(1.4.x) Stat Point methodology.

[Snow]

So, I'm fairly new to the game and have been skimming about in my offtime (I play offline mostly due to hedgey Internet) but I've yet to find an in depth explaination of how, and more importantly why you distribute your stats the way you do. Yes, obviously you pump necessary stats to unlock class skills while it's still relevant to do so, but the actual method people use seems to be something just not discussed. The following methods seem apparent to me, though I make no claim as to their viability, and i would be interested in comments, suggestions, concerns, and alternates suggested for each. I will be assuming for the sake of this post that the reader does not have access to stat-boosting equipment in the item vault, and therefor can't rely on equipping +10 to whatever stat on a whim, as that somewhat trivializes the issue in the first place.

Steroid
Select one stat first that will be most beneficial to your unlocks, and dump 3 points in each level until it caps out, and keep it maxed. Once it's greyed out, put the remaining points in secondary class stats, or whichever ones are necessary for generics you want.
Benefit: A significant early game advantage dependent upon the class, but narrows your scope early on in what you can do.
Issues: This leaves you focused, and you are unlikely to be able to start buying generics that you want or need.
Example: As an Archer, no matter whether you focus on slings or bows, dexterity feeds your damage, unlocks, accuracy, and defense, and all of your class abilities (or almost all of them) unlock through dexterity. Unfortunately this means you will be unable to use metal armor or most non-leather armors for several levels.

Slow and Steady
Select three stats which are important to your development which you will then put one point into each level until they are no longer necessary to raise to unlock the skills you want, then change to a different stat.
Benefit: Steady progression which slowly makes several routes dynamically available to you to be built around as the game progresses.
Issues: Very weak early game, reliance on the Random Number God having pity on you and giving stat boosting equipment to get any skill unlocked around the level it first becomes available.
Example: As an Arcane Blade, you want Strength for damage output and skills, Magic to get the most out of your spells (and to buy them in the first place), and if you plan on utilizing the trees in question, Cunning or even Willpower to get some mana / stamina built up.

2:1 Two-Step
If there's a single important stat you need, dump 2 points into it, and then a secondary stat each level can get 1 until you reach the cap for your levels, which will then alternate between putting 2 in your main stat, 1 in your secondary, and 1 in your main stat and 2 in your secondary, keeping the primary stat maxed at all times.
Benefit: Stronger early game, and skills related to your secondary will be available before too long, eventually capping out entirely (or getting to prodigy level and stopping) and allowing your secondary to catch up while you start on tertiary stats.
Issues: Your secondary stat may have a skill tree you really really want, but not enough to take priority over your main stat, and progression can feel slow with just one point per, and if you need a third stat, you have to split your focus and slow down even more.
Example: Rogue decides they want to crank their dexterity up to up their dagger power and stealth effectiveness, and starts sinking points in Cunning for traps and other skills, but can't wear any kind of decent armor due to lack of strength.

Magpie
Oooh shiny! OK I want this this this and this, and I'm gonna dump points in till I can buy 'em, then move to the next one!
Benefit: For those who know exactly what skills they're going to focus on or equipment they want, this can ensure you get it as fast as possible, especially across a varried field.
Issues: You may find yourself in trouble if stat boosting items just WILL NOT drop, and you may fall behind the curve of enemie's damage output / defense as levels go on.
Example: A Summoner knows already that they want to run ranged summons and tank themselves with psiblades. They need willpower for their summons and psiblades, but also Strength to be able to buy and wear armor that can keep them alive in close quarters, and they need it yesterday, so after getting a summon or two to a workable level, they leave off on willpower entirely to hike Strength up enough to 3/5 Armor Mastery, and occasionally pause to hike strength up as needed if they come across armor they simply *must* have. This also means they don't have to use mindstars before they unlock psiblades.

