Why spend points on stats?

[nibel]

Serious question. You have 24 Destiny Points to spend in all things on your ED tree, and yet some people go and spend half of them to get +3 DC on spells. Or +3 to-hit/damage. Or whatever.

I can understand when you have absolutelly nothing to spend on (Ranged character hitting Dreadnough tier 2), or need to round up an odd stat. But as the main shtick? Why would I get my artificer on Magister and spend 12 points on Int instead of going to that tree that reduces mob reflex saves, or Grand Summoner, or the Sigils/inherent resistance? There are so many cool toys on the ED trees, that I feel that wasting 4 AP for a +1 modifier to be a total waste.

What am I missing here?

[9Crows]

What am I missing here?

everyone has different prioritys/viewpoints ..there is no one single way to enjoy the game

[Contrex]

What am I missing here?

That there exist people with different opinions and preferences than yours.

[voodoogroves]

The ones where I spent heavy on stats are the ones where those stats drive multiple in-game factors. Still, I've never spent fully on stats - most I have done is during my initial journey through Shadowdancer on my rogue when most of the **** was broken anyway - I think I put 4 or so points into INT.


If someone was big on DCs, damage, attack, saves, whatever all driving off of one stat, I can totally see that.


I'm not sure what build that is though ;-)

[Wipey]

Because 1 combat or spell DC is still better investment than most of the "toys" I guess.

[Rawrargh]

What am I missing here?

+15% chance to hit with a finger of death.

Sigils are clumsy, summons are mostly useless, variable resistances only provide elemental resistance after you've been hit.

12 destiny points on stats is far more useful on a caster than on a melee. Artificers are in the same box as melee's here.

[Gkar]

That's the nice thing about Epic Destinies, they aren't all the same and there isn't just one answer to what you should have.

[danzig138]

That there exist people with different opinions and preferences than yours.
This.

[sweez]

Well, check the exalted angel tree on a wis based divine for example - three abilities work only on undead and outsiders (so are mostly useless in the content that actually gets run on EE, at least on Khyber), two are melee smites, and the epic moment seems to be bugged.

There's also a bunch of abilities with only 1 tier, and a lot of stuff you can skip without missing out much (positive spellpower is pretty meh, it's not that problematic to heal most EEs even in other EDs on a divine, so why waste points on that for example; same with the spell point increase one).

On a melee toon though, I can kinda see why grabbing more than 1-2 stats would be a waste.

[nibel]

Well, check the exalted angel tree on a wis based divine for example - three abilities work only on undead and outsiders (so are mostly useless in the content that actually gets run on EE, at least on Khyber), two are melee smites, and the epic moment seems to be bugged.

There's also a bunch of abilities with only 1 tier, and a lot of stuff you can skip without missing out much (positive spellpower is pretty meh, it's not that problematic to heal most EEs even in other EDs on a divine, so why waste points on that for example; same with the spell point increase one).

On a melee toon though, I can kinda see why grabbing more than 1-2 stats would be a waste.

Thank you. That was a good explanation. I have not tried Exalted Angel yet (No epic divines on my account), so I missed the bugs on it.

The question was mostly because on my sorcerer (that is NOT farming EDs, I choose to set him on DI, and that is final), I could not force myself to spend more than 2 DP on Charisma (Mostly, to save me 6 AP for more enhancements) because of the "dragon breath" tree, and the "energy burst" tree eating most of my points. And then I thinking that +6 reflex/fortitude/no fail fortitude is much more valuable than +2 Charisma.

[Farayon]

Simple answer: because for some builds everything else in a given ED is even less useful than a small stat increase.
Turbine's idea of epic powers is somewhat odd. They introduced epic levels as a major way to make money, yet are too afraid to give player characters actual epic powers (no epic spells etc).

