A debate on Stats

[Nox]

Alright, so I know what stats do, but I'm not sure (especially with my job) what to put all the bonus stat points into. I get that classes are supposed to be less specialized than their job counterparts, which is what spawned the idea for this thread, I suppose. I don't want to focus on one job with this thread just in case some other newer players have the same question, so yeah. Basically, my questions right now are... should melee dps jobs focus on strength alone so they do more damage? If so, then I suppose ranged dps (bard) should focus on dexterity so they do as much damage as possible. But that spawns a different question. If I'm not mistaken, Bard is basically a Red Mage with a bow, so what about for those? Should the tanking jobs focus on vitality for extra health? But then without the extra dexterity, they won't parry/block as much. I think the caster classes are more... self-explanatory, though I could be wrong. I could be over thinking this whole thing, but I don't know. I'm just looking for guidance.

[Sapphos]

Personally I'd put your additional points in your strong stat (Like MND for SCH,CNJ,WHM)

Also I've been told as of right now it seems that strength is more important than vitality for GLD/PLD as I've seen a few posts saying that it seems a higher strength stat leads to greater emnity from Flash.

[Nox]

Now I find that strange. In a classic tanking sense, I'd imagine that Vitality would be the most important, followed by a mixture of dexterity and strength. Seeing as dex governs how often you block/parry and strength is, not only melee damage, but also how much you parry for, I figured that would be the most "tanky" spec. Maybe I'm thinking of it in too much of a WoW or other mmo sense, but tanks are generally classed by their health, damage mitigation, threat generation, and survivability. In that order. Maybe I'm just thinking about it too much.

[FreelanceWizard]

For pure casters (CNJ, THM, and presumably ACN, as well as their jobs), sink all of your points into your "efficacy" stat, since you'll only rarely be low on MP and the effects of an increase in your MP stat are relatively small. So, that's MND for healers and INT for DD.

 

For melee DD, every point should go into your "efficacy" stat (STR for LNC and PUG, DEX for ARC) because that's your only job. In solo play, you'll get more mileage out of maximizing damage due to your weak defenses.

 

For tanks, it's not quite as clear-cut right now. VIT would seem a good choice so you can soak up more damage, but unless you get an effect that gives you a percentage increase to HP, the effects of added VIT seem relatively useless versus the effects of a competent healer. Block rate (DEX) is an interesting question, and I'm not sure all the math is in on it yet; because XIV doesn't seem to use a "hit table" system like WoW, block rate doesn't have any special unexpected effects. In general, I tend to prefer block rate over block strength (consistent mitigation is easier to deal with than spiky but large mitigation, IMO), but it also seems like added DEX doesn't increase your block rate that much.

 

So, that leaves STR. For an MRD, a lot of your threat is based on your damage output, so there's a strong argument for maximizing STR for them. For GLA, I personally think block rate is too hard to raise via DEX to outweigh the multiple benefits of STR (block strength and damage, which includes threat on attacks or combos with "additional enmity" as an effect).

 

So, in short, it looks like you should always put your points in your "efficacy" stat, which is MND for CNJ; INT for THM; DEX for ARC; and STR for LNC, PUG, MRD, and GLA.

[Nox]

So, in short, it looks like you should always put your points in your "efficacy" stat, which is MND for CNJ; INT for THM; DEX for ARC; and STR for LNC, PUG, MRD, and GLA.

 

Hm... This game proves to be unlike the ones I've played before. Thank you both for clearing that up.

[FreelanceWizard]

Yeah, it's a little weird compared to other games, and I think a lot of it has to do with the weakness of adding a point of VIT versus the added threat of putting points into STR. In a lot of other MMOs, threat maintenance is performed with abilities that put you on the top of the list automatically and abilities that add a flat amount of threat; in XIV, there's one ability for GLA that acts like a normal "taunt," and everything else other than Flash seems to be Damage times a Threat Modifier (and Flash's threat may well be tied to STR too). So, since you hold aggro by beating the mob senseless with +Enmity effects, STR seems a logical choice since bosses and other "elite" mobs can squish a non-tank in a couple of swings when you get into the mid-range levels.

 

Block rate's still up in the air right now, I think. I'd be curious to see the effects of very high DEX on survivability relative to the loss of threat from a lower STR, but I don't know that anyone's put that much effort into it yet. I hope we see an avoidance tank job come out that would make block rate an especially interesting choice, but avoidance tanks tend to cause healers to pull their hair out.

