Can someone explain to me OA vs DPS?

[platelamp]

I have 2 characters around level 40, an arcanist and a nightblade. For the life of me, i dont understand, is maximizing OA. Is this what you want for overall damage output? I don't understand how OA/DPS work together, or how it calculates. Is DPS a stat I care about as arcanist or a elemental style night blade? I am so confused. How do I maximize damage?

[Matthew]

Offensive ability both increases your chance to hit enemies and increases your chance to land critical hits. It affects DPS in that if you aren't hitting enemies, you aren't doing damage.

[Matthew]

You need a ton of OA to get consistent crits, and even then you will want high crit % damage modifiers to make it worth.

Your main priority is to get OA high enough not to miss.

Getting enough to crit is good, but you likely won't reach high OA levels unless you put in a lot of time into a character as it requires a lot of good items.

[King Donco of Punhcistania]

OA is pretty much what you need to land hits on enemies so you can do the damage your character is supposed to be dealing. but it also affects your dps as it increasing your OA increases the chances to land critical hits. dont worry too much about dps though, sometimes its better to decrease your enemies resistances thus doing more damage when you land hits.

[ZarahNeander]

Another prime reason to want high crit chance are devotions that proc on crit. And unless you exceed enemy DA significantly, it's kinda dilemma: against trash mob, you crit, but dont need it, against bosses, you need it, but dont crit due to their high DA.

So unless you want on crit devotions, get enough OA to hit mobs and take dps increase as a bonus. You can check your to-hit chance in the character tab.