Attribute allotment

[Sigurd]

Anyone have an suggestions/insights?

It is getting to the point that I suspect my not having allocated them is/will begind to hurt me. I was waiting for an epiphany but none has arrived... perhaps some kind folks here can give tips?

[SwordMage]

My philosophy is to keep tools and utility skills maxed, max the problem solving attribute and dump the other attribute points into Ingenuity (or what ever the Station skills are based on--away from game now). I then tend to accumulate craftsman/problem solving clothes for most slots (when nothing really special comes along).

This leaves me with maybe 35%/35%/30% (u/t/s) for the skills with a good chance of one-shotting complications (early teens).

The good news is that you will accumulate refund points that you can use later on to change your mind.

[Shinto]

My original strategy was to ignore station entirely, including clothing, and instead increase problem solving and ingenuity. My skills went into tool for the largest part. It worked well until about level 24.

I then started balancing utility with station, keeping tool close to max still, with the same basic stat layout. I added a little bit of station clothing, but not much. That worked until 29.

My latest experiment is to have max my base tool skill and balance utility with station, then use my gear to significantly increase station. I now have a relatively low problem solving and ingenuity, with fairly high reasoning and finesse (thanks in part to my gear, of course). This, too, has worked.

As long as you have a clear idea of how you want the build to work, you should be fine. Make sure that you have some method of dealing with comps, and that your three action types all have some way of getting good progress.

It might also be useful to know that Silius said that attributes are 60% and skills are 40% when calculating effectiveness.

[Sigurd]

Thanks for the quick replies!

It may be my newness at this and lack of mastery of the vocabulary, but I think the replies concentrated on what I call 'skills' (Tool Use, Utility Use, Station etc)

I am always in search of a better understanding of those and in particular, Shinto, thank you for the breakdown by level range because I too believe it is an evolving thing (and thankfully it is amenable to change with ease via the UI)

What I have no clue though on (ie: LESS clue than on the other stuff hehe) is my attributes of Reasoning, Ingenuity, Finesse and Problem Solving. Any tips on how those should be populated? If there is no 'right way' (as I suspect there is not) why would I go one or the other and in practice have you determined that in spite of balance attempts one way is less or more effective than another?

Thanks again!

[SwordMage]

Explicit in my response was the idea of dumping most of them into problem solving with the rest into Ingenuity with the idea of improving remedy effectiveness and balancing against my emphasis on tool and utility skills.

Implicit in Shinto's response (if I am not reading too much into it) was the notion of splitting them between Reason and Finesse to improve the effectiveness of tool and utility actions.

My approach is sort of balanced with an emphasis on getting past the inevitable complications as rapidly as possible; his current approach seems to be make each step count for more so that he has less steps that can have complications.

I may well evolve in his direction as I level, this works for me right now.

[Ysharros]

What the eggheads are saying is that each attribute goes directly with one of the skills, apart from problem solving which is applied to remedying complications. I always forget which is which too -- I think Reasoning <--> Utility actions, Ingenuity <--> Tool actions and Finesse <--> Station actions.

So if you wanted a massively Tool-heavy build, you'd look for points in Ingenuity and Tool skills, etc.

I've been pretty haphazard in my allocation so far, mostly trying to keep the 4 attributes more or less even with a little less in problem solving. But then I'm only 21 so I expect this may change. That said, I will probably continue to allocate on a mostly even basis and try to push my various attribute builds in one direction or another through clothing rather than stat points - the way I figure it, this gives me a more even base to change stuff around with clothing if and when I want to. I'm concerned that we don't get all that many refund points (certainly a lot less than the adventuring sphere gets) and would hate to run out of them while stuck in a build I hate.

[Shinto]

I actually thought that mine was pretty explicit also, but perhaps I did neglect to mention one thing: You can't consider skills and attributes separately. If you do, you will end up having the two compete instead of cooperate.

Also, I didn't mean to imply that the level ranges listed are necessary for the corresponding build that I gave. Those are simply the levels at which I used those builds before trying something new.

Originally Posted by Ysharros

What the eggheads are saying

I am neither bald nor cranially misshapen.

[Ysharros]

Pics or it didn't happen!

Kidding - it was a term of respect, from one pseudo-egghead to the Real Thing (TM).

[sorkvir]

I actually distributed my points in the following manner: 2 in problem solving, 1 in finesse, and 1 in reasoning.

What this left me with is being able to use a lvery low progress/high quality tool action and bump the quality up at LEAST 2 levels on easy. I could then fine tune it with the Utils.

What it hampered was my station actions. I would spend 2~4 high AP station actions just to get through the stage.

Its playstyle. Find a build you like and tune you're attributes to it.

[Arctic_Slicer]

I tend to put all of my points in reasoning. The way I see it the utilities are consumable items and if I am going to be using them I would like them to be effective when I do so. Also I am surprised to see so many people suggesting problem solving. Problem solving is only relevant if you run into complications; something which isn't guaranteed to happen. The other thee attributes are going to come into play at some point in every recipe and the time you speed in the actual doing of the recipe the less opportunities you give complications to appear.