Another "Critique my build" thread + questions

[Strongbonium]

I've been away from GS for several years, and thinking about coming back and playing a ranger. For reasons of RP and personal preference I'd like to play a giantman, with these priorities:

1. Be a viable OHE ambusher
2. Emphasize magic and hopefully have a pretty good spikethorn
3. Be a competent skinner

So I have several specific questions:

1. I'd like to place my stats for growth, tanking Inf, and possibly tanking Dis a bit as well to free up some extra points to make the early levels less painful. So: 1a) Is tanking Dis a bad idea? What is it good for, exactly? And 1b) with the giantman penalties to Agi and Dex, what are the minimum values I'll need there to be able to hide effectively and keep roundtimes reasonable while ambushing?

2. Looking at my base training plan, points are tight and I won't have any free points for extra spells or lores for awhile. Here's the base plan:

Armor 1x 'til brig
OHE 2x
Shield 1x
Dodge .75x or so
CM 1x
Ambush 1x
PT 1x
S&H 1x
Spells 1x
HP 1x (to level)
Climb and Swim .5x
Perception 1x
1st aid 1x
Survival 1x

So, 2a) this is actually more points than I'll have at first, so what would be the safest places to trim a few points without nerfing myself here? Can I afford to cut back on shield, dodge, or CM and still be an effective hunter?
2b) Is 1.5x hide and 1x ambush enough?
2c) With 1x spells and no lores or anything (at least not til much older), will I be able to have a decent 616 and get good value from my other spells?

3. Here are the specific stat placements I'm looking at. This gets everything but Inf to 100 at cap, and if I tank Inf to 20, I get 28 points on top of this to add on. I could get some more points by skimming some off Dis as mentioned above, if that isn't a terrible idea. So question 3 is, where should those extra points go?

CO 68
DE 60
DI 73
LO 82
IT 59
ST 49
AG 77
IF 20
WI 62
AU 82

Thanks a bunch in advance for any help!

[Dendum]

edit: ignore all of that

hoorah giantmen

[Cereal Killer]

There's nothing wrong with being a giantman. You won't be optimal in hiding, but you'll swing harder and you'll carry more. I would only advise against it if you wanted to snipe from hiding, but that's not what you want to do so be as big as you want to be. In general your plan and stats look solid.

1. If you tank Dis, you tank your exp pool and you make it harder to hide! There's no hard set rule about how much agility you need to stay hidden, but the stats you're looking at are DIS for hiding, and DIS and AGI for staying hidden. In terms of dex/agi bonus, you're probably going to be swinging a dagger or other small blade for aiming bonus so you won't need anything huge.

2. If you need extra points at the start, I would cut them from dodge and climb/swim. You have shield training worked in, so dodge isn't as important for you as it would be for a bow user, and it's an EXPENSIVE skill.
2b) 1x hide is enough for my ranger with professional bonuses and spells to hide from creatures within 10 levels from him (except for highly perceptive mobs like undead and certain animals).
I'm not sure how much ambush is viable, though I imagine 1x ambush/1x cman should be enough to aim a dagger well. Ideally ambush would be 2x since it's what gives your attack pushdown and critical weighting.
2c) You don't need to worry about lores for spell efficacy. They give bonuses, but they're not needed for your spells to do what you want them to do.

3. I mentioned the importance of DIS earlier, so don't skim there. If you're dead set on tanking influence that hard, then put the points into things that will make your earlier levels go by smoother, like STR. If I were you, I would just keep the 20 points in INF. Nowadays due to the player population you spend a lot of time haggling with merchants (buying herbs/using the town locksmith), so having some INF is good and will save you a lot of silver over the course of your character's life. Throwing some points into trading isn't a horrible idea either.

FORGOT TO ADD:
Not sure how long it's been since you've played, but new characters now have the ability in their first 30 days to change their skills at any time immediately and to change their stats 5 times. These abilities all stop at 30 days. If you're starting this character from scratch, do yourself a favor and spend the first 29 or so days of the character's life with the standard starting build.

MAX Logic, Discipline, Strength, Aura, and get AGI/DEX bonuses high enough to swing a two hander in 5 seconds.

Skill wise 2x 2handed weapon, 1-2x dodge, 2x cman, 2x physical fitness, rest as you please.

If you play with any regularity you should be past 20 by the time you end the 30 days and you'll have more points to play with in your real build.

[Strongbonium]

This is awesome and super helpful. Thank you! Looks like I will not tank Dis.

Can anyone point me in the direction (or just tell me) the formula for calculating ambush RT? I'd like to figure out how much Agi and Dex I'll need to ambush in minimum time with a handaxe.

Thanks!

[Riltus]

This is awesome and super helpful. Thank you! Looks like I will not tank Dis.

Can anyone point me in the direction (or just tell me) the formula for calculating ambush RT? I'd like to figure out how much Agi and Dex I'll need to ambush in minimum time with a handaxe.

Thanks!

BASE RT (handaxe): 5 seconds
MINIMUM RT (handaxe): 5 seconds

Ambush adds 3 seconds to a weapon's base RT and 1 second to the minimum RT.

AMBUSH BASE RT (handaxe): 8 seconds
AMBUSH MIN RT (handaxe): 6 seconds

You'll need a combined AGI+DEX bonus of 23 to remove 2 seconds from the ambush's base RT in order to ambush in 6 seconds.

Each 15 combined AGI + DEX bonus reduces 1 sec of RT but the formula uses conventional rounding:

round(AGI bonus + DEX bonus)/15 = RT reduction
Example: round(23/15) = 1.533 which rounds to 2 seconds

See link below for additional info.

http://www.krakiipedia.org/wiki/Roundtime

Mark

[Strongbonium]

Thank you!