Magic Item Use and Arcane Symbols

[Moonwitch]

My empath doesn't use a runestaff. Keeping that in mind, how many ranks of each of these does one actually need? She rarely uses magical items, occasionally using a scroll or a small statue.

[Whirlin]

If you don't use a runestaff, never use magic items, and don't use scrolls... technically, you don't NEED any.

That being said... 1x in both open up a good opportunity to use both scrolls and magic items easily, with a pretty nice duration... and also assist with spellburst calculations in case you get outside spells... but I don't think you're having a direct mechanical advantage with any particular spell by MIU/AS training.

[Archigeek]

With 101 ranks, you'll get just over an hour of duration per cast for most spells. I find it to be very useful.

[Rolton-Sammich]

At 46, my non-runestaff-using empath has 25 and 20 ranks, respectively. I plan on eventually making my way to 1x, but it's not a priority.

If you really never want to use magic items besides the occasional small statue/ruby amulet/quartz orb/other routine treasure -- i.e., nothing that requires you to actually roll to activate it -- your TPs are probably better spent elsewhere. If I were fixskilling anyway, I might drop my MIU. 99% of the time it's only encouraging me carry around crap I never bother to activate.

I can't stand having low scroll reading because I hate not being able to see what spells are on scrolls I pick up... WHAT IF IT'S AN AMAZING SCROLL??

[Moonwitch]

Thanks for the input. I forgot about the spell burst, I can wear a lot of outside spells but haven't had any issue with spellburst since I first started in OTF. I set all my values to 0 and fixskilled before I did my fixstat to fix my horrid stats. I lost a lot of training points so I'm really looking at what I need and what I don't need. I put 50 ranks in each MIU and AS but before I put more training points into it I was wondering, how many ranks do you need if you don't use a runestaff? I want to get my CMAN up so I can finish my disarm and cunning defense, but that is going to take a lot of TPs. Not to mention I'm not tripled in spells yet.

[Jeril]

Well other things besides AS/MIU count towards spell burst. You also have harness power, lores, and mana controls. They can be nice and useful skills to have but if you've got other priorities, like you have mentioned above, leave them as they are and work on those other things. My casting empath has 0 ranks in either skill and would probably have to get a good ways post cap before I'd start training them. No need to actually have the skills unless you use them has always been my take on it.

[Gibreficul]

My post-cap empath still has 40/40 MIU/AS and other goals to complete before considering bumping either of those any higher.

[Aluvius]

Slight necro, but the other neat thing about AS is that it gives you rune strength for 208. I've started a new little empathy that's going to go with 1202/ml:transform instead of armor use and he's gonna get it by using 208 on a secondary monk alt. Which then had me thinking of several other low level alts I could make to 208 spells from .. I might just have to go premium on my secondary account. :)