed. The issue is, stacking crit is always the best option because it also increases crit damage, so you have more chances for those huge hits, especially during burst windows. So, it's better to just stack that with some Direct Hit when you've got over-capping problems. Meanwhile, Determination is kind of the red-headed step-child that gets no love because it doesn't really bring anything to the table for those burst windows.

I'd honestly say rework Crit to just give Crit Chance while Direct Hit increases the potency of those Crits. This will make it more of a balancing act, where some jobs will look for the optimal balance between the two (and make DH more usefully for Healers) and some jobs with things like Auto-Crits will focus more on DH. Those that have DH increasing skills might want more Crit instead. It would shake things up a bit and not make it feel so redundant and samey (though obviously with every stat based game, someone will figure out the optimal numbers for each job).

As for DET, well, I feel it would need a change of some sort. I'm open to suggestions on that, but I feel it would need something more than it is now, where again, burst windows and Crit/DH are king. Maybe pair it will SKS where people who are terrible with burst windows can stack those two substats instead and go freesyling with less burst, but more steady damage over the course of the fight.

[ICountFrom0]

Yes. And that's why it's been worked on for the last few patches, tested on the beta servers, and then pushed back in the patch notes each time for months now.

It's not just as complicated as you think, it's worse.

[Jeeqbit]

What is the alternative to how it is now though?

• Accuracy (which DH replaced) just meant that everyone felt pressured to reach 100% accuracy in order to raid. It behaved as just a way to make it harder to get into raiding, when raiding isn't something the majority of people do in an MMO already.
• Parry (RNG mitigation that only works against physical attacks).
• Evasion (a stat that exists but not on our gear) is like RNG immunity against an attack.
• Elements (stats which increase damage against a specific element), obviously going to be annoying changing gear for every fight.
• Element defense (same thing)
• Determination (flat damage increase), already got it.
• Tenacity (flat damage reduction/increase), already got it.
• Skill/Spell Speed, already got it.

All those candidates would either be avoided, used to exist and were avoided, already exist or would make it more annoying and more of a chore to raid.

The stats are as good as they could be for a casual game. To do the examples I provided would start to create the chores we have from old mmos.

[LisSquid]

I'm jumping off what I was thinking about from the combat thread: I know it's annoying as sin, but I still think elemental defense/damage is a cool concept when tiers are thematically designed around not being as annoying as possible. IE: every boss requires you to swap all of your resistances, but it is, say, an ice themed tier and getting progressively more frost resistance feels meaningful as you prog.

I am coming off an all nighter and feeling a rekindled love of really stupid RPG elements devs are too afraid to modernize.

[Espon]

I think Crit and Determination are fine.

Skill Speed and Spell Speed should be combined, for the few jobs that use both.

Direct Hit should be changed into something else as it's too similar to Crit. One stat I always thought was neat in WoW was Mastery. It's basically a stat that does something different for each class and spec. For example: White Mage mastery could increase the healing and damage of their Lily abilities.

There's no fixing Tenacity or Piety without changing how incoming damage and MP works. Until wipes are possible due to tanks taking too much damage or healers running out of MP, people will always gear for DPS.

[drtasteyummy]

The idea of multiple stats with pure stat weight is obsolete and dead weight in MMOs, obviously the devs don't dare to touch it because
people would immediately cry how this destroys the immersion and how they always loved the system to be able to have a choice while simultaneously using the doc
of some math crackhead to auto optimize their character

[Ransu]

DH could honestly just be outright removed. It causes so many unnecessary problems.

[Deceptus]

What is the alternative to how it is now though?

Simple really. The FFXIV devs have already established they're fine with "role based stats" via Tenacity and Piety. Do the same with Direct Hit for DPS.

The reason Tanks Hate Tenacity and Healers Hate Piety is because they're objectively worthless. They need to be buffed.

Give every job 3 sub stats with tweaks for a "main substat" with 2 other minors

Tanks:

• Tenacity (Lowers Damage taken, increased healing received)
• Skill Speed
• Crit

Healers:

• Piety (Healing done / MP regen)
• Spell Speed
• Crit

DPS

• Direct Hit - becomes a DPS only stat. Let DPS be DPS and have the big numbers.
• Spell Speed / Skill Speed determine by caster or melee
• Crit

Yes this simplifies sub stats but it makes designing gear a hell of a lot easier when there's no "garbage" stat and no "garbage" gear pieces (tenacity/piety heavy gear currently. The above also reinforces role identity.

[AmiableApkallu]

I actually have no idea what happened, but I logged back on to my black mage after months and my Materia's said 0 in the Aglaia armor even though they did not say 0 when I melded them. I guess they've been messing with the stats?

They messed with them in Patch 6.11:

Resolved Issues
…
- An issue wherein the secondary attributes of Panthean gear obtained from the alliance raid Aglaia were incorrect.
- An issue wherein the secondary attributes of augmented classical gear obtained in exchange for crafted item level 580 gear were incorrect.

[Lunalepsy]

As we saw in the Live Letter, they are making changes to Crit/Direct Hit so that parry buffs aren't wasted on job like Warrior and Samurai who have auto-crit/dh attacks. Honestly I feel this is like a band-aid fix.

Right now, substat gearing doesn't really have much choice. Depending on the job, it's always SKS to what tier you want to avoid drift and hit burst windows (which is a whole other topic), then Crit > DH > DET.

The problem is, Crit and DH basically do the same thing. Crit is just a lower chance for a much bigger hit, with increasing damage the more you stack, while Direct Hit is a higher chance for a smaller amount of increased damage at a fixed damage percent. Sometimes both proc at once and then SE nerfs your job because it causes too much unpredictability.

Direct Hit itself was mostly a band-aid- a stat brought in to replace Accuracy and honestly, I don't think it was really needed. The issue is, stacking crit is always the best option because it also increases crit damage, so you have more chances for those huge hits, especially during burst windows. So, it's better to just stack that with some Direct Hit when you've got over-capping problems. Meanwhile, Determination is kind of the red-headed step-child that gets no love because it doesn't really bring anything to the table for those burst windows.

I'd honestly say rework Crit to just give Crit Chance while Direct Hit increases the potency of those Crits. This will make it more of a balancing act, where some jobs will look for the optimal balance between the two (and make DH more usefully for Healers) and some jobs with things like Auto-Crits will focus more on DH. Those that have DH increasing skills might want more Crit instead. It would shake things up a bit and not make it feel so redundant and samey (though obviously with every stat based game, someone will figure out the optimal numbers for each job).

As for DET, well, I feel it would need a change of some sort. I'm open to suggestions on that, but I feel it would need something more than it is now, where again, burst windows and Crit/DH are king. Maybe pair it will SKS where people who are terrible with burst windows can stack those two substats instead and go freesyling with less burst, but more steady damage over the course of the fight.

These secondary stats need more presence in the game instead of being a filler.