I took Nilandia's advice from her previous post when I returned. I'm also Platinum. Now that we have another fixskills, I want to make sure I'm on the right path. I'm not fixskilling into a weapon user, sorry.
Xxxxxxx (at level 62), your base skill bonuses, ranks and goals are:
Skill Name | Actual Actual
| Bonus Ranks Goals In-Game Time to Goal
Armor Use..........................| 40 8 8
Physical Fitness...................| 226 126 126
Arcane Symbols.....................| 163 63 63
Magic Item Use.....................| 163 63 63
Spell Aiming.......................| 226 126 126
Harness Power......................| 188 88 88
Mental Mana Control................| 162 62 62
Spirit Mana Control................| 162 62 62
Spiritual Lore - Summoning.........| 161 61 61
Mental Lore - Telepathy............| 90 20 20
Mental Lore - Transformation.......| 153 53 53
Perception.........................| 93 21 21
Climbing...........................| 117 29 29
Swimming...........................| 82 18 18
First Aid..........................| 226 126 126
Spell Lists
Major Spiritual....................| 25 25
Spell Lists
Minor Spiritual....................| 30 30
Spell Lists
Empath.............................| 81 81
Any hunting tips for the Skull Temple would be appreciated too, since I'm starting to get bounties there now.
ARMELLE-TRIVA
ETANNIDOMHNAILL
Re: Fixskills Checkup
07/26/2012 02:34 PM CDT
Your training plan looks pretty solid. I'd only tweak a couple minor things here or there, but I don't think it'd make too huge a difference. The only thing I'd suggest is to keep an eye on your harness power to make sure you have enough mana to do what you'd like to do.
You'll do really well in Wyneb. You have enough magic training to get a full wizard spellup and not blow yourself up with spellburst. Wyneb will dispel major sanctuaries, but I believe minor sancts will stay in place. Some of the critters in there dispel, so stock up on dull gold coins which have spell 1701, arcane decoy. If you get hit with a dispel, that will be the one it takes rather than something more useful.
When you first get in, you'll want to focus on supplicants. All they do is swing a flamberge, with an occasional mstrike thrown in for fun. They move fast, except when they mstrike, and they're somewhat resistant to critting. I made liberal use of empathic assault on them so I could go right back to guarded stance after a cast. I sometimes started with a quick cast of bone shatter for a stun, but only try that after they mstrike. Avoid hierophants and dogmatists for the moment wherever possible. Empathic assault is helpful in this, since you can safely leave the room if you need and the CS attacks will continue without you.
Hierophants will be next after a few levels. They are ranger spellcasters, annoyingly so. They are also quite squishy, however, and crit much more easily than supplicants. Once you get your CS high enough, which by your training shouldn't be too much longer, you can safely go after them with bone shatter and maybe a wither or two. Just make sure to time your attacks so you don't leave yourself open.
Dogmatists are a pain in the behind, to put it bluntly. They don't crit easily, they sometimes come back to life after you kill them, raise other fallen creatures, molest your corpse to make farlooks, love to dispel you, and in many other ways just like to make your life miserable. They're hard to kill, and they even like to mess you up even if you're fighting something else in the room. Give them a wide berth until you're upper 60's at the earliest, since they're a level 70 critter, and experiment with your spells to find what works best on them.
Gretchen
Meeting Nilandia: http://www.gsguide.net/index.php?title=Nilandia
Nilandia's GS4 Info Repository: http://www.nilandia.com
AIM: Lady Nilandia
You'll do really well in Wyneb. You have enough magic training to get a full wizard spellup and not blow yourself up with spellburst. Wyneb will dispel major sanctuaries, but I believe minor sancts will stay in place. Some of the critters in there dispel, so stock up on dull gold coins which have spell 1701, arcane decoy. If you get hit with a dispel, that will be the one it takes rather than something more useful.
When you first get in, you'll want to focus on supplicants. All they do is swing a flamberge, with an occasional mstrike thrown in for fun. They move fast, except when they mstrike, and they're somewhat resistant to critting. I made liberal use of empathic assault on them so I could go right back to guarded stance after a cast. I sometimes started with a quick cast of bone shatter for a stun, but only try that after they mstrike. Avoid hierophants and dogmatists for the moment wherever possible. Empathic assault is helpful in this, since you can safely leave the room if you need and the CS attacks will continue without you.
Hierophants will be next after a few levels. They are ranger spellcasters, annoyingly so. They are also quite squishy, however, and crit much more easily than supplicants. Once you get your CS high enough, which by your training shouldn't be too much longer, you can safely go after them with bone shatter and maybe a wither or two. Just make sure to time your attacks so you don't leave yourself open.