[Koninbeor]

The block rate by increasing DEX will have to be substantially better than 1.0 to justify tanks putting points there. The percentage was so negligible that it was simply a waste to put any points there at all. STR was a much better choice than DEX because it helped to increase threat. Holding threat had a more significant impact on most parties than a slightly increased block rate. This is what all the number crunching I've seen indicates.

[Myxie Tryxle]

The way I look at it, you can't go wrong putting points in the primary stat for your class.  It's also easy to figure out which is the primary stat for your class.  When you open up your powers, you can go to traits.  Every class gets multiple passive boosts to the same stat as they level.  For marauder and gladiator it's vitality.  For pugilist and lancer it's strength.  For archer it's dexterity.  For arcanist and thaumaturge, it's intellect.  For conjurer, it's mind.  I don't see any reason for anyone to put their extra points in piety, as I never had any problem with mana pool as a thaumaturge or conjurer.  The very rare time I ran out of mana it was because my group was playing terribly, and a few points in piety won't fix that.

 

As a level 25 thaumaturge, I think I had around 10 stat points distributed.  I could have easily gotten 10+ more through the materia sockets in my gear, and that's with materia rank 1 (it goes up to rank 4 at level 50).  My guess is you'll have a lot more flexibility in how you socket your gear to help fill out stats where you may need some flexibility.  I plan to spend my stat points on my primary stat and play around with materia if I need a little more mana or want to try to make an avoidance or aggro build for tanking.  Materia is easy to swap around to play with, but stat point assignments are permanent, so they should probably go into your best stat.

[Koninbeor]

The issue with Vitality is that it lacks diversity and gives a static bonus. Now this is certainly old information so we cannot know for certain until we can do thorough testing of the new system. In 1.0, Strength and Dexterity worked on a percentage based system where Vitality gave a flat bonus to HP. Strength affects the amount of damage that you deal in addition to determining how much damage you are able to mitigate by blocking. Dexterity determines your ranged attack damage and increases the likelihood that you will block. Vitality, however, only increases HP. No one, as far as I ever saw, was able to give an example of any battle in which a tank was better off buffing his HP rather than increasing damage and damage mitigation in blocking. The fact that Gladiators and Marauders both get bonuses to their health helps to diminish the significance of pumping points into vitality.

 

There is a long road of theory crafting ahead of us, of course. Only time will tell what serves a tank better. The other classes tend to be a bit more clear cut. I do look forward to seeing results no matter which path the numbers end up favoring.

[Xeon]

So im curious and felt in unessessary to create an entierly new post for this alone.

 

But block rate vs block strength? Most of the beta i went out and tanked up to lv 35 mostly with shields with a high block rate. I played as a gladiator. So do they server different purposes like for different bossess and so on? Or are they just mostly about which you prefer?

 

-Xeon

[FreelanceWizard]

As far as I've seen, VIT continues to be a flat increase to HP per point. (Damned if I remember what it is, though... I want to say +15 HP/VIT, but that's probably not right.)

 

Block rate versus block strength, at its core, comes down to mitigation type. It appears that XIV uses a separate roll after the attack roll for blocks, as I've blocked crits before and mitigated them down. So, ultimately, overall mitigation for a block can be calculated as block rate * block strength (if you block 50% of the time for -15% damage, your total mitigation over time is -7.5% from block). However, in practice, all fights are the "short run," to borrow an economics term, and so block rate and block strength have different "feels".

 

A high block rate and low block strength means that your mitigation is more consistent, so you block for less but do it more often. This produces a low variation in mitigation such that your health slowly decays by a consistent rate. A high block strength and low block rate makes your mitigation more random -- similar to an avoidance tank. You block for more but it happens less often. The result is a high variation in mitigation and a "spikier" health curve.

 

Of course, what you really want is high values in both, but assuming you can't realistically get that, I think most healers would prefer high block rate, as it makes their jobs easier. They can more easily predict your health decay and time heals better for maximum efficiency (despite XI players in XIV demanding you overheal and keep them topped up all the time ). However, high block strength has its place, too. Encounters where mobs generate unavoidable massive damage attacks can benefit from a chance, however small, to mitigate more of that damage. Solo, high block strength can make you feel more survivable.

 

EDIT: As far as tanks are concerned, though, I'd still go with the STR. Survivability doesn't seem to be a big problem with tanks in dungeons and FATEs so far; threat, however, is. Anything to help increase your threat generation is good, and that your mitigation improves as part of it is a nice side effect. Also, killing faster really what ultimately matters (no one got XP for surviving a long time, after all ), so adding damage is also good. All in all, STR seems to be the best tanking stat based on the available data thus far. Endgame dungeons and raids, however, might change that.

