Tree of Savior Forum

Why you always should build STR instead of DEX on a Swordsman -> Corsair for PVP and PVE

Class and Rank Swordsman
#1

Why you always should build STR instead of DEX on a Swordsman for PVP and PVE.

First of all you need to understand the Stats and their purpose:

Each Point in DEX adds - Accuracy; Evasion; Critical Rate
Each Point in STR adds - Phys. Atk; Crit Atk; Carry Weight

DEX:
Accuracy - Obviously good to Hit you opponent in PVP & PVE
Evasion - Good to avoid Damage in PVP & PVE
Crit Rate - Increases DPS in PVP & PVE

STR:
Phys.Atk - Increase DPS PVP & PVE
Crit. Atk - Increase DPS when you crit - we wont crit a lot with a STR built so its useless
Carry Weight - simply useless for combat

So now that we know the effects of adding 1 DEX or 1 STR we need to consider from which stat or rather which Stat-Based-effect gets us the most benefits for our Class. Remember we’re playing a melee Character. So obviously if we compare DEX to STR there is an 3:1 advantage in DEX since you profit from all the effects by adding 1 Point DEX compared to adding 1 point in STR. But what you should question yourself is: Do you need all these benefits?

So why could it be better to build STR instead of DEX?
It’s because of the Mechanics and how the Critical Hit formula and the Damage Output is calculated!

Lets take a look at the Stat-Effects:
Accuracy not an real issue, because a lot of your offensive Skills have AoE effects which means they aren’t dodged by Evasion Rating, only by movement and character placement.
Nevertheless your main Damage output is generated by auto attacks (at least on corsair). Which means that you need at least a certain amount of accuracy to get enough Hit rating.
Evasion is a nice to have but considering the lag and the attack mechanic, you simply don’t need Evasion to stay alive, because you can dodge most attacks by your movement (btw. Spells are undodgeable anyway).
What remains is Crit Rating. Building DEX for Crit Rating is a huge waste of stat points which i will explain later.

Now lets make an first assessment of the Effectiveness.

Status		Effect		Rating
DEX		Accuracy	0,5
DEX		Evasion 	0
DEX		Crit Rate	0
STR		Phys. Atk	1
STR		Crit. Atk	0
STR		Carry Weight	0

DEX 0,5 < STR 1

Why is DEX for Crit Rating a waste of Points?
Its because of the Critical rate formular:
CritChance = (CritRate - CritRes) x (42 / CharLv)

You’ll notice that the Crit Rating is Reduced by an opponents Crit Resistance Rating (common sense). The actual problem is, that you cannot influence the Crit Resistance of your Enemies. Lets compare this by analysing a fight against two different Minions on the same Map.
Lvl 123 Zone Sunset Flag Forest:

Player:
Class: CorsairC1
CharLv: lvl 129
Crit Rate: 89

Monster:

Kepa Raider: lvl 125
CritRes: 20
Crit Rate = (89 - 20) * 42/129 = 22,47% Crit Chance
In 31 Hits I landed 5 Crits = 16% Rate which comes close to 22%

Infro Holder: lvl 126
CritRes: 117
Crit Rate = (89 - 117) * 42/129 = 0 % Crit Chance
No Crit at all. All Hits were normal Hits.

Conclusion:
PVE:
In Order to have a 1% Crit Chance on Infro Holder you need at least an Crit Rating of 120, which also means that 117 Points of DEX would be completely wasted just to cover the threshold of his Critical Resistance. You could also say: You wasted 117 Stat Points into absolutely nothing.
PVP:
For PVP reasons focusing on DEX is even worse, since in PvP people always have a fair amount of CON which means, each CON = 1 CritRes = Nullifies 1 DEX and your opponent benefits from the HP Gain which means you have even more disadvantage.

Why is STR better than DEX?
For each point in STR you get 1 Damage. Damage is reduced by Physical Defense but Phys. Defense is capped based on Equipment Defense. CON doesnt increase Defense, it only reduces Crit and increases HP. So at a certain level STR will outscale DEX significantly.
Remeber you can’t influence the CritRes of your opponent! But you can affect enemy defense (by using pierce weapons, Skills: “Pommel Beat, War Cry”)

This is an real Issue atm. since Classes like Corsair which basically should rely on a combination of DEX / STR are currently unplayable or un-variable at the mid-/end game, because you’re simply forced to rely on one Stat which is STR. Furthermore the Dagger mechanic doesnt deviate at all from other classes, you could simply play doppelsoldner or fencer with a dagger/sword combination and no one would notice a diffrence. But that pushes me off-topic so, what is your opinion on DEX vs. STR?

