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Grace Xisthrith -> RE: DEX's style bonus (3/18/2024 17:17:37)
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I think if we're talking about style bonuses goal of giving stats unique identity and encouraging hybridization more than was previously the case, it's worth stating that:
STR does the same exact thing with or without its style bonus when picked alone. It does not gain a new identity. Warrior lean opens up the identity, but that is not the style bonus. There is further motivation to hybridize with INT as Dardiel pointed out, but as various players have pointed out, none with DEX.
INT's style bonus does nothing to encourage hybridization for the vast majority of players (I'd struggle to believe anyone is excited enough about getting placebo boost on STR or DEX scaling spell type skills). INT was already an option to hybridize because of the MP bar, the style bonus does next to nothing to encourage hybridization. It also does nothing to build INTs identity, but that's okay, because INT was the one stat staff believed already had an identity, so didn't need changing.
DEX's style bonus boosts Proc weapons and gives BTH. There's what I'd assume a very small fraction of people taking DEX to get 4.25 bth, just like there were what I'd assume a very small fraction of people taking strength pre third revamp to get 5% damage. This isn't in my books motivation to hybridize. Bonus damage to weapon procs, given there are no melee 100 Procs, and every magic 100 Proc released in the last year (with the exception of the 2 most recent ones) is a clone of a mathematically superior DEX 100 Proc, there is not motivation from the style bonus to hybridize.
I want to respectfully critique the initial locking of the thread, and its current location in general discussion. First of all, Sapphire's base statements about DEX are correct. His assumptions about warriors always getting 10% damage and Mages always having access to Wallbreaker are not, but his statements on what DEX currently does are, and those are the cited reasons for locking the post. As a forums user, I'm a little confused about that. If it was locked for some other reason, that would be different, but the listed reasons for locking the post seem entirely incorrect.
Secondly, I can't see why this thread is in general discussion. It's a discussion about suggested change to game balance of a specific game mechanic. GBI would seemingly be the only correct place for it to be. Again, I'm confused about this choice. One could argue it isn't mathematically involved, I would counter that the last 4 GBI posts (as of this message) contain little to no accurate mathematical information in their first posts. As such, I think this post should be moved back to GBI, and I think that future posts should be much more carefully read through, and if they are to be locked, locked with the actual reasons for the locking listed, rather than reasons which by my best reading, don't apply to the post.
To the topic though.
As for saying the meta doesn't matter, that's a valid point, the devs shouldn't pander to the meta with every update. That being said, I'd argue that for STR, they weakened the style bonus to have a part of its power unaffected by lean and unable to stack with other boosters (backhand), so they were considering the meta with that. For INT, they weakened the style bonus to be mathematically super underpowered, and only applicable in relatively niche scenarios, so that it would be decisively unmeta. For CHA, they weakened booster guests directly by decreasing their average output by 1/6th compared to every other guest which stayed the same. So, the meta was definitely considered in style bonus design, from my perspective.
Building on Dardiel's point, the only stats that you had almost no reason to hybridize with pre revamp were STR DEX. The only stats you have almost no reason to hybridize with post revamp are STR DEX. This is a failure of that initial goal of encouraging hybridization. I personally don't think that's a bad thing, since getting free power outside of item variety with hybridization is kinda powercreepy, but it's a point to be made.
Ogma: You've got some good parts, I'm gonna note some parts where I think you made a mistake.
FD Melee:
All true, but all of these are true without DEX and with only STR, barring 4.25 bth.
FO Melee:
All true, but again, all of these are true without DEX and with only STR, barring 4.25 bth
FD Ranged:
10% weapon damage is not active on weapon specials / bows. Also you have an extra +5% weapon special damage here from somewhere, unless I'm misunderstanding.
FO Ranged:
Yes, they'd benefit 10% damage and 5% counterstrike from having STR.
DEX's style bonus does not make 20 Procs worth using in FO. 20 Proc specials deal 150% melee, and gain a 10% boost. Since they proc every five turns, you get 15/5% melee per turn, or 3% melee. This is before accounting for losing your FO armor lean, and before accounting for losing your 1.08x damage multiplier.
I think if they wanted to make DEX style bonus more interesting, they could have its damage bonus applied to proc weapons / proc chance. IE, a 100 proc would get 15%/1, a 20 Proc would get 10% / .2. This would make the style bonus actually beneficial for sub 100 Procs. If they don't want super massive procs, they could instead apply a boost to all attacks with the proc weapon, specials and normal attacks. This would make 20 Procs theoretically optimal for FO rangers, and FO ranger / warrior hybrids, since these hybrids would now actually want to use normal attacks. I don't think it's a great idea because it's more abuseable though, I'd support the randomly strong special procs much more than this other iteration.
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