Confused about stat placement and training future

[Kerythen]

Hi all -- long time absent player who has recently returned to the game and has been really enjoying it, but I'm presently very confused about what to do with stats and future skill placement. My 30 days runs out in 3 days, so I thought I might spitball and ask for some help here.

For reference, I had been using the "Cheatyface" guide with decent effect but have transitioned into a polearm bard. Longer term, I would like to fixskills into a pure bard when viable, as it looks like a ton of fun. However, I'm at a major loss on stats. I've never taken growth very seriously and have some concerns I'll either gimp my long term growth or gimp my current ability to hunt as a solo player (although the Dreavenings are a nice touch most nights).

Here is something along where I would consider placing my stats, at level 20 (pre-growth list below). My concerns are losing too much AS, DS, and the ability to swing a lance in 5 seconds. I am currently a COL master.

Gender: Male Age: 0 Expr: 504210 Level: 20
Normal (Bonus) ... Enhanced (Bonus)
Strength (STR): 86 (18) ... 86 (18)
Constitution (CON): 70 (10) ... 70 (10)
Dexterity (DEX): 80 (20) ... 80 (20)
Agility (AGI): 86 (33) ... 86 (33)
Discipline (DIS): 77 (-2) ... 77 (-2)
Aura (AUR): 90 (25) ... 90 (25)
Logic (LOG): 63 (6) ... 63 (6)
Intuition (INT): 56 (3) ... 56 (3)
Wisdom (WIS): 71 (10) ... 71 (10)
Influence (INF): 55 (12) ... 55 (12)

Stats at 0:

STR 80
CON 65
DEX 70
AGL 80
DIS 75
AUR 80
LOG 60
INT 55
WIS 65
INF 35

Kerythen (at level 20), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 96 22
Combat Maneuvers...................| 96 22
Polearm Weapons....................| 144 44
Physical Fitness...................| 96 22
Dodging............................| 96 22
Harness Power......................| 96 22
Mental Lore - Telepathy............| 96 22
Climbing...........................| 96 22
Swimming...........................| 25 5

Spell Lists
Minor Elemental....................| 2

Spell Lists
Bard...............................| 20

I stuck closely to Whirlin's guide here, although I will miss all of my secondary skills (RIP survival, first aid, and trading). I am looking to get 30 ranks of climbing, 10 swimming, and then focus on some additional skills. Mental mana control to 24 ranks or whatever the cap is now.

How important is it to pick up 1x perception? The MOC ranks?

I appreciate the very indepth guide stickied and any feedback!

[Wesley]

1x perception is important, but not super important at early levels. I've found you can pick it up as you start getting extra TPs between 20-30 without too much detriment. Just make sure you don't do things without big perception checks (like running to ZL from Landing) until you have 10 ranks or so.

Your training looks fine. Your stats look okay, but man, that logic bonus is going to really hurt your exp absorption. Since you mentioned you're swinging a lance, my first go-to for bard of dexterity would be out for dumping that down a bit. I recommend dropping Influence down as far as you can go. I think for you that's only 5 more points, but it's something at least. You have plenty of influence bonus to start with and it's a super fast grower, but 6 logic bonus makes you level pretty slow. Your AGIDEX is currently 53 at level 20, which is exactly enough to swing a lance at 5 RT (9 base - 4 for AGIDEX).

Level 20 is still easy going as far as fighting goes. If it were me personally, I would tank Agi and Dex maybe 5 points more each (or whatever number would have you hitting 53 AGIDEX at around level 30), and either just live with 6 RT for a few levels, or use a naginata or somesuch for a few levels. And of course, I'd put those points in logic. Lastly, I dunno your race so I dunno your GI on Intuition, but you could maybe dump stat that a little bit and bump your logic up a bit more. Logic bonus is just a quality of life deal. I'd take little bits of stats out of anywhere you possibly can and put it there.

Other than that, you're on the right track skill-wise, and you seem to have done the math with your stats.

