Viper Melding, Stat Priority, and Consumables — Dawntrail 7.1

This page covers a generalized priority system for secondary stats for Viper. All stats in FFXIV increase in what we call "tiers," where you must add a certain amount in order to gain any benefit at all. Determination and Direct Hit Rate both scale linearly, while Critical Hit Rate, which increases both rate and value as you gain stat points, scales quadratically. All three of these stats work in tandem to maximize the damage of each individual action you perform - Weaponskill or Ability. Skill Speed scales worse than these other three stats for Viper, so we try to avoid it whenever possible.

Viper best-in-slot sets are listed on our Gearing page. You may compare those sets to the advice here and find disparities in the suggested information. This is generally due to aforementioned stat tiering.

The stat priority for Viper is as follows:

1. Weapon Damage;
2. Dexterity;
3. Critical Hit Rate;
4. Determination = Direct Hit Rate;
5. Skill Speed.

When upgrading your gear, you should always focus on improving your Weapon Damage and Dexterity as much as possible. Skill Speed is our least valuable stat, but having some won't drastically impact your rotation, so it's generally fine while leveling or during the gearing process to have it here and there. Just be sure that, when you settle into your best gear, you avoid it as much as possible.

We generally follow the priority listed above when melding materia. Determination and Direct Hit Rate have a peculiar relationship, which makes them relatively equivalent in total gains per point, though Determination has wider tiers. Due to this, it is very likely for Determination to beat out Direct Hit Rate in weird places, due to better tier hits. A tool is currently in the works to help you to optimize your individual personal melds during progression. Once it's made, we'll add it here.

As Dawntrail is still young, stat formulas are currently imperfect, so expect a more complete explanation as we get closer to Savage dropping on the 31st.

Note that Skill Speed does increase the speed at which we generate Offerings for Reawaken and all of our off-GCDs are tied to GCDs as well. It does not, however, shorten the cooldown of Vicewinder nor Serpent's Ire, so it is not empirically always good. There is niche optimization surrounding using three Reawaken combos in one potion window which becomes much cleaner at a slightly faster speed, however.

Potions - gemdraughts, these days - are very simple to understand in this game. You will always want the highest tier potion (gemdraught) for your job's main stat. For Viper, this is Dexterity. An easy way to find this on the market board is to search for "gemdraught of dexterity" - this will show you all of the current ones available.

As far as food is concerned, this will always be included in the relevant best-in-slot gearsets. The stats provided are considered when looking for optimal stat tier hits, so it can vary based on your current stat distribution. As such, just check out the Gearing page to see which food you should use with your best-in-slot gear. In general, you can just stockpile it and use it during prog, as well - the slight gains from using a different food will be unnoticeable, even if a different one is better with your current stat assortment.