ATK power VS VIT

[Galliano]

Ok I know that this is kind of a strange comparison but let me explain. I've capped my STR on WAR and now I'm wondering if I should sacrifice some of my +atk power gear in order to also cap VIT for the damage boost, or would it be more beneficial to leave VIT as is and keep the + atk power gear?

VIT at the moment is 279, in order to cap I would need to drop 40 atk power and 5 ACC

so to summarize I'm only interested in the damage output not the other benefits of VIT, I just want to know which will give me the better DPS.

[Molly_Millions]

If you want more damage output, keep the +attk power. If you want to decrease your damage output while increasing defense and adding a minute amount of HP, add VIT.

The benefit of VIT comes from the fact that it affects multiple stats at once. If you're satisfied with your DEF, there really is no reason to swap attk power for VIT.

[Galliano]

I think you misunderstood me, I was referring to the fact that VIT is a modifer for warrior main hand damage, so I was wondering if the damage modification from capping VIT outweighed the damage boost from +40 ATK power.

[Molly_Millions]

I think you misunderstood me, I was referring to the fact that VIT is a modifer for warrior main hand damage, so I was wondering if the damage modification from capping VIT outweighed the damage boost from +40 ATK power.

I understood you perfectly. The simple answer is no.

If you change the question to be which is more beneficial, then you have to account for the other effacts of VIT. In terms of damage output alone, it's attk power > VIT.

[GreyJorildyn]

I understood you perfectly. The simple answer is no.

If you change the question to be which is more beneficial, then you have to account for the other effacts of VIT. In terms of damage output alone, it's attk power > VIT.

Please see the 1.20 patch notes.

Here let me paste the excerpt for you:

Vitality
Damage taken
Enhancement Magic Potency
Maximum HP
Damage dealt by marauder arms

≪Auto-attack Damage Bonus≫
Class Bonus 1 Bonus 2
Pugilist Intelligence Strength
Gladiator Mind Strength
Marauder Vitality Strength
Archer Dexterity Piety
Lancer Piety Strength
Conjurer Mind Piety
Thaumaturge Mind Piety

Each VIT is going to add some attack to every swing of the axe. No it's not a solid +1 as attack but it also modifies WS damage. Don't tell people just a flat-out NO because that is misleading. Holy shit stop giving me people bad advice.

[Molly_Millions]

Each VIT is going to add some attack to every swing of the axe. No it's not a solid +1 as attack but it also modifies WS damage. Don't tell people just a flat-out NO because that is misleading. Holy shit stop giving me people bad advice.

Dude, you are seriously an idiot. Quit trying to make mountains out of mole hills. In terms of damage output +1 VIT < +1 attack power. Is that easy enough for your simple mind to comprehend?

In addition, you can add attack power in the following increments:

4-10
12-15
20-25
26-30


VIT can be added as follows:

1-5
6-10
11-15
16-20


So based on that, you get more points attack power for a given tier of materia than you get VIT for that same tier. So in terms of dmg output for the same tier of materia, it's attk over VIT. Grey, If you don't get it after that, then there is no hope for you.

[GreyJorildyn]

ooo name calling. I'll answer your silly reply in the other thread here as well since they are relevant to one another.

Fact is there is no testing I've seen (outside of STR/PIE/ATK testing from LNC/ARC) that describes a numerical relationship between between the primary stat of a class and how it affects auto-attack and ws damage directly. What has been observed is there appears to be a point in which the bonus stops having a significant or measurable effect on damage. Thus it would be an assumption to conclude that in all situations +1 VIT < +1 attack power. If VIT effects both auto-attack damage and WS damage, then the combined effect there could well overcome the bonus from +1 attack, we just don't know.

I apologize if it seemed like I was making a mountain of a molehill but I don't think in all scenarios we can make that claim without more supporting evidence. Plus I'd never advise someone not to cap their stats and instead get attack. Just seems to go against what we definitely do know is true in place of what you think might be best in all scenarios. If that was the case, people would just cap str, ignore the other stat, and stack attack. See my point?

[Galliano]

Thanks for your responses guys. I was kinda leaning towards attack anyway, but I'd never seen any info on the amount VIT modifies damage output so was a little unsure and thought it best to ask. I may even go for both gear sets and do some parsing myself and post the info here for others to see.

On a side note: the extra VIT or ATK would have been from stats already on gear; not materia added to gear.

[Rexus]

This is generally what I've been going off of, since it's the only testing I've seen to be pretty thorough...

