Is Dexterity important for Wizzard?

[elegz]

Game & Strategy Guide recommend Dexterity for Wizzard, but I don't understand why.

 

Does Accuracy depand on Dexterity? Wiki referring to Josh Sawyer post says "yes", but Game, Manual & Strategy Guide don't mention it. So, where is the truth? It seems like Wiki is off.

 

Is Action Speed important for Wizzard? Surely Wizzard uses wands & rods, but most of his spells are limited and powerfull so he can't spam them.

 

 

[Wolken3156]

Dexterity only affects your Reflex score and your Action Speed. Action Speed does shorten the casting times for spells, so it is fairly important to have. Having higher DEX makes slower and harder hitting weapons much more desirable to use as well.

Edited April 2, 2015 by Wolken3156

[Magrusaod]

Yeah, will let you act faster, which in crunch moments can save your party.

[mrmonocle]

if you don't like negative modifiers spread your stats 18/15/15 for might/dex/int accordingly, leave con/per/res at 10.

[StevenTheMathGuy]

Action Speed means every spell, ability, and attack happens faster. When you have a tough fight and need to quickly crank out Slicken followed by Chill Fog followed by Miasma, a high Dex lets you get that Miasma cast before the Slicken wears off. When the Wizard is just sitting back shooting, it makes you shoot faster. Basically, DPSers want it.

[McPartyson]

This might sound anal, but there is only one Z in Wizard.

 

That is all

 

Thank you

[elegz]

This might sound anal, but there is only one Z in Wizard.

 

That is all

 

Thank you

Ha-ha! Thanks! Just something wrong with my head after hard night.

[Hatred]

This might sound anal, but there is only one Z in Wizard.

 

That is all

 

Thank you

Not according to Rincewind.

[Hatred]

On topic I would say you can definitely not worry about dex on your wizard.  I have tried mine out Aloth in plate and the slower cast recovery times just aren't that big a deal. By comparison every single point in Int feels more useful than the point before. Eventually the extra foe only AoE gets quite big.

[Luckmann]

Dexterity is super-useful for Wizards, because DEX affects action speed. It is, in fact, the only thing it does (aside from boosting your Reflex Defense, but all Attributes boosts on of these).

 

There are notable exceptions to the rule, however. First and foremost, you get the most out of Dexterity the lower Recovery Speed you have, so you will want to wear Cloth or, at the very worst, Robes (which still comes at a 15% penalty to your Recovery Speed, because Robes in PoE are not the same as Cloth, for some odd and no doubt derp reason).

 

So yes, Dexterity is important for Wizards, but if you wear armour of practically any kind, Dexterity is terrible.

 

This is true for pretty much everyone, by the way; Attributes in PoE are generalized, but lopsided as all hell, so what's good for one character is good for all other characters of the same type, those types pretty much being "DPS" and "Tank".

 

Since you probably do not want to make your Wizard into a tank (Why on Earth would you even try?) you probably want to make it into DPS, making Might, Dexterity and especially Intellect (a consolidated caster Attribute with the current Attribute bonuses).

 

If you were making a tank, you'd want Perception, Resolve and.. eh.. Constitution? Not really, nobody needs Constitution.

 

Action Speed means every spell, ability, and attack happens faster. When you have a tough fight and need to quickly crank out Slicken followed by Chill Fog followed by Miasma, a high Dex lets you get that Miasma cast before the Slicken wears off. When the Wizard is just sitting back shooting, it makes you shoot faster. Basically, DPSers want it.

Do note that this no longer applies. I realize this was written on the 2nd of April, so I'm not criticizing, but Slicken has been nerfed into the ground and thematically and conceptually changed. It no longer "wears off", it's like a no-damage small, instant fireball AoE effect that knocks opponents prone once, not a persistent "Hazard AoE" oil slick.

Edited April 5, 2015 by Luckmann

[kmbogd]

So yes, Dexterity is important for Wizards, but if you wear armour of practically any kind, Dexterity is terrible.

I am not really sure that I understand this.  10% percent of a longer recovery period provides a better absolute value than 10% percent of a shorter recovery period. In my opinion, dexterity is even more relevant when you plan to use higher level types of armor for your wizard.

Edited April 5, 2015 by kmbogd

[Luckmann]

 

So yes, Dexterity is important for Wizards, but if you wear armour of practically any kind, Dexterity is terrible.

I am not really sure that I understand this.  10% percent of a longer recovery period provides a better absolute value than 10% percent of a shorter recovery period. In my opinion, dexterity is even more relevant when you plan to use higher level types of armor.

 

 

You'd think, but no. Due to the recovery penalty, you won't be able to capitalize on the added speed. PoE rewards specialization; if you want to tank, you will want to specialize as a tank, which means that you'll be wearing heavy armour (if you know what's good for you), which means you'll never do good damage, no matter what you do.

 

Meanwhile, if you want to do damage, you will want to avoid getting damaged to begin with, and armour reduces your speed no matter what, compromising your ability to do damage. The added effects from armour is not worth the tradeoff in killing efficiency, because it hurts your main function; armour is dead weight whenever you are not getting hit anyway, and if you're getting hit, the armour is not enough to reasonably keep you alive anyway, and you just shouldn't be putting yourself in that position.

