RNG: STR vs RATK

[Shyral]

There might already be a thread about this topic and if there is, I'm sorry and would greatly appreciate being directed to it.

I've been playing Ranger for about a year now, and now that I'm 75, I have a wealth of equipment opportunities open to me. The question I have is, what is better to stack on RNG? STR or RATK?

I thought I had read somewhere that there's no point in stacking STR unless you have RATK, so I always assumed that RATK was priority and then STR, but I'm not sure if that's accurate.

Also, is one always better regardless of TP build or WS build? Or is one better for TP, the other better for WS?

Thanks for any guidance you can give.

[happydude]

i stack ratk for regular shots/barrage and str for ws

[Ruuz]

I dont think there is any easy answer for this. In reality, you want both in very large amounts. The awesome thing about Ranged Attacks is that you get +1 base damage for every 2STR you add, not 4STR, over monster VIT. They also have a higher pDIF cap, which is what multiply base damage by to get total damage. The exact equation for damage is thus:

(Weapon Base Damage + Ammo Base Damage + fSTR2) * ((RAtt/Mob DEF) + .025(Your Level - Mob Level))

The fSTR2 function is equal to (Your STR - Mob VIT +4)/2 and caps at [floor(Weapon Damage /9) + 8]*2.

Generally if you are getting double Minuet and Chaos Roll, you should be fine on RAtt, so start loading on STR. If you are getting a lot of STR from Firestorm or Etude, check to see how much more you need to cap fSTR2 and try and throw on more RAtt. It really varies, so research the mobs you are fighting and try and gear accordingly.

Obligatory shit's situational.

Also, WS have a somewhat different damage formula. Get all the damage equations you could possibly want on VZX's site

[Rilu]

It all depends on what you are fighting to be honest. There are mobs that you will max out your pdif on, so more ranged attack isn't going to do anything (such as in a Merit party on Colibri) and then there are mobs where you never will max it out (like Dark Ixion for instance) and it would be more beneficial to stack ranged attack.

For the most part, in lieu of Minuet and Chaos roll most of your Ranged attack mods are going to come from Food, and then a few select pieces of equipment, yet it seems much easier to stack STR than Ranged Attack. you get 1 Ranged attack for every 2 STR you stack, so STR is usually the default answer, but you will get more bang for your buck for each ranged attack you stack, where possible because of the damage output equation.

so, as you see, its VERY situational as ranger now, depending on what support you are going to have, and what mob you are fighting. No more just popping 1 type of food and playing, I sometimes have to carry 2-3 different foods depending on the situation and how long the fight will last.

[midguardian]

If you want a rule of thumb:

+1 STR = +2-3 R. Atk

The higher your base damage, including contributions from high str, the more attack is favored. The higher your base attack, the more str is favored.

As for weaponskills, remember that Sidewinder and Slugshot have accuracy penalties. So swapping out r. acc for r. atk or str is not necessarily a good idea unless you are already capped on r. acc, in which case you shouldn't be using the r. acc in the first place. What exactly the r. acc penalty on Sidewinder/Slugshot is, I don't know. Have never seen anyone post parse results testing it. Rumor has it as -40 r. acc at 100 tp. Actual test results would be appreciated.

[Iraphine]

so, as you see, its VERY situational as ranger now, depending on what support you are going to have, and what mob you are fighting. No more just popping 1 type of food and playing, I sometimes have to carry 2-3 different foods depending on the situation and how long the fight will last.

This is true. Keep in mind however a arrow that hits is better than one that doesn't. All your RATT and STR is great, but what good is it if you never even hit the mob. While fighting a mob switch gear on and off balancing the amount of ratt and acc, when you WS incorporate more STR. Think about your food as well, if you are eating racc food, you can apply more STR and ratt, if you are eating pure ratt food, more ACC. Really depends on the mob as well, you may need more racc than anything.

Sidewinder: Delivers a powerful but inaccurate attack. Accuracy varies with TP.

Waiting until 150-ish TP before WS will also improve your damage result fyi, the greater modifier is AGI at 25%, with STR at 16%. 2AGI = 1racc, 2STR = 1 ratt.

RNG is experimental, study what you fight, and adapt to it.

[Ruuz]

This is true. Keep in mind however a arrow that hits is better than one that doesn't. All your RATT and STR is great, but what good is it if you never even hit the mob. While fighting a mob switch gear on and off balancing the amount of ratt and acc, when you WS incorporate more STR. Think about your food as well, if you are eating racc food, you can apply more STR and ratt, if you are eating pure ratt food, more ACC. Really depends on the mob as well, you may need more racc than anything.

