XIV combat mechanics and formulas

[Molly_Millions]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

Now, It's very possible that we find out ACC is needed for tanks at end game. My approach would be to add ACC to a piece of gear then parse, if more is needed add ACC to another piece then parse, check for 98-99% and repeat the process. I say 98-99% because anything over 100% is a complete waste and may as well be used on something else. It seems to me that as far as materia melding, DEX is the way to go for your first stat.

As far as those 30 points of stat allocation, well that can be argued until the cows come home. I'm going with STR, but VIT can be equally viable. I say if 30 points is going to make or break you as a tank, then there are larger issues at hand. Perhaps you are misusing a skill, or neglecting an important one altogether, or maybe you aren't using your combos correctly, regardless at that point the issue is not where you put your 30 points.

[Malacite]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

I ascribe to the more dmg = more hate + mob dead faster mentality as far as tanking goes and as such, I'm going with STR (doesn't mean I'll wear DD gear, just that I'd rather prioritize STR 1st and VIT 2nd)

[Aeni]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

I'm actually not assuming anything, everything I posted is based on testing and has been confirmed by multiple sources.

Yes, you are, because the game isn't released, yet. Until Phase 4 hits the pavement and that nothing changes between then and early release, we're all just conjecturing - including you.

[Malacite]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

Wouldn't be the 1st time SE changed something at the last minute or without even telling us.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

And, even after release, accuracy, damage, and enmity formula can still change.

Perhaps Kaeko will give ARR a look over. (Well, one can hope.)

[Malacite]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

Yeah he did stuff for 1.0, though I haven't seen him anywhere on the beta forums.

[Firewind]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

Given that the games does NOT have diminishing returns, wouldn't DEX be worth stacking heavily as any tank because it is the only stat that actually boosts your mitigation stats? I'd much rather be healing that tank that over time is going to be more consistent with incoming damage over time than the tank with the huge HP pool that can't be kept up because the incoming damage is more than what you can heal, or that tank that stacked STR and wonders why he gets two shot.

As someone who plays healers a LOT in MMOs, nothing drives me more crazy than that tank who stacked HP or damage gear over mitigation gear. Best example would be a tank I ran into on SWTOR last night. He had a ton of HP, 40K in face which is basically Best in Slot gear to get that much...Until I checked his gear and he stacked nothing but Endurance and no mitigation stats. Basically while he had a huge HP pool, it was not possible to keep him up because his incoming damage was higher than any healer could handle.

Basically I would much rather have the tank in my party that is going to have the better mitigation values and actually stay standing than that one that stacked HP for epeen, or the idiot who turned up in DD gear because "lul maor damage = mob dies faster!". Especially in FFXIV where the Archer/Bard is capable of being a solo DD in any 4-man Dungeon, the damage output on that class is THAT ridiculous even with songs up.

[Malacite]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

Again, it was Kaeko himself who showed that DEX did diddly squat for Block Rate back in 1.0

I'm waiting for final release and concrete numbers first, in the mean time STR = more dmg & less damage taken when blocking so yay. What was horribly disappointing though, to that end, was that with nearly 400 STR I believe it was and a Holy Shield, the max damage reduction was around 23% on a block.

That's freaking pitiful, and I sincerely hope they've readjusted the formulas considering that's the damn Relic shield...

Ochain it ain't. Shit, even Aegis is way better.

[Firewind]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

Remember that healing is quite powerful in this game and the Gladiator has some very good defensive cooldowns that you SHOULD be using proactively rather than saving. Plus raising damage blocked any higher would make things like Bulwark and the massive number of damage reduction cooldowns that the Gladiator/Paladin has absurdly overpowered.

With Shield Oath and a proper, proactive use of defensive cooldowns where they are being used to keep incoming damage consistently low and to prepare for huge, unavoidable hits, and not just sat on until after you start taking spikes of damage, I can see why they wouldn't want damage reduction on a block to be that high. Plus you have to remember all of the healing coming your way plus nice stuff like Regan and Stoneskin from the White Mage...Basically if they boosted the damage reduction from a block they would have to heavily nerf things like Shield Oath and the Gladiator's defensive abilities to compensate.

I'd rather err on the side of caution so early in the life of the game anyway. Whatever changes are in Beta 4 are going to be what is going live so we may well see some tweaks for Beta4/Release that changes things.

That said as far as tweaks go, I wouldn't mind seeing Archer/Bard nerfed to be in line with THM/BLM as a Ranged DD, and Lancer/Dragoon made less boring to play. The only limitation the Archer has is Emnity and they don't even need to stand still to do ridiculous damage like the THM/BLM does. Lancer/Dragoon on the other hand...Okay it's well balanced with PGL/MNK as far as being a melee DD goes, but it's just so boring. All the other DD classes have an interesting mechanic (THM/BLM, PGL/MNK) or stroke your epeen enough to make you look past how shallow it is (ARC/BRD). LNC/DRG just feels so shallow...

[Malacite]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

Yeah LNC just seems to be move here, poke, move there, poke, rinse & repeat.

PUG's a bit more fun as while it's also a positional DD, you're constantly changing what attack you use.

[Firewind]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

Oh god yea PGL is fun because of all the movement. You are always doing something and you always have to take into account how each encouter shifts and how that affects where you should be positioning yourself. THM has the fun juggling of Astral Fire and Umbral Ice plus you are kept on your toes by virtue of the class that specialises in Crowd Control. ARC is fun because who doesn't like seeing huge numbers?