The TL;DR is:

1 STR = 0.8 "damage" increase, up to 350~, then 0.25 "damage" increase
1 Secondary Stat = 0.7 "damage" increase, up to 310~, then no "damage" increase
1 Att = 0.35 "damage increase, with no max

So lets look at your situation. If you are at 279 VIT, you need about 31 more VIT to cap out. If you went this route, you'd sacrifice 40 ATT and 5 ACC. Using the above ratios we get..

31 VIT = 21.7 "damage" increase

40 ATT = 14 "damage" increase

Your WS damage will easily be better if you went the VIT route. More than likely though, your AA damage will be better using the ATT. I personally think you should go the VIT route since WAR is more WS based. Just my 2 cents, not saying I'm 100% right!

I finally got done testing the new stats caps on all the relevant melee classes. SE made some pretty big changes over the stat system. I wasn’t able to go in depth as I wanted (testing dLVL mods, dDMG mods, etc), but I hope this is enough information for most players to get a good grasp on how to improve their overall DPS.

Results

Strength
Strength underwent a pretty major overall in patch 1.21. For DRG, MNK, and WAR, Strength has the highest return of any stat, point-for-point. On the R52 Halberdiers, I was getting roughly 0.8 dDamage/dSTR. That means for every 1 point of Strength I added, my damage increased by 0.8 for the weaponskills I tested. Furthermore, the “soft cap” for STR has been raised this patch. The new soft cap is around 350. This means that after you reach 350 STR, any additional damage bonus you receive is from the 3:2 STR:ATK bonus (which I reconfirmed this patch). The post-350 bonus is only 0.23-0.25 dDamage/dSTR, which is much less than any other stat modifier.
It is important to note that Auto-attack is soft capped really early on with Strength. I didn’t pinpoint the exact value, but every Dragoon should be above this cap anyways so it’s not that relevant. The point is, STR has its biggest influence on Weaponskills not Auto-attack.

Piety
Piety underwent the biggest stat modification for Dragoon in 1.21. Previously Piety had no influence on WS damage. Now Piety has a roughly 0.68-0.7 dDamage/dPIE. This means for every 1 PIE you add, you will increase your WS damage by 0.68-0.7. Unlike Strength, Piety has a “hard cap” around 310 PIE. This means that you will receive NO damage bonus for any additional Piety added.
It is also important to note that Auto-attack is hard capped really early on with Piety. I hard capped Piety somewhere between 273 and 291, with an extrapolated value at 285. Every Dragoon should be getting Piety above this value so it isn’t that relevant. Still, like Strength, Piety has its biggest influence on Weaponskills.

Attack Power
Attack for the most part remained unchanged in 1.21. There is still no obvious cap on high level monsters and Attack influences both Auto-attack and Weaponskills at roughly the same rate, 0.35-0.37 dDamage/dATK. The only thing that really changed about Attack is that compared to Piety and Strength, it has a much lower influence on WS damage now.
It is important to note, however, that since Attack has no cap, it has the highest return on Auto-attack after STR and PIE cap early on.

Discussion
Patch 1.21 has brought about some pretty drastic changes to stats. While I only tested 1-2 WSs, Strength and Piety seem to be the paramount stats to focus on for increasing Weaponskill damage. This is especially true with DRG (and MNK) since DRG has Keen Flurry and a host of low-cooldown WSs. Attack power still has some impact, but is not nearly as important as it was before. I still have to do some more research into boss fights. But I think WS damage composes the bulk damage (60-70%).

Side Notes:
I don’t really want to make a new thread for WAR and MNK, so just replace most of what I said about PIE in here with INT or VIT for MNK/WAR. All 3 had STR capped around 350 and PIE/VIT/INT capped around 310. They all had very similar rates as well...

[Molly_Millions]

This is generally what I've been going off of, since it's the only testing I've seen to be pretty thorough...

The TL;DR is:

1 STR = 0.8 "damage" increase, up to 350~, then 0.25 "damage" increase
1 Secondary Stat = 0.7 "damage" increase, up to 310~, then no "damage" increase
1 Att = 0.35 "damage increase, with no max

So lets look at your situation. If you are at 279 VIT, you need about 31 more VIT to cap out. If you went this route, you'd sacrifice 40 ATT and 5 ACC. Using the above ratios we get..

31 VIT = 21.7 "damage" increase

40 ATT = 14 "damage" increase

Your WS damage will easily be better if you went the VIT route. More than likely though, your AA damage will be better using the ATT. I personally think you should go the VIT route since WAR is more WS based. Just my 2 cents, not saying I'm 100% right!

Where did you find this magical post? (the link goes to a completely different post) I use a parser fairly often these days, and although I haven't gone through and tested everything. I concluded that adding + attk added more overall damage. I didn't know the cap for VIT, my VIT is at 318 in my tanking set for example.