[Tgo01]

Here's a nifty little program:

http://web.archive.org/web/20130601144508/http://home.mchsi.com/~cphillips73/StatCruncher/GS4/StatMaximizer/StatMaximizer.html

Basically you enter what you want your stats to look like at level 100 and the program will tell you the minimum you have to set your stats to in order to reach that stat at level 100. No race/class combo can get 100's in everything although some race/class combos can get 100's in everything except 1 stat, most combos have 2 sub 100 stats.

There are other programs/calculators on there too at this site:

http://web.archive.org/web/20130518122455/http://home.mchsi.com/~cphillips73/StatCruncher/StatCruncher.html

There are two schools of thought when it comes to placing stats: getting your preferred stats (like 100's in the most important) at around level 50 or so, which gives you a lot more skill points but your stats aren't perfect at level 100 (in which case you can buy a fixstats), or from the beginning set your stats so they will be perfect at level 100 and skip buying a fixstat.

Personally I fall in the latter group but many people will say go for the former. It's up to you. If you want more training points now then you should put more points into INF since it's a prime stat for bards. Also LOG helps a lot with absorbing experience which means you level faster and LOG grows very slowly for bards so I would pump that up a bit as well. INT is probably one of the least most important stats for a bard. Other than that your stats look fine unless you're going for perfect stats at cap, but again that's your choice.

1x perception is nice because it's cheap and it affects finding certain secret passages and stuff and helps with defending against maneuvers. I would also find a way to 1x in survival if possible; it helps with skinning, foraging, ice patches, and other stuff.

[Wesley]

Fun fact - Both the stat maximizer and cruncher are built into http://gemstone.tusatusa.com. :P

They're also at nitefallz.com

[Whirlin]

I stuck closely to Whirlin's guide here, although I will miss all of my secondary skills (RIP survival, first aid, and trading). I am looking to get 30 ranks of climbing, 10 swimming, and then focus on some additional skills. Mental mana control to 24 ranks or whatever the cap is now.

How important is it to pick up 1x perception? The MOC ranks?

I appreciate the very indepth guide stickied and any feedback!
You're very close to finishing telepathy, (don't forget 1 rank in manipulation!) which will free up a lot of TP to catch up on the other stuff. MOC isn't important, it's a nice to have. The other stuff is more important. Any clips you saw with me having MOC was because I had a poleaxe flaring polearm, so it had additional flares based on MOC training. If you want MOC, consider picking it up much later in your career... like... after you finish armor use, climbing, swimming, get 1020/430, and worked on air lore. So like, super late.

[Alarke]

(don't forget 1 rank in manipulation!)

Explain? What does 1 rank in manipulation get you?

[Luxelle]

Don't skimp on logic. I did (I had no idea what I was doing) .... it still stings at level 68. As a bard, I don't think you can skimp on any stats.

Keep your focus on the end prize, because those first 30 bard levels are difficult. Make friends with a couple people and share hunts with them.

Don't miss out on free spells whenever they are offered. Let me know whatever I can do to help! :)

~L.

[Whirlin]

Explain? What does 1 rank in manipulation get you?
-3 off of the threshold for 1002. Subsequent ranks is -1.2, so instant diminishing returns.

[Kerythen]

It sounds like the consensus is for stats to raise logic considerably, and drop dex and possibly agility a bit (use a non-lance or deal with 6 second RT for a while). Not sure what else I can possibly tank after influence, which seems like it's going to cost me a lot of TPs. I will play around with the statcrunchers a bit later, thanks for the link. I do think as a solo player I will probably need to place for mid-game growth and consider a fixstat later (how much are those?), but I'm open to suggestions.

For skills, seems like it's largely on track. Grab a manipulation lore rank, the mental mana control, and start to get perception when and air lore when the points become available, and possibly survival.

Thanks again. I welcome any other feedback, especially on stats!

[Tgo01]

Fix stats are like 140 dollars in the Simu Coin store so you can expect to pay whatever the silver valuation in silvers at the time if you wanted to buy one with in game silvers.

You can also buy one for 1 million bounty points which should be easy to get by cap if you do bounties on a regular basis.