Feel free to comment.

Sources:
https://forum.treeofsavior.com/t/critical-rate-formula-icbt2-updated/124745

1 Like
#2

FeelsBadMan couldnt link more pictures…

#3

Nice theory. Make a lot of sense!

#4

You’re not getting the whole picture. DEX will become more useful at higher levels (at least PvE wise) because the mobs’ critical resistance does not scale with their level. Even lv 200+ monsters have critical res. ranging between 20-100. The higher is your level, as the less the opponent’s crit res. is meaningful, just as the less your own critical rate is effective. Let’s say you get 71 levels and put every point in dex. Your critical rate will become 89+71= 160. Now you come back and attack infro holder. Crit rate=(160-117)*42/200= 9% which is still not much, but much better than that 0%. (BTW if you attack Kepa raider, critical rate=29,4%)
On the other hand the Mob’s defense does scale with their level, it doesn’t really go crazy so pure STR does keep adding damage, just not 1 per point.

#5

the other reason for the crit reduction with leveling up is that it would make Dex and crit completly broken. If you want a good critrate at level 500 you need to invest in dex and cant just do 100 dex and be done with it.

At the same time they needed to give low level players the possiblity to crit. If the game would have 99 levels and stats like in RO it would likely be static and not have this adjustment.

#6

Yeah youre right, at a certain point your Crit % starts increasing significantly but till then you wasted at least 117 Stat points for nothing.

Lets say you went full DEX and your DEX Rating at lvl 200 is 250, back to infro holder:

CR = (250 - 117) * 42/200 = 27,93 % Crit Chance
Now you have an 1/4 Chance to land a Crit but you lost 250 Min & Max Damage per Hit.
250 damage is half of my attack Rating (with buffs) so in 4 hits you land 1 crit but my delta-base attack already dealt twice as much damage w/o crit

#7

Once you are level 280 and deal 2000 dmg with each hit a crit will be 3000 dmg + critatk.

I’m 140 and I have an attackrating of 500ish without buffs and almost 1000 frenzy/gungho/warcry 5ish mobs

#8

The biggest issue i see here is the cherry picking of mobs.

You would have to do a cross comparison of the mobs showing the crit res curve.

infroholder is a turtle based mob and seems to fall into the “tanky” theme thus a high crit res. I doubt the majority of mobs fall into the high crit res section.

Thus if there is a sampling and it shows that 25% of mobs fall in high crit res and 25% fall in low crit res then 50% fall in the middle. Leaving the two extremes to cancel each other out. If you normalize the data I think you will see less sever disparity between the two stats.

Str or dex ir better for pvp?
#9

Just as Kerzenflamme pointed, you’re only looking at your own character right now. Probably your character does benefit more from STR, but that doesn’t mean all Swordsman should build STR instead of dex. Let’s say a lv 200 barbarian with a “Hell and heaven” greatsword (mean damage 392.5) enhanced with 2 lv4 green gems (+16 critical rate) uses cleave lv10 (974 damage, +50 crit rate) on the Infro Holder (def 138). With 250 STR he deals 250+392.5+974-138= 1478.5 damage since he can’t crit the Infro. With full DEX he has 42% critical rate so he deals a mean of (392.5+974-138)*(1+0,42 crit% * 0,5crit damage) =1486.5
Yeah, the difference is marginal, but will slowly increase with level.

#10

You are not wasting stats, you are using your DEX to complement the Critical Rate you acquire from gems, equipment and Finestra (in case of a Hoplite build). Not counting other benefits as Accuracy or Evasion used for other scenarios like PvP, etc.

Right now you see a more meaningful increase on the damage you acquire from STR because you are still low level.

Once you start dealing 50,000+ damage with your multi-hit skills then you will see that the extra STR (past certain threshold) is not doing that much for you in terms of damage anymore and it is much better to keep a reliable/consistent amount of Critical Rate.

This is why having a balanced build is much better than focusing on one particular stat.

#11

Is it true?
I need some data for this if you would.

#12

No, that is not true.

#13

the problem is that as monsters DEF goes up STR is more important too.