Sidewinder: Delivers a powerful but inaccurate attack. Accuracy varies with TP.

Waiting until 150-ish TP before WS will also improve your damage result fyi, the greater modifier is AGI at 25%, with STR at 16%. 2AGI = 1racc, 2STR = 1 ratt.

RNG is experimental, study what you fight, and adapt to it.

The problem with gearing for RAcc on RNG is either you have far too much or far too little. They get +48RAcc just in job traits, so RAcc on merit mobs is a joke (outside of Slug/Sidewinder), and on HNM/Endgame, you are outside the sweet spot, so your Acc is capped lower. Also, RNG has access to a ton of RAcc gear (Seiryu, W.Hands, RAcc Rings) so capping RAcc when you need to is not an issue, and certainly not as hard to balance as how much STR/RAtt.

[Raen Ryong]

Sidewinder: Delivers a powerful but inaccurate attack. Accuracy varies with TP.

Waiting until 150-ish TP before WS will also improve your damage result fyi, the greater modifier is AGI at 25%, with STR at 16%.

Just to confirm, STR is the more powerful stat to add to increase WS damage even ignoring ratk gains since it is fSTR2 (approximated as ~60% mod) + the 16% mod as well.

As for the Sidewinder issue, would it not be more efficient in the long run to WS in full racc at 100% TP every time? Worse for the epeen but for overall damage?

[Callisto]

Just to confirm, STR is the more powerful stat to add to increase WS damage even ignoring ratk gains since it is fSTR2 (approximated as ~60% mod) + the 16% mod as well.

As for the Sidewinder issue, would it not be more efficient in the long run to WS in full racc at 100% TP every time? Worse for the epeen but for overall damage?

Depends, Slugwinder is finnicky but in all honesty I don't miss it all that often at all(not anymore than a SAM will miss Y/G/K, at least not on birds), I just keep a 2nd higher RAcc WS set macro for Lurkers/Infiltrators/etc. As far as STR vs. RAtk, I see a hell of a lot larger increase in damage from Min/Chaos/Berserk than I do from something like STR etudes, but in terms of gear there really isn't a whole ton of RAtk options out there.

My RNG mule has no Sea so I use Ranger's Necklace/Scout's Socks/Amemet+1, but there really just isn't a whole lot else to get RAtk from that I have access to on him so I just pile the STR/AGI on with Osode/S.Kote/rings and so on.

[Raen Ryong]

Yeah, I'm not a RNG so I can only speak theoretically. RATK is MUCH bigger than STR though in terms of increasing damage if you can get it in high quantities, ranged pdif is verrrry explosive. STR is still nice though, but combined with high base damage from weapon + ammo (lower base damage means that fSTR gains through STR increase overall damage by a greater percentage), it can't keep up with ratk.

[Shinryuu]

What do you mean by explosive?

[Raen Ryong]

Suppose I should clarify that a bit

Ranged attacks suffer less from level correction and have a higher natural (non-crit cap) pdif, which make adding ratk a very potent way of increasing damage (especially since you can get large amounts of ratk).

[Shinryuu]

Actually, level correction makes attack more valuable. Compare adding attack on an EM to adding the same amount of attack to an IT w/ same defense.

[Raen Ryong]

Hard to explain your Attack is "retained" more, and ranged attacks have a horrible pdif deadzone in the middle which you do not want to be caught in (gives consistent damage but often wastes (r)attack!)

[Topher]

As an Elvaan with full STR merits I find that my RNG isn't lacking in the STR department at all. I usually TP is mostly RATK gear, and WS is STR gear unless I can get a RATK item that has double or more then a STR item in the same spot.

Ex. War Boots +1 > Denali Feet

Of course both those are not the best items for RNG feet, but it shows what I mean nicely.

I use to know a Mithra RNG that used STR above all... their DMG was on par with mine. I also use to know a Hume RNG with better gear then me or the Mithra and would do less DMG then both of us despite having the same merits and swapping his gear properly.

It differs so much from Race to Race that I would just tell you to go with whatever feels right for you. Anyone can tell you the best gear for RNG, but if your a Elvaan WSing in Skadi Hands missing every other Slugwinder you might wanna re-think your gear choices.