Block-Step
Steroid one stat (3 points each level) until reaching a point (for example every 4 levels switch to another stat you need), resulting in growth in that stat in bursts, taking turns.
Benefit: This can help ensure you get whatever skills you need unlocked in the first place soon enough, and the early steroiding can give you an advantage in your primary skills.
Issues: While you're pumping a different stat, your first isn't growing outside of items bonuses, which can be unpredictable and unreliable to acquire.
Example: You're planning on running an anti-magic bow-archer. You need Strength, Dexterity, and Willpower. Cunning doesn't hurt either but it's not important. You decide every 20 stat points, you will cycle between those stats on each level up until you reach 60 Dexterity, 40 Strength, and 40 Willpower, at which point you'll see what might need some attention.

Aside from all of the skill-focused stats there's also those stat-ups that are just 'nice to have'. A few extra points in Willpower for a melee class to get a nice pool of stamina earlier on, some Strength to edge up enough to equip that Dwarven-Steel Mail Armor that gives +15% resist to all the things, etc. Of course these little breaks in your early development feel like they can leave you falling behind the curve, so I'm wondering how folks justify it. Assuming again of course people don't just use the item vault to scum about for the best stat-up items they can find for whenever they wanna unlock something.

On a similar note is the CONundrum. Whether to waste points on Constitution when the benefit is nil, when all you want is Thick Skin. To max Thick Skin, you now need a total constitution of something like 54. Barring spending a game just dumping +5 /stat gems in low level equipment with Stone Alchemy and hoarding +con rings and amulets in the item vault, then using those on every character thereafter, I'm not entirely sure how you're ever reaosnably supposed to be able to max that skill when building around any other stat. Even with armor, hat, cloak, rings, and amulet of Stats +5, you're still only at 35 at most, and I don't think you can get the custom jewelry if you side with Zigur on a character.

[Doctornull]

You're missing the most realistic methodology:

Packrat +stat gear and swap it around at level-up to get the good talents / prodigies / whatevers.

[Snow]

You're missing the most realistic methodology:

Packrat +stat gear and swap it around at level-up to get the good talents / prodigies / whatevers.

Again,

"I will be assuming for the sake of this post that the reader does not have access to stat-boosting equipment in the item vault, and therefor can't rely on equipping +10 to whatever stat on a whim, as that somewhat trivializes the issue in the first place."

Honestly, if players trivialize an aspect of the game, it's going to get nerfed sooner or later, and I don't think anyone wants that.

[Doctornull]

You're missing the most realistic methodology:

Packrat +stat gear and swap it around at level-up to get the good talents / prodigies / whatevers.

Again,

"I will be assuming for the sake of this post that the reader does not have access to stat-boosting equipment in the item vault, and therefor can't rely on equipping +10 to whatever stat on a whim, as that somewhat trivializes the issue in the first place."

Honestly, if players trivialize an aspect of the game, it's going to get nerfed sooner or later, and I don't think anyone wants that.

Again?

This game is currently seeing massive stat buff inflation, not nerfing.

It's been like this for the last three versions, and shows no sign of slowing down or stopping.

You can count on getting multiple +10 items for several stats -- not just one stat -- by 30th level. Earlier if you hit Adventuring Parties.

There's no need for any "item vault" shenanigans in 1.4.x, well unless you want +20 to a stat from gear by level 15 or something otherwise unusual.

[Snow]

Ah, fair enough I suppose. Still, I prefer not relying upon the mercy of the Random Number God, for it has none.

... Seriously, I've gone through 10 levels without a single quiver spawning and neither Zigur or Last Hope had any decent ones in stock. Let the stat buffs be somthing that makes your life easier, not something you hinge around. Y'know?

[Coldbringer]

I just put as many stat points in as I need to be able to put points in the skills I want. New class skills take first priority. Second is equipment, I tend to wait until I have something really good I want to wear and then increase strength/armor training. I don't build up stats to wear things ahead of time much unless I'm getting close to accessing the shared vault. Third is upping stats to get general skills. Fourth is when all other needs are taken care of then I get willpower or cunning for the boosts they give

[mikekchar]

I don't think a general approach will work very effectively. You should be taking stats to achieve specific effects. Having stats to hit specific power/item requirements is fairly straightforward (and collecting +stat equipment to make sure that you can get a boost to hit those targets is an effective strategy). However, for me that's a restriction, not a goal. Usually, I'm looking at the abilities and thinking, "I need X for level 10, so I'll need 24 strength". How I get there is irrelevant. I just need to make those minimums by that time (and temporarily using an item to get there, while it feels a bit hacky, is useful at times). It's important to note that apart from letting you use that ability or item, the stat is not necessarily useful.

