With your spell ranks and lore as set, you would be getting about +55 combat maneuver ranks from patron's blessing. I think it would be well worth finding the points for some extra ranks to get your training + 1611 total to something closer to 202. 1615 will be a very effective knockdown with your current setup (very high spell ranks, lots of harness) but there are times when feint and a maneuver based knockdown are preferable. I would suggest taking those points from armor (down to more like 160 ranks) and from first aid and survival. 24 ranks of FA/Sur will likely be enough to have the guild give you skinning tasks but not enough to complete them.

Given your spell heavy plan, you must be converting physical to mental. The above suggestions would free up 324 physical and 72 mental points. After converting (and with the suggestion below) that should be 552 ptp available. This would give you enough to add approximately 21 more CM ranks. This would move your effective CM training from 1.55x to 1.76x and noticeably improve your chance to use feint and shield charge on foes. You would also gain 10 or 11 AS, I forget if it truncates or rounds.

The lores seem fairly reasonable, but I would consider dropping blessing down a bit to get summoning to 25. By moving from summoning 20 to 25; you gain +1 second RT on the room for 1602 and an additional target for your 1630. Both of these will help your use of spells to control the room. By dropping blessing lore you lose nothing at all down to 55. If you drop down to 52 you drop only 1 DS/1 TD. I would recommend going to 52 blessing, keeping 25 religion, and moving up to 25 summoning. (Summoning rank 26 adds 1% DF as well, for a near future goal). This also drops 3 of your 2x cost ranks, helping you pay for more of that CM.

I think the SMC is fine at 25 ranks. You should be getting a healthy mana recovery just based on HP ranks. With 25 summoning ranks and a level 5 sanctify on your weapon, you will also be able to use infuse for additional 1615 casts to further stretch your mana.

I am not sure about the ambush. If you drop it, I would use those points to add CM ranks which will also help with open aiming as well as adding CML attack and AS. The reason I am not sure if this is a good idea, is because I do not have a good notion on what total ambush/CM ranks would be needed for aiming an OHE well. My gut tells me you would be better off with the CM but I am not 100% sure. You would be getting all three boosts (AS, aiming, CML) on any CM ranks up to 47. Past that you would only be gaining AS and aiming, which lowers the rate of return a good bit. So whatever training you do, that would be a good stopping point to work on something else.


AIM: GS4Menos

>Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
>Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

I am not sure about the ambush. If you drop it, I would use those points to add CM ranks which will also help with open aiming as well as adding CML attack and AS. The reason I am not sure if this is a good idea, is because I do not have a good notion on what total ambush/CM ranks would be needed for aiming an OHE well. My gut tells me you would be better off with the CM but I am not 100% sure. You would be getting all three boosts (AS, aiming, CML) on any CM ranks up to 47. Past that you would only be gaining AS and aiming, which lowers the rate of return a good bit. So whatever training you do, that would be a good stopping point to work on something else.

JOEKRYSTEL

From what I remember if you 2x CM and 1x perception you can get close to 75% success rate open aiming with 0 ranks of ambush. I took my paladin to cap with 0 ranks of ambush and regularly got head shots with a handaxe.

Chad, player of a few