Why people say constitution is useless ?

[Kenji]

ProjectBG2Respawn, on 07 Apr 2015 - 06:32 AM, said:

 

Kenji, on 07 Apr 2015 - 06:25 AM, said:

 

ProjectBG2Respawn, on 07 Apr 2015 - 06:19 AM, said:ProjectBG2Respawn, on 07 Apr 2015 - 06:19 AM, said:

"Also what was the point of not wearing armor?"

 

For fast recovery time. And also i though like you that 2 weapons with 18 DEX and no recovery time malus could interrupt a lot the enemies : it was a wrong move.

 

 

* So if a fighter gains much endurance and vitality each level, it shouldn't be good to maximize CON ?

I have actually tried that on my earlier PotD runs with a Rautai Dwarf, maxed 21 Con, at the expense of some perception. As others have pointed out, since constitution is percentage based, my old tank took more hits and gained only so little extra endurance/health that maxed perception/resolve still outweighs constitution with the current stats.

 

I really hope they'd put minimal might restriction on armors and increase constitution % per point to discourage min/max'ing.

 

 

Can you explain better please cuz i'm not really familiar with English.

 

In one word : are you dissapointed from gave 21 CON to your dwarf ?

 

Yes.

 

 

Min/Maxing in this game is overrated. Due to the reverse difficulty curve of the game (game starts out incredibly hard, then gets progressively easier as you reach higher levels), you can do just fine in PotD with non-min/maxed chars. I tried it.

 

While difficulty makes min/max more or less important, I agree that it isn't a necessity. Though this game probably have 2 extreme types of gamers with the majority somewhere in between: those who care mostly about the story and not so much about combat, and those who care far more about the challenge of combat. So for those who combat is a significantly higher focus  than the RP experience, it makes sense to min/max stats and chars.

 

While I prefer to have characters with slightly flawed stats (don't mind the companion stats whatsoever) since they make them more interesting and realistic in my mind. I'm still on my first playthrough with an orlan melee rogue whose stats I assigned before I had a proper grasp on how the system worked, she's kinda flawed but still fun to play since it's a challenge sometimes to make things work around those flaws. 

 

I did the same with Icewind Dale.

 

Once I'm comfortable with the content, I stopped min/max'ing and have just good enough/mediocre stats to get by. That in itself is another challenge.

[Nokturnal Lex]

I play these games entirely combat and build perfection obsessed. I enjoy the story to the point of not wanting to take the horrible pre made companions with me.

 

You can easily beat the entire game on hard without using any custom adventurers. PotD as well, it just makes combat even easier to min-max every party member.

[ProjectBG2Respawn]

@Kenji

 

That's what i understood but i wanted to be sure.

[kat7ra]

2 hander and no armour and going as a tank?

 

I don't like to minimize any stat personally so for me a 3 stat would never happen.

But for my 2h paladin frontliner/tank having 10 con seems to be more than enough.
The constant healing makes it so that I only need enough Endurance to survive until it's healed, and resistances can always be buffed in combat, or with a ring.

Constitution doesn't seem to give you something valuable in the current game I think, having some is kinda needed (maybe) but even for a full on tank 10 is all you'll ever need. If you take it down to 3 (for some reason) you have got to keep your defect up I would think, so that when you get hit it's 99 % grazes. 2H and no armour AND noting in Con just seems a bit silly if you want to tank imo.

[Mungri]

 

I play these games entirely combat and build perfection obsessed. I enjoy the story to the point of not wanting to take the horrible pre made companions with me.

 

 

You can easily beat the entire game on hard without using any custom adventurers. PotD as well, it just makes combat even easier to min-max every party member.

I really don't think you understood what I wrote. Try again.

[ProjectBG2Respawn]

2 hander and no armour and going as a tank?

 

I don't like to minimize any stat personally so for me a 3 stat would never happen.

 

But for my 2h paladin frontliner/tank having 10 con seems to be more than enough.

The constant healing makes it so that I only need enough Endurance to survive until it's healed, and resistances can always be buffed in combat, or with a ring.

 

Constitution doesn't seem to give you something valuable in the current game I think, having some is kinda needed (maybe) but even for a full on tank 10 is all you'll ever need. If you take it down to 3 (for some reason) you have got to keep your defect up I would think, so that when you get hit it's 99 % grazes. 2H and no armour AND noting in Con just seems a bit silly if you want to tank imo.

 

I'll say it again : it was a test dude

[Nokturnal Lex]

 

 

I play these games entirely combat and build perfection obsessed. I enjoy the story to the point of not wanting to take the horrible pre made companions with me.

 

You can easily beat the entire game on hard without using any custom adventurers. PotD as well, it just makes combat even easier to min-max every party member.