Dogmatists are a pain in the behind, to put it bluntly. They don't crit easily, they sometimes come back to life after you kill them, raise other fallen creatures, molest your corpse to make farlooks, love to dispel you, and in many other ways just like to make your life miserable. They're hard to kill, and they even like to mess you up even if you're fighting something else in the room. Give them a wide berth until you're upper 60's at the earliest, since they're a level 70 critter, and experiment with your spells to find what works best on them.
Gretchen
Meeting Nilandia: http://www.gsguide.net/index.php?title=Nilandia
Nilandia's GS4 Info Repository: http://www.nilandia.com
AIM: Lady Nilandia
JAKKAL
Re: Fixskills Checkup
07/26/2012 04:06 PM CDT
I see one tweak that you might consider for a nice change.
You've got a lot of points sunk into SMC when you could stop at the soft cap of 24 ranks. Then spend those extra ranks on more Harness power, more spells or more lores.
You'd lose three things by giving up those extra 38 ranks:
2 mana per pulse
Trolls blood ticks every 14 seconds instead of every 16 seconds
Spirit guide sickness is less severe
If you picked up extra harness power, you'd gain 14 max mana which would also provide 2 more mana per pulse. You've got so much PT that any sickness from 130 should be over fast or not even happen. And the Trolls blood change is only two seconds for a huge cost.
It's up to you of course, but I really don't see much point in taking SMC over 24 ranks when MMC is your main mana control (because it buffs bone shatter).
Also, its funny how different Nilandia's experience with Wyneb was compared to mine. Dogmatist expired so easily when I shot a crossbow at their face, but the speed of the supplicants made them a huge pain to fight. I think I had to burn 40 mana on WoF everytime I wanted to kill them.
---Mirrami, crossbow empath
You've got a lot of points sunk into SMC when you could stop at the soft cap of 24 ranks. Then spend those extra ranks on more Harness power, more spells or more lores.
You'd lose three things by giving up those extra 38 ranks:
2 mana per pulse
Trolls blood ticks every 14 seconds instead of every 16 seconds
Spirit guide sickness is less severe
If you picked up extra harness power, you'd gain 14 max mana which would also provide 2 more mana per pulse. You've got so much PT that any sickness from 130 should be over fast or not even happen. And the Trolls blood change is only two seconds for a huge cost.
It's up to you of course, but I really don't see much point in taking SMC over 24 ranks when MMC is your main mana control (because it buffs bone shatter).
Also, its funny how different Nilandia's experience with Wyneb was compared to mine. Dogmatist expired so easily when I shot a crossbow at their face, but the speed of the supplicants made them a huge pain to fight. I think I had to burn 40 mana on WoF everytime I wanted to kill them.
---Mirrami, crossbow empath
TROUBLE13
Re: Fixskills Checkup
07/26/2012 04:39 PM CDT
>>Also, its funny how different Nilandia's experience with Wyneb was compared to mine.
Yah, but you are weird ;)
119 - Spirit dispel: Cause a magical effect in force on the target to be canceled. The mana cost for this version of the spell can be reduced by one point for every 75 skill bonus in the Spiritual Mana Control skill.
208 - Living Spell: However, training in Spirit Mana Control will decrease the required mana to cast a stolen spell at the rate of 1% per 2 ranks. The resultant mana cost is rounded up, with a minimum cost of 1.
220 - Major Sanctuary: Successful creation of a Major Sanctuary is determined by level, Major Spiritual spell ranks, Wisdom bonus and Spiritual Mana Control.
240 - Spirit Slayer: The Casting Strength (CS) boost is 25 + seed 5 Mana Control, Spiritual ranks.
1120 - Sympathy: The base limit of targets is six. Training in Mental Mana Control and Spiritual Mana Control increases the number of possible targets at the rate of ((MMC + SMC) / 10).
1150 - Regeneration: The regenerating effect lasts for 30 seconds and has a base interval of 6 seconds, reduced by 1 second for every 100 Spirit Mana Control skill.
Other uses for SMC not mentioned.
Yah, but you are weird ;)
119 - Spirit dispel: Cause a magical effect in force on the target to be canceled. The mana cost for this version of the spell can be reduced by one point for every 75 skill bonus in the Spiritual Mana Control skill.
208 - Living Spell: However, training in Spirit Mana Control will decrease the required mana to cast a stolen spell at the rate of 1% per 2 ranks. The resultant mana cost is rounded up, with a minimum cost of 1.
220 - Major Sanctuary: Successful creation of a Major Sanctuary is determined by level, Major Spiritual spell ranks, Wisdom bonus and Spiritual Mana Control.
240 - Spirit Slayer: The Casting Strength (CS) boost is 25 + seed 5 Mana Control, Spiritual ranks.
