Marauder Attribute Point Testing: what do these points do?Follow

I am sure many of you have noticed as you pump points into STR and DEX, your main hand ATT and ACC numbers do not change. I am currently physical level 29 (MRD rank 20), but I really have no idea what all these points I align are doing, so I decided to test them out. You can keep reading to see exactly how I tested and the results, but I will summarize what I found since its the meat and potatoes of the post.

1.) There is a maximum amount of attribute points usable at each class rank.
2.) Strength does make you hit harder, much harder. Especially TP attacks.
3.) Vitality does increase your hit points, as well as raises your physical defense.
4.) Dexterity = Seemed to marginally help accuracy, but did not show incredibly noticeable increase in accuracy. However, I do believe it does affect accuracy in some hidden, behind-the-scene way. No idea if it affects critical strikes or not. Does not appear too.
5.) Mind raises magic points and increase magic defense.

The test setup: Over a 10 hour period, I unassigned all my attribute and elemental points. I than began testing four attacks on the SAME (yes, I never killed it) Aldgoat Nanny (yellow mob to my current rank) near Camp Horizon. Since the nanny nearly killed me in 2 hits with only 16 vitality, I decided to pump my vitality back to it original 60 for testing purposes, leaving the rest at my starting stats. [On a side note, the Nanny hit me (non-crit) for nearly 300 both times with VIT of 16. When my VIT increased to 60, the average non-crit hit was about 90. VIT does increase physical defense.]

My starting stats were
STR=62
VIT=60
Dex=63
INT=13
MND=40
PIE=13
Main hand ATT = 71
Main hand ACC = 111
Defense = 186
Evasion= 102
My weapon is an iron axe.

With my points reset, my stats were as follows:
STR = 18
VIT = 16
DEX = 16
INT = 13
MND = 14
PIE = 13
Main hand ATT = 71 <----these numbers never changed as I assigned points. many of you probably notice this too
Main hand ACC = 111 <----these numbers never changed as I assigned points. many of you probably notice this too
Defense = 186 <----these numbers never changed as I assigned points. many of you probably notice this too
Evasion= 102 <----these numbers never changed as I assigned points. many of you probably notice this too

Results:
- Critical strikes are in bold.
- Misses and evaded attacks are lumped together into misses.

INCREASING STR TESTS: keeping dexterity constant and increasing strength, repaired weapon
STR = 18, DEX = 16
Light Swing (LS)= 61,52,60,63,63,81 average = 63
Brutal Swing (BS) = 82,53,61
Skull Sunder (Skull)= 162
Brutal Strike (Brut)= 132
total missed attacks = 8
% hit = 57%

STR = 40, DEX = 16
LS= 78, 74, 74, 75, 73, 69, 72 ave = 73
BS= 74, 73, 74, 82
Skull= 185, 208, 206, 168 ave= 191
Brut= never hit with one
missed attacks = 9
% hit = 62.5%

STR = 60, DEX = 16
LS= 80, 81 80, 81 74, 79, 78 ave = 79
BS= 79, 81, 81, 80, 85
Skull= 221, 237 ave= 229
Brut= 208
missed attacks = 6
% hit = 71%

INCREASED DEX TESTS keeping strength constant, and increasing dexterity, repaired weapon
STR = 60, DEX = 40

LS = 78, 89, 82, 86, 85 ave = 84
BS = 84, 88, 87
Skull = 233, 239, ave = 235
Brut = 230
total misses = 5
% hit = 68%

STR = 60, DEX = 40 (again)
LS = 87, 75, 87, 83, 85, 109
BS = 90, 119, 86, 80, 87
Skull= 234, 222
Brut= 213, 194
total misses = 5
% hit = 75%

STR = 60, DEX = 40 (again)
LS= 77, 62, 70, 79, 81, 76, 105, 84
BS = 62, 70, 79, 79, 85
Skull= 240, 184, 232, 210
Brut = 194
misses = 2
hit % = 90% <--- this happened only one time, so I test 2 more times

