Could use some help with skills (Lvl 91/92)

[Rhangath]

Thanks again for any help I am looking to review my pure hunting/Healing build on my Empath. Based on reviewing my build I am planning to entire drop spell aiming to 0. I am a bit worried I am way over trained in physical fitness I remember in the past doing this to try and find against some maneuver style attacks. Not sure this is really helping or just limiting me in other ways. I am looking to bring more wither into my usage rather than bone shatter so I bumped up my summoning lore a lot and considering doing it even further if I swap other points around. Also not sure if my base empath spell tree should be a lot higher in points... overall after being gone for so long really not sure this build does or doesn't make sense. I spend so much time in the Bowels hunting as well so those maneuver attacks had driving me crazy in the past.

Edit: Also cant for the life of me figure why I have so many skill points in mental mana control. (Never mind I see they changed bone shatter to no longer leverage this for increased damage)

Edit: Another question would I find a better CS position if my secondary spell ranks were a bit higher than increased my empath base another further 10 ranks?

Thats it for rambling really any advice would be extremely welcome here.

Rhangath (at level 91), your base skill bonuses, ranks and goals are:
Skill Name | Actual Actual
| Bonus Ranks Goals In-Game Time to Goal
Armor Use..........................| 40 8 8
Physical Fitness...................| 365 265 250 8958 days, 6 hours, 28 minutes
Arcane Symbols.....................| 192 92 92
Magic Item Use.....................| 192 92 92
Spell Aiming.......................| 176 76 0 8977 days, 11 hours, 19 minutes
Harness Power......................| 250 150 150
Mental Mana Control................| 230 130 130
Spirit Mana Control................| 190 90 90
Spiritual Lore - Blessings.........| 70 15 15
Spiritual Lore - Summoning.........| 140 40 75 ASAP (will rise when points are available)
Mental Lore - Manipulation.........| 105 25 25
Mental Lore - Transformation.......| 166 66 66
Survival...........................| 150 50 50
Perception.........................| 192 92 92
Climbing...........................| 170 70 70
Swimming...........................| 160 60 60
First Aid..........................| 190 90 90

Spell Lists
Major Spiritual....................| 40 40

Spell Lists
Minor Spiritual....................| 45 45

Spell Lists
Empath.............................| 115 115
Training Points: 82 Phy 0 Mnt (2170 Phy converted to Mnt)

[khorpulent]

I don't actually think you went that overboard on the PF. I did about 2.5x pre-cap. It's cheap and it makes you a lot more durable.

You might consider dropping HP down to 1x. You can get 6 spell ranks in exchange. Some people would prefer the extra 50 mana I guess, but I didn't have that many ranks until way past cap.

I've also never been a fan of manipulation lore for empaths -- I don't really find the small insta-kill chance worth it. I tend to prefer telepathy instead, mostly for the benefits to 1117. It also helps with 1110, but that won’t matter if you’re dropping SA. You also may not need quite that many transformation ranks. I think you need 56 or 57 for 0 RT at cap.

You should probably keep 100 MMC ranks. That gives you 7 possible targets for 1117, some extra mana spellups, and a little extra mana regeneration. The next threshold for 1117 isn't until 150, though. You can just keep SMC at 1x.

As for spiritual lores, that's gonna depend on what society you're in. If you're GoS, the benefits from sigil of power + 1107 with 65 blessing ranks are pretty awesome, but it really cuts into your summoning lore. You need as much summoning as you can get, of course, to get that extra damage cycle from 1115. Wither isn't really all that great without that 5th cycle. So if you're not Sunfist, drop all that blessing and put it into summoning. If you are Sunfist, you're faced with a pretty tough choice. Takes 75 ranks for a 50% chance at a fifth cycle, 150 for 100%.

You could probably drop down to 60 climbing ranks.

You should probably aim to get your empath ranks up as high as you can. From 21-60 ranks over level, you'll be getting .5 CS per rank, vs .33 per rank for spiritual circles. Drop your minor spirit down to 40 at most and put those ranks in empath. You could even drop down to 130 and put those ranks in empath too, though it would only yield an additional 2 CS.

[Rhangath]

Great advice I made some tweaks here...


Rhangath (at level 91), your base skill bonuses, ranks and goals are:
Skill Name | Actual Actual
| Bonus Ranks Goals In-Game Time to Goal
Armor Use..........................| 40 8 8
Physical Fitness...................| 364 264.942 250 19 days, 18 hours, 45 minutes
Arcane Symbols.....................| 192 92 92
Magic Item Use.....................| 192 92 92
Spell Aiming.......................| 175 75.844 0 35 days, 6 hours, 33 minutes
Harness Power......................| 249 149.987 115 53 days, 5 hours, 44 minutes
Mental Mana Control................| 229 129.982 100 31 days, 0 hours, 18 minutes
Spirit Mana Control................| 190 90 92 ASAP (will rise when points are available)
Spiritual Lore - Blessings.........| 70 15 15
Spiritual Lore - Summoning.........| 140 40 90 ASAP (will rise when points are available)
Mental Lore - Manipulation.........| 102 24.982 0 29 days, 23 hours, 18 minutes
Mental Lore - Telepathy............| 0 0 28 ASAP (will rise when points are available)
Mental Lore - Transformation.......| 165 65.982 65 4 hours, 54 minutes
Survival...........................| 150 50 50
Perception.........................| 192 92 92
Climbing...........................| 169 69.973 60 1 day, 9 hours, 14 minutes
Swimming...........................| 160 60 60
First Aid..........................| 190 90 90

