Explain Fixskills Please? :)

[Luxelle]

All right, I know there's something that happens sometime in May called FIXSKILL(s) ... but I don't know exactly what it is, how it works, or whether I need it.

I know that it sounds like people adjust their skills with it.

Most of my training has been advice from various sources, and guesswork about what seemed like a good idea at the time.

Pretty sure not all those decisions were good ones, because I still don't really understand how most of this works.

Help would be appreciated.

~L.

[SHAFT]

It instantly converts your skill changes. You don't have to wait for the skills to migrate.

[Allereli]

https://gswiki.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Fixskills

https://gswiki.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Skill_migration

[droit]

Sounds like you could benefit from a skill critique before the fixskill, as well. Post your skills here and some knowledgeable bards can give you some pointers.

[mgoddess]

Also: you get one free FIXSKILL per year, so you may have one already that you could use before the next one comes around.
(You can also purchase fixskill potions from the adventure guild, but people usually don't since there's one each year that's free.)

[Luxelle]

So here is my INFO and my skills. Aside from needing to go to the bank....


Name: Luxelle Lightclad Race: Elf Profession: Bard (shown as: Bardess)
Gender: Female Age: 1 Expr: 1127218 Level: 31
Normal (Bonus) ... Enhanced (Bonus)
Strength (STR): 85 (17) ... 85 (17)
Constitution (CON): 64 (7) ... 64 (7)
Dexterity (DEX): 75 (17) ... 75 (17)
Agility (AGI): 65 (22) ... 65 (22)
Discipline (DIS): 88 (4) ... 88 (4)
Aura (AUR): 90 (25) ... 90 (25)
Logic (LOG): 56 (3) ... 56 (3)
Intuition (INT): 76 (13) ... 76 (13)
Wisdom (WIS): 77 (13) ... 77 (13)
Influence (INF): 90 (30) ... 90 (30)
Mana: 102 Silver: 6,613




Luxelle (at level 31), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 126 33
Shield Use.........................| 126 33
Combat Maneuvers...................| 90 20
Edged Weapons......................| 166 66
Multi Opponent Combat..............| 62 13
Physical Fitness...................| 111 27
Dodging............................| 126 33
Arcane Symbols.....................| 70 15
Magic Item Use.....................| 90 20
Harness Power......................| 122 31
Elemental Mana Control.............| 25 5
Mental Mana Control................| 30 6
Elemental Lore - Air...............| 15 3
Mental Lore - Manipulation.........| 54 11
Mental Lore - Telepathy............| 96 22
Stalking and Hiding................| 5 1
Perception.........................| 25 5
Climbing...........................| 70 15
Swimming...........................| 70 15
Trading............................| 10 2

Spell Lists
Minor Elemental....................| 7

Spell Lists
Bard...............................| 26
Training Points: 55 Phy 0 Mnt (104 Phy converted to Mnt)


I throw myself on everyone's mercy.

[Androidpk]

So here is my INFO and my skills. Aside from needing to go to the bank....


Name: Luxelle Lightclad Race: Elf Profession: Bard (shown as: Bardess)
Gender: Female Age: 1 Expr: 1127218 Level: 31
Normal (Bonus) ... Enhanced (Bonus)
Strength (STR): 85 (17) ... 85 (17)
Constitution (CON): 64 (7) ... 64 (7)
Dexterity (DEX): 75 (17) ... 75 (17)
Agility (AGI): 65 (22) ... 65 (22)
Discipline (DIS): 88 (4) ... 88 (4)
Aura (AUR): 90 (25) ... 90 (25)
Logic (LOG): 56 (3) ... 56 (3)
Intuition (INT): 76 (13) ... 76 (13)
Wisdom (WIS): 77 (13) ... 77 (13)
Influence (INF): 90 (30) ... 90 (30)
Mana: 102 Silver: 6,613




Luxelle (at level 31), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 126 33
Shield Use.........................| 126 33
Combat Maneuvers...................| 90 20
Edged Weapons......................| 166 66
Multi Opponent Combat..............| 62 13
Physical Fitness...................| 111 27
Dodging............................| 126 33
Arcane Symbols.....................| 70 15
Magic Item Use.....................| 90 20
Harness Power......................| 122 31
Elemental Mana Control.............| 25 5
Mental Mana Control................| 30 6
Elemental Lore - Air...............| 15 3
Mental Lore - Manipulation.........| 54 11
Mental Lore - Telepathy............| 96 22
Stalking and Hiding................| 5 1
Perception.........................| 25 5
Climbing...........................| 70 15
Swimming...........................| 70 15
Trading............................| 10 2

Spell Lists
Minor Elemental....................| 7

Spell Lists
Bard...............................| 26
Training Points: 55 Phy 0 Mnt (104 Phy converted to Mnt)


I throw myself on everyone's mercy.

