sk starting points

[Stroboo]

Strength

Strength directly effects your dps immediately and throughout your entire leveling experience. p99 eq is trivial, raid min/max is silly (my opinions), str helps immediately.

[Toxigen]

INT only if you're taking this char all the way, total mana pool means basically nothing unless you're doing some big solo artist stuff and need every last bit

STR gets my vote for the OP - seems like he wants to just mess around and do greenmist...you'll be benefiting from STR the entire time and if you happen to reach 60 and get raid gear your starting stats won't matter anyway

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by Toxigen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

INT only if you're taking this char all the way, total mana pool means basically nothing unless you're doing some big solo artist stuff and need every last bit

STR gets my vote for the OP - seems like he wants to just mess around and do greenmist...you'll be benefiting from STR the entire time and if you happen to reach 60 and get raid gear your starting stats won't matter anyway

Total mana pool is still useful while leveling. Feign Death costs mana. Having extra mana means you can spend more mana before you get down to your last 200 or so, which you would want to save for Feign Death attempts. Since OP is going Iksar, they are also using more mana because they won't have access to Blood Ember Clickies.

STR is really easy to get with EC gear. If this was OP's first character, or an SSF character, STR would be a good option. OP has multiple level 60 characters, so they aren't going to be hurting for cash. INT is still better for OP.

[Lune]

Originally Posted by DeathsSilkyMist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Total mana pool is still useful while leveling. Feign Death costs mana. Having extra mana means you can spend more mana before you get down to your last 200 or so, which you would want to save for Feign Death attempts. Since OP is going Iksar, they are also using more mana because they won't have access to Blood Ember Clickies.

STR is really easy to get with EC gear. If this was OP's first character, or an SSF character, STR would be a good option. OP has multiple level 60 characters, so they aren't going to be hurting for cash. INT is still better for OP.

If you're soloing something that takes your entire mana bar while leveling you're doing it wrong, and max mana is only going to come into play during leveling in fringe cases. Strength/STA is going to help an iksar all day every day until the very tip top raid gear that, statistically, OP will never see. I doubt he's going to be capping those stats on an iksar with droppables.

Again, INT does absolutely nothing to help with the fact that OP is going to be using more mana unless he's spiking from 100 to 0 which should be quite rare

Like, 90% chance this dude just ends up being a lvl 41 iksar SK with 142 STR, 158 STA, and all his points in INT lol. Long, long ago somebody compiled a distribution of all the classes at various levels over a long period of time. Something like 80% of all hybrids abandoned their class in the 40's/low 50's, far higher than other classes. When the reality of what the class is sets in, and the breezy leveling experience tapers off, very few stick with it. Meanwhile he's gonna be encumbered all day and killing more slowly because he went INT for the very specific situation of being 60, raid buffed, and raid geared. Cmon

Go int on ogres/trolls, not iksar unless maybe you're specifically leveling the class for high end raiding-- in which case, what are you thinking being an iksar?

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by Lune [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If you're soloing something that takes your entire mana bar while leveling you're doing it wrong, and max mana is only going to come into play during leveling in fringe cases. Strength/STA is going to help an iksar all day every day until the very tip top raid gear that, statistically, OP will never see. I doubt he's going to be capping those stats on an iksar with droppables.

Again, INT does absolutely nothing to help with the fact that OP is going to be using more mana unless he's spiking from 100 to 0 which should be quite rare

Like, 90% chance this dude just ends up being a lvl 41 iksar SK with 142 STR, 158 STA, and all his points in INT lol. Long, long ago somebody compiled a distribution of all the classes at various levels over a long period of time. Something like 80% of all hybrids abandoned their class in the 40's/low 50's, far higher than other classes. When the reality of what the class is sets in, and the breezy leveling experience tapers off, very few stick with it. Meanwhile he's gonna be encumbered all day and killing more slowly because he went INT for the very specific situation of being 60, raid buffed, and raid geared. Cmon

The problem with this kind of thinking is you don't take into account the simple fact that people can change their minds about a character after creation. Generally speaking if you care about starting stats (which should be the assumption since OP is asking about them), you should always think about the long term, not the short term.

For the long term, put your points into INT because it will help you at all levels, including level 60 with BiS gear.

STR is very easy to get with EC gear. There is no reason to assume OP cannot get more than enough STR for carrying everything and doing good DPS when they have multiple level 60 characters. Having 140+ STR as a level 41 Iksar SK is already good enough. That plus Shralok Packs will allow you to carry everything you need, while having good DPS.

I am really not sure where people got the idea that you need to have 200+ STR while leveling to thrive. This simply isn't true.

[Troxx]

Originally Posted by Lune [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If you're soloing something that takes your entire mana bar while leveling you're doing it wrong

This.

As usual, Toxigen hit the nail on the head.

[Toxigen]

Originally Posted by Troxx [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This.

As usual, Toxigen hit the nail on the head.

Was going to say the same thing but for Lune's post. He's spot on.

Good to have ya back, bub! We needed another level-headed poster to shed some light on DSM's paper napkin math bullshit.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by Troxx [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This.

As usual, Toxigen hit the nail on the head.

When you are soloing, your mana bar slowly depletes per kill. Once you get low, you need to spend time meditating. Max mana helps increase the number of kills you can do between meditation breaks. It also hedges against fizzles when you are low mana and potentially needing to FD.

OP isn't going to have access to Blood Ember Clickies as an Iksar, so mana is even more important to them. Iksars have the least amount of ways to save mana.

INT is the best choice for SKs as a starting stat in Velious, where STR and STA are common on cheap gear.

Originally Posted by Toxigen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Good to have ya back, bub! We needed another level-headed poster to shed some light on DSM's paper napkin math bullshit.

Troxx spent 100s of pages posting silly gifs as "evidence". "Level headed poster" is a pretty generous title for him. I'll take actual evidence via math on a game based upon math any day over silly gifs.

Your posts are also generally just trolling, so I am not sure why you think you have any upper hand here.

[Troxx]

Originally Posted by DeathsSilkyMist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

When you are soloing, your mana bar slowly depletes per kill. Once you get low, you need to spend time meditating.

Fascinating! I had no idea this game worked like that!

How about:

When you are soloing, the higher your strength the faster you kill. The faster you kill the less mana it takes to get a kill. The less mana you use, the less time you have to sit on your ass getting mana back.

Or how about:

The more strength you have the more loot/coin you can carry before making a bank and vendor run. The less you have to make that run the more time you can spend killing and otherwise enjoying the game.

I’m a wizard, Harry.

[Troxx]

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