RangerRath wrote:
I'd like to interject that losing STR is somewhat of a big deal. I just upgraded my belt and lost 15 STR and due to that loss, I lost 14 ATK.
I was very close to 2k+ ATK with just my self buffs and chanter haste.
Oh well, so much for impulse buying. But it is a nice belt.
I'm going to second what others have said. That 14 ATK is ~.7% of your total ATK value. Even assuming it was a straight linear progression (which it's not), that would *at worse* decrease your dps by .7%. You'd have to do some serious parsing to even notice that.
A haste item is a direct multiplier of damage. A 21% haste item increases your damage by 21%. Always. Against everything. You swing 21% more often, so damage is 21% greater. There is simply no comparison between the two. You're better off with a 1% haste item then that 14 ATK you lost.
Um. And as Czae pointed out, atk is not equal. There are two different types (just as there are two different types of AC). ATK gained from skill and most spells goes against the avoidance value of the mob, meaning that higher ATK from your offense skill (or a buff) will result in your hitting the mobs more often and will result in a direct increase in relative dps. ATK from str is essentially increasing your ATK versus mitigation, meaning you'll hit for more per hit. The problem is that the damage calculations are done in a "strange" way so as to nullify the effect of high strenght most of the time. Look up conversations about "modal" damage sometime and you'll see what I'm talking about. Essentially, you only get the advantage from extra str-ATK when you hit, and then only some of the time when you hit, and even then it's usually not going to significantly increase your average damage.
They also are not linear values. ATK and AC values are curved opposing values. When they are close to eachother, the curves are relatively linear and an increase in one will have a noticable effect on the result. When they are not close (you either have a very high ATK in relation to the mobs AC, or very low in relation to AC), the effect from adding or subtracing ATK is virtually nil.
So increases in ATK are mob dependant. If you are fighting a mob with an AC value that has a good cross value with your ATK, a small increase in ATK can be significant. Most of the time it's not going to be that huge though. Don't get me wrong, you're always going to be better off with more ATK (since that'll apply to more situations), but if you are waaaay above the curve, adding more produces some extreme diminishing returns. This is the exact same math that produces what are referred to as "soft caps" for AC values. Past a certain point, your AC value in relation to the mobs ATK is high enough that adding more doesn't do anything significant. It most certainly works the other way around.
Haste is *not* situational though. Regardless of what mobs you are fighting, haste will *always* increase your DPS by the value of the haste. Thus, you should sacrifice almost anything for increased haste. Certainly, it's the biggest factor for increasing your DPS. There's *some* argument for reducing haste to increase AC/HP if you are a tank (it's really iffy in my opinion, but the argument can be made at least), but absolutely no argument for any DPS class to sacrifice haste for *anything*.