RNG isn't so black and white like SAM... with SAM you just stack the hell out of STR for WSing, ACC plays such a small roll and ATKs roll is almost as small (Still tho STR+2 ATK+15 > STR+5). With RNG... STR, AGI, RACC, RATK all play an equal roll... depending on Race. I have also noticed that WSing in Jaeger Mantle over Amemet +1 will result in a minor drop in Slugwinder DMG on HNM (Approx. 50-100 DMG) where on XP or less mobs the drop is huge(Approx. 200-500 DMG)!

I use to test different setups VS JoL, I only gear my jobs to fight HNMs I don't care about XP mobs. I tested everything I could get my hands on for TPing and WSing. Woodvilles/Franny with Krieg. VS Vulcan's Staff, /NIN, /WAR, /SAM, RATK VS STR on TPing and WSing and different foods. I tried everything I could think of. Generally I found that my RNG/NIN using Wood and Krieg would out Parse a Vulcan's Staff RNG/WAR... the RNG/WAR would do better spike DMG every few mins cause of Berserk/Warcry. RNG/SAM using Hellfire +1 out parsed all the other RNGs in the group. My WS DMG was the same as the RNG/WAR, I WSed a lot more often do to the 5-hit build, and TPing my DMG per hit was higher. These weren't very strict tests tho, I didn't try to control everything... I just swap my gear around to see what would do more DMG without losing too much RACC.

From those tests of mine I found that using Sole Sushi +1 would result in a better Parse then RATK food with /SAM or /WAR because of RACC issues (I am fully merit in Bow and Gun). So I would swap out some of my RATK and STR gear for RACC gear...

EX. Seiryu's Kote instead of Blood Fingers

Doing so my DMG would drop down to the same I was doing with Sole Sushi. Resulting in me wasting 50k on Red Curry when Sole Sushi +1 would give me the same results. On the other hand that Mithra RNG I mentioned swore by RATK food... however he also needed a BRD casting Prelude x2 on him if he was /WAR or /SAM. /NIN he needed 1 prelude. So he gave up Minuet to use Red Curry thus resulting in being equal to the rest of the RNGs.

So take from my wall of text/rant what you will, but I strongly encourage you to just feel out what does more DMG... you can just eye-ball it for all I care or do some serious tests with a Parser and strict conditions.

P.S. Sorry for the long post, I like to talk about this stuff

[Booty]

I never feel like I have enough Racc ; ;

All I ever really use my Ranger for now is Dark Ixion and jesus, it's so fickle.

I started off with RNG/WAR but now I use RNG/SAM.

Normally in a Party with a COR doing Hunter's and Chaos, might have a Bard for double mins too depending.

One day my racc is fine, I slug on 100TP and only miss a random few, other days I miss a ton, WS after WS.

Then I look at the Rng next to me (Hyth you slut ; Tping in STR gear and they say they dont have any problems with racc, as /war and eating subs (I use sushi)

Crazy stuff...just go with w/e you feel most comfortable with.

[Sairasu23]

TBH you I dont think you can have too much acc for WS i have 8/8 archery shooting 140+ tp and still miss sidewinder some how. Also depends on where your standing and whats being fought.

[Rilu]

Ranged Attack is what is going to push your sidewinders to huge numbers. Strength is good, but where you can get Ranged Attack, get it. Here are a few examples from last nights Ixion - Pre bard with Cor, then Post bard with Cor and sub war.

Pre-bard with Cor, sub ninja with sole sushi and flashy shot
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...Sidewinder.jpg

Post Bard with cor, sub war with coeurl sub (wearing Buccaneers belt)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...Sidewinder.jpg

Post Bard with cor, sub war with coeurl sub (wearing Scouts Belt)
can't find the screenshot, but it was 1605, so ranged attack helped just a bit from scouts belt over STR from bucc belt (obviously I can't say it ALWAYS will, but just using same abilities, same eveerything else, I got an extra 10 dmg or so with the extra ranged attack)

Bard, Cor, sub war, with Flashy shot with coeurl sub
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...Sidewinder.jpg

[hagun]

Ranged attack is what I prefer and tends to do a hell of alot more damage than stocking up STR. Acc is another issue: Slugwinder just needs a ton of it. Easy route is sushi, but your damage will much lower though consistent; which I perfer.

[Heie]

I would go with what most people have said. TP in range att and WS in str gear.

Also make sure you are WSing with a elemental gorget when using side/slug. I use breeze gorget and next to never miss, +25% acc is awesome for side/slug. I have had more then a few times with 100% acc on odin.