+ to CA damage vs STR

[Ookami-san]

<p>Several pieces of the new RoK gear have +25/etc to CA damage, but has less STR than my regular gear.  Should I give up 5,10,15 points of STR for +25 to CA damage?  What's the return on STR vs return on CA damage?</p>

[Moonlance]

Stat caps are 15 * lvl + 20 from what I recall and are on at diminishing return at 40% from their maximum.  So at lvl 70 the max would be 1070 and 40% of that would be 428.  At 80 that would be 1220 and 488, respectively.  So, you need to look at what your current strength is.  If you raid allot, you should be somewhere near the midpoint between the cap and the point of diminishing returns.  Even if you don't you shouldn't be that far behind when it comes to strength.  I am speaking fully group buffed of course. Personally I have some extra str to give up for CA damage bonus items.  Giving up 20 str for a +20 CA damage item doesn't seem like a hard choice to me.  Now if all +CA items require the sacrifice of str (or even int) that might be a harder choice when trying to stack them.

[Krontak]

<cite>Scayre@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stat caps are 15 * lvl + 20 from what I recall and are on at diminishing return at 40% from their maximum.  So at lvl 70 the max would be 1070 and 40% of that would be 428.  At 80 that would be 1220 and 488, respectively.  So, you need to look at what your current strength is.  If you raid allot, you should be somewhere near the midpoint between the cap and the point of diminishing returns.  Even if you don't you shouldn't be that far behind when it comes to strength.  I am speaking fully group buffed of course. Personally I have some extra str to give up for CA damage bonus items.  Giving up 20 str for a +20 CA damage item doesn't seem like a hard choice to me.  Now if all +CA items require the sacrifice of str (or even int) that might be a harder choice when trying to stack them.</blockquote>I think you got your calc reversed a bit.  40% from the maximum of 1070 would be 1070 * .6 = 642 and 1220 would be 1220 * .6 = 732.

[Rokjin]

When talking about raiding/high end gear, most Swashbucklers are already well into the diminishing returns curve of STR.. so +CA damage tends to be by far better at boosting DPS.