[Ability] / [DEX] Discussion

[Zipzo]

I thought we should get a real topic going on this stat. With the Braver released and an obviously more present and noticeable focus on the this stat than ever before, I find it perplexing that there is still very little actual knowledge on the stat as a whole. I'm sure we all already know about how it raises your damage floor, and how it lowers your enemies' damage floor when attacking you, so there's no reason to re-wash that over and over again.

Does anyone have any theories on what the "cap" is? Has anyone experimented with high levels (and conversely as part of the same experiment, very little levels) of ability and documented their findings?

What is the modifier on 10*/+10 weapons to your ability? I noticed equipping and un-equipping weapons doesn't change your base or accumulative Dex on your character sheet, so I'm just unsure of this at all. Let's get this discussion rolling as I still see ability to be a pretty vague stat in the void of things. This is partially SEGA's fault, but we can sure try.

[Xaeris]

The closest thing I've seen to an explanation is in this thread: http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=210053

While I was looking around, I noticed that there is Dex research on one of the Japanese Wikis. And by looking at that data, it is easy to interpret the formula.

Basically, +5 Dex = +1 Average Damage. This applies to all types of damage, so 1 Dex is worth the same as 1 S Attack, 1 R Attack, and 1 T Attack combined.

However, there are two disadvantages to Dex: the first is that it caps at 90% of the weapon's damage. As a rule of thumb, you probably do not want the Dex on your Mag to exceed 20% of whatever your weakest weapon adds at the time. Second, Dex is generally not used to equip the best gear. Therefore raising the primary damage stat allows you to use better weapons which need higher Dex to stabilize the damage.

Of course, rare weapons change the minimum damage value, but the minimum damage of a non-rare seems locked at 50%. As such, you may want to keep Mag Dex between 10-20% of your weakest rare.

Which actually does make a fairly definitive statement about Dex. It could stand corroboration though.

[UnLucky]

That post still has a lot of ambiguity, especially about the Dex cap, rare weapons, and minimum damage floor.

I think it's pretty obvious that your total Dex should not exceed your total Atk, but if that was the only condition then there wouldn't even be a discussion.

So if you've got 2000 Atk, your maximum damage is 400 (before multipliers). With 500 Dex, is your minimum damage with a non-rare 200 (100 from Dex, but 200 is 50% of your max), or 300 (50% + 100)? With a rare weapon, is it now 350 (with a 150% Dex bonus)?

That still seems like a lot more variance than I typically see without any focus in Dex. But working with those numbers, your Dex should not exceed 33% of your Atk, since that would bring your minimum damage up to exactly your maximum. Even less for Bravers, since they get 110% on PAs.

[Kondibon]

That post still has a lot of ambiguity, especially about the Dex cap, rare weapons, and minimum damage floor.

I think it's pretty obvious that your total Dex should not exceed your total Atk, but if that was the only condition then there wouldn't even be a discussion.

So if you've got 2000 Atk, your maximum damage is 400 (before multipliers). With 500 Dex, is your minimum damage with a non-rare 200 (100 from Dex, but 200 is 50% of your max), or 300 (50% + 100)? With a rare weapon, is it now 350 (with a 150% Dex bonus)?

That still seems like a lot more variance than I typically see without any focus in Dex. But working with those numbers, your Dex should not exceed 33% of your Atk, since that would bring your minimum damage up to exactly your maximum. Even less for Bravers, since they get 110% on PAs.

Based on the fact that variance only appears when using a weapon maybe your base attack is the minimum and dex increases your minimum attack from there.

[Pillan]

Yes, it does get a little vague with rare weapons. The basic rule is that the minimum damage is your base stat plus affix plus 50% of the weapon for non-rares.

But according to that wiki link above, rare weapons can go as high as 75% for their minimum damage. To make matters worse, the Red weapon series actually changes its minimum damage ratio with grinding. Starting with a low minimum damage but they are actually better than a lot of things at +10.

As for the formula, it is easy to confirm with the plethora of research on that wiki link.

If you want a "your dex is useless after [set value]" point, the best answer is 100 on the Mag unless you are abusing Braver Mag. But that is assuming you have a rare weapon that adds 1000 attack or a non-rare that adds 500+ attack.

[gigawuts]

It'd be one thing if the bonus dex showed up on our character sheets, but as far as I'm aware it doesn't so a lot of this stuff will be really sketchy to test.

[Asdfv]

From what I remember from reading up on this, damage calculations make distinctions between different sources of ATK, but they don't matter much in regard to the maximum damage range (perhaps only some minor rounding differences). The simplified maximum base damage (before considering multipliers and whatnot) is
(totalATK - DEF) / 5.

However, the distinction between ATK from the weapon and ATK not from the weapon matters a bit more for the minimum damage range. The simplified minimum base damage is
[(nonWATK - DEF) + (DEX - enemyDEX) * 2] / 5,
with the [(DEX - enemyDEX) * 2] portion being capped between 10% and 90% of the weapon's ATK. (The weapon's ATK includes grinder upgrades, but not affixes.)

In other words, non-weapon ATK increases minimum and maximum base damage by 0.2 per ATK, weapon ATK only directly increases maximum base damage by 0.2 per ATK, and DEX increases minimum base damage by 0.4 per DEX, but only until a cap based on the weapon's ATK (and the enemy's DEX).

With DEX not mattering when a hit is critical, the rare weapon DEX corrections, Braver PA DEX corrections, and the Braver Mag skill, it gets a bit more complicated, but if hypothetically not considering any of those and equipment requirements, DEX should affect average damage as much as non-weapon ATK until the 10&90% caps take effect.