[FengXian]

While a sorc that wants to go nexro/enchantment does need as much DC as he can get, Draconic Incarnation really has some nice stuff to pick. Caster level, spell power and the burst/breath/sheath are ofter a bigger priority compared to cha. It really depends on the build and on the player, I don't think we can generalize much here :)

[SirValentine]

The question was mostly because on my sorcerer (that is NOT farming EDs, I choose to set him on DI, and that is final), I could not force myself to spend more than 2 DP on Charisma (Mostly, to save me 6 AP for more enhancements) because of the "dragon breath" tree, and the "energy burst" tree eating most of my points. And then I thinking that +6 reflex/fortitude/no fail fortitude is much more valuable than +2 Charisma.


If your main focus is spell DPS, Energy Burst, spellpower, etc., are all very nice for a Sorc.

But if you were DC-focused, CC & instakills, why would you want to waste your points on silly junk like sigils and summoning?

[LOOON375]

Ok. Why would anyone spend their points on all of that other "useless" stuff instead of beefing up their main stats?

It's just a matter of opinion, and opinions on what a player wants differs from one to the next.

There is no one right way to do things with destinies.

It's attitudes like yours, and threads just like this that cause a gazillion "cookie cutter" builds to be running around.

Regardless of how destiny points are spent, it's still an overall improvement to the toon.

[Duke-H-]

Spending destiny points is very dependent on your build.

My wis/str monk which focuses on stuns and gmof moves takes 4 of the wisdom points.
My SnB defender with tactics secondary takes barely any stat points.

It's almost never a clear choice, DDO is all about build trade-offs.

[CThruTheEgo]

Mostly for DC's if that is a build priority. For a lot of destinies many of the abilities are sort of meh. Some might be fun to play around with and have their situational usefulness, but not really many game changers tbh. Magister is definitely one that doesn't have much to offer imo.

If you're not DC based, like most melees, some divines, and a lot of sorcs, then spending destiny points on stats doesn't offer much. But if you are DC based, like most wizards, monks, and some divines and artificers, then spending points in stats is much more game changing than getting a few meh abilities. As always, it depends on your goals.

Specifically for an arti, as that is the only class I play atm, int enhancements boost spell/rune arm DC's, damage through insightful damage, and reflex save if you have insightful reflexes. As you know I'm partial to shadowdancer. Even with spending 12 points on int enhancements I still get shadow form. The epic moment is meh, last I heard consume's DC was still borked, and shadow manipulation is fun but not game changing, so what else am I really missing out on? 6 more int is a much better investment for me. Again, it all depends on your goals.

[goodspeed]

Well if it's for the dc's then I'd say it's because when the **** hits the fan, the man that knows that mass hold monster is going to hit is king.

[Draxis]

Well while leveling my Arti through LD on his way to Shiradi, I had no choice but to max out the CON increases, considering the majority of other abilities in the destiny were locked out for me.

Likewise, some people may twist in a single ability point increase if they're sitting at an odd number for something (At least until they find the appropriate tome)

[Dawnsfire]

It's attitudes like yours, and threads just like this that cause a gazillion "cookie cutter" builds to be running around.

I beg to differ. I think we end up with 'cookie cutter builds' because Turbine tends to provide few real choices to build a toon. Look at heroic (20th lvl) spell casters for example, most carry the same spells because a large portion of the possible spell list are junk spells. The same with feats. The largest difference in the feat lists for spell casters is spell pen or spell DC.

Once you get into EDs things open up a bit. I expect that if there were a way to measure it, many characters end up with mostly the same ED build due to the fact that many ED abilities are bugged or far less useful than others. That is not to say everyone builds the same but some abilities are a lot more powerful than others.

I personally am glad folks come on the forums and talk about this stuff. I'd prefer to have folks share knowledge than hide it to prevent 'cookie cutter builds'.

[SirValentine]

It's attitudes like yours, and threads just like this that cause a gazillion "cookie cutter" builds to be running around.


Wow, that's great! It would be really sad if there were only a few cookie cutter builds, but with such a huge variety of them (a gazillion!) running around, clearly the options are vast.

[Ape_Man]

Ok. Why would anyone spend their points on all of that other "useless" stuff instead of beefing up their main stats?

It's just a matter of opinion, and opinions on what a player wants differs from one to the next.

