STR5 Merits vs DEX5 Merits.

[Ravenlokk]

Aside from the obvious/ignorant "lolDEX" responses ... or purple ring references... which do you really think is better?

I don't just mean in 1 situation, or for WS, or for 1 job. If you think X > Y for Z job because of A... tell me X, Y, Z, and A. I currently have STR+5 Merits and was considering cancelling them for DEX+5 after i finish doing some other merits ;;. I play all jobs, and considering the benefits during TP accumulation (Acc+, Crit+) it seems like it makes up for the loss in spike/WS dmg.

[evilpaul]

Did the DEX/Crit relation thread ever figure out how much DEX to break tier in most EXP camps/situations? A significant boost in critical hits would be preferable to STR+5 while building TP and on WS I'd think. For non-SAMs/RNGs at least.

[Starr]

Rave can you get high crit rate (>20%) at camps other than Greater Colibri where I saw you can get to cap 20% + 4% merits +6% Destroyer's = 30% or is it only at that camp?

[Khamsin]

Did the DEX/Crit relation thread ever figure out how much DEX to break tier in most EXP camps/situations? A significant boost in critical hits would be preferable to STR+5 while building TP and on WS I'd think. For non-SAMs/RNGs at least.

On the other hand, higher damage from STR would outweigh no increase in crits due to not breaking a tier.

Simple way to test if meritting DEX+5 would break a tier is just to parse your crit rate with and without a thunder ring, and see if your crit rate is noticably higher.

But I think the bigger question here is... do you seriously not have anything else left to merit? STR+5 would have taken an assload of merits, and converting them to DEX+5 would bring the total to two assloads of merits.

[Scorp]

This is not a very useful post since I have not researched it....

Wouldn't it be race specific, i.e. an elvaan hitting diminishing returns from str during ws so not seeing the benefit of str whereas a taru would see the benefit in ws. My gut says you can gear around whichever merits you have.

[VZX]

only crit hit weapon skill got benefit from DEX build.
Melee TP wise, I can only comment that on some mob, DEX build lose its usefulness due to enemies' high AGI.

STR in general is better for any physical DD job you can use. and

Wouldn't it be race specific, i.e. an elvaan hitting diminishing returns from str during ws so not seeing the benefit of str whereas a taru would see the benefit in ws. My gut says you can gear around whichever merits you have.

STR never gives diminishing return
in fact, it gives increasing return. Except, stacking them is not an optimal way to increase your damage

[fantasticdan]

I often see people going on about how important the extra 2.5 acc is from a sniper/woodsman over raja's, than flaming those who chose to merit dex. Why is 2.5 acc from merits so much less important than 2.5 acc from a ring? I suppose it's irrelevant for jobs that would want to stack STR for SATA at times, like drk, sam, and blu, as well as rng. But I'm talking about for war, mnk, nin, thf, drg, etc.

Sniper/woodsman + STR merits: +5 acc +5 str -5 eva or -10 def/-20 dark resist
Raja's + dex merits: +10 dex (+5acc) +5 str +5 store TP +5 subtle blow

I merited STR for blu, but is there something I'm missing here?

[Intense]

If this thread proves that DEX is better to merit, then does this mean Mathew from Asura wins?

[Obev]

No, because despite claiming that dexterity merits got him 1,000 average Blade: Jins, he only had one merit in it.

[solsovly]

No, because despite claiming that dexterity merits got him 1,000 average Blade: Jins, he only had one merit in it.

That's how strong dex merits are. Imagine if he had 5!

[Gengu]

tbh I think alot of people have really jumped on the bandwagon about this subject. +5DEX is a solid 2.5ACC. And if you were to ask most DD out there if they'd prefer 2.5 ACC vs 2.5ATT(5STR), you're more than likely to hear them say to go with the acc. Granted this doesn't take fstr into account, so maybe we'd have to get some math vets in here to really let us know the situation. But, with a fair amount of people either being forced to switch (Colibri) or wanting to switch to meat, I think there may some merit to thinking of meritting DEX, if only for the 2.5ACC. Of course in the long run chances of it making a difference are minimal, but that's what we're all here for, right?

[evilpaul]

Where are Nagamaki and Aurik when we need them?

[RKenshin]

Honestly I think the 'whatever floats your boat' response fits this topic the best. Not like someone who merits 5 DEX instead of 5 STR would parse much differently (if even at all) in comparison to a clone who merits 5 STR instead of 5 DEX. Just like an evenly geared/skilled/merited hume MNK wouldn't parse much differently than a elvaan. So really with the difference being almost completely negligible, I'd just say to do whatever you want if you're having trouble deciding between them.

