Make Stats count in the high end again

As it is, every high end toon has his primary stats maxed out to the point of hidden strength cap, and then some. This gets worse when including INT/WIS, wich both aren't affected by HS.

I'd like to suggest now that HS gets changed to 40, better even 50 overcap per rank. A cap of 40 points per rank would move the no effect point so far out that almost noone would cap out any more (Cap would be 545), 50 points per rank would move the cap to 605 points - a value unheared off with currently known gear.

I also suggest to make it so that INT and WIS are affected by HS - actually I think it's even more important to make these stats count again, for they can cap out as low as Planes tier.
One way to do this might be 1 mana per point of overcap stat, a more interesting way would be a bonus to specializations (Focus/Mind or Energy/Defense) based on stats.

Flame away!

The whole everyone has stats capped at the high end is blatantly untrue when it comes to melees. Atleast in the case of rogues who are direly strapped on str in high end gear. That said it does blow that having 500 wisdom means jack shit

Wouldn't raising this limit also had an adverse affect of making it easier in the higher end raids? With Sta no longer capped where it is, the tanks will have more HP than currently thought of when coding the mobs.

With the int/wis being extended into HS the casters would become unbalanced. Each mob has a timer pretty much with the healers mana being the clock. When the mana is out (and no more clicks to recover) the battle increases to a difficulty of near impossible. By adding HS to include Wis you are making events easier that were coded with the current limitations in mind. Same goes for Int where a wizard could last longer in a fight before needing to med and thus making the damage dealt be outside the amount the dev thought could happen to the mob.

In summery: This idea sounds like a possible severe unbalancing to not only classes but the raid events currently (and soon released as well).

I think what I have in mind has been proposed in a previous thread, but I still think caps should scale with the tiers. Like it could be heavier in the lower zones (like up to some tier say tier 7) but higher in special zones (6man like EFlow and Hmal, maybe ToT / Frost, Undercity...) although this is completely skipping Prison & Thaz which span on 3 kinds of tiers :/
I suppose Ikisith could include some different caps though from scratch. Harder to implement in the current content obviously without rearranging a lot of encounters.

On the hidden strength AA itself it could be extended to int wis some how too I agree, as these stats are absolutely not a tradeoff after mid-end content like CHA is.
What I was considering was maybe make the "opposite" stat considered : WIS somehow being useful for bards/casters, INT for priests - maybe not merely adding mana , but play an outside role (I'm suggesting +focus/mind for priests and +energy/defense for casters or the reverse per "opposite stat" point)

it is pretty disappointing to completely ignore whether an item has int/wis/none on it since it is such a defining stat for any class that casts spells

isn't this a client restriction ?

Furrygamer said:

Wouldn't raising this limit also had an adverse affect of making it easier in the higher end raids? With Sta no longer capped where it is, the tanks will have more HP than currently thought of when coding the mobs.

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Overcap stamina translates to mitigation, not raw hitpoints. I don't think overcap int/wis should translate to raw mana.

It is kind of boring as a caster tbh. Our strength and dex never matter (because we cannot hit shit, even when those are high, I've tried), our stamina is capable of hitting the 400 range, and our agility even hits the cap before hidden strength is applied, and even a bit beyond. Those two are granted something to look at, though not extremely important. But the things that have the most value for us, cha and int, get capped really really really fucking fast. It's entirely possible to hit the int cap as a mage around potorment (if one is a bit short, one pops fireform). This was a few years ago, and droppable loot has drastically improved, so I'm thinking it may be possible sooner.

Charisma doesn't hit the hs cap for a while granted, but in the high end it's not uncommon to see people who are 70-80 above the cap, with nothing to show for it. Casters at the high end pay more attention to melee stats than two of the ones that should be most important for them.

This is one of the reasons playing a caster is fuck all boring.

But I'm rambling a bit. In short to answer some of the points brought up.

"INT and WIS are affected by HS" Yes, very yes.

There are alot of ways to do it. Really I don't think even giving the original values is going to mess things up all that much. Though personally what I'd like to see is this

INT past cap=> Helps energy/defense, small amount of mana for int casters.
Wis past cap=> Helps resists, small amount of mana for wis casters.

In addition I'd like to see earlier bonuses for these as well. Way back when when charisma was changed, no one wanted to see a garbage stat. Well, we still have garbage stats. Consider

INT/WIS both worthless for
Warrior
Monk
Rogue

INT worthless for
Cleric
Shaman
Druid
Ranger
Paladin
Beastlord

Wis worthless for
Mage
Enchanter
Necro
Wizard
Shadowknight
Bard

each is worthless for 9/15 classes. It would be nice if that was not the case. Nor do I think it would be particularly unbalancing.

"Wouldn't raising this limit also had an adverse affect of making it easier in the higher end raids?"