I really don't think you understood what I wrote. Try again.

 

Try reading what you wrote, you contradicted yourself. "I play these games entirely combat and build perfection obsessed."  aka A min-maxer who doesn't care about story.

 

and then this statement is odd "I enjoy the story to the point of not wanting to take the horrible pre-made companions with me" 

 

If you enjoy the story you'd want to take the horrible pre-made companions with you because although their stats suck, they contribute to the story, if you don't care about the story though, you would prefer min-maxed adventurers and never take the horrible pre-made companions with you.

 

And my previous reply was just saying that min-maxing isn't required at all to beat the game. It just makes it easier. So if you want a challenge, play with the horrible pre-made companions lol. Feel free to min-max, just know it only makes the game easier and have less dialogue and story.

 

 

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Edited April 7, 2015 by Nokturnal Lex

[Odd Hermit]

A wizard has 30 base + 10 hp/level.

 

So take a level 5 wizard, with 18 con(+24%) and you have:

 

70 base endurance + (70 * .24) = 86.8

 

+17 HP for 8 attribute points. That 8 attribute points could be giving you much more substantial benefits somewhere else.

___

 

Take a level 5 wizard with 3 con(-21%) and you have:

 

70 - (70 * .21) = 55.3

 

Minimum con = ~63% of max con, and 15 free attribute points.

 

15 attribute points can give you +21% damage, +40% duration, +48% AoE on spells. Considering spells = the real survivability for Wizards, it's an easy choice.

 

Not that you actually need to minimize constitution to get those, I usually drop it to 7 personally. -9% which is about 7 endurance lost.

 

___

 

Now take a more durable class, and consider that while the HP difference is bigger, you're already higher durability and can afford to lose more assuming you're not on tanking duty. That +15 to attributes seems pretty good.

 

That said, difficulty also factors in a fair bit. Deflection probably is weaker on PotD I'm pretty sure, seems enemies definitely have higher accuracy so raw HP may be the way to go as long as deflection isn't so bad you're getting crit regularly. For melee that get a decent endurance/level gain it might be worth taking con on PotD.

[eubatham]

The main reason why people say Con isn't that great, is because most people usually play with a dedicated tank in their party. This tank will keep the majority of the attention focused on him or herself, meaning that other partymembers will hardly ever get hit.

 

So a logical tactic is to equip your tank with a lot of Con in order to survive the large amounts of damage they'll take. However, other characters (even offtanks) won't need their high base HP in order to survive whatever other damage they might be exposed to. So lowering Con to 8 for offtanks or 3 for damage dealers, and then spending them in other stats isn't that weird of a tactic.

[kat7ra]

The main reason why people say Con isn't that great, is because most people usually play with a dedicated tank in their party. This tank will keep the majority of the attention focused on him or herself, meaning that other partymembers will hardly ever get hit.

 

So a logical tactic is to equip your tank with a lot of Con in order to survive the large amounts of damage they'll take. However, other characters (even offtanks) won't need their high base HP in order to survive whatever other damage they might be exposed to. So lowering Con to 8 for offtanks or 3 for damage dealers, and then spending them in other stats isn't that weird of a tactic.

But you don't really need a high Con for main tanks either.

I think that's what has the OP asking, because people are stating that even on the main tank in the group a high con is kinda useless.

[Nokturnal Lex]

But you don't really need a high Con for main tanks either.

I think that's what has the OP asking, because people are stating that even on the main tank in the group a high con is kinda useless.

 

 

Yea Con is just pure hp and fortitude. Fort is the worst tank defensive stat cause usually having low fort only means you get knocked down, what happens when a tank gets knocked down? Nothing, he gets back up and keeps tanking. The most important to least important defense on tank goes Deflection > Reflex > Will > Fortitude.  

 

You want your incoming damage reduction to be as high as possible on a tank, so maxing any stat that increases Deflection and Reflex is great, will is ok, and fortitude is not required. So Constitution loses out as being only able to increase your max hp and the most useless defense, compared to other defensive stats. Though naturally might is completely unnecessary on a tank. (Funny how that works from a roleplaying perspective eh? Tanks who can barely lift a pencil)

 

 

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Edited April 7, 2015 by Nokturnal Lex

[limaxophobiacq]

One thing is with the way damage and DR works, having con give an equal % increase to health as might gives to damage clearly favours might over constitution, even if attacks lost only a quarter of their damage to DR on average (and they generally loose more than that), you'd need con to give 4% health/endurance increase for it to be balanced with might at 3%.

 

To illustrate: 100 damage & 25 DR results in 75 health/endurance lost

 

increase might by 1 and you do 103-25 = 78 lost (+4%)

 

so you'd need to get 4% more from one point of con for it to compete.

