ARR Attack Magic Damage Test (beta3) Int, dtr & acc

[Molly_Millions]

Hey Molly, in that guide, you suggest Dex as a tanking stat for the damage mitigation. I did a quick and dirty Dex and Parry test this last weekend (that, I admit, is hardly a rigorous examination of the stats, but my time and resources were limited, I plan on doing a much more in-depth study in Phase 4). My preliminary results show extremely disappointing returns on Dex and Parry on block rate, with a nice bump in Parry rate from the Parry stat only.

Originally I posted the results hyperbolously claiming "Dex is worthless", and I regret that claim now, as it clearly has worth, but until I have time to test further, I found Dex to be a marginal boost to damage mitigation at best (at least at entry levels of Dex). I'll repost my findings here, though when compared to Deli's I'm afraid the professionalism is somewhat lacking. When I do a more in depth test with more data points, I'll calculate a line of best fit and R² values.

That being said, would you go for DEX or VIT as PLD for your 2nd stat? (STR is clearly no. 1 for tanking.) It seems to me like it's a toss up, since VIT now only increases max HP.

I'm thinking it may still be worth it to stack DEX assuming you stack Parry as well, since you've doubling up on the damage mitigation. Otherwise, a VIT and determination build might be worth considering. Maybe I'll spell out the different paths...

[Hulan]

That being said, would you go for DEX or VIT as PLD for your 2nd stat? (STR is clearly no. 1 for tanking.) It seems to me like it's a toss up, since VIT now only increases max HP.

I'd have a hard time coming down on that decision until some more rigorous Dex testing is done (by myself or someone else). From a purely "how much health am I getting/mitigating" word of mouth says (I forgot to look myself, so I'll just have to take others' word for this) VIT returns ~8 HP per point, though other numbers have been quoted. Based on my findings, DEX returns ~0.13% increase in mitigation rate (mitigation in this case refers to in incident of either Block or Parry) per point. Each mitigation incident will block 14%-11% damage on a STR based PLD, resulting in an overall increase of 0.018% damage mitigation over time. On an enemy that hits for 1000 damage, that's going to result in a reduction of ~0.18 damage per attack (averaged out, in reality it's going to be a much more extreme distribution).

VIT is a sure thing, it will give you a flat buff to your survivability, at the cost of your healer's sanity (and MP). Dex is a gamble, where the more Dex you add, the higher your chances of winning but with higher returns than HP on a win. Stylistically, I want Dex to be a viable alternative. At this point though, I would need to find something very interesting at higher Dex/Parry values to make it worthwhile. It also depends on how high you can get your Block value with STR. If Block value can get up in the ~25% range, pumping Dex and trying to get that "win" to come up more often makes more sense.

[Molly_Millions]

I'd have a hard time coming down on that decision until some more rigorous Dex testing is done (by myself or someone else). From a purely "how much health am I getting/mitigating" word of mouth says (I forgot to look myself, so I'll just have to take others' word for this) VIT returns ~8 HP per point, though other numbers have been quoted. Based on my findings, DEX returns ~0.13% increase in mitigation rate (mitigation in this case refers to in incident of either Block or Parry) per point. Each mitigation incident will block 14%-11% damage on a STR based PLD, resulting in an overall increase of 0.018% damage mitigation over time. On an enemy that hits for 1000 damage, that's going to result in a reduction of ~0.18 damage per attack (averaged out, in reality it's going to be a much more extreme distribution).

VIT is a sure thing, it will give you a flat buff to your survivability, at the cost of your healer's sanity (and MP). Dex is a gamble, where the more Dex you add, the higher your chances of winning but with higher returns than HP on a win. Stylistically, I want Dex to be a viable alternative. At this point though, I would need to find something very interesting at higher Dex/Parry values to make it worthwhile. It also depends on how high you can get your Block value with STR. If Block value can get up in the ~25% range, pumping Dex and trying to get that "win" to come up more often makes more sense.

Here's something to consider. You can almost always add DEX to your tank gear, but you can almost never add much VIT. If you cap DEX, you can sometimes still add a little VIT. You have to consider how stat caps work in ARR, we can't simply add 5 VIT materia onto a chest piece any more.

As for STR, the value comes not only from damage mitigation, but from greater DPS and greater enmity by extension. That being the case STR is the best choice for primary stat. However, it also follows the same rule as VIT, the best tanking gear is almost always capped on STR. Really the debate is not over if STR and DEX are better than VIT, it's whether VIT is better than DEX, as STR is the best stat for a tank.

[Deli]

Oh my...
I didn't notice that i said 'dtr almost have no contribution...' i missed at naked situation...words.
Though i don't quite think it's lv relative tho...should say high stats maybe...but big hvinire must know some super secrets about it.

But...big hvinire saw through my test pattern... a detailed dtr vs damage test is planning and still no one knows.
/confident

[carraway]

Thanks for the information. I'd also like to add that, on the melee side, determination has a higher proportionate effect on autoattacks vs weaponskills; I would imagine that the comparison holds true for autoattacks vs spells, but it bears investigating.

I personally tested an 83 determination gap on DRG to deduce that, very roughly, with a 44 base wDMG (weapon damage) and 45.76 base aaDMG (auto-attack damage) rating, 1 actual damage point : ~3.89 STR : ~9.22 DET. With WSs, 1 dmg : ~4.12 STR : ~16.6 DET.

My guess is that you'll see a similar ratio with spells, 1 dmg : 4 INT : 16 DET.

edit: Actually, I could be really off on the actual numbers, because I'm not sure exactly what the relationship is between weapon magic damage and whether you can correlate it to weapon physical damage, but I believe the general idea will hold -- that it'll take a very large amount of DET to get one point of damage in return.

[indira]

Strength
Increases melee attack power and the percentage of damage mitigated by block and parry.

Dexterity
Increases ranged attack power and the chance of blocking or parrying an attack.

Vitality
Increases maximum HP.

Intelligence
Increases attack magic potency

Mind
Increases healing magic potency.

Piety
Increases maximum MP.

[Deli]

Intelligence
Increases attack magic potency

Mind
Increases healing magic potency.

One more thing to add to this is that during all the test I done above the Healing magic potency = mind value; Attack magic potency = int value; Clerk Cleric Stance didn't boost 10% to attack magic potency. so I guess they make the display more clear in 2.0. no more weird magic potency then you convert to actual cure/ damage.

[indira]

Clerk Stance swaps int and mnd. 10% attack is only gonna hit double digits extra.

[Deli]

updated the dtr scan test...

Really thanks for Hvinire's dev tag tho. I was seriously thinking that I should post more tests here or no.

[Deli]

If you don't have much time, I'll suggest do a base, like your dex 196, then do an max, such as dex 296.
I was doing that for my dtr test since the first 2 didn't show much difference, and I lose faith. You can fill the points little by little. At least, you'll feel safer that knowing your time investment is worth a little or no.

You are extremely brave to do the test involve with chance @@:::
It might need large amount of data like yours 1000 attacks to get a valid point. That's why I skip the critical damage analysis ^^: But come to think about it... adding 20 dtr only add roughly 0.4% to the magic damage initially; while adding 20 int +4.5% to damage, I think just in 2.0 we shouldn't expect too much on the stats...

dodging is the way to be the best tank

I was in a dungeon with some japanese this past weekend... I was on whm again and like..."oh! so this is how easy this dungeon is if the tank dodged the poison breath..." >"<