[Xeon]

Thanks for the detailed awnser about Block rate vs Block rate.

 

About Threat generation, i played gladiator up to level 35, did every instance multiple times. And i can't really say i had any problem with the Threat, Only sometimes when some dps strayed from said targets so i had to tank multiple targets at once. I played through plenty of Fate's both the kind with high hp "bosses" and those with more wave like and neither there i can't really say that i was loseing threat. I had pretty much placed 8 stat points or something all in VIT. So while i guess STR can help with Threat generation, im not certain the numbers its about will help "THAT" much.

 

My thought is rather than throwing everything into one stats, as a tanking class you shall split up the points like 2 str, 2 vit, 1 agi every 5 points. But thats just my opinion

 

To conclude, from my experience if you lose agro you probably either have a bad rotation or bad tactics whilst doing so (No offense intended). On a side note, Several of the fate's i did was obviously some with annother tank whether it be a warrior or a glad, I never really did lose agro.

 

-Xeon

[Naunet]

So, in short, it looks like you should always put your points in your "efficacy" stat, which is MND for CNJ; INT for THM; DEX for ARC; and STR for LNC, PUG, MRD, and GLA.

This is supported by the fact that gear comes with stat caps, which means there's only so many times you can slot a +MND materia into a materia socket. It's largely going to be used to supplement your secondary stats, as they are less likely to come already stat-capped on your gear. This makes the primary stat of you class/job more appealing for the attribute points and the secondary stats more appealing for materia distribution.

 

On a side note, I find the attribute point system utterly useless and about as archaic in design as WoW's very first foray into talent trees. There's zero thought that goes into distributing your points; you just dump them all in your primary stat. I really wish ARR had gone with a more modern approach to point systems, where your options affect real change in your gameplay, rather than representing flat stat boosts.

[FreelanceWizard]

To conclude, from my experience if you lose agro you probably either have a bad rotation or bad tactics whilst doing so (No offense intended). On a side note, Several of the fate's i did was obviously some with annother tank whether it be a warrior or a glad, I never really did lose agro.

 

The problem I've run into while tanking at lower levels is a lack of tools for threat unless you cross-class, and bad tactics by DPS. While the former gets fixed while you level up, the latter is always going to be a problem, especially if you fill slots with the duty finder, and evidently especially if you get an Archer.* More threat generation helps in those instances, but that said, as a wise man once put it, "You can't fix stupid."

 

* I'm not saying all Archers are like this, but in the (substantial number) of dungeons and Guildhests I ran in P2 and P3 while playing all three roles, Archers and Bards were consistently the absolute worst DPS players, and most of them were "LOL"-style unrepentant about it. I don't know if I just had bad luck or what, but if you play an Archer, watch your threat meter and don't be that guy (who pulls aggro, who attacks different mobs, who breaks Sleep, who breaks Sleep "to make the fight tougher lol", who refuses to change targets to kill boss fight adds, who refuses to stop attacking and move to the tank after pulling aggro, who decides to kite bosses because "I'm a tank lol", who insists the healer handle all the clickies so as not to lose the #2 place in threat list, etc.).

[Nox]

* I'm not saying all Archers are like this, but in the (substantial number) of dungeons and Guildhests I ran in P2 and P3 while playing all three roles, Archers and Bards were consistently the absolute worst DPS players, and most of them were "LOL"-style unrepentant about it. I don't know if I just had bad luck or what, but if you play an Archer, watch your threat meter and don't be that guy (who pulls aggro, who attacks different mobs, who breaks Sleep, who breaks Sleep "to make the fight tougher lol", who refuses to change targets to kill boss fight adds, who refuses to stop attacking and move to the tank after pulling aggro, who decides to kite bosses because "I'm a tank lol", who insists the healer handle all the clickies so as not to lose the #2 place in threat list, etc.).

 

Oh, "That guy". We all know that guy. I've never been in a random group ever (for the most part) that didn't have at least one.

[Sounsyy]

I'm a little late joining this thread, but I wanted to add a few things.

 

 

Primary Stats:

 

 

Strength (STR) - Increases melee attack power and the percentage of damage mitigated by block and parry.

Dexterity (DEX) - Increases ranged attack power and the chance of blocking or parrying an attack.

Vitality (VIT) - Increases HP.

Intelligence (INT) - Increases Attack Magic Potency.

Mind (MND) - Increases Healing Magic Potency.

Piety (PIE) - Increases MP.

 

Secondary Stats:

 

 

Offensive Properties:

Accuracy - Chance to successfully land attacks.