 

In the actual game damage absorbed by DR probably varies from a quarter up to half most of the time so it would probably have to be more like 5% to be as good an attribute as might.

Edited April 7, 2015 by limaxophobiacq

[Luckmann]

Why do people say that Constitution is useless?

Well, in a nutshell... they don't. It's bad. Terribly bad. But it's not useless.

 

I've yet to see anyone suggest that a tank should dump Constitution. This is not because Constitution is good, but because the penalty isn't worth it. As a tank, you won't need the +End%, but you will suffer severely if you dump on it, simply because as a high-Endurance class (and you will want to be one, as a tank) you will lose much more Endurance than a low-Endurance class would.

There are several reasons Constitution is Bad:

• Tanks do not need it at all, because Tanks will always always be from the high-ish-Endurance classes (Fighter, Paladin, primarily) anyway.
• It affects High-Endurance classes more than it affects Low-Endurance classes. The High-Endurance classes do not need the extra Endurance and the much smaller gain makes it not worth the investment for Low-Endurance classes.
• This also means that the penalty suffered by Low-Endurance classes is lower, making it a nice dump state for them.

So, in conclusion:

• Tanks should not dump Constitution. Bad idea.
• Tanks should not pump Constitution, why would they?
• Ranged DPS that will never take damage can freely dump Constitution.
• Melee DPS should not be tanks anyway, and if they're not tanks, they shouldn't be wearing armour, meaning that whether you have a boost to Endurance or not will not save you if you somehow end up in a pickle. Might want to keep the base Constitution anyway.

The Attribute bonuses in the game has some very notable issues that have been discussed up and down the boards, and the developers have acknowledged it but also been unwilling to address them, so it is unlikely to be solved. The easiest "fix" that I can see would be to add a flat +/- Endurance modifier to Constitution, which would at least make it more desirable for low-Constitution classes, but the fundamental issue of it being a bit meh won't be fixable due to base functions in the game, favouring heavy specialization in the DPS/Tank department, but those things have other proposed solutions that could make Constitution as an Attribute more desirable in the long term.

[Matt516]

The bonus/malus for Constitution isn't big enough - you only lose 24% endurance for dropping it to 2 and only gain 30% for upping it to 20. That's just not significant enough. Change the scaling to 4% or 5% per point, and Constitution suddenly becomes actually significant.

[Luckmann]

The bonus/malus for Constitution isn't big enough - you only lose 24% endurance for dropping it to 2 and only gain 30% for upping it to 20. That's just not significant enough. Change the scaling to 4% or 5% per point, and Constitution suddenly becomes actually significant.

 

That would just lead to bloat, it wouldn't solve the issue at all. High-Endurance classes would still benefit more than Low-Endurance classes (or punish vice-versa when in negatives), Tanks still wouldn't need all that extra Endurance, and those that aren't going to be consistently hit still wouldn't get consistently hit, so it wouldn't matter if they have -24% or -32% Endurance. And everyone else would still just keep Endurance at 10, because they don't need or want the bonus, but also cannot take the penalty.

 

Constitution needs to do something other than just scale Endurance up or down by percentage.

[Starthief]

Con would be more useful if:

 

-- it helped reduce recovery penalty on armor.  It'd be worth taking some on heavy armor wearers to help recover some of their lowered DPS, and having moderate CON and light to medium armor could become a good option for second-line DPS, instead of dumping CON and wearing no armor.

 

-- it was used, either alone or in combination with Might, for dialog options that involve physical intimidation.

Edited April 7, 2015 by Starthief

[Failion]

Actually I say for barbarian constitution is a must and perception you can dump and is useless and heres why. Deflection for barbarian is crap at best you can pump it through deflection ring and priest spell so you don't get crit. Early game con is garbage but late game DR HP tank barbarian is arguably best tank in game. Plate, barbarian talent, special acquired armor talent and you have great DR, pop some support spells you can get it even higher. My barbarian did 100k something damage and on top of it was a great tank. The only bad thing about barbarian is lot of the hardest fights in the game their carnage abilitiy sees little use. For other classes con isn't as great, very high deflection classes, but is not useless.

[Jayngo]

Forgive me, but when I read this I thought it said:

 

"Why people say prostitution is useless"

 

I think I saw the "P" in "people" and the "constitution" and....ah forget it.

 

 

But, of course CONSTITUTION is important. It's hit points. You need it. At least some. Can't say I would ever make a character with "3 constitution."