1120 - Sympathy: The base limit of targets is six. Training in Mental Mana Control and Spiritual Mana Control increases the number of possible targets at the rate of ((MMC + SMC) / 10).
1150 - Regeneration: The regenerating effect lasts for 30 seconds and has a base interval of 6 seconds, reduced by 1 second for every 100 Spirit Mana Control skill.
Other uses for SMC not mentioned.
JAKKAL
Re: Fixskills Checkup
07/26/2012 05:42 PM CDT
I didn't mention any of those spells because:
>>119 - Spirit dispel:
Diminishing returns. Price drops to 16 mana at 17 ranks. To drop it to 15 mana you need 50 ranks. After that you're looking at 75 more ranks for each 1 mana. This can be better spent in harness that gives you more mana for any spell instead of lower cost on this one spell.
>>208 - Living Spell:
Do you use this? It would be news to me if anyone used this spell a lot. Your CS in majors is way to low to use this.
>>220 - Major Sanctuary:
I've never failed creating a major sanct at 24 ranks.
>>240 - Spirit Slayer:
You're no where near knowing this spell yet. Also it's better buffed with more summoning lore and more spells (higher base CS) than with more SMC.
>>1120 - Sympathy:
Plenty buffed with MMC.
>>1150 - Regeneration:
Terrible diminishing returns for a difference of 4 seconds per pulse instead of 5. Only the initial activation is really needed anyway.
>>Yah, but you are weird ;)
AGREED! The switch wouldn't make or break you either way. Just letting you know what I would do if I were switching to pure. I think you could get more out of those points somewhere else. I'd recommend more harness or more spells if you don't need the harness.
---Mirrami
>>119 - Spirit dispel:
Diminishing returns. Price drops to 16 mana at 17 ranks. To drop it to 15 mana you need 50 ranks. After that you're looking at 75 more ranks for each 1 mana. This can be better spent in harness that gives you more mana for any spell instead of lower cost on this one spell.
>>208 - Living Spell:
Do you use this? It would be news to me if anyone used this spell a lot. Your CS in majors is way to low to use this.
>>220 - Major Sanctuary:
I've never failed creating a major sanct at 24 ranks.
>>240 - Spirit Slayer:
You're no where near knowing this spell yet. Also it's better buffed with more summoning lore and more spells (higher base CS) than with more SMC.
>>1120 - Sympathy:
Plenty buffed with MMC.
>>1150 - Regeneration:
Terrible diminishing returns for a difference of 4 seconds per pulse instead of 5. Only the initial activation is really needed anyway.
>>Yah, but you are weird ;)
AGREED! The switch wouldn't make or break you either way. Just letting you know what I would do if I were switching to pure. I think you could get more out of those points somewhere else. I'd recommend more harness or more spells if you don't need the harness.
---Mirrami
ARMELLE-TRIVA
Re: Fixskills Checkup
07/26/2012 06:13 PM CDT
Thanks Nilandia. So far I'm running from dogmatists and group hunting, so it's not too bad.
And thanks Mirrami. Your post makes a lot of sense. Nilandia, are there other reasons you suggest 1x SMC for life? Picking up more HP would be nice, I've been working on it. I wanted to pump my empath spells up for some more CS.
I'm going the Nilandia lores route which also made a lot of sense. And I know I have to stick more climb and swim in there shortly. Even at this level, so much to train and so few TPs! ;)
And thanks Mirrami. Your post makes a lot of sense. Nilandia, are there other reasons you suggest 1x SMC for life? Picking up more HP would be nice, I've been working on it. I wanted to pump my empath spells up for some more CS.
I'm going the Nilandia lores route which also made a lot of sense. And I know I have to stick more climb and swim in there shortly. Even at this level, so much to train and so few TPs! ;)
ETANNIDOMHNAILL
Re: Fixskills Checkup
07/26/2012 07:43 PM CDT
The benefits for the mana control have pretty much already been laid out. I will also mention that spirit mana control is also a relatively inexpensive skill to help boost runestaff defense. Picking up more than 24 ranks will also help when transferring mana to or from someone with less than 24 spirit ranks. However, if you believe your training points are better spent elsewhere, by all means spend them there. Training in spirit control is one of the least pertinent of the suggestions I've made, so don't feel as though you absolutely must follow my suggestions to the letter.
Gretchen
Meeting Nilandia: http://www.gsguide.net/index.php?title=Nilandia
Nilandia's GS4 Info Repository: http://www.nilandia.com
AIM: Lady Nilandia
Gretchen
Meeting Nilandia: http://www.gsguide.net/index.php?title=Nilandia
Nilandia's GS4 Info Repository: http://www.nilandia.com
AIM: Lady Nilandia
