STR or DEX merits...Follow

Outside Abyssea, 5 STR will be better than 5 DEX, because you'll benefit from fSTR (the way STR adds base damage to your normal melee swings). In Abyssea with Furtherances, meat, and TP gear, there's a chance your STR will not increase your fSTR and DEX merits would be better.

I'm just keeping my STR merits though. I have a WAR too.

Inside Abyssea, 5 of anything is pretty much a wash. Base cruor buffs already give a fairly good bonus, and if you want AGI you could use Gnarled Horn as well.

Given the amount of overkill with Atmas n' all, meriting around Abyssea just doesn't make a lot of sense. Outside of it, STR is valuable to most any melee. Personally, I'm just keeping my STR merits.

Edited, Dec 14th 2010 3:49pm by Isiolia

If i was a non Mithra then yea it may be best to not bother adding DEX but if you add DEX to an already high amount of DEX it must help with crit hits?

I think i am spoilt with the razed ruins atma... ive got it in Abyssea and its amazing...

I know i cannot reproduce that outside of Abyssea but DNC gets alot of +DEX on the AF3 and as Mithra with a high DEX pool and perhaps +5 DEX merits aswell... would that push up the crit hit ratio outside of Abyssea and make it more noticable?

It would be silly to swap out any haste gear just to add DEX gear (IE swift belt for warwolf belt)... the more you swing the more you can crit.

I am only going to guess here so forgive me if this is wrong... but if i was to crit hit just once more in a fight would i do more damage on that one swing than i would do by having +5 STR for the duration of the rest of my swings in a single fight? what if i crit hit 2x more?? or even 3x more???... would that not be better than +5 STR?

Especially since we get the job trait 'Critical attack bonus' aswell as the ammo (Charis Feather) which essentially increases our crit hit damage even more... surely theres enough reason for us to want to crit hit more.


There must be more to this than just saying 'keep the STR' with respect that dont really explain why etc.











Edited, Dec 15th 2010 8:13am by Danseurfabuleux

Crits from DEX don't go up an infinite amount. For reference.

50 DEX over a mob's AGI is supposed to cap crit rate (at least, that's what Greater Colibri parses indicated for 75). Inside Abyssea, with Razed Ruins especially, you're likely already hitting that cap. You get more by forcing it via direct addition from Atmas or gear stats.

Outside, since you can't readily be sitting at +100 or more DEX, it's not as readily done...but it may also depend on the target mob. Exact AGI isn't known for most mobs - mostly only tested for merit ones I think. Regardless, it still takes swapping DEX in to cap crit rate for TP for many mobs - Greater Colibri are some of the easier mobs to cap for (at least in terms of old merit mobs) and those need 117 DEX to cap on. For me, I think that'd still take an extra 10 DEX or so added to my TP gear, but that wouldn't be terribly hard to swap in.



You won't crit 2-3x more. Natural crit rate has a lower cap of 5%, and an upper cap of 20%, so dDex will affect 15% of that. Now, granted, the last 5 points of DEX are pretty clutch, since effectiveness per point seems to go way up as you come close to the cap...but that also assumes that you're right near cap already. At lower amounts, it's more likely to be a 0-2% increase, depending on dDex.

By contrast, pushing your fSTR up will effect every melee hit and every non-elemental WS. It effectively makes your weapon slightly higher damage, which will result in higher crit damage as well. Granted, that'll cap too - and more easily for 1h weapons to boot - but between the two stats, DNC (and Mithra in general) will behind on STR more than they will on DEX.

Basically, sans Atma at least, it comes down to that STR is nearly always helpful, whereas DEX is highly situational. Doubly so when you extend that to possibly having 2h melee jobs as well.

Ah, certainly, and I think there's probably a window where DEX merits would outshine STR merits. If those 5 points are the last you need for 50 dDEX, then sure.

That said, despite that merits are easier to get now, they still aren't freely configurable. So, to me, it becomes more of a question of what one would get the most general benefit from. It doesn't make a lot of sense to merit specifically for one camp/mob/etc right now, like people used to for Greater Colibri meriting.

Stats aren't 1/2/3/4/5, they are 3/6/9/9/9 so you'd need 360k to cap each time.

Unless this was changed, but I doubt it. I haven't played in over a month.

Edited, Dec 15th 2010 9:16pm by heldemon

Stat merits:
STR - +2~3 Attack, +1 base damage outside Abyssea or perhaps on bosses
DEX - +2~3 Accuracy, +~1 base damage during Evisceration (<1% damage increase), Crit rate + 0-5% outside Abyssea
AGI - It's about -0~2% enemy TP fed, +2~3 Evasion.


In Abyssea with Gnarled Horn, AGI merits are basically just giving you +2-3 Evasion that you may or may not need. STR gives you 2-3 Attack and 1 fSTR that you probably don't need if you have all the furtherances and gear responsibly. DEX gives you a very minor WS damage bonus and 2-3 Acc that you almost certainly don't need. The best merits for damage in Abyssea are probably DEX, but the increase is so impossibly minor that you might as well not sacrifice the general utility of STR merits, which help you on any job whenever you're swinging a weapon at anything.