Yeri talks about stats.

A few days ago, Yeri sent me an in-game mail explaining stats to me. I thought it was extremely helpful and asked his permission to share it with all of you. So here it is!

Dear Hudson,

Not sure if you've figured it out yet (it's been a good two days, sorry!) here's a quick rundown on stats. The higher strength you have the more OB you'll have, and strength also factors into your parrying bonus. It also determines what weapons you can use, most require strength equal to their weight rounded down to the nearest integer but that's slightly technical and does I believe have a few exceptions. Dexterity impacts dodging bonus, intelligence has a large effect on how much percent you get per practice at a given trainer, and wil impacts how much fleelag you get after fleeing (a quick explanation: to avoid people fleeing endlessly with no consequence, after you flee you get a small amount of lag that then is added to the time before your next flee goes through. So I may flee once, get 0.2 seconds of fleelag, and then my next flee takes 0.2 seconds to go through. This means that people chasing can hopefully bash them or kill them while they have all of this lag on flees). Each time you level up, you have a range of hps you can "roll" and increase your total hit points by. Higher constitution means you have a higher range to roll from and the higher the constitution, the more likely you'll roll a higher number within that range. It also increases your hit point regeneration.

As far as what stats are good, this is where things get tricky. There are a few different setups in the game primarily. One is abs (wearing heavy armor, and have a high ABSorption %. You take a little damage on every hit but only a little) and requires high strength and con (usually 18+ for both) while dex is unimportant. Int is unimportant for pretty much every setup, since it impacts how well you practice but it's always able to be worked around. it's nice if you have it but not important if you don't. Wil is also nice and more important than int (and relatively useful in PK) but not huge if it's super low, just try to have it be above 11 or so unless the other stats are amazing. Another setup is combo, going for some absorption and some defense. Generally the strongest setup, it is the hardest to stat and for that reason I would STRONGLY advise not going for combo at first. Particularly on a Lightside hunter, it is a very bad idea simply because you'll stat endlessly and might maybe get passable stats. You generally want 17+ str, dex, and con for that, but I'd avoid combo on every alt for a bit until you get some experience. It's the hardest to get equipment for after you die and is the hardest to stat, but it can be the most powerful. But really not the way you want to go if you want to play soonish, which I'm assuming you do. Finally there's dodge, which is getting high defense (dodging bonus + parrying bonus) but focusing on DB so as to avoid as much damage as possible. You have very very low abs %, though, so if you do get hit you'll get hit for the full damage. The opposite of abs, you generally want 19 dex and decent strength and con, usually 17+ for both but exceptions can be made.

If I were you I would try for an abs something (hunter or warrior really), because abs is generally plentiful, easy to get a hold of should you die, very useful in PK as you can bash things well, and you won't just get killed instantly if you get bashed. You may get killed, but it'll be very, very slowly :).

Going to try to end this before your eyes start bleeding! Hunters can't have pets in the way you might be thinking of, but everyone can buy them at pet stores, they mostly allow you to group with someone as above level 30 you need to be grouped to gain exp. Bows don't really exist yet, but you are able to shoot arrows from certain rooms, but only those rooms.

Cheers,


Yeri

Thanks Yeri! I know this will help a lot of people who struggle to understand just what stats mean and what they should be looking for. If you're wondering about the last paragraph, I asked him if hunters could have pets and use bows. How tragic that I cannot use a bow. However, I'm looking forward to buying my very first pet!

Added 6/26/2012:

Yeri received this mail from Thuvia, going into more detail about stats:

"A few pointers to start with. First, Dex also can have an impact on Parry Bonus. Secondly, depending on setup I might rate Int and Wil as equally useful for your average char, since while Wil does impact fleelag (and potentially status weaves, but not sure if this has been Really tested) and Hunter Pracs, Int factors into both Hunter and Thief pracs. It might be a toss-up, though.

Also, a slight amendment to fleelag mechanics might speak of it in terms of added pulses. Some past testing by Markus indicated that a pulse should be about 0.3 seconds, and this Should be the smallest time-unit in the game, such that nothing can happen in less than 1 pulse of time.

As far as practices go, might mention that two important 'milestones' for pracs are 15% and 18%. There is a useful jump in efficiency from 14 to 15% [the percent your first practice session gives you, for reference], and then from 17 to 18%, though again this might be a bit technical for newbie help."

There are also a few new links in the Helpful Links section in the left sidebar, including practice trainers for both physical abilities and "weaves" or channeling abilities.

Thanks both Yeri and Thuvia!

Update 7/6/2012: Verania suggests statting a warrior from Tarabon or Illian to get good stats (19 17 19ish) quickly, and then statting a hunter later, in your spare time. Thanks for the tip, Verania!