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Old 11-17-2019, 03:05 PM
Danth Danth is offline
Planar Protector


Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 3,321
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Having high innate stamina is nice during the old world and Kunark periods where gear/buffs to cap it are in short supply. Even in full raid buffs an Ogre during this period will often have nearly a 10% total health advantage over something like a Dark Elf. It's not enough to render the Dark Elf unable to do his job, but it's enough that the player should be aware of it. Later on, after Velious opens, it's not such an issue. My Human SK on "Blue" with zero points in stamina (80 base) and only mid-range equipment can reach 235 if he wants to and would cap it if I cared enough to buy a few more pieces of stamina gear. Most of an Ogre's benefit will be wasted by that point. Countering the importance of health to some extent is that Shadow Knights are not usually used as raid main tanks on P1999 and that's where the high health matters most. All tank types have enough innate health to tank any level-appropriate group content.

High intelligence is nice mostly for Shadow Knights who solo a lot. It sucks having to feign out of a difficult encounter because of running out of mana. In normal groups it's generally not an important stat--mana regen is by FAR the more limiting problem. There are some niche situations that can strain a mana bar as well (such as having to feign a great many times in rapid succession) but these situations are relatively few and far between.

Dexterity is a niche choice since there aren't really all that many Shadow Knight weapons with good special effects, but the few there are tend to be REALLY good--most particularly (but not only) the epic. Indeed, when wielding the epic DEX practically becomes the Shadow Knight's most important stat. It may be worth a look if you know you'll be obtaining one of these types of weapons. I'm not enough of a fan of "vampiric embrace"--by itself--to recommend DEX solely for that spell's benefit. It's a nice spell, but not THAT nice.

You want 75 base agility minimum. This effects Ogres and Erudites. You can live without it, but there's no good reason to do so.

When it comes to the large races, as I said before you can't really "break" one. All of these various allocations have been used to great success by various players.

Danth