STR = 60, DEX = 40 (again)
LS= 83, 86, 81, 112, 117
BS = 86, 87, 88, 80
Skull= 211
Brut = 206, 213
total misses = 7
%hit = 63%

STR = 60, DEX = 40 (again)
LS = 81, 81, 87, 84, 83, 85
BS= 79, 87, 82, 87, 105
Skull= 227, 235
Brut= 220, 212
misses= 6
%hit = 72%

STR = 60, DEX = 50 raised dex by 10, repaired axe
LS= 83, 84, 81, 84, 87, 109, 79, 84, 110
BS= 83, 83, 86, 78, 82
Skull= 214, 229, 234
Brut= 206, 213
misses = 7
hit% = 72%

Conclusion: You can draw your own conclusions from this simple test. I know I should have tested each setup more than I did for more concrete evidence, but this is a game and I try to live a life outside of it. Strength definitely increase the average damage done per attack. That is obvious from the date above. It really increases damage done from TP attacks. Vitality helps keep you alive from physical attacks. Mind, which I did not test this time, but I have tested before helps reduce magic damage from those pesky rank 2 spells. (If you don't like getting hit for 550 from Fire Lotus rank 2 or Ice rank 2, get some mind and elemental resistance and it drops it down almost 2 points of damage for 1 point of mind --- this is a guess, but its what I have observed)

Dexterity is still up in the air for me. Since STR and VIT do what SE say they do, by logic I believe DEX does in some way affect accuracy. I did not appreciate much change though in my testing. I am sure there are many factors that go into determining a "hit" in this game, more than just DEX and ACC from weapons. From what I can tell, dexterity does not affect critical strikes either. (You know what does? Hitting the mob from behind. Get a buddy and you will see for yourself, you get a lot more crits striking from behind)


How do I know there is a maximum amount of points useful at each class rank? Well, for one you will notice as you change jobs your hit points change. (I know disciples of war, magic, land, and hand get different amount of HP per point of VIT, but jobs in the same discipline get the same amount of gain per point of VIT.) AND! I got an error while assigning my points on my rank 6 PUG "one or more attribute is in excess of the maximum amount". As for the attribute maximum amount per class rank, I have a theory on this based on the increases to my THM hit points as he went up in rank. From what I gathered, his VIT was equal to 3 x rank + starting stats. (ie, rank 3 THM had access to 3 x 3 + 16 = 25 of my total 60 VIT points) If you carry that over to other stats, that means at rank 20 MRD, the total amount of useful skill points into any one stat would be 21 x 3 + starting stat (15 average) = 75.

Hope this post helps, or gets more people thinking about this stuff.

Edited, Oct 15th 2010 2:46pm by OdieOreo

good numbers there. funny to see how drastically different vit makes things.

I wouldn't bother with testing iron war axe before optimal level. From the few data points we have with Spike Bronze Labrys, it's probably going to be worse until optimal rank. The damage might catch up but the accuracy will remain lower until you make that final skill up to r26.

http://www.ffxivcore.com/topic/21571-iron-axe/page__st__20

Edited, Oct 18th 2010 1:08pm by chopstx

I use this one: http://www.ffxivcore.com/topic/11874-pseudos-ffxiv-log-parser/

It is not fancy, but works well. You have to install perl like the thread says. after that, point it to your logs folder, which for me was: C:\Users\your name here\Documents\My Games\FINAL FANTASY XIV\user\01429768

I may be redistributing my points next time I log on, and focus on putting most of the points I have in DEX into STR instead. I miss like nobody's business, but when I hit, I really want it to count for something.

The problem with getting Feint is that it's a rank 20 ability. While I've yet to hit 20 even on my Marauder, I don't feel like painfully whiffing my way through the ranks on yet another class at this point. I also don't think it's reasonable to level another class nearly halfway to cap just so I can get a decent hit in from time to time.