There is no one right way to do things with destinies.

It's attitudes like yours, and threads just like this that cause a gazillion "cookie cutter" builds to be running around.

Regardless of how destiny points are spent, it's still an overall improvement to the toon.

And somebody has to carry these flavor toons through quests, and those people max out their DCs.

The cookies cutters exist because they are the best possible options, don't hate the player hate the game.

[sigtrent]

Ability scores are good for many characters. Also there is the issue of the ranks in the trees. You need to spend 4 points down to buy anything higher and oft times a given low rank won't have much your build is interested in. Most of my characters have their ED stat bumps at the bottom of the tree in levels 1 and 2.

I also like toys too much. I took the jumbo summon from Magister. Technically its just not very good, but it is "fun" and isn't exactly useless. But if you are the sort who runs epic elite on a caster, you need every scrap of DC you can muster and having a summon nickle and diming the mobs is not much help compared to holding them fast or killing them outright.

[Draxis]

I beg to differ. I think we end up with 'cookie cutter builds' because Turbine tends to provide few real choices to build a toon. Look at heroic (20th lvl) spell casters for example, most carry the same spells because a large portion of the possible spell list are junk spells. The same with feats. The largest difference in the feat lists for spell casters is spell pen or spell DC.

Once you get into EDs things open up a bit. I expect that if there were a way to measure it, many characters end up with mostly the same ED build due to the fact that many ED abilities are bugged or far less useful than others. That is not to say everyone builds the same but some abilities are a lot more powerful than others.

I personally am glad folks come on the forums and talk about this stuff. I'd prefer to have folks share knowledge than hide it to prevent 'cookie cutter builds'.

That's not really Turbine's fault so much as a product of the D&D system it's based off of. In tabletop D&D you level much MUCH slower, so those spells and skills useless at lvl 20 matter a whole lot more when the highest lvl you may reach with a character might be just 10. And by the time you reach 20 in tabletop, you could care less about the abilities you took to survive some 2 years ago. Of course this is all up to the DM's discretion. He could start you at lvl 10 if he chose. But traditionally speaking...

[Daemoneyes]

because most ED ability's are complete useless for caster
why are they useless?

Mobility is king, if something requires your caster to stand still or in a very small area its very likely you will never use it on higher difficulty's.

DC is king, want your net/discoball etc to be usefull or meh? 3dc can make a big difference.
Also DC doesnt go away when you move.

Resistance sigil and such stuff
useless for most part, i shall cast something so i can sustain more hits?
why not cast a CC or instakill and dont get hit anymore, less sp more effect.
same applies to Sorc, either nuke it down or CC it

so instead of getting rid of the problem you would try to live it out,
which is the worst thing you can do.
trying to play tank with a caster just lets you waste sp for defense and selfheal


Same can be true for melee
want +1damage/tohit and +1 to your tactical feats or a mediocre ability you will almost never use?

That said, sure some things are worth the points but most are just a waste in a lot of ED trees.

[HuneyMunster]

Some epic destiny abilities work better with more stat points from their destiny tree. How many are there that have a save of character level + stat mod?

[NexEverto]

What am I missing here?

Cookies?

I'm being really bad lately... Aren't I? :(

[Carpone]

YMMV but for me:

20 Pale Master/5 Draconic: +8 INT from EDs (2 twisted). DC is king.
18 Fvs/1 Monk/1 Wizard/5 EA: +7 WIS from EDs (1 twisted). For this build, DC is king.
THF Melee 18 FvS/2 Fighter/5 LD: +1 STR, mostly as a way to get to tier 2. It evens out my STR.
Unarmed 18 FvS/2 Monk/5 EA: +6 WIS for +3 Implosion/Blade Barrier/Stunning Fist/Slay Living/Destruction DCs.

Stats rule when you're focused on DCs.

[oliocean]

It's also a matter of playstyle and the number of clickies in your toolbar you can manage efficiently.
On my toons (a melee and a divine) I spend most points into passive abilities and stats.

