So someone today asked me earlier today what my DEX was and I told her that I was planning on raising it to 50-60 coupled with DEX equips to wear end game claw. Then she asked, well why don't you just raise DEX and buy LUK equips since LUK equips are cheaper than DEX, wouldn't it be the same thing? This had always been at the back of my mind but I never really gave much thinking . What's the real difference between say going 50 base DEX with +100 DEX equips and going 100 base DEX with +50 DEX equip? If you go the latter build, you will be buying 50 LUK equips as opposed to 50 DEX, so wouldn't it be the same thing?
The issue with just buying LUK equips, is that you cannot scroll everything for LUK, kind of like STR (I'm more familiar with STR.) You can scroll a bottom for DEX, but not for LUK. You can scroll on top for LUK, but not for DEX. You cannot scroll everything for one stat. I don't know if this really answers your question or helps at all, but I thought I would give my 2 cents.
If you compare a 50 base DEX to a 100 base DEX, the difference would be 50 less LUK for the 100 base DEX. MW30 gives +16% to all stats so +16% to 50 would be 58. Does 8 LUK make a real difference?
Let's put it this way: how much do you think a 13luk Deputy Star would go for, compared to an 8luk one? Yes, when you're at higher levels trying to find any way to increase your range, 8luk will make a substantial difference.
The MW difference doesn't really matter. MW 30 doesn't exist in v6s, so it's not +16% but +10%. The difference on 50 base points will be 5 luk. However, you'll also get 5 additional points of dex for having a higher base there, so as long as you're accounting for MW in equipping your weapon the most it's going to change is 1-2 points due to rounding. The more important issue is that you can't scroll everything for luk, and that equips can come with dex Clean - top/bottom, pendant, maple leaf, etc. Luk scrolls exist for tops, overalls, and earrings only. Dex scrolls exist for bottoms, helmets, overalls, face accessories (avoid scrolls give dex), eye accessories (10/30% acc) and earrings. Dex earrings are more popular than luk earrings because people can more often use them on multiple of their characters. As long as your base dex takes into account the base stats on your top (should be 1-5), your scrolled bottom (18+ to begin with) your zhelm (scrolled, 30+ ideally) and the 5 from your dep star, you should be fine. You can use a few resets down the road when you acquire other things - egged HTP is the most major. As well there's a few from almighty ring, a small number from a rac mask, your face accessory (maple leaf - you'll want a +dex or +luk one clean, and you can scroll it with avoid scrolls to give dex) as well as when you upgrade those other items.
Someone also told me that LUK stops scaling at a certain level, like it only adds 1 to your damage for every level. If that's the case then wouldn't it also be the same as raising DEX?
I believe it actually starts to scale more when you have more base weapon attack, such as cape/shoes/glove.
Doesn't really make sense that Luk would stop giving you damage after a certain level unless someone messed with the coding and made NLs stop increasing in damage after a certain point.
What they meant is that weapon attack becomes far more important than stats at high levels. At low levels one weapon attack might be equivalent to three to four stats, but at high levels it's more like nine to ten stats. Your range increase per stat is purely dependant on your weapon attack and thus at high levels you should be increasing it by more in absolute terms, but the percentage change will be small.