Quick Questions

Rovelda

I don't know either. I think they are stealing the gold I have in my hands, but if I don't have any...

Shunsui

They can take things other than gold if you don't have any out (sigils, letters, and a couple other small things I believe).  If you're low in vision/don't have vigilance up, then that's all you'd see. With vigilance, you see the person start to pace towards you first, and I believe get their name on the actual theft message.

Rovelda

Ahh I have lots of tinderboxes and monolith sigils that I found on the ground once. Maybe those are being taken.

Garao

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned, and if it hasn't I'm not sure why not. - Get selfishness. It's 22 on top of your initial 15 lessons in survival from the trial, not very expensive at all. It stops pickpocket from going through. Then you get the opportunity to run away when you see them snap you (to force action generosity).

Also, against evileye. There is no way to directly stop it other than curseward and the apostate being prone/paralysed/blind/transfixed/hindered in some way etcetera. Your shield won't stop it (if it does, then you don't need to be worrying about evileye - because they won't be able to deadeyes).  You can always just leave the room to cure up if it gets too much. Remember that an Apostate can't actually lock you through just Evileyes, learning when to run and/or shield at the right moment to stop yourself from being fucked up is a good practise to get into versus apostates.

@Rovelda

Rovelda

Yes, thank you, Garao. But I thought only gold could be taken and I use the bank. 

I wouldn't like to have my vials stolen, because that would be a mess, but sigils, for example, I don't mind.

Edit: I've read now what you said about Evil Eye and took note. It feels bad to run while sparring, but I'd have to against Evil Eye while I don't have Curseward.

Rajan

I wouldn't count on it. I'm pretty sure Breach is relatively low in Evileye. Most Apostates that bother transing skills for combat will do Evileye first for Deadeyes, so you can assume they have Breach. Curseward is your only real defense, but they can get by that too.

Eld

And even if you have curseward, keeping it up constantly is usually a bad idea, since the equilibrium time on it is so long. Against both evileye and curses, it'll mostly be a matter of keeping up on curing, hindering the apostate/shaman to keep them from afflicting as quickly, and figuring out when/how to run long enough to cure up when needed.

Eld

On the theft question, my understanding is that abilities that force actions (hypnosis action, mind command, devo force, soulmaster...) can no longer force you to give items to people, or (I think) to put items in containers (with possible exceptions for pipes, vials, and the like - not sure of the details there). Pickpocket can be used to take gold or certain items from inventory, and I think gold from containers; I don't know exactly what's on the whitelist for pickpocketing items.

Xith

@ Curseward - definitely don't keepup, because they'll just put confusion on you and mess you up worse from the eq loss. Shielding is helpful against an apostate because of daeggers (and possibly their ents), but don't do it against a Shaman because you can't diagnose and if they managed to puppet confuse they'll have enough time to curse mentals and Tzantza.

@ Theft - sigils and meaningless items can get stolen (but they do go in groups, so if you've got 80 eyes grouped you might be sorry). I think it goes for gold first, but only in ventory gold can be taken. Selfishness is legal to strip now too.

Rovelda

I will not say how my friend got items (my precious vials!) from me, because I don't know if it is a thief's secret or his secret...or what, but we'd need to be away, because it is not fast like when I suddenly see I have been thieved not even knowing who did it. And then I could see I was handing the vials to him.

Xith

If you saw yourself handing the vials he might have afflicted with generosity affliction through hypnosis, but I don't know how that one works anymore. But the timer on pickpocket is between 5 and 15, I can't remember exactly.

Rovelda

Xith said:

@ Curseward - definitely don't keepup, because they'll just put confusion on you and mess you up worse from the eq loss. Shielding is helpful against an apostate because of daeggers (and possibly their ents), but don't do it against a Shaman because you can't diagnose and if they managed to puppet confuse they'll have enough time to curse mentals and Tzantza.

I will just surrender.

Xith

Yeah if you don't have Survival, those are surrender classes. :P

Garao

Lies

Tvistor

Garao is a surrender class. Anyone who is not trans Garao should give up when faced with him.

Kendus

Is the shield of absorption a good idea for bashing as a serpent?

Which stat specialization helps the most for bashing as a serpent?

Thank you!

Mannimar

@Kendus a SoA is a good idea in general (except for a couple classes), and personally, I'm fond of constitution.