[ElbionTcob]

If you are going for hardcore spell DC's I can understand it. +3 that you cant get somewhere else, as well as a bit more SP.

But for melee's I don't actually get it. The points are MUCH better spent somewhere else in LD or Fury.

[Therigar]

What am I missing here?

For most builds there is one destiny that is going to be optimal. The others will be somewhat or very much less so. Gaining XP in those sub-optimal destinies is not about spending the skill points, it is about earning the fate points.

The power in epic destinies is as much in the one that is optimal as it is in the twists brought over from other destinies. And, at the high cost for developing fate points, it is necessary for many, if not most, characters to work each destiny to completion.

When in the sub-optimal destinies it might be the case that nothing there really benefits the character. So, maybe no skill points are spent in that portion of the tree. Or, because nothing else really benefits, the thing that is most useful is to just increase one of the available stats.

Inside of the optimal destiny there will be a variety of choices that a player might make depending on the specifics of their build and the way in which they play. There can be different needs than those that another person with a nominally similar build might have.

[sirgog]

It's because character power scales with stats in very different ways.

+2 Int helps a Wizard at least as much as +10 Str would help a non-tactics Barbarian.

For the Wizard, the Int points are among the best parts of Magister (with the school focus line being the only thing that's much better). For a Barb in Fury, Str doesn't do all that much but some of the other effects (Sense Weakness, etc) are huge.

[maddmatt70]

I agree with you OP although spellcasters that are dc focused should still probably spend the points in stats, but for every other build type the character should not spend points in stats because they get more from the non stat epic destinies enhancements. This is the single biggest mistake that players make when building their characters. There has always been shoddy character builders and will always be shoddy character builders that is just the way of it.

[maddmatt70]

Well, check the exalted angel tree on a wis based divine for example - three abilities work only on undead and outsiders (so are mostly useless in the content that actually gets run on EE, at least on Khyber), two are melee smites, and the epic moment seems to be bugged.

There's also a bunch of abilities with only 1 tier, and a lot of stuff you can skip without missing out much (positive spellpower is pretty meh, it's not that problematic to heal most EEs even in other EDs on a divine, so why waste points on that for example; same with the spell point increase one).

On a melee toon though, I can kinda see why grabbing more than 1-2 stats would be a waste.

My question with responses like this is why are you an exalted angel if you do not like what it has to offer? Likely there is a better epic destiny for your character.

[SirValentine]

My question with responses like this is why are you an exalted angel if you do not like what it has to offer? Likely there is a better epic destiny for your character.

5 caster levels.

[Boombastic]

5 caster levels.

Unyielding Sentinel also gives 5 caster levels

[samthedagger]

+3 to DCs can be a big difference when landing spells on EE. Nevertheless, those enhancements are expensive. I rarely go for them. At first, I found them quite useful on my casters, but as I moved on, I learned more about the EDs and better ways to use their abilities.

[Deathdefy]

EDIT: Mild necro. Bah, whatever. Still relevant.

On a Sorc I think I'm with you re: Draconic, OP. I'd probably go nuts and disregard the +Cha skills entirely.

Draconic on a DC based Wizard is an absolute nightmare to pick and choose due to the number of awesome abilities. Don't get me wrong; totally still my favourite DC wizard tree, and I still do get all 6 int points, but there are some serious temptations.

[EllisDee37]

exalted angel tree on a wis based divine
My question with responses like this is why are you an exalted angel if you do not like what it has to offer? Likely there is a better epic destiny for your character.
5 caster levels.
Unyielding Sentinel also gives 5 caster levelsBut no wisdom, which rules it out for a wis based divine as was specified in the post that sparked this.

[LordMond63]

In my particular case, I wanted my Wizard to be a CC specialist, with an eye towards being able to count on his various spells to stick even in EE content.

I should mention that I am first life and thus do not benefit from the +1 DCs per past life.

So if I wanted to be able to play the content I wanted to, I had to figure out another way to increase my DCs to the level necessary to be reliable in my CC spells, and that requires something around 52 or 53 in EE. I wan't able to pull that off- I'm at 49- but putting the aps into my primary casting stat made the difference between being totally useless in EE content to being at least somewhat useful (spells land about 40% of the time at a 49 DC). There really was no better use of those points that I saw.