 

All in all, it means that if you want to tank, you tank, and Dexterity does nothing to help you do that, and if you want to do damage, you should never be wearing heavy armour (or, from a min/max perspective, *any* armour).

 

I'm ridiculously full at the moment and also slightly intoxicated, so I'm not re-reading the above, and I may have been writing everything slightly confusingly, did it make sense to you?

[pi2repsion]

The proper stats for a player wizard used as a classic glass cannon are 18+ MIG, DEX, INT. If he's only going to be used for debuffing and crowd control, he can do without the MIG.

 

You can dump CON and PER to 3, investing whatever is left over after maximizing the three important ones in PER, to give you conversation options and make it harder for your spells to be interrupted.

 

The proper armour for said classic glass cannon wizard is Berathian Robes. You will come across these fairly early in your adventures. They have DR2 and only -5% recovery penalty, which is to my mind a better tradeoff than DR3 and -15% for normal Robes or DR0 and -0% for clothing. They also have good-looking graphics, especially for women, which may or may not influence your decision.

 

Don't worry about dumping CON. When the going gets tough, cast the level 2 spell Infuse with Vital Essence for a +50 endurance bonus. It is king of the fast-cast protective spells.

 

The result is a wizard who is capable of casting spells really fast, and who when you gain access to the wonderful level 3 spell, Deleterious Alacrity of Motion, pretty much requires you to fight in slow motion if you don't want to waste any of his uptime but just want to keep blasting away until the enemy is dead or he's out of spells.

 

I'd sooner shaft Might than I'd shaft Dexterity for a classic glass cannon wizard, since while Might is the better stat for damage purposes, Dexterity is the stat that allows you to cast frequently, and sometimes you just want to cast a defensive spell NOW because some nasty is attacking the wizard, but best is maximizing both and there's little reason not to.

 

For a heavily armoured fighter-mage type, it would be a harder choice, but if I wanted to play such one in Pillars of Eternity, the Cipher and Chanter were made for that purpose and are better at it.

Edited April 5, 2015 by pi2repsion

[Emptiness]

Action Speed means every spell, ability, and attack happens faster. When you have a tough fight and need to quickly crank out Slicken followed by Chill Fog followed by Miasma, a high Dex lets you get that Miasma cast before the Slicken wears off. When the Wizard is just sitting back shooting, it makes you shoot faster. Basically, DPSers want it.

Do note that this no longer applies. I realize this was written on the 2nd of April, so I'm not criticizing, but Slicken has been nerfed into the ground and thematically and conceptually changed. It no longer "wears off", it's like a no-damage small, instant fireball AoE effect that knocks opponents prone once, not a persistent "Hazard AoE" oil slick.

 

The important part is that high Dex translates to getting spells out faster.  His illustration was broken by the change to Slicken, but his point is still valid.

[kmbogd]

@Luckmann

 

The way you phrased your sentence "if you wear armour of practically any kind, Dexterity is terrible" doesn't make much sense to me. The explanation in your post above makes sense if you think at the extreme cases. But you might want to consider some armors that provide some interesting abilities, however are somewhere in the middle of the spectrum (Aloth's armor comes to mind). At least in the early phases of the game (I didn't play that much through the story due to bugs), it's a decent armor which provides nice buffs at a cost of a bigger penalty to the recovery time. I believe that dexterity would be even more beneficial in this case than if he went for the weakest type of armor possible.

Edited April 5, 2015 by kmbogd

[Emptiness]

You'd think, but no. Due to the recovery penalty, you won't be able to capitalize on the added speed. PoE rewards specialization; if you want to tank, you will want to specialize as a tank, which means that you'll be wearing heavy armour (if you know what's good for you), which means you'll never do good damage, no matter what you do.

 

Meanwhile, if you want to do damage, you will want to avoid getting damaged to begin with, and armour reduces your speed no matter what, compromising your ability to do damage. The added effects from armour is not worth the tradeoff in killing efficiency, because it hurts your main function; armour is dead weight whenever you are not getting hit anyway, and if you're getting hit, the armour is not enough to reasonably keep you alive anyway, and you just shouldn't be putting yourself in that position.

 

All in all, it means that if you want to tank, you tank, and Dexterity does nothing to help you do that, and if you want to do damage, you should never be wearing heavy armour (or, from a min/max perspective, *any* armour).

 

I'm ridiculously full at the moment and also slightly intoxicated, so I'm not re-reading the above, and I may have been writing everything slightly confusingly, did it make sense to you?

 

This kind of thinking is what leads to people concluding that there is only one way to build any class, and then complaining that the system is too restrictive.  It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, so to speak.

 

Sometimes your Wizard is going to get hit.  If you build your Wizard around the idea that "he shouldn't be getting hit, so I don't need any protection for him" then of course he's going to drop almost instantly.  There's nothing wrong with putting your Wizard into heavier armor.  He's not going to turn into a tank, but he will be taking less damage, and thus maybe survive long enough to do something about the damage that is being done to him.  Yes, the slower recovery will reduce the rate that you put out damage, but he will still be putting out damage faster than if he was unconscious.

[Daemonjax]

...you get the most out of Dexterity the lower Recovery Speed you have.

 

 

I keep seeing people type that, but I have no idea what that could really mean.