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View Full Version : STA and Casters?


Lowlife
06-19-2010, 06:45 PM
The present-day schoool of thought seems to be, regairdless of your character, to max your STA upon creation of your character.

Does this affect casters as much as hybrids/melee/priests? Will the 90hp my stam provides do anything realistically when those stam points are capped (if ever?)

My turmoil is would a human caster with 100 base STA but 90 base INT be a worthwhile inital mana sacrifice for end-game min-maxing?

Tryfaen
06-19-2010, 06:58 PM
you wont ever cap stam so yes, thats 90 free hp. your int will cap though.

Ropethunder
06-19-2010, 07:07 PM
My mage doesn't really need hps because he rarely gets hit. My enchanter on the other hand, never has enough hps. It depends on the class.

guineapig
06-19-2010, 08:55 PM
Necros need as many hitpoints as they can get.
Enchaters need to be able to tank long enough for a heal to land or the real tank to gain agro.

Soloing wizards... depends on who you ask. Some swear by a larger manapool but as stated before you can cap your int fairly easily if that's your only concern. Besides how often is anyone at full mana while soloing anyway?

Mage... maybe not so important. Mage isn't my forte.

Ropethunder
06-19-2010, 09:03 PM
Whenever my enchanter died it was always because he ran out of hps. Never because he was oom. Sometimes it was only a few extra hps that could have saved him..

Daywolf
06-19-2010, 09:09 PM
Hmmm… well on a roll, for Druid and Cleric which is often my usual, I go with Wisdom, since self-heals are like having more HP, and I can always use more mana in the teens if not fully twinking. The one Ranger I had on live I put to mostly Dex first but relied on bows mostly. Stamina would be good there I guess, early for a lot of melee, heals aren’t great. Other than that, guess it’s up to play style. If you get hit a lot I would guess it would help, but I mostly like to range fight, root or kite. Early on, I think finding someone to cast damage shields on you a few times is more valuable than STA. Then buy stat trinkets for anything really lacking.

guineapig
06-19-2010, 09:19 PM
Something of note here as that some people claim that needing int or wisdom at low levels is vital and stamina at those levels gives very little in the form of hitpoints.

This is true!

However, at low levels int and wisdom gear doesn't give you much in the way of mana either. Anyone on live will tell you that the best way to gear up low level casters is with mana/hipoint gear. before level 25 a 15 mana item actually gives you more mana than a 5 int or wisdom item. And there are plenty of items in the game that give substantially more mana than that.

So at the time when your manapool is at its smallest and matters the most int and wisdom actually aren't doing you that much good anyway.

Walabaego
06-19-2010, 09:29 PM
My 2 Cents would be, hey, more hp's , less chance of KO and loss of EXP :)

Lowlife
06-19-2010, 11:23 PM
true, but at level 10 or so, 10 stam gives 1 hp

logiktrip
06-20-2010, 12:23 AM
I'm an erudite wizard. I put all but 5 starting points into stamina, I use a kedge robe, black saph jewelry, and platinum skull rings.

My int is already easily hitting the softcap, however my stamina is only 115. Especially as the expansions continue, you'll be able to cap your int much easier than your stamina. This is true for many classes, just not as noticeable with casters.

Loke
06-20-2010, 05:45 AM
I went max stamina on my Monk. However, on my wizard I went Int. My thinking behind Int on the wizard was that the more quickly I could get to my soft cap, the more I could switch out +int items for +mana items. I personally think you can benefit greater in that way than you can from throw points into stamina on non-melee types.

Just an example. I make a necro - max out int. Once I hit 208 int, I switch out my +4 int rings for 5/55 rings while still maintaining the soft cap of 200. Now, you could do that with stamina and drop below 200 - I just think that the benefit gained from +20 stamina is far less than what you can gain by going +20 int and then getting sta/hp/mana/whatever other stats from gear.

Gandite
06-20-2010, 06:22 AM
I put all stamina in my wizard. At 38 he has 197 int and plenty of slots to upgrade to int and switch out for mana gear.

Reiker
06-20-2010, 07:45 AM
Loke is on the right track.

I'm a huge advocate of stamina, I max it on pretty much any char I make besides int chars. The amount of hp you gain per point of sta is based on level and class. Pure casters gain little with additional sta, and are much better off with +hp gear. Maxing int as fast as you can so you can start replacing int gear with mana/hp is a lot more beneficial. In Loke's case, he was able to turn +8 int into 10 AC 110 HP. If he had put 8 points into stamina instead, he would probably be stuck with int rings and a bit less survivability. For mag/wiz/nec I'd put as much as I could into into and the rest into sta. For enchanters, max cha and rest int. Enchanters are a lot trickier to gear as you need to find a balance between cha, int, and hp, and often have a good bit of bagged gear to switch depending on the situation you're in. Necromancers also have to stack a lot of +HP gear.

Weekapaug
06-20-2010, 10:49 AM
I went max stamina on my Monk. However, on my wizard I went Int. My thinking behind Int on the wizard was that the more quickly I could get to my soft cap, the more I could switch out +int items for +mana items. I personally think you can benefit greater in that way than you can from throw points into stamina on non-melee types.

Just an example. I make a necro - max out int. Once I hit 208 int, I switch out my +4 int rings for 5/55 rings while still maintaining the soft cap of 200. Now, you could do that with stamina and drop below 200 - I just think that the benefit gained from +20 stamina is far less than what you can gain by going +20 int and then getting sta/hp/mana/whatever other stats from gear.

Totally agree.

Get your INT (or WIS if you are a priest) to 200 ASAP then use the flexibility offered by having it capped so easily to add +MANA or +HP gear or resists or whatever you care to. Capping your main stat early gives you lots more flexibility than the extra HPS from STA you will get by putting those points in on creation and will make life much easier at all stages of the game regardless of what gear you have. Remember: Creation points can only be put in once at the beginning, but gear can be changed anytime. INT is your main stat and performs for you more than any other stat. It's worth going all out on it at creation becayse you are always going to want and need it. You can swap gear in and out of what, 21?, slots later depending on what you want to do then.

One caveat to that, though....There seem to be break points at which certain stats yeild certain results and those seem to be every 25 points, although this is more important to melee classes, it does have applications to casters in some cases. When making a class that melees, I always bring STR, STA, AGI and DEX to 75 minimum on creation before putting points into anything else. If I feel I can't do that I choose a race that can.

For example, when I made my Barbarian Shaman, I put max points into wisdom, but then, instead of putting the extras into STA as most would advise (and it is good advice), I personally put the 5 extra into DEX bringing it up to 75. Shamans often melee when they solo and DEX determines how quickly some melee skills advance and I hate it when skills lag so it was worth it to me to go this route. It may or may not be for everyone, though.

In general, though, you really can't go wrong with 25 into INT or WIS and 5 into STA regardless.

Malrubius
06-21-2010, 10:52 AM
I'd agree with others here that STA is worthless for certain classes (at least INT casters, maybe WIS casters too). The HPs you get out of STA in these cases is virtually meaningless.

pickled_heretic
06-21-2010, 02:18 PM
Fuck the stamina. max out your core stats quickly and get +hp gear.