Spell Lists
Major Spiritual....................| 40 40

Spell Lists
Minor Spiritual....................| 44.997 40 1 day, 9 hours, 14 minutes

Spell Lists
Empath.............................| 115 130 ASAP (will rise when points are available)
Training Points: 42 Phy 0 Mnt (2250 Phy converted to Mnt)

[Erous]

My wife in her low 80s has 3x PF and it's well worth it and has always 1x HP because the benefits of any more than that don't outweigh the benefits of other skills like spells, or combat maneuvers for example. She's also a pure CS caster, so no spell aim needed. All those extra points she's been using for combat maneuvers, because that's typically a pure's biggest downfall and she seems to do well. I'm not know-it-all in Empath, so there could be better advise but it's worked for her so far.

[Rhangath]

trying to make sure I am happy with it before I use the fixskill so this has been helpful. Sorry for it appearing messy with the old and new changes in the list.

[audioserf]

I'm 90 with a 456 (463 enhanced) empath CS as a COL dwarf. I have 263 ranks of spells and 263 ranks of PF. Zero lores. 25 ranks SMC, 10 ranks MMC for the fourth target on 1117. I have no problems obliterating anything that is susceptible to 1106/1115. I can post my build when I get home. It's a one trick pony but it's fun as heck and does that one trick very well.

[Rhangath]

so after reading all the feedback this is what I ended up going with for now. Thanks for the help everyone hopefully this gets me close to what I am after.

Rhangath (at level 91), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 40 8
Physical Fitness...................| 330 230
Arcane Symbols.....................| 192 92
Magic Item Use.....................| 192 92
Harness Power......................| 215 115
Mental Mana Control................| 200 100
Spirit Mana Control................| 201 101
Spiritual Lore - Blessings.........| 70 15
Spiritual Lore - Summoning.........| 198 98
Mental Lore - Transformation.......| 165 65
Survival...........................| 150 50
Perception.........................| 192 92
Climbing...........................| 160 60
Swimming...........................| 160 60
First Aid..........................| 190 90

Spell Lists
Major Spiritual....................| 40

Spell Lists
Minor Spiritual....................| 40

Spell Lists
Empath.............................| 134

[khorpulent]

I'm 90 with a 456 (463 enhanced) empath CS as a COL dwarf. I have 263 ranks of spells and 263 ranks of PF. Zero lores. 25 ranks SMC, 10 ranks MMC for the fourth target on 1117. I have no problems obliterating anything that is susceptible to 1106/1115. I can post my build when I get home. It's a one trick pony but it's fun as heck and does that one trick very well.

I’ve always felt that it’s worth it for empaths to give up a little CS in exchange for the benefits of summoning lore. The thing with 1115 is that the first 3 damage cycles are relatively weak and the fourth is quite strong. The 5th is equal in power to the 4th. On decent endrolls, you can do 100+ damage on both the 4th and 5th cycle. At cap, 100 ranks of spiritual lore would give you a 66% chance at a powerful5th cycle, but would cost the equivalent of about 18 spell ranks. I personally think it’s a worthwhile trade to give up the 9 CS for that 5th cycle.

My empath was only at about 2.5x spell ranks at cap, and I’ve never had a problem warding anything. I’m at 297 ranks now, but I won’t be fully 3x until something like 15.5m exp.

There’s just a lot of cool shit that empaths get from lores that I’d rather have than a few extra CS points. I’m especially enamored with the combination of 1107 + sigil of power, so I definitely made some sacrifices to be able to do that. And sure, I don’t need all that telepathy lore, but it sure is satisfying to link 6 or 7 creatures together and destroy them with one cast of 1115. And really, 1117 works just fine without any telepathy lore, I actually just wanted to be able to use 1120 in Reim.

It's really just all a matter of preference. I just kind of like having all the bells and whistles.

[audioserf]

Everything you've said makes sense. Lots of ways to skin a cat. I'm pretty single-minded in wanting max CS and am going to keep chasing that dragon. Getting warded pisses me off and my goal is auto-ward at like-level. 202 summoning is my first post-cap goal, though. Alllll the 1115.

[khorpulent]

Yeah, 1115 can produce some nice crits at high endrolls, so it's possible that maxing CS is equally (or even more) effective in the long run. I've never sat down and done the math on it, so I don't really know. I've actually compensated for my less-than-max CS a lot of the time by channeling open-handed in offensive. Of course, with a maxed out CS, you're probably even more likely to one-shot things with the extra +40 on the endroll.

[audioserf]

I'm self spelled a lot of the time so I don't leave guarded stance. I used to channel but I stopped when I saw that channeling in guarded with one open hand is only +5 end roll. I find that I'm much preferring never being in hard RT anyway.