I would dump everything and max out swimming.

[Luxelle]

I would dump everything and max out swimming.

Is that so I can swim with all those coins weighing me down? Ever so practical of you :)

[Luxelle]

It occurs to me I should explain what I did with the Combat Maneuvers...

Combat Movement cmovement 4

[Lady Sylvan]

The trick with the free fixskills is to first go to the inn keeper and change your stats. Then you change your skills to what you want and leave. You will notice that your skills are starting to migrate very slowly to adapt to your changes. Finally, you type fixskill. It will ask if your sure you want to use it. Just type yes.

Your skills will be changed and your good to go.

[Lady Sylvan]

Opps. That's skills. Not stats.

[Viekn]

The trick with the free fixskills is to first go to the inn keeper and change your stats. Then you change your skills to what you want and leave. You will notice that your skills are starting to migrate very slowly to adapt to your changes. Finally, you type fixskill. It will ask if your sure you want to use it. Just type yes.

Your skills will be changed and your good to go.

Am I misunderstanding something? The annual fixskills is not also a fixstat, right?

[Soulance]

Am I misunderstanding something? The annual fixskills is not also a fixstat, right?
Right, just a fixskill. Stats are a whole other ballgame though they have allowed fixskills if they mess with certain things on a class.

[Soulance]

It occurs to me I should explain what I did with the Combat Maneuvers...

Combat Movement cmovement 4
I had thought the same but have heard that Cunning Defense is actually a better choice, but maybe that's something to switch later after your DS has improved with age?

[Tgo01]

I think combat movement is one of the most useless CMs you can get.

I agree though that you can't really go wrong with cunning defense, no matter what your profession is.

Semis are sort of limited in useful cmans, I think they're mostly just for defensive purposes.

[Hydra]

I have a fixskills question, and sorry if this is hijacking the thread:

If you're still in the first 30 days when you receive the yearly free fixskills, is it separate from the free skill adjustments you get inside of the first 30 days?

[Tgo01]

I have a fixskills question, and sorry if this is hijacking the thread:

If you're still in the first 30 days when you receive the yearly free fixskills, is it separate from the free skill adjustments you get inside of the first 30 days?

You get one free fixskills after your first 30 days regardless so in that sense no, you don't get like a second free fixskills, just the one you would have gotten outside of your post 30 days free one.

[Cereal Killer]

Your skills seem usable to me. You'll be able to play to cap with your current plan. The changes I would make are min/maxing ones.

Multi-Opponent Combat - Current 13 Recommended 0
(You can argue for this, but you don't really need any ranks as a bard)
Physical Fitness - Current 27 Recommended 33
(Best defense against maneuvers, which are the bane of everyone)
Mana Control - Current 5/6 Recommended 0/11 --> 24 if you can swing it
(Drop elemental and pump your points into mental mana control, you want 24 for unravelling and it eventually plays a role in 1040)
Lores
(Pick a path and run with it, spreading them out is not advised. As a swinger, I would go with either air for the air flares and tonis increase or telepathy for the AS and song increased duration. This one is delicate though. You might be properly going from mini-goal to mini-goal, in which case you can appropriately tell me to mind my own business)
Stalking and Hiding - Current 1 Recommended 0
(Drop this, 1 rank isn't going to do anything)
Perception Current 5 Recommended 33
Perception is cheap defense against maneuvers.

If you need to pull points from things to pull any of these skills up, I would take them from AS and/or MIU.

And as has been stated, I would migrate those CMAN points away from combat movement and towards more standard ones like feint/sbash/cdefense/disarm (though you can't have a sonic weapon disarmed). If you're using them for defense, then there's no need to rush down one, you can spread out the ranks among them.

[Luxelle]

There we go, thank you Cereal Killer for your excellent and frank suggestions. There's just so much I still don't understand.



