Starting stats for throwing/javelin?

[Kreddi]

New to Tyranny and CRPG's in general. From PoE I've learnt that starting stats are very important, so I'm trying to not screw up from the beginning.
So how should I spread my points between Might, Finesse and the rest?

[fauxpas]

As long as you aren't playing potd, just be reasonable and you'll do fine.

However, as an unarmed/sorceress I personal divide my stats out as thus.


Finesse/Will/Might

Quickness/Resolve

Vigor


Each tier of stats gets two increases for the next one below it, so an example would be.

Might. 14
Quickness. 12
Will. 14
Finesse. 14
Vigor. 11
Resolve 12


Finesse is of course considered to be the best, but as I said, as long as you aren't playing on potd, you can build any type of character you wish and di fine, even one as horribly UNoptimized as mine.

[Kreddi]

So going below 10 on any stat is generally considered a bad idea?

Quickness gives -x% ability and spell cooldown, does ability include such actions as basic attacks?

[fauxpas]

Not sure about the community in general, but I consider it a bad idea.

Basic attacks are governed by your base recovery, but you really shouldn't be building a character around BASIC attacks when skills/spells are so good.

[LHGreen]

Hooooo, boy. This is not a good crpg to cut your teeth on, in terms of character creation. It has a very intricate system, with a lot of interconnectedness, and everything has some effect on a number of other things. I hope you at least have experience with some type of rpgs.

Originally posted by Kreddi:

So going below 10 on any stat is generally considered a bad idea?

Well, it's more sort of costly, and a move with some risk and drawbacks involved, rather than an outright bad idea. However, every time you level up, you get one point with which to increase one of those base stats, so it won't stay that way for long, if you don't want it to. Plus, there's items that can increase a stat by a point or two as long as they're equipped, so that can help too. I only play PoTD mode, and I find it helpful to min-max as much as possible without it being outright detrimental, so those items are often pretty helpful for me.

Also, don't bother trying to specialize in throwing weapons. It's not even it's own skill category anymore, it's been merged with one-handed weapons, and if you want range, there's more/better skill tree benefits for bows, anyway. I know it SEEMS like a more practical and efficient idea, at first glance, but it's not, and making it work in a way that actually is effective is... ...well, something I never personally got around to doing. There may be guides for it online, but it would still be a complicated process that it's best to have experience with the system before you embark on, and like you said, you're a total beginner, so you should stick with something simple first. And not the magic options in weapon specialization, either. I would recommend going basic, like one-handed weapons (with shields), two-handed weapons, and/or bows.

[Kreddi]

Ohh I'm familiar with RPG's and I have about 60-80 hours in PoE, although that includes 3 restarts. The two builds I was interested in was throwing and lightning mage (A debuff/disabler role). My interest in them are even, but knowing that throwing doesn't even have it's own tree does make it sound like it won't offer as satisfying an experience.
Also the fact that the first companion is dual wield / bow made me feel like I had two characters competing for the same role right out the game

[LHGreen]

Originally posted by Kreddi:

Ohh I'm familiar with RPG's and I have about 60-80 hours in PoE, although that includes 3 restarts. The two builds I was interested in was throwing and lightning mage (A debuff/disabler role). My interest in them are even, but knowing that throwing doesn't even have it's own tree does make it sound like it won't offer as satisfying an experience.
Also the fact that the first companion is dual wield / bow made me feel like I had two characters competing for the same role right out the game

Yeah, there aren't any general builds in this game that only the player character can do, they're all represented by one of the companions. And there aren't any actual classes in this game anyway, you can fill whatever role you want, and start your character on a new role just whenever. And as early as the start of Act 2, you can just completely switch your character's role, completely reallocate their stats and skills and experience, into whatever you deem necessary. You can even abuse this and a few other game mechanics to completely surpass the soft-cap on leveling up. There is a LOT of freedom in terms of character building in this game, but this level of freedom also takes a LOT of getting used to. And the designers seem to have accounted for a lot of this mechanic-abusing. PoTD mode is STUPID hard and ridiculously unfair, at first glance. But when you learn how to abuse the mechanics, you realize that you can (effectively) grind your characters to be so powerful that it's not even a challenge, although doing that takes more time and menial repetition than it's really worth, especially when it's more interesting to just try to be clever and extremely cheap and cheesy whenever you can .