More important than that is scaling. First there is a primary effect. For melee damage, each weapon is scaled by stats. Additionally infusions/inscriptions are scaled directly by stats. Finally, some abilities (for example Conditioning) are scaled directly by stats. Stat scaling is unbounded (unlike "power", which I will describe below) and so every point used will increase the scaling linearly. This should always be your first consideration because *there is no way to achieve this scaling other than to increase your stats*.

Second are the secondary effects (that's a pretty redundant sentence). Stats will generate "power": Strength gives you Physical Power, Magic gives you Spell Power and Willpower/Cunning gives you Mind Power. Physical Power scales your melee damage, Spell Power scales your spell abilities and Mind Power scales your mind abilities. Each point in the relevant stat gives you a point in the associated power (except for Mind Power which is split 70/30 for Willpower and Cunning). It is important to note that Power is added with diminishing returns. So adding 10 power at the begining gives you 10 power, but when you already have 50 it will only add a few power (the wiki will give you the exact calculation and the UI is now pretty good at telling you the "effective" power). It is important to note that you can find items that will give you Power without the stat. These can be very useful (the most common being staves with +ridiculous Spell Power). If you just need Physical Power, for instance (say if you are playing a character with a Dexterity based weapon and you don't want to waste points in Stength, but you need the Physical power to scale damage) it is often a good to use those items.

I almost put Accuracy in with "Power" because it works very much the same. It allows you to hit in melee and it can scale various weapon effects (most spectacularly proc damage / acc with staves and shields with the correct ability). However it doesn't affect as much of the game as the other powers. However, I often run Accuracy based builds because they can be ridiculously fun (often crazily OP). Again, things like gauntlets of dexterity with Accuracy +16 are easier to find than 16 points of Dexterity.

Finally are the tertiary effects. These are things like the increase in HP with the increase of Constitution. Similarly carrying amount with Strength. Most importantly Critical Chance with Cunning. All of these can be very important, but you can almost always find items or abilities that will outstrip the usefulness of putting points into stats. For example, you get 0.3% Crit Chance per Cunning point. Just wielding an iron hand axe gives you +3.5% Crit Chance (plus 0.2% Crit Chance / Acc if I remember correctly). That's the same as 13 points of Cunning! If Crit Chance is important to you, there are about 100 ways better than putting points into Cunning. Essentially, you will want to reserve these kind of expenditures for edge cases (which definitely occur, but are fairly rare).

So for strategy, here is the way I think:

• Do I have enough of the stat to reach my requirements for abilities? Can I use an item to temporarily boost myself to the required level? If not, then it gets whatever points it needs. Often I will add one point a level over several levels to get me close and then try to find an item to help.
• Are there any weird situations where I need to up my tertiary effects? Am I low on HP, or Mana? Is there no other way to improve the situation? If not, then I'll grudgingly add a point or two.
• Is there any specific situation that desperately needs an increase in my secondary effects (Powers/Accuracy)? Can I mitigate the situation with items? If not, then I will add the appropriate points.
• Otherwise, I add as many points as I can to the stat that I want to scale against.

Note that usually the stat(s) I want to scale against is the same as the stat that is required for my abilities. I almost always have enough points. It's only on the tricky classes where you are split 3 ways that you have a problem. Weird situations are not common and I usually only spend a few points here or there (for example to improve the survivability of a Yeek). The third point usually only happens if I can't find appropriate items. Non-Strength based melee characters have it the worst because Physical Power is often hard to find. So either I will stock up on +Strength items or spend a few points. The vast majority of the time I'm just upping the stat(s) that I'm directly scaling against.