Multi-Opponent ... my thought here was that I get completely overwhelmed with 2 or more things. I thought this would help! I'll be reclaiming training points for silly guess work.
Mana ... This is what also allows sharing, right? With no elemental, I would not be able to share with an elemental user?
The whole manipulation/telepathy/air stuff still confuses me so much. The songs I want to use all seem to want to use different things. I'm still trying to wrap my head around this, it makes so little sense to me that bard's things are spread out so much. :(



I use Song of Vibration all the time (chart says it uses manipulation)
I use Kai's Triumph all the time (chart says it uses telepathy)
I enjoy Purifying gems for people (chart says it uses manipulation)
I'd use Stunning Shout if it worked better (chart says Air Lore)
Sonic weapon, etc (ultimately, I do want to use a sonic weapon, but currently the bonus on mine is better than I can manage with singing. Is this the Air Lore I need more of, or what???)
There are songs I don't understand enough to even know whether I should be using them or training to use them, like Song of Depression, Song of Rage (both Telepathy)
The Singing Sword (Manipulation) looked so cool to have, but was spectacularly underpowered compared to my weapon or my sonic weapon. I have no idea if this is because I lack levels or I lack some lore, or a spell circle, or what!
Song of Disruption (Manipulation) ... haven't gotten there yet. Don't know what to do to make that work awesome.
And somewhere in here, Unravelling ... yes. But, when I have tried it, it was spectacularly unimpressive. It would cost me more than it gained me.
I also use song of holding, luck, fortify, mirrors, valor, and the lullabye all the time.

4. I can't remember why there's 1 rank of hiding :)
5. Perception ... ohmygosh, I have no idea where I will find the points to train this at all. But I will prioritize that.

And last, yes, the cman stuff was for defense. So you're saying another cman thing is better for defense? Because Luxie's a sitting duck for every kind of attack, and always has been. I don't understand how people even hunt against creatures the same level as they are. It's *never* worked well for me. It's a bit better now, but ... yeah, it's still really dangerous.

That surprised me. I expected to be able to at least hunt things my own level with a good chance of surviving the hunt. So I've pretty much been underhunting unless there's people with me.

And overall ... this FIXSKILLS has to be done once, and done right, on that one day in May? And get me through the next year?

Keep the answers and critiques coming, folks. When faced with game mechanics, I just want to run away and never train again.

Thank you so much,

~L.

[Whirlin]

Your skills seem usable to me. You'll be able to play to cap with your current plan. The changes I would make are min/maxing ones.

Multi-Opponent Combat - Current 13 Recommended 0
(You can argue for this, but you don't really need any ranks as a bard)
Physical Fitness - Current 27 Recommended 33
(Best defense against maneuvers, which are the bane of everyone)
Mana Control - Current 5/6 Recommended 0/11 --> 24 if you can swing it
(Drop elemental and pump your points into mental mana control, you want 24 for unravelling and it eventually plays a role in 1040)
Lores
(Pick a path and run with it, spreading them out is not advised. As a swinger, I would go with either air for the air flares and tonis increase or telepathy for the AS and song increased duration. This one is delicate though. You might be properly going from mini-goal to mini-goal, in which case you can appropriately tell me to mind my own business)
Stalking and Hiding - Current 1 Recommended 0
(Drop this, 1 rank isn't going to do anything)
Perception Current 5 Recommended 33
Perception is cheap defense against maneuvers.

If you need to pull points from things to pull any of these skills up, I would take them from AS and/or MIU.

And as has been stated, I would migrate those CMAN points away from combat movement and towards more standard ones like feint/sbash/cdefense/disarm (though you can't have a sonic weapon disarmed). If you're using them for defense, then there's no need to rush down one, you can spread out the ranks among them.
I agree with Breakfast Cereal with two additional points:
MoC is fun... you have a lot more training to take care of before your ready for that
Mana control... a nice to have... not as much emphasis on it as Cereal puts. I'd prioritize getting 60 ranks of Armor use and unlocking both 1020 and 430 before worrying about Mana Controls, MIU, AS, or other tertiary skills.

25 Telepathy, 1 Manipulation. That hits a major breakpoint for Telepathy bonus and 1007, whereas the 1 manipulation rank is the highest reduction to 1002 threshold you can get with manipulation training. In a physical build, I wouldn't dedicate anymore towards mental lore. Way too much diminishing returns on 1007 growth.

MUCH higher priority on air lore if you use a shield. Air Lore is BADASS as hell for shield bards. -1 Shield size for evade consideration is amazing. You need to hit at least 20 ranks in Air Lore to get -1 Shield size. Given that you should also have a goal of 60 ranks of Armor use and more spell research, I wouldn't go beyond this for the short term.

[Luxelle]

I'd prioritize getting 60 ranks of Armor use and unlocking both 1020 and 430 before worrying about Mana Controls, MIU, AS, or other tertiary skills..