Um, as for lightning mage, it's a lot of fun, and a nice disabler (although not really a debuffer, and the disabling doesn't last very long), but being exclusively a mage for one element or another is, you'll come to realize, detrimental. I've found it's better to have characters specialize in certain groups of magic that corrospond to their higher stats. There's more leeway for the player character and some of the magic-adept companions, of course, but even then it's better to try to get good with a tight group of no more than half a dozen or so magic types (give or take a type, so about 5-6 types, MAYBE 7 at the most, if you can work it in, but keep in mind that most will be your secondaries, and only 2-3 will be your primaries, and all that is only IF your character is particularly adept at magic) than it is to try to master all 13 types or focus exclusively on only one. For example, with that first companion you were talking about, what I like to do is have her use only lightning and illusion magic. They're boosted by quickness, which she has a ton of, and they work well with her fighting style, depending on which sigils you have (you want to SAVE that merchant who is being harrassed outside the Disfavored camp, and let him sell his wares there. It seems to be one of only two places in the game to get the sigil of guarded form, it's very missable, and the second place appears much later in the game and is also very missable, or outright impossible to go to depending on the path you choose. It's a very stupid way to hand out such insanely important stuff. When it comes to magic sigils, you can royally ♥♥♥♥ yourself over in this game if you aren't very careful, and the only thing to do then is to become extremely good at the game or start over). And when it comes to the first "mage"-type character you can get, who is appropriately called a sage, I like to respec him as soon as possible (which, again, is something that can only be done at the beginning of Act 2, at the very earliest) so that his stats are better suited to the might and life magics that his skill tree has kind of forced him to specialize in, but I also have him build power with the offensive skill of ice, which scales off resolve, the same stat which boosts life magic. And it makes him somewhat more useful in a fight as a combatant, rather than being solely a healer. You see?

And speaking of that first companion, you can buff the hell out of her such that she's often effectively a better tank than the actual tank character, because she can just not get hit by most attacks. So there's a lot of roles each character can play, even unintended ones, and usually they can fill several at once.

[Kreddi]

Ohhh, I hadn't even considered the fact that some schools of magic scale based on different stats. I went with Electric and then Atrophy, which meant the game recommended Wits and Resolve. If I went Electric and Frost I could skimp out on resolve, and instead focus on the other offensive stats?
And then save Vigor and Atrophy for someone that wants to put a lot of points into Resolve?

[LHGreen]

Originally posted by Kreddi:

Ohhh, I hadn't even considered the fact that some schools of magic scale based on different stats. I went with Electric and then Atrophy, which meant the game recommended Wits and Resolve. If I went Electric and Frost I could skimp out on resolve, and instead focus on the other offensive stats?
And then save Vigor and Atrophy for someone that wants to put a lot of points into Resolve?

Well, Resolve is actually pretty important to spell casting, especially the buff/debuff/disable aspects of it (which most spells have), along with Wits and (to a very slightly lesser extent, imo) Quckness. I would rank it Wits, Resolve, Quickness, and it's a close race for second most important stat. Setting that aside, though, not quite. See, lightning scales off of quickness, I believe vigor scales off of strength, and ice and atrophy scale off of resolve. But the thing is, it's strongly discouraged to take ANY of the magic options in the weapon specialization part of character creation, because it costs you free skill tree abilities that you can only get by leveling up, and in exchange it only gives you one of four elemental magic sigils which are pretty easy to find or buy in Act 1. Atrophy can't be bought that early and it's a bit hard to actually locate in the first map of Echocall Crossing, but it's there. And because it's possible to completely reallocate the choices in your skill tree as early as the opening of Act 2, those skills can effectively be used for ANYTHING, and you would actually have a substantially MORE powerful mage character by that point if you just don't take ANY magic options in the choosing-weapon-skills part of character creation, than you would if you took one or, worst of all, two different magic options. See? Even though the system allows for a lot of freedom in how you develop your character, there's still a few very stupid oversights, and building a genuinely good character requires you to familiarize yourself with them.