Not really. You've got to consider the amount here. If you do in fact have 500 stamina, you're about 15 over the hidden strength cap. That's not a whole hell of alot. Say it's 30 points over, essentially the same benefit as 10 regular points. I doubt it would change things all that significantly. Not nearly to the extent tomes will and have for instance.

"unbalancing"

No. Just no. Really. Do you have any idea what spells actually cost? Any? At all? Healers granted have an easier time of it, getting more casts with the same amount of mana, but unbalancing casters would be pretty much fucking impossible with just adding mana. 1 rain costs like 480. That's a fucking lot. Quite alot. Wizards don't have it easy there either. If hs was adding something in line with nwaijs suggestion like 1 mana per point over cap, it still wouldn't be enough to cast another full spell with close to the most optimized possible gear setup, for a mage at least (one of the more mana efficient caster classes). At best you're talking maybe a good 200 points of mana at the extreme high end (if you're really really trying to get it over cap, also if we're following the regular hs model, you're going to get about 130 out of it max).

After a certain point you can sit there and chaincast for 20 fucking minutes, regardless of class. adding an extra 20 seconds isn't going to change things all that significantly, but it is stupid to have a stat that caps in like tier 3-4, and just keeps going up with no benefit all the way to max tier.

... or raid mobs with incurable unresistable zone-wide -300 to all 7 stats debuffs. Ringo with like 200 STA plus buffs and Aisling with 239 INT plus buffs makes those stats REALLY important.

Balance by encounter design... yikes. Be careful what you wish for.

But the things that have the most value for us, cha and int, get capped really really really fucking fast. It's entirely possible to hit the int cap as a mage around potorment (if one is a bit short, one pops fireform). This was a few years ago, and droppable loot has drastically improved, so I'm thinking it may be possible sooner.

Click to expand...

I think it is possible sooner. In fact its possible without raiding at all.

Look at Parlan fomelo. Granted he is not a mage, but the basics are the same.

No raids. All List bought items and tmap stuff and I just need to replace an item or two to get to caps in both INT and CHR.

You are 200 cha from the cap duder

speaking of stats and counting, why does so much high end priest gear have so little charisma. I was enjoying having capped cha but I don't think in full sanctum gear i'll be anywhere close :/

Thade said:

why does so much high end priest gear have so little charisma

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Because high tier people are generally unappealing >:C

It would be VERY surprising if a the new tomes didn't have an extension to HS. How and where you get it, would of course be a mystery until it happens.

As for over cap int/wis the 'obvious' and 'easy' 'fix' for the 'problem', I'd throw out there allowing overcap intelligence to allow an innate resist adjust and wisdom to bump up innate meditation skill (faster mana regen unrelated to FT). How that would scale, if they should be included in current HS, etc, would be up for debate, but neither would be hard changes.

What about a fizzling decrease with scaled Int/Wis overcap?
correct me if i'm wrong but isn't int/wis a determining factor for fizzling?

No.
Int casters get a no-fizzle AA

The short of it is your + casting skill helps fizzling, but due to the cap can never eliminate it. So the higher your Evocation skill, the less chance you can fizzle, but you'd need, say 280 Evocation skill to never fizzle. The 25 cap makes that impossible.

Due to the int caster AA that eliminates fizzling that kinda makes the +casting skills not that useful to them, but since it doesn't eliminate fizzles, its sorta not that useful to wis casters either.

We've had some extensive behind doors discussions on this, but haven't really settled on a good solution yet.

Cyzaine said:

It would be VERY surprising if a the new tomes didn't have an extension to HS. How and where you get it, would of course be a mystery until it happens.

As for over cap int/wis the 'obvious' and 'easy' 'fix' for the 'problem', I'd throw out there allowing overcap intelligence to allow an innate resist adjust and wisdom to bump up innate meditation skill (faster mana regen unrelated to FT). How that would scale, if they should be included in current HS, etc, would be up for debate, but neither would be hard changes.

Click to expand...

I bet it drops from the new 3 man raid zones...

Scaling mana regen with wis sounds great for wis casters but obviously less so for the perpetually mana starved int casters. (Hi Wizards). Most wis casters will only run oom or anywhere close to it on Boss encounters (where regen after is not very important), whereas int casters will take advantage of the mana regen to a much greater degree....provided the group or raid is out of combat long enough for this to matter at all.

Would there be a way to force whatever mana regen bonus to use whichever stat is highest between int/wis?

I'd argue that the problem plaguing wizards is resists more than mana pool. Mana regen can work around that, but doesn't really solve it.

Mana regen for wis casters is a bad idea anyway, and would likely never happen, just something I brought up for discussions sake, as why not make both stats useful while we're messing with things, and since much int caster gear also tends to have alot of Wis on it, and vice versa.

I read the resist mod part wrong and just figured you were talking about a bonus to resists. My fault.

I'd be quite happy with better resist mods but they would have to be fairly substantial to have any real meaning. I would certainly take less resists over any out of combat bonus to med.