Most useful and least useful Stats

[mforww]

So far in my experience (normal difficulty, full party):

 

1. Might - it's more damage

 

2. Intellect - AoE spells are devastatingly powerful, and this makes sure you can nail all of your enemies with them

 

3. Perception - Useful for both stopping enemy mages proactively, and the deflection bonus to stop melee attackers, therefore making this the best defensive oriented stat.

 

4. Dexterity - Honestly, I feel like the boost to action speed really isn't really worth it. Since action speed affects EVERYONE'S effectiveness, this is the sort of stat that, if it were good, you would want to pump on literally every character. Obsidian obviously balanced this by making it weak, that being the case.

 

5. Resolve - Concentration is rather meh, from what I've see so far. If you tank properly and position well you almost never have a use for it, since the only 1-2 people on your front line getting hit don't do as much damage as everyone else, anyway.

 

6. Constitution - Ok, so basically Con wastes half of its utility by granting health, which 1) doesn't matter if you're rolling over enemies 2) doesn't matter if you're NOT rolling over enemies, since then it must be a tough fight where you need utility NOW and not later. This is probably more useful on hard difficulty where camping is more restricted. That being said, might beats con by giving you 3% more healing, which increases your effective health even more significantly! Con seems blah.

[Frenzy-kun]

As far as I played, it seems Perception, resolve and constitution are redundand. It improves your resistance to death. So in the end, somehow it feels like it's a matter of which defense to improve (and I think the root of the problem is having attacks that targets some defenses instead of defenses preventing effects).

 

I can understand what they tried to do here. But I find it was not ver well developed. Basically what (I think) they wanted to do is a set of stats for the player to be able to make any combination of stats/class. In BG, you have only one dominant build. If you were a warrior, STR, DEX, CON to 18 (well, if you roll enough, everything to 18 except for dump stats, beginning by CHA in BG2).

 

For instance, might could be a dps oriented build, while intellect is about status effects. So instead of having an Intelligent wizard or a strong warrior as dominant builds, you can combine any class with any stat: a strong wizard that deals great damage, a strong warrior that deals great damage, a controller wizard that inflicts a lot of status or a controller warrior that could hold enemies better.

 

Those stats seems to work pretty fine. As well as dextery, which implies more attacks: you can have more combinations. A mighty intelligent wizard whose spells could break through the enemies defenses, but in exchange they are frail and slow. A powerful and fast warrior, making him a glass cannon, so he just attacks and deals as much dps as possible before dying. A rogue that could be oriented to dps, but he could be oriented to status, blinding enemies or poisoning them by increasing the intellect.

 

But appart from that, it seems the other stats are rather redundant. One of the stats needs to be about tanking. Do you want a tanking wizard? Go for it. So it means that the concentration should be increased with this stat. Then you will create a wizard that can go in the first line and make a good use of the fan and contact abilities. Let's call it "resolve". But I think 3 stats for defenses is a waste. Want a tank rogue? Perfect, just add intellect to ensure blindness hits and lasts and then poison your foes and wait for their health to drop while trying unsuccesfuly to land a hit on you just to check your incredible resistance to the very few that does it.

 

Then, perception and constitution seems like they have no room. How could a warrior be modified in order to be able to make a competitive build appart from tank, dps or controller? Probably then the game needs more mechanics in substitutio of the matching defenses (I don't like that the characters have several defenses, because then attacking becomes an obvious choice out of 4 possible target defenses, and when the choice is obvious, there is no choice).

 

Of course, in the end some stats will synergice better than others, but the possibility of having different builds than the STR fighter will be there, and your team configuration will depend on those builds. I think that the mentioned stats works pretty fine. Still, pretty unbalanced (like if I make a rogue 20MIG 19DEX with cloth armor and dual wielding, I expect to kill anything in two seconds even if I die in three hits, but that never happens), but they have a clear purpose. It's not the case with perception, resolve and constitution. They seem oriented to tank. Since you cannot know what kind of attacks your unit can receive, if you want a tank you need to improve all of them, or stick to the most useful one (perception).

Edited April 7, 2015 by Frenzy-kun

[Matt516]

Con needs to be changed to 4% or 5% to reflect its status as a purely defensive stat - having it grant the same percentage bonus as the offensive stat (Might) doesn't work.

 

Dex is fine because, as you said, it helps EVERYTHING. So it's going to have to be a bit weaker - it's the jack-of-all-trades stat.

 

Haven't found as much use for Per as you have but I'll take your word for it. I agree Res could use a bit of a boost.

 

Might and Int are both very strong. Too strong? Probably not. 

[k1rage]

I dont like how some stats are reflected from a role play perspective, my cipher for example has High might, because I wanted him to do decent damage

 

but in conversations he is always the one lifting people up and breaking stuff so might is basically strength but it is need on casters as well, so my casters can do physical tasks that my big tank guy cannot lol

[SeekDWay]

I just hope they don't nerf Might and Int. Yes, they are the strongest stats and are way above everything else, but if they nerf them in some way the game might as well have no stats.

 

I say buff the other stats, might even buff Dex a tiny bit too.

Edited April 7, 2015 by SeekDWay

[Matt516]

Just think if it as spells being cast partly from the caster's physical strength. Quite a common trope in fantasy settings, actually (just not D&D).

 

If you're miffed that big tough guys can be simultaneously weak (maxing Con and dumping Might), well.. fair enough. But that's not unique to PoE, it's a possibility in any RPG system that separates an attack-y strength from a toughness strength. It's weird, but meh.

[DocDoomII]

Why are all topics like this about "combat efficiency"?

 

The last 3 stats are very useful for conversation options.

[k1rage]

Why are all topics like this about "combat efficiency"?

 

The last 3 stats are very useful for conversation options.

that also bugs me I find so many times that resolve is used in conversation but its a useless stat for me lol

[DocDoomII]

It's not useless if it allows you to solve some situations with dialogues.

 

For example, in the very first map, when you confront the leader of the guys who attacked the caravan, a single point in lore can save the hostage from being critically wounded.

 

Yes, lore it's a skill, but I've only played chapter one, so I don't really know how much Resolve could be beneficial in conversations.

[IEfan]

[PERSUADE ->+450 gold, Int 4 required, Apathetic, Self-degrading] ...Can't tell cos I'd never play with the gatdam dialogue-hint system on, lol.

 

Anybody finding that dex doesn't boost Accuracy even somewhat a little strange?? I started the game with Balanced Dex-based Monk with completely average Con... found out the hard way that, you can't really do careful dodging monk (maybe with hi-level talents, and even then... it's quite min-maxing) with how the stats are now. I mean it's just a little unintuitive, you'd assume that it's the only preciness/careful fighter-attribute when there is none really...

 

plus just reading something like fortitude etc just on description quickly reveals how unimportant those stats are.

 

Otherwise digging the battle system, I can see a lot of potential in it.

Edited April 7, 2015 by IEfan

[SeekDWay]

It's not useless if it allows you to solve some situations with dialogues.

 

For example, in the very first map, when you confront the leader of the guys who attacked the caravan, a single point in lore can save the hostage from being critically wounded.

 

Yes, lore it's a skill, but I've only played chapter one, so I don't really know how much Resolve could be beneficial in conversations.

I hate to spoil this for you, but in DB I cheated a save to check some of the options. From my limited experience, if your stats aren't ridiculously high they just unlock alternative dialog. I might be wrong, as the example you gave is 100% correct, but I doubt it applies to most of the game. :-/

Edited April 7, 2015 by SeekDWay