LNC is just "Move to attack range, and poke until the mob is dead, or you are dead. Repeat ad nauseum."

[Aeni]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

Given that the games does NOT have diminishing returns, wouldn't DEX be worth stacking heavily as any tank because it is the only stat that actually boosts your mitigation stats? I'd much rather be healing that tank that over time is going to be more consistent with incoming damage over time than the tank with the huge HP pool that can't be kept up because the incoming damage is more than what you can heal, or that tank that stacked STR and wonders why he gets two shot.

A tank with low HP pool and high physical damage mitigation is going to get 2-shot on a magic boss. A tank with high HP, but without sacrificing too much physical mitigation (use materia to enhance secondary stats directly, the formula will change) will likely be easier to heal than one with a lot of physical mitigation. Remember, mitigation is a crap shoot, especially if it's not substantial (this game makes it fairly impossible for you to go from 10% dodge to 30% dodge without losing everything else) I would rather heal incoming, consistent damage, rather than deal with damage spikes from someone who was dodging 5 straight attacks and then eating 2 large ones in a row.

I base this off of crafting and gathering. Try to HQ from just a 40% chance. You'll likely get an HQ roughly 1 in 10 chances (if at that) with those stats. Even getting a 95% gathering rate, you'll still miss 1 in 10 (that's 10%, not 5%) I'm not sure how their RNG works, but I can tell you it's a tad worse than in WoW, so I would avoid RNG as much as possible in my planning, strategies and gearing. If there's a sure fire way, take it, don't leave it to chance.

[Firewind]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

To be fair you are assuming someone going to the extreme of ignoring HP to get more mitigation. You are also assuming that the tank isn't using defensive cooldowns or doesn't have any gear that boosts damage reduction from various sources (So in FFXIV it would be armour with good Physical Defence and/or magical Defence). Trust me when I say that tanks that stack only HP and nothing else are the tanks that always die horribly.

The concept of boosting effective HP is why mitigation stats are worthwhile and why mitigation shows the biggest benefit over the course of a fight. Look at the tank that stacks just HP and look at how big the hits are compared to the guy with a little less HP but blocks, dodges and parries more often. What I'm saying is is that tank with a HUGE HP pool ight be taking hits bigger than you are actually healing and WILL go down because you are actually in a deficit as far as HP restored to the tank is. Now look at the tank that properly geared up and took the mitigation stat boosts. Sure the hits will look bigger on the health bars because the HP pool is smaller but because the incoming damage is much less, you are actually healing him. Because he can also take more hits before eventually going down, his Effective HP pool is going to be larger than the Tank with high HP. Why do you think people always picked the NIN over the PLD in FFXI? The NIN's effective HP pool was obscenely large compared to the PLD.

I know you probably know all of this but I'm bringing it up for the benefit of others anyway. What I'm saying is that ignoring mitigation stats and slotting Materia purely to boost HP over everything else is bad.

[Malacite]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

Mitigation is weird because it's artificial/theoretical HP - it's great if you can stack enough of it to the point of taking little to no damage from most attacks.

But that's rarely the case in MMOs (Ochain and Aegis 90+ being huge exceptions to the rule) and so like Aeni said, you need to strike a balance. Especially since you can't gear swap in XIV - much as I despise gear-swapping, it was nice how in XI you could just change mid-fight to suit the current circumstances of battle.

[Aeni]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

I know you probably know all of this but I'm bringing it up for the benefit of others anyway. What I'm saying is that ignoring mitigation stats and slotting Materia purely to boost HP over everything else is bad.

No, I understand fully what you're saying, but I'm also stating the obvious. There are only 3 ways for you to boost stat in this game (I'm not including food, party-wide buffs from abilities and traits in this scenario, since those are a given that one would use them and/or they cannot be used often enough (e.g., Limit Break)

1. Gear

Gear is a large source of your stats. In fact, it's pretty much the only source for some stats, like (boost critical damage) or (reduce incoming critical damage)

2. Bonus Stat

These can be a huge boon, depending on how it is allocated, but these do not add very much at all to character development (and for a good reason, since SE knows that min-maxing tends to detract from overall game play experience for the majority of players)

3. Materia

This particular enhancement has the potential to really bring some much needed stat relief - if you're rich enough. The odds of getting exactly the materia you want from soul spiriting is pretty low and thus you are beholden to the community at large (or to friendly Free Company members and friends)

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Looking at all of this, there's really only two places you can control stat enhancement: materia and bonus. Gear is a given, because no matter what, you're likely to just get a gear solely through armor class (physical and magic defenses) and with each new content and hard modes, each point in the armor class makes a huge difference (it scales differently for tanks than for other classes) This is not FFXI where you get something really good at level 50 and use it at level 75. So therefore, increasing your health pool through Vitality seems to make more sense than to try and eke out whatever mitigation you are going to receive from Dexterity or Strength. That was where my reasoning came from.

Edit:

Remember, with stat inflation, the gains you receive from stat bonuses become increasingly worthless, and as gear improves and content changes, the only real place you'll see meaningful gains will be in Materia (cause that can be upgraded, along with gear, but not stat bonuses since that's fixed)