x-posting ds question

[Anferis]

> Defense wise though, it sucks, brawling (not edged, go with brawling, for open handed casting, disarm proof, etc) and shield puts up a much better defense, and you really only need to be like .5x in both, not 1x like in gs3.

How badly will it hurt my defense to drop from 1x to .5x? Around level 25ish.

Since the sorcerer boards on the officials are desolate...

I ended up getting something like a drop of 1/3rd, but I'm not all that great with the formulas.

The benefits of freeing up that many TPs seems pretty nice though, it'd put me up to 425 and still have a few points left over for MnS



(at level 23), your base skill bonuses, ranks and goals are:
Skill Name | Actual Actual
| Bonus Ranks Goals In-Game Time to Goal
Armor Use..........................| 30 6 6
Shield Use.........................| 105 25 25
Brawling...........................| 105 25 25
Physical Fitness...................| 105 25 25
Harness Power......................| 144 44 44
Elemental Mana Control.............| 105 25 25
Spirit Mana Control................| 105 25 25
Sorcerous Lore - Demonology........| 105 25 25
Climbing...........................| 62 13 13
Swimming...........................| 62 13 13

Spell Lists
Minor Elemental....................| 20 20

Spell Lists
Minor Spirit.......................| 7 7

Spell Lists
Sorcerer...........................| 25 25
Training Points: 38 Phy 0 Mnt (120 Phy converted to Mnt)


Race: Dark Elf Profession: Sorcerer (not shown)
Gender: Male Age: 478 Expr: 665619 Level: 23
Normal (Bonus) ... Enhanced (Bonus)
Strength (STR): 73 (11) ... 73 (11)
Constitution (CON): 69 (4) ... 69 (4)
Dexterity (DEX): 71 (20) ... 71 (20)
Agility (AGI): 72 (16) ... 72 (16)
Discipline (DIS): 82 (6) ... 82 (6)
Aura (AUR): 94 (32) ... 94 (32)
Logic (LOG): 66 (8) ... 66 (8)
Intuition (INT): 56 (8) ... 56 (8)
Wisdom (WIS): 92 (26) ... 92 (26)
Influence (INF): 64 (2) ... 64 (2)
Mana: 102 Silver: 943

Thanks for looking

[Celephais]

You could also look into only getting one rank of each, frees up a lot of points and the hit to your guarded stance defense is pretty minimal, usually overcome by the extra spell ranks equalling some of that DS recovered. (And with the extra offensive ability afforded by those spell ranks, more than made up for).

[mgoddess]

I do the 1x Shield Use, no weapon training route, and it seems to work perfectly fine for me... of course, I think I also only 1x (or maybe 1.25x) HP, and I don't have any lores...

Basically, I've got 4 ranks of AU, 1x in SU, 1x in MIU, 1x in AS, 1-1.25x HP, 1x PF, 15 ranks each in Climbing and Swimming... and the rest in Spell Training (at 23(?), I've got 20 in both MnS and MnE, and at-level with Sorcerer spells). Of course, I haven't played my sorcerer in ages, and I don't have my character data handy currently, so I can't tell you exactly for sure her real training.

[Anferis]

Dropping brawling completely does free up a ton of TPs. I wish I was still in my 30 days so I could do some testing.

Right now I'm having no problem uphunting several levels in forward/offensive self-spelled. I could probably drop down to like-level opponents even if my DS takes too big of a hit


You could also look into only getting one rank of each, frees up a lot of points and the hit to your guarded stance defense is pretty minimal, usually overcome by the extra spell ranks equalling some of that DS recovered. (And with the extra offensive ability afforded by those spell ranks, more than made up for).

You mean at level 23 have 23 ranks in each, or am I misunderstanding?

[Celephais]

You mean at level 23 have 23 ranks in each, or am I misunderstanding?
At level 23 having 1 rank of brawling and 1 rank of shield use, having the single rank "turns on" the type of defense.

[Anferis]

Ahh gotcha. I guess when fixskills come around I'll start with one rank in each.

May end up .5xing SU and only having one rank in brawling.

Thanks for the answers.

[ruineye]

At level 23 having 1 rank of brawling and 1 rank of shield use, having the single rank "turns on" the type of defense.

I'm unclear on this concept...

I threw away my runestaff around lvl 80 and have been using a 7x shield with 0/0 ranks in brawling/SU ever since. I played around w/ 1 brawling rank sometime back, and it only raised my DS (in offensive) by 1. Is there any other advantage to having this type of defense "turned on"?

[Anferis]

Probably activates a higher block/parry % or something.

So 0/0 ranks is better than a runestaff?

[ruineye]

Probably activates a higher block/parry % or something.

So 0/0 ranks is better than a runestaff?

In stance offensive, yes. And in OTF that's the only stance that really matters.

EDIT:
DS in other stances can be important following a Seer's mass-dispel. But I always wear 1701/1711/104/105/112/115/202/207/211/602/603/1125, so it's extremely rare that I lose both 712 and 102 on the same cast. I also hunt with an empath mule whose primary purpose is to 213 ASAP after any dispel. So... pretty significant caveat there.

[Celephais]

I'm unclear on this concept...

I threw away my runestaff around lvl 80 and have been using a 7x shield with 0/0 ranks in brawling/SU ever since. I played around w/ 1 brawling rank sometime back, and it only raised my DS (in offensive) by 1. Is there any other advantage to having this type of defense "turned on"?
Even if it were just 1 DS, point for point, it's worth it. Did you try the 1 shield rank? I think I recall it being useful for being able to have a vanilla 4x brawling weapon when you were in an area where you couldn't be disarmed, while not a ton of extra DS, it was something, and rather cheap to train in. If you're in OTF you're way better off having an empty hand than the extra 10 DS or whatever the weapon would give.