Critical Hit Rate - Chance to land a critical hit.

Determination - Increases damage dealt by all attacks and the amount of HP restored by healing magic and abilities.

 

Defensive Properties:

Defense - Overall physical damage reduction.

Parry - Chance to parry. Parrying reduces incoming damage by a percentage.

Magic Defense - Overall magical damage reduction.

 

Physical Properties:

Attack Power - Overall physical damage capabilities.

Skill Speed - Reduces recast time of weaponskills.

 

Physical Resistances:

Slashing - Resistance to slashing type damage.

Piercing - Resistance to piercing type damage.

Blunt - Resistance to blunt type damage.

 

Mental Properties:

Attack Magic Potency - Overall magical damage capabilities.

Healing Magic Potency - Overall healing capabilities.

Spell Speed - Reduces recast time of spells.

 

PVP ONLY Stats:

Morale - Reduces the amount of damage received from other player's attacks.

 

Gathering Stats:

Gathering - Increased "Gathering Rate" or chance of obtaining an item.

Perception - Increased "Gathering Fortune" or chance of obtaining HQ items.

GP - Increased "Harvesting Stamina" or Gathering Attempts.

 

Crafting Stats:

Craftsmanship - Increases progress of synthesis.

Control - Increases chance of HQ items.

CP - Improves crafting stamina.

 

 

 

Okay, now that we know what stats do, we can start looking at which are beneficial to each class. As someone who has all of these classes (minus arcanist) at 50 and has played them all throughout the beta, here are my recommendations. 

 

 

At Lv50 you get 30 allocation points.

 

 

Archer/Bard : Full 30 DEX. BRD no longer has access to heals making MND useless. Focus damage.

Arcanist : Because stat allocations come from class level only, I would split 15/15 MND and INT. MND for Scholar. INT for Summoner.

Conjurer/White Mage : Either full 30 MND or 20MND/10INT for some damage increase on Aero, Stone, Holy.

Gladiator/Paladin : STR and either VIT or DEX. My personal recommendation is 20STR/10VIT.

Lancer/Dragoon : Full 30 STR. No other stat does anything for you.

Marauder/Warrior : STR and either VIT or DEX. My personal recommendation is 20STR/10VIT.

Pugilist/Monk : Full 30 STR. No other stat really benefits you.

Thaumaturge/Black Mage : Either full 30 INT. You could add some PIE but considering just how effective Umbral Ice Buff regenerates your MP, there's not really any benefit to having a larger MP pool. You're just wasting damage.

 

 

I also noticed that there was a lot of tanking questions going on in here. My main is a tank and I'd love to answer any questions you have about tanking, but I think this post has gotten a little long already. I have a tanking guide that I've written over the course of Beta Phase 3. I'll link that here and hopefully it'll answer your questions. If not feel free to message me.

 

ARR Tanking Guide

[Nox]

I'm a little late joining this thread, but I wanted to add a few things.

 

 

Primary Stats:

 

 

Strength (STR) - Increases melee attack power and the percentage of damage mitigated by block and parry.

Dexterity (DEX) - Increases ranged attack power and the chance of blocking or parrying an attack.

Vitality (VIT) - Increases HP.

Intelligence (INT) - Increases Attack Magic Potency.

Mind (MND) - Increases Healing Magic Potency.

Piety (PIE) - Increases MP.

 

Secondary Stats:

 

 

Offensive Properties:

Accuracy - Chance to successfully land attacks.

Critical Hit Rate - Chance to land a critical hit.

Determination - Increases damage dealt by all attacks and the amount of HP restored by healing magic and abilities.

 

Defensive Properties:

Defense - Overall physical damage reduction.

Parry - Chance to parry. Parrying reduces incoming damage by a percentage.

Magic Defense - Overall magical damage reduction.

 

Physical Properties:

Attack Power - Overall physical damage capabilities.

Skill Speed - Reduces recast time of weaponskills.

 

Physical Resistances:

Slashing - Resistance to slashing type damage.

Piercing - Resistance to piercing type damage.

Blunt - Resistance to blunt type damage.

 

Mental Properties:

Attack Magic Potency - Overall magical damage capabilities.

Healing Magic Potency - Overall healing capabilities.

Spell Speed - Reduces recast time of spells.

 

PVP ONLY Stats:

Morale - Reduces the amount of damage received from other player's attacks.

 

Gathering Stats:

Gathering - Increased "Gathering Rate" or chance of obtaining an item.

Perception - Increased "Gathering Fortune" or chance of obtaining HQ items.

