Help with my fixskills

[Jahira]

skill
Jahira (at level 58), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 130 35
Physical Fitness...................| 140 40
Arcane Symbols.....................| 160 60
Magic Item Use.....................| 160 60
Harness Power......................| 190 90
Mental Mana Control................| 160 60
Spirit Mana Control................| 160 60
Mental Lore - Manipulation.........| 160 60
Mental Lore - Transformation.......| 0 0
Perception.........................| 126 33
Climbing...........................| 90 20
Swimming...........................| 90 20
First Aid..........................| 280 180

Spell Lists
Major Spirit.......................| 30

Spell Lists
Minor Spirit.......................| 30

Spell Lists
Empath.............................| 83

I have a fixskills and I am not 100% sure I am still trained properly since I was away for over a year. I am not sure about my Mana Controls. I was also maybe wanting some spell aiming. I heard rumors about Manipulation being worthless, so what other lores should I use? Any ideas would be helpful.

[Jolena]

Manipulation is not worthless if you plan to use BS. At cap, it is said (though I've never seen it said by anyone but a player, so no GM confirmation on my end yet) that you only need 1 rank of manipulation to effectively receive the bonus to BS, but that at lower levels you need the extra ranks to boost your shatter effects until cap. How true that is, I've no idea. My empath singles in it and has since I rolled her. I follow Chica's plan for empath training, and so far its worked out wonderfully.

Personally, I don't see a reason for your empath to have over 25 ranks of Physical Fitness, because with your plan you can't get redux, and you don't use stamina for anything. I'd drop that down from 40 ranks to 25, were I you.

Also you are effectively doubling in mana control with 60 ranks in spiritual and 60 ranks in mental, and I don't really see the need for this either. You could be using a ton of those points in spells. At level 40, my empath has 13 ranks of elemental mana control and 25 ranks of spiritual mana control, and she can send 100 mana to a wizard with elemental share skills, and he'll get 93 or so. Point being, if you are doing the mental mana control for sharing purposes, I don't see the need for you to have 60 ranks, but what the hell, there is probably some other reason that you have 2x'd in share that I just don't see.

Aside from that, you look golden in my opinion. Personally, I'd pick up some brawling ranks just cause its fun to me to be able to swing a fist-scythe when my empath is out of mana, or the creatures arent' shatterable. Also, being able to open-hand channel at a creature with the small, but added DS benefit of brawling ranks is loverly.

If you don't want to go with the brawling route, I'd at least pick up some transformation lore, as you'll have the points for it if you drop down your PF and Mana Control skills. I don't use it, but it does help in healing rt, which is useful.

[StrayRogue]

Manipulation Lore becomes less useful as you get higher in level. I'd estimate the cut-off point be level 50 or so. I stopped gaining ranks after 50 and have not seen any real difference in the power of my BS.

[Jahira]

The only reason I 2x share is because it is fairly cheap and I heard you need the magic ranks for runestaffs. I quit shortly after their release and never really got the downlow on how it worked.

So basiclly I should drop mental all together and pick up some elemental, drop PF, and then get spells with the extra?

[StrayRogue]

I wouldn't even take elemental mana share unless you have a wizard alt/friend. Magical ranks are gained cheaper if you 2x AS or MIU. Plus more spells will buff your AS, DS, CS, TD etc anyway.

[Jolena]

What he said. If you want magical ranks, buff up AS and MIU. Elemental share is only beneficial if you have someone you can share with for elemental mana, as my empath does. Really, you don't need to go over 1x in mana control, no matter what mana control you decide to train in (spirit, mental or elemental). Just pick one that you use to share mana, and stick with that. And yes, throw those extra points from dropping PF to 25 ranks, and from not 2xing in mana control, to throw into spells.

If you use a runestaff, you should be having 10 ranks of magical skills per level, so I'd look into MIU and AS training as well. If you don't use a runestaff, then don't worry about it.

[Kembal]

If you haven't used your fixskill yet, I'd wait until 1115 comes out. (likely this month or next) We don't know what's going to factor in it yet, though we've asked for it to be more spiritually-based. It is an attack spell. 1106 is going to be modified also, and we're hoping it'll be less dependent on Manipulation Lore.

Get 2x in Spell Aim though. And I'd drop 20 ranks in Empath Spells and get to 240 and 140. CS won't be affected that much, since overtraining in the base spell list has diminishing returns. I'd also pick up 20 ranks in Telepathy Lore first before getting any Transformation Lore. Makes Empathic Assault (1110) that much better of an attack spell.

Here's my training at 56, so you get an idea:


Kembal (at level 56), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 58 12
Physical Fitness...................| 158 58
Arcane Symbols.....................| 158 58
Magic Item Use.....................| 158 58
Spell Aiming.......................| 216 116
Harness Power......................| 200 100
Mental Mana Control................| 90 20
Spirit Mana Control................| 140 40
Spiritual Lore - Blessings.........| 15 3
Spiritual Lore - Summoning.........| 58 12
Mental Lore - Manipulation.........| 150 50
Mental Lore - Telepathy............| 117 29
Mental Lore - Transformation.......| 20 4
Perception.........................| 114 28
Climbing...........................| 96 22
Swimming...........................| 96 22
First Aid..........................| 274 174
Trading............................| 15 3

Spell Lists
Major Spirit.......................| 36

Spell Lists
Minor Spirit.......................| 32

Spell Lists
Empath.............................| 56

[Jolena]

I was under the impression that she Boneshatters, rather than using 1110.

[Flurbins]

Manipulation is only worthless under level 25-30ish. After that you'll have the TPs and mana to screw around with getting some.

[Kembal]

I think she mentioned something about picking up spell aim in her original post.

In either case, I'd advocate a pure casting empath to pick up spell aim anyway. It's cheap, and expands your options as a hunter significantly. (1110, 111, wands) Plus, bone shatter doesn't work on everything, whereas 1110's bolt portion can hit everything.

[Jolena]

Or she could get some brawling and use a weapon when out of mana :) But I admit, I'm baised. I love my brawling empath.

[Kembal]

Heh, there is always that. :) Shield/brawl works pretty well. Once you get Intensity, an empath can pretty much rip through anything with a weapon.

2HW empaths are also pretty good, and less TPs than shield/brawl, IIRC.

I'm just waiting to see what options 1115 opens up for a pure caster. :)