Edited April 7, 2015 by Jayngo

[Jojobobo]

I'd say of the high endurance classes who you aren't expecting to do too much tanking (or just people who are completely ranged in the first place) it's a bit of waste, particularly with Barbarians who buff their Con back to around the 10 mark with Frenzy and Greater Frenzy anyway. Far better to have Dex (more hits), Might (more damage), Per (more interrupt - though again I wouldn't prioritise this), Resolve (more Concentration) and Intellect (greater Carnage AoE and Frenzy duration) than more endurance on top of what is already a sizeable endurance anyway. Also if you do have very hight Might, your Fortitude saves don't suffer either really completely negating that drawback to a large extent too.

 

For me I ran Might 21, Constitution 3, Dexterity 18, Perception 3, Intellect 18 and Resolve 15 for a bit of perspective - for high DPS it's doing pretty well killing over half of all the enemies so far that the party has faced.

[Grand_Commander13]

if... it helped reduce recovery penalty on armor.  It'd be worth taking some on heavy armor wearers to help recover some of their lowered DPS, and having moderate CON and light to medium armor could become a good option for second-line DPS, instead of dumping CON and wearing no armor.

I really like that idea: the tankier you want to be, the more you naturally want CON.

 

The only problem is that it still gives you no reason to use it if you don't want to wear heavy armor. What if it simply reduced recovery time? I guess that kind of steps on Dexterity's feet a bit, but it's a logical thing to do with an endurance-based attribute.

[Atheosis]

And then people complain about the game being too easy.  It's too bad that Obsidian made a system so vulnerable to min maxing.

[DIIscIIple]

I'm running parties of all fighters and paladins because I wanna run at fools, and a high constitution is definitely not worth it. The high single digits (8 or so) is fine for all the fighters.  I max or nearly max dmg for everyone so might pumps the fortitude save and the hps just aren't as good as more dmg or better defenses.  Paladin heals provide plenty of effective hps for normal/hard levels.  It just seems like an underpowered stat.

[Luckmann]

And then people complain about the game being too easy.  It's too bad that Obsidian made a system so vulnerable to min maxing.

I don't see the relation to the topic. Both of these things are true - the game is incredibly easy, and the system is extremely min/max-y.

[johnmr531]

Here is a thought. A lot of you are saying constitution is worthless mainly because classes that need it already have an endurance bonus which helps them vs. the squishier classes.

 

So a way to make constitution more useful would be to not give other classes differing amounts of endurance.

Lets say all classes start with a flat amount of endurance it could be 0 it could be 10 it could be 100 it doesn't really matter as long as its NOT ENOUGH for melee in particular.

 

The endurance you get is then fully based off your constitution so something like

endurance = level * constitution points. 
or maybe even

endurance = level * constitution points * someSmallMultiplier. 

 

This would force melee classes like fighters, paladins, monks to spend more because having  3 points of constitution would suck and they wouldn't be able to perform their task.

 

Where as having very little constitution for wizards wouldn't matter as much.

[KDubya]

Here is a thought. A lot of you are saying constitution is worthless mainly because classes that need it already have an endurance bonus which helps them vs. the squishier classes.

 

So a way to make constitution more useful would be to not give other classes differing amounts of endurance.

Lets say all classes start with a flat amount of endurance it could be 0 it could be 10 it could be 100 it doesn't really matter as long as its NOT ENOUGH for melee in particular.

 

The endurance you get is then fully based off your constitution so something like

endurance = level * constitution points. 

or maybe even

endurance = level * constitution points * someSmallMultiplier. 

 

This would force melee classes like fighters, paladins, monks to spend more because having  3 points of constitution would suck and they wouldn't be able to perform their task.

 

Where as having very little constitution for wizards wouldn't matter as much.

 

That would be terrible and would really hamper any sort of fighter who wanted to do any damage.

 

Currently a fighter needs high resolve and perception in order to get a good deflection, cause interruptions and defend against interruptions via concentration. To do decent damage you need a high dexterity and might. This leaves intelligence  and/or constitution as dump stats to fund the stats that you think are more worthy. Dropping intelligence drastically reduces your durations but is a fair trade off. Dropping constitution to high single digits, 7-9, is a calculated risk, you'll have less endurance but you can survive by being either having more  deflection or doing more damage faster.

 

Your proposal would force fighters to pump up constitution or else be dropped as fast as a wizard without the benefit of staying safely in the rear. The only place to get the points would be from dex and might, the two stats that increase your damage. This would force fighters into being only damage sponges. The effect on glass cannon casters would be negligible or even give them a boost depending on the default starting endurance level.

 

The ranged classes already have a big advantage in the game, no reason to nerf fighters who try to do decent damage while still being able to survive in melee.

 

The proposal of having constitution reduce armor penalties would be interesting if it was comparable to the speed increase from dexterity. A fighter could then drop dexterity in favor of constitution to maintain a balanced tanking/dps or drop the tanky stats in order to go as fast as possible. This would open up many options for builds.