[Yendor_the_pokermage]

I agree with you OP although spellcasters that are dc focused should still probably spend the points in stats, but for every other build type the character should not spend points in stats because they get more from the non stat epic destinies enhancements. This is the single biggest mistake that players make when building their characters. There has always been shoddy character builders and will always be shoddy character builders that is just the way of it.

maybe for some melee Norq..

but for my Int based Rogue assasin i totally disagree, havn a 60 assasinate/54Int allows me to have a no fail assasinate except for the odd ee Troll that has insane fort saves and even then for sure ill get 1 of them. just might not get 2-3 of them with dbl strike and offhand attack.

my consume works better then the majority of divines implosions.

they never ever save against my shadow manipulation and die like there supposed to after taking aggro on a mob and i assasinate the rest of the trash.

but then im build solely for ee's we dont run eh's that often except for raids.

but i do agree to do your tree to fit your playstyle and to the strength of the content you run the majority of the time

[Tallyn]

my consume works better then the majority of divines implosions.



Slightly off topic, but do you know what the formula for the saving throw for consume is? Just curious.

[Inouk]

Thank you. That was a good explanation. I have not tried Exalted Angel yet (No epic divines on my account), so I missed the bugs on it.

The question was mostly because on my sorcerer (that is NOT farming EDs, I choose to set him on DI, and that is final), I could not force myself to spend more than 2 DP on Charisma (Mostly, to save me 6 AP for more enhancements) because of the "dragon breath" tree, and the "energy burst" tree eating most of my points. And then I thinking that +6 reflex/fortitude/no fail fortitude is much more valuable than +2 Charisma.

Addressing the OP, it looks like you are coming from a limited perspective having not done other classes and destinies, so your viewpoint is completely understandable. On a sorc, DI is AMAZING and every ability is so AWESOME I wouldn't bother with +cha at all. But... you aren't a DC based caster, your DC spells are secondary at best. A wizard lives and breathes DC, and frankly the abilities in magister completely suck compared to DI.... but they do add the one thing a wiz can't much get elsewhere, which is DC and spell pen. My wiz has DI leveled in probably the same way you do, and sometimes I switch to it just to go into sorc mode (admittedly, not as well as a sorc). Different classes/styles have different needs, and sometimes +9 int is the right answer.

[Taters214]

Ok. Why would anyone spend their points on all of that other "useless" stuff instead of beefing up their main stats?

It's just a matter of opinion, and opinions on what a player wants differs from one to the next.

There is no one right way to do things with destinies.

It's attitudes like yours, and threads just like this that cause a gazillion "cookie cutter" builds to be running around.

Regardless of how destiny points are spent, it's still an overall improvement to the toon.

The OP was asking a legitimate question. He wanted to know reasons that stat increases might be beneficial. Why do some of us have to interpret the OP in a negative light, and then return that negativity? It is attitudes like this that drive people away from the forums and the game in general. Fortunately, many others were kind enough to offer insight into the OP's question, and I'm sure he's thankful for that.

[LordTigerDawn]

Serious question. You have 24 Destiny Points to spend in all things on your ED tree, and yet some people go and spend half of them to get +3 DC on spells. Or +3 to-hit/damage. Or whatever.

I can understand when you have absolutelly nothing to spend on (Ranged character hitting Dreadnough tier 2), or need to round up an odd stat. But as the main shtick? Why would I get my artificer on Magister and spend 12 points on Int instead of going to that tree that reduces mob reflex saves, or Grand Summoner, or the Sigils/inherent resistance? There are so many cool toys on the ED trees, that I feel that wasting 4 AP for a +1 modifier to be a total waste.

What am I missing here?

I am a player that likes to play with passive abilities. Clickies and gear swapping annoy me while playing. Often times the only options are stat boosts in a destiny.

This is also the reason when the new enhancements come out, my mostly human list of toons will be tr Ed to something else.