Every time someone uses numbers for spells, I have to look them up. I don't know how you folks do it! :)

What do you mean unlocking those two spells? I know 1020, the travelling song, but did not know there was anything to unlock. Heck, mostly that song just gets me badly injured and lost. I *never* use it willingly. It's flat out the scariest thing I have ever cast by mistake. It'll be a while before 430.

I don't really know whether to study more bard circle spells or minor elemental ones on any given promotion. It's one or the other for me. :(


25 Telepathy, 1 Manipulation. That hits a major breakpoint for Telepathy bonus and 1007, whereas the 1 manipulation rank is the highest reduction to 1002 threshold you can get with manipulation training. In a physical build, I wouldn't dedicate anymore towards mental lore. Way too much diminishing returns on 1007 growth.

Are you saying manipulation training doesn't help with all those other things?! And I gather that the unravelling song is just not useful to me yet then? That might simplify things.


MUCH higher priority on air lore if you use a shield. Air Lore is BADASS as hell for shield bards. -1 Shield size for evade consideration is amazing. You need to hit at least 20 ranks in Air Lore to get -1 Shield size. Given that you should also have a goal of 60 ranks of Armor use and more spell research, I wouldn't go beyond this for the short term.

I use a shield, but not a sonic one. I tried the sonic shield for a while, but it requires so much mana that it makes it difficult to keep my defensive songs going and use a Lullabye on my opponents. So Air Lore does not come into play until I can use a sonic shield, right? And what do you mean -1 shield size? Why would it make my shield smaller? And why would I want a smaller shield?

Thank you Whirlin

(is everyone laughing yet??)

~L.

[Jeril]

Every time someone uses numbers for spells, I have to look them up. I don't know how you folks do it! :)

What do you mean unlocking those two spells? I know 1020, the travelling song, but did not know there was anything to unlock. Heck, mostly that song just gets me badly injured and lost. I *never* use it willingly. It's flat out the scariest thing I have ever cast by mistake. It'll be a while before 430.

I don't really know whether to study more bard circle spells or minor elemental ones on any given promotion. It's one or the other for me. :(



Are you saying manipulation training doesn't help with all those other things?! And I gather that the unravelling song is just not useful to me yet then? That might simplify things.



I use a shield, but not a sonic one. I tried the sonic shield for a while, but it requires so much mana that it makes it difficult to keep my defensive songs going and use a Lullabye on my opponents. So Air Lore does not come into play until I can use a sonic shield, right? And what do you mean -1 shield size? Why would it make my shield smaller? And why would I want a smaller shield?

Thank you Whirlin

(is everyone laughing yet??)

~L.

What he means by unlocking is just getting those spells, nothing crazy just worded a little different.

[Whirlin]

I use a shield, but not a sonic one. I tried the sonic shield for a while, but it requires so much mana that it makes it difficult to keep my defensive songs going and use a Lullabye on my opponents. So Air Lore does not come into play until I can use a sonic shield, right? And what do you mean -1 shield size? Why would it make my shield smaller? And why would I want a smaller shield?

Thank you Whirlin

(is everyone laughing yet??)

~L.
There's no point to use a sonic shield until you have 20 ranks of air lore.

Using shield inhibits dodge greatly (a penalty of 22% dodge when using a buckler, 30% for medium, 38% for Large, 46% for Tower). Since we bards so dodgey, that hurts, lots. 20 ranks in air lore offsets that penalty by 1 rank, basically returning 8% of your dodge, at the cost of 0 of your blocking potency. At cap, you can use a tower shield, with only having it reduce your dodge by 22% instead of the 46%. On the block side, you get more shield DS from bigger shields (at the tradeoff of the dodge penalty). However, 1 rank of dodge generates more DS than 1 rank of shield use, so we want to inhibit evade less than we want to promote shield use. For Bards, the smallest shield you can use generates the best DS when factoring in both Evade and Block. With the implications of air lore, this means the biggest shield you can use where air lore reduces the evade encumbrance down to a buckler... So with 20 ranks of air lore, you can sing a medium shield, and it will only reduce your dodge by 22%, while giving you the block of a medium.

60 ranks of armor is when you can settle into ASG15 Augmented chain... This is the best stopping point for armor, and it grants you some reprieve from trying to manage which sonic armor you're singing, and lets you invest in some good augmented chain if you're buying physical armor.

Powering up spell research up to 430 grants you an amazing AS buff with 425, and it's an incredibly potent DS/TD raiser, and ends up being more worth the TP than any other training.