GP - Increased "Harvesting Stamina" or Gathering Attempts.

 

Crafting Stats:

Craftsmanship - Increases progress of synthesis.

Control - Increases chance of HQ items.

CP - Improves crafting stamina.

 

 

 

Okay, now that we know what stats do, we can start looking at which are beneficial to each class. As someone who has all of these classes (minus arcanist) at 50 and has played them all throughout the beta, here are my recommendations. 

 

 

At Lv50 you get 30 allocation points.

 

 

Archer/Bard :  DEX for damage, and maybe some MND for a little backup healing.

Arcanist : Because stat allocations come from class level only, I would split 15/15 MND and INT. MND for Scholar. INT for Summoner.

Conjurer/White Mage : Either full 30 MND or 20MND/10INT for some damage increase on Aero, Stone, Holy.

Gladiator/Paladin : STR and either VIT or DEX. My personal recommendation is 20STR/10VIT.

Lancer/Dragoon : Full 30 STR. No other stat does anything for you.

Marauder/Warrior : STR and either VIT or DEX. My personal recommendation is 20STR/10VIT.

Pugilist/Monk : Full 30 STR. No other stat really benefits you.

Thaumaturge/Black Mage : Either full 30 INT. You could add some PIE but considering just how effective Umbral Ice Buff regenerates your MP, there's not really any benefit to having a larger MP pool. You're just wasting damage.

 

 

I also noticed that there was a lot of tanking questions going on in here. My main is a tank and I'd love to answer any questions you have about tanking, but I think this post has gotten a little long already. I have a tanking guide that I've written over the course of Beta Phase 3. I'll link that here and hopefully it'll answer your questions. If not feel free to message me.

 

ARR Tanking Guide

 

Oh. Wow. Thank you.

[Niteshade_Rune]

I'll have to read over this after work tomorrow while i finish any required client patching, I wanted to find a place to take a few notes on stats/attributes . Been so long I cant remember anything from 1.0 lol

[Sounsyy]

I wanted to find a place to take a few notes on stats/attributes . Been so long I cant remember anything from 1.0 lol

 

Probably for the best considering ARR stats are absolutely nothing like 1.0 stats. Whole new animal.

[Fiona Swift]

here's some info videos done by Mr. Happy which might help

 

Character Stats and what they do

 

 

 

Racial Stat differences

 

 

 

From what I understand, stats really don't make a huge difference but it will help add slight improvements which give you a possible edge when it comes to balanced fights.

 

Sounsyy , in my opinion, has almost the same allocation setup that I would use

[Desmond Aryll]

I hope the that as new jobs are added, differing stat builds will become viable.

 

Still kinda disappointing that 4 starting classes all share the same stat allocation recommendations.

[Nox]

I don't know if it's disappointing that they all share them or that it's recommended to just dump all your points into one stat.

[Desmond Aryll]

What I mean is stat dumping into strength for MRD, GLD, PUG and lancer.

 

Hopefully with the introduction of new jobs, you will get something similar to what seems to be happening with Arcanist. Where there will be one way to build for Scholar and one way for Summoner.

[Sounsyy]

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the new stats and stat allotments. I much preferred each class needing to buff at least two stats. Just seems kinda pointless to even give us stat allocations if there's only one useful stat to plug into in the first place. Just creates room for error for newer players who haven't researched stats or think that this is XI or XIV 1.0.

[Niteshade_Rune]

I wanted to find a place to take a few notes on stats/attributes . Been so long I cant remember anything from 1.0 lol

 

Probably for the best considering ARR stats are absolutely nothing like 1.0 stats. Whole new animal.

 

I had a feeling stats n attributes were different, i at least can pull up the tooltips in game. I doubt i'll touch stats or ne thing during open beta anyway. just go get the inventory and armoury chest sorted. do some sightseeing and harvesting lol.

 

 

Edit: looking over those stat listing above, wouldnt it be feasible that i could opt for a good parry boost to a melee class by raising points in the stats that affect parry along with utilizing any gear buffs or what have u to do so?

In a way I guess looking at what stats would affect me defensively, ive always figured myself more the Evasive tank type then just sit there with a shield, i hate shields generally , and even back in something like FFXI i only made the exception to touch a shield that was one of the small 'buckler' types i think. But I wondered if it'd be possible to create a character in ARR that may be able to say have, a focus on HP and parry/evasive ability?

 

But I'm definitely going to want to take some notes heh. I like having things to reference as i develop my characters. I'm no min/maxer so I'll find whatever works for me and have fun doing it in the end.

 

Thanks also for those vid links, props to u all