However as far as my choice goes, I'm staying with STR. Even if I could convert my 5 STR to 5 DEX without having to remerit, I'd still stick with STR. I gave DEX builds a reasonable attempt and I wasn't too impressed with the results, and disappointed with the fact it usually works best on just Greater Colibri. STR is just more useful overall for me as well since it assists in melee/WS for all jobs, a good deal in SAM WS, assists full-time on RNG, and my gear in general is just more in favor of the STR (heavy acc with haste + meat builds, usually getting high acc). Then with a lot of my time spent doing stuff like Salvage where DEX builds don't work and melee acc is capped on most mobs, or other events on NMs/HNMs/mobs that con as higher or higher than HNMs, the same applies.

But, again that's all how I look at it in regards to DEX vs STR with what I do most in the game. Varies from person to person. As I said at the start though, the difference isn't worth OCDing over if there even really is one.

[Falaras]

Personally I'm in the process of meriting DEX, was a toss up for me but I don't think I could do a DEX build without the +5 from Merits. Rng and Cor are two jobs I have that benefit nothing from DEX merits but I barely play them, Ninja being my main and even if DEX builds only work on Colibiris its still something fun for Colibiris. Almost everyone does STR and lol's @ DEX but when you look at it like gear DEX merits make alot of sense.

[moguri]

Real answer: MND+5 > all

[BerenTebogo]

Me and a friend have done about 300,000 XP the past few weeks just fucking around (swapping around merits for no reason - 4 4 4 DEF now, lol) and testing DEX tiers and stuffs on colibri.

Overall, she is mithra, I am hume, our dex varies +/- 7DEX ever max between WS and TP, off the top of my head I can't recall her total DEX but I know it is above 111 total. Both of us are 5/5 STR merits, and even with the DEX differential and apparently breaking the DEX tier (and some other differences, she DA's at least 15% more than me any given party, every time, same gears) can't really come closer than 4% of my damage in full ACC / STR / meat build.

We've yet to steal some gears from our favorite THFs and try 125-130+ DEX builds because we're too fond of good XP, but unless the tier is higher than what we've abstractly deemed to be 111 (as of some math and parses) DEX build is good, but not enough to win out a full ACC+ / STR+ / Meat build, (for NIN anyways.)

We'll test full out DEX soon, too busy at the moment trying to explain the DA rate, it's mindboggling D:

[Falaras]

Me and a friend have done about 300,000 XP the past few weeks just fucking around (swapping around merits for no reason - 4 4 4 DEF now, lol) and testing DEX tiers and stuffs on colibri.

Overall, she is mithra, I am hume, our dex varies +/- 7DEX ever max between WS and TP, off the top of my head I can't recall her total DEX but I know it is above 111 total. Both of us are 5/5 STR merits, and even with the DEX differential and apparently breaking the DEX tier (and some other differences, she DA's at least 15% more than me any given party, every time, same gears) can't really come closer than 4% of my damage in full ACC / STR / meat build.

We've yet to steal some gears from our favorite THFs and try 125-130+ DEX builds because we're too fond of good XP, but unless the tier is higher than what we've abstractly deemed to be 111 (as of some math and parses) DEX build is good, but not enough to win out a full ACC+ / STR+ / Meat build, (for NIN anyways.)

We'll test full out DEX soon, too busy at the moment trying to explain the DA rate, it's mindboggling D:

Pretty sure it capped at 135 DEX, at least what Wet that Mithra Nin in the other thread used, also supposed to have outparsed the Acc/Haste/STR/w/e build by 2%.

[Demitrius]

The way I see it, DEX merits would only even potentially help you in the following situations: THF, merit WAR, merit MNK, merit NIN. The first is slightly neutralized by the STR mod on Shark Bite, and the latter three only apply if you have a build that would break the DEX tier only with merits.

With STR gear seeming a little harder to find than DEX gear to me, it seems like it'd be a waste. You're basically spending *maff* 27? merits to swap a Flame Ring for a Thunder Ring. That basically implies that you're completely out of other ways to do it, i.e. all slots full of DEX, and you still need more. So if you have any place you still use STR instead of DEX in most of your setups, then it'd be a complete waste, because you could just save the 270k limit points and do it with gear instead.


In case I just wall o' texted you, I said to keep the STR merits.

[Tdizzle]

The first is slightly neutralized by the STR mod on Shark Bite,

SB has a str mod?