Attack vs. Primary/Secondary Stats

[zzapp]

I apologize, up front, for this very basic question - in general terms how does attack play into the damage calculation? I.E. - Does it affect both AA and WS? In gearing my DD classes/jobs, how do I know if attack > my primary or secondary class attribute stats. Would it be safe to say that attribute stats > attack until cap is reached. I hope this question isn't too general. Thanks, in advance for your tutorage/guidance.

[TaalAzura]

Stats like STR raise the highest potential amount of damage that you can deal, where as ATK PWR raises the chance of hitting closer to that cap, atleast AFAIK.

[Jekyll]

Attack does raise the damage of both AA and WS, as does raising your primary stats. However, until you reach cap, you get more damage out of raising your stats. After reaching cap, you get more out of raising attack. Hope this helps!

[WendyMarvell]

Okay... so in general before you reach cap both stats and atk raise your WS damage. In terms of AA the stats cap a lot earlier than they cap on WS. The increases are linear, therefore its something like this:

cap stats till AA cap > ??? depends on target, and the amounts of stat vs atk that your trade offs are

In general, the WS to AA dmg ratio that the dow do favors WS so much that capping the raw stats seems to be the way to go for more dmg dealing, but the stuff above is just to be clear that there is a possible argument where stacking atk might be situationally better.

Note: depending on the weapon the stat cap is different, but for ifrit's its 350/310 for everything but brd which is 300/330 caps go higher as dps on weapon increases.

Borrowed info from : Kaeko and Seiken Valk and some others ... too lazy to pull up the info.

Google: Stats and how they work ffxiv

[zzapp]

Thank you for taking the time to detail this for me. Just to be clear the primary and secondary stats affect both AA and WS? Is it accurate to say that weapon 'damage' relates directly to AA, while 'DPS' is to WS? (at least I think this is true for arc/brd)

Hopefully, I have the above right, so generally, I improve damage by adding primary and secondary stats until caps are achieved, at which point, it's better to add attack, thereafter?

Thanks.

[Fadigre]

Stats like STR raise the highest potential amount of damage that you can deal, where as ATK PWR raises the chance of hitting closer to that cap, atleast AFAIK.

What the devil is AFAIK?

[Doho]

What the devil is AFAIK?

as far as I know.

[Tango]

so far we don't have any new testing on attack vs main stat and 2ndary stat on AA and WS's post the new stat revamps where they bumped up the effect of raw stats on dmg. It used to be ATK > everything, then we had kaeko's testing and got the stat caps testing and the 3STR => 2attack ratio past stat caps. Then we got the base line testing only after the changes on lvl 52 drubbers. Showing STR = .8 and off stat = .7~'ish. We never got any dlvl testing post those 1.22 changes. Many of the ppl who I trust highly are saying ATK might be worth more then base stats on harder mobs like ifrit or garuda. Bottom line I don't think we have any testing on this yet.

I have made a few bad posts in the past few months myself indicating the usefulness of stat over atk and i recant those posts I missunerstood what was tested by seiken and kaeko. Bottom line we don't know what is better and when just yet. The only slot that this really is an issue is for the gloves and what materia should be prioritized.

[Colino]

so far we don't have any new testing on attack vs main stat and 2ndary stat on AA and WS's post the new stat revamps where they bumped up the effect of raw stats on dmg. It used to be ATK > everything, then we had kaeko's testing and got the stat caps testing and the 3STR => 2attack ratio past stat caps. Then we got the base line testing only after the changes on lvl 52 drubbers. Showing STR = .8 and off stat = .7~'ish. We never got any dlvl testing post those 1.22 changes. Many of the ppl who I trust highly are saying ATK might be worth more then base stats on harder mobs like ifrit or garuda. Bottom line I don't think we have any testing on this yet.

With all the possible changes coming in 2.0 I doubt anyone would take the time and the effort to test everything before it's out. Hopefully we can get all the details then.

[Tango]

I would put money on 2.0 not changing underlying battle mechanics. 2.0 is a graphics/UI overhaul Thats why they pushed so hard to get everything balanced out pre 2.0 battle wise.