Xith

Constitution is best for non-magic bashers who would otherwise use intelligence. I don't think strength improves bashing enough for it to be noticeable except for with Knights(2-hits) and Monks(3-hits) and Blademasters(3-hits?), so if you're a one hit at a time class the bigger health pool is probably more useful.

But serpents are and were an agility class, so if you're going to do pvp I'd recommend dex for that and the fact that it helps pickpocketing. Get 15 or 16 dex and add weaving so you can frustrate those physical damage classes I just mentioned.

Jacen

Dex affects pickpocket? I thought Dex solely affected chance to dodge

Kendus

I'm focused on bashing for now.  Will it be really difficult to change gear/stats for pvp later on?

Here are some things I've heard and would love to get a broader response.

Dex affects garrote damage.

Dex/weaving/avoidance doesn't matter much vs denizens.

Thank you!

Mannimar

you can change your stats for free the first time, or for 100 credits for an extra. You can sink 1k credits if you plan on changing a lot.

Eld

You get one free reincarnation, which you can use to change your spec at a later time if you decide you want to. I've never heard of dex affecting garrote damage, and would be very surprised if it did; if anything, I'd expect it to be strength based. Avoidance reduces damage taken from denizen attacks. Not sure about weaving. As far as I know, dex only affects chance to dodge, and you can't dodge denizen hits, so I don't think it would matter there; not sure if it boosts the damage reduction from avoidance or not, but I don't think so. In any case, you'll be much better off putting lessons into class skills for now, and leaving things like avoidance for later.

Vaehl

Garrote is based off strength.

Sena

First, to answer the original question, go for pure constitution for bashing. For serpents, strength is used for backstab and nothing else (unless you get a level 3 artefact dirk and use it for plain jabs), dexterity is for pickpocketing and PvP dodging and nothing else, intelligence is for extra mana/willpower and nothing else. So the only stat that gives any benefit for bashing is constitution.

To correct some misinformation, garrote is unaffected by dex or strength, and you can't dodge denizen attacks so dex and weaving are useless for bashing. The avoidance skill still helps, because it gives damage reduction as well as dodging.

Dexterity does help with pickpocket, but I'm not sure how much. Other than that, it's only for dodging and nothing else. It's also a pretty small effect compared to all the other dodging bonuses, so even for PvP you're almost always better off with constitution.

Shunsui

In terms of pickpocketing, you shouldn't need more than 12 (at least for stealing gold from denizens, dunno about other adventurers). Anything more than that isn't necessary unless you want to -really- stack dex and try to rob the Delos guards. Not sure if that's possible though, I tried with 17 dex at one point and still couldn't get anything from then.

Vaehl

How do I disagree my own post.

Cooper

People that don't know what they're talking about should stop spreading misinformation on the forums, or acting like they know what they're talking about. It's really annoying.

Xith

@Sena Might need your source of information on dex. I had 16 dex for a while with light-stepper and full avoidance, and the dodging is decent. Add acrobatics and it's a pain to bm/monk/knight. They'll testify. Then I got Pixie's boots (+2 dex, now at 18) during the artie discount sale, and it's almost the same, but without even adding acrobatics. (I'm a mhun, not raja)

I've been told Weaving is essentially the same as our acrobatics, so it does make a difference against phys classes. I think I remember hearing way back when traits/specs happened that diminishing return for strength starts around 15/16? Do you know anything about when dex's starts? (Side fact, Tecton said during a Q&A that there's a hard cap on dex effect at like 24 or something, if that were possible)
Best I can imagine: Traits/specialisation (16), Ethereal Boots (19), Wheel (20), TF (21), Icon tuning (22), ember (27?), transmog (30?)

Pickpocketing: I got some from Delos guards on an alt with 15 or 16 dex.

Sena

Weaving (acrobatics is the same) adds the equivalent of 6 dexterity (or 3 if mounted), avoidance adds +11 at trans, speed elixir adds +4, riding depends on the mount but with trans riding and a high level mount it can be about +8. So with 12 racial dexterity, weaving, speed elixir, and trans avoidance, you have the equivalent of 33 dexterity. Light stepper and the raja trait increase that further, but I don't know how much. 2 or 3 extra dexterity isn't a huge difference at that point. And then dodging still only helps against certain classes.

Also, dexterity doesn't have diminishing returns, only strength and intelligence (and the diminishing returns start below 11 or above 13).

Edit: As for the source, it's not a direct source since the forum changes have made searching a pain, but here is a collection of relevant Clementius quotes.

Xith

That's a... lot o' numbers you got there.