Average balance %?

[Karahaut]

I've been working on Refine for the past few days. So far I'm r7 and also r4 in Metallurgy. With my Broad Axe and 54 dex (no title), I have 38% balance total. I know that melee and ranged balance caps out at 80%, but what should I % should I be aiming for to be at least reasonably close to the max damage output?

Screenshot, just in case:

[Kyubey]

80%, no exceptions.
Im not even kidding, 80% is easy to get, just keep raising up dex and use weapons with higher balance and smaller min/max difference

[Karahaut]

80%, no exceptions.
Im not even kidding, 80% is easy to get, just keep raising up dex and use weapons with higher balance and smaller min/max difference

The fuck.
God, this is just terrible.

[Darkboy132]

80% isn't so difficult to get, especially when Sword Mastery, Knuckle Mastery, and Combat Mastery give by a pretty big percentage.

[Justified]

80%, no exceptions.
Im not even kidding, 80% is easy to get, just keep raising up dex and use weapons with higher balance and smaller min/max difference

Criticals don't need balance as much, and with Windmill you basically rely on criticals for a long time.

Strider paired with 2 Excavator accessories is already +36.5% Balance, plus 15% from Combat Mastery (and +15% more with Sword Mastery) puts you at 52-67% base balance. Most weapons end up with at least 10% Balance which gets you into the 60-70% range before Dex, easily useable.
Paired with the fact that Rank 2 Refine no longer requires Mythril fails, the Dex grind is nowhere near as important anymore. Casually rank Dex until you're able to replace the Excavators, and finally the Strider.

Of note, I'm assuming you did the highest damage upgrade option for Broad Axe while there's an alternate option that trades a tiny 4 Max for both 5 Crit and 34% more Balance. It's already a decent trade-off for the Crit, and that massive Balance boost is a kicker.
Didn't look at screenshot. So if that's a clean Broadaxe you'd get +10 over the base stats after upgrading.

[Kyreffer]

Yeah from what I understand the more balance the higher the dps. Max damage doesn't matter if you don't have the 80% balance to support it.