+dex?

[Brennon]

I've gotten comments from 2 different monks on my server, and both were surprised that my equipment didn't emphasize dex more strongly.

the equipment i'm currently using for exp parties is

tct. mag. hooks (trying to find someone to craft them into +1 or +2)
emporers hair pin
beetle earring +1 x2
spike necklace
Jujitsu Gi
Elvaan RSE Pants
Enkalydo's Bracelet
Life Belt
Puissiance Ring x2
Raptor Mantle
Fuma Kyhan

now, that's actually a good amount of dex, except for the -4dex from the bracelets. . . but the 69mnk i talked to today suggested i go with brown belt instead of life belt, +3 dex rings instead of +3 str, and kote until temple gloves (i was planning on switching to temple gloves when i got them anyway)

What do y'all think?

[Dano]

i would suggest the following combination

sniper rings x2
brownbelt

or

+3 str rings x2
life belt

or mix and match

personally i think sniper rings > +dex rings

+dex only adds very little accuracy boost, so it's sorta useless, you can stay with the bracelets since you have the hairpin to offset the -dex, but the kote is also a good choice consider that +20 atk is alot.

[Brennon]

I think what they were saying is that the added dex helped with more (or stronger?) critical hits, and thus higher DPS, but I was skeptical, since +str affects *every* hit.

The Kote does add alot of attack and I used them from 40-50, but I figured these things. . . since I have Tct. Mag. Hooks now, thats +10 attack there, +7str is significant, and I was planning on switching to the Temple Gloves when I can anyway, so I just decided to switch a bit early.

[Ungerpurr]

The only melee job for whom dex should be focused on over str is THF. Even then, that's only for SA/TA...after that, a good thf will switch to +str gear. For monks, especially, STR is far more important than dex.

Explain this to the monk who thinks you should have +dex over +str:

Let's say your average hit is for 50 damage (standard deviation of 10). Adding 20 str would have a direct impact, increasing your average hit to 70 damage, a ~40% increase in damage.

Now, if instead of that 20 str, you added 20 dex...which is ~10 accuracy (we think)...I guarantee you won't be landing 40% more hits. That'd require you to move from a 70% hit rate (about average at your level) to a 98% hit rate. That's just plain not happening no matter how much dex you could feasibly add.

The cap on hit % is ~95% (no matter how much accuracy you get, you'll always miss ~1/20 hits). Once you hit the +20-25 or so accuracy mark, you're in the 85-90% range, usually, against your average warrior-job XP mob. Getting that much accuracy is trivial by the time you're level 60 (I have 18-28 depending on whether using life or brown belt).

However, to cap on strength, you need to have 24 more STR than the mob has VIT. This is very difficult to do against your average warrior-job XP mob, let alone the mnk or pld mobs. This is the reason for the strength focus. AFAIK, no one has done a definitive study on the effectiveness of DEX on raising crit rates, but I would expect a relatively small increase compared with the damage increase of raising STR.

[Brennon]

I wasn't sure of all those nitty gritty details, but that was basically my understanding, too, Ungerpurr. Thanks for the informative post ^^