Stat caps and why there's only one efficient build(Outdated)

This game has both soft and hard stat caps but you might as well treat the soft caps as hard ones since you get almost nothing past them. Here is a build to get the most out of everything.

Stat choice is an illusion

Edit: This guide was created before the rework of how classes affect stats and may no longer be relevant. I will need to go test things out before I can correct the guide.

This game has both soft and hard stat caps but you might as well treat the soft cap as hard ones since you get almost nothing past them. For those allergic to reading I'll just post the stats you should go for if you want something that squeezes the most value out of stats and explain after.

18 str
18 dex
16 vit
16 end
16 will

Now for the reason you want this. Going past 18 on strength and dexterity gives you so little it doesn't make a difference and if you pick a style that boosts one of these you'll hit the cap anyways. Lets look at our other 3 stats, vitality, endurance and willpower.

Lets use some people's favorite dump stat, Willpower, as our example. If you think willpower doesn't matter, you're kidding yourself. Powers are very valuable and can change the flow of a fight drastically. Just because you have some notion that they're dishonorable doesn't mean your opponent will. Stagger style for example gets a boost to will and hits the cap of 2.0x shard generation at 16 will. Stagger ability does not refund stamina and even costs some, leaving shockwave as their go-to stamina management tool. 16 willpower gives an overall 33.3%/31.3%/30%/26.6% increase to shard generation for Forsaken/Kahlt/Windfall/Stagger respectively, this doesn't sound like much and you'd think you could do without it and you'd be partially right. The problem is that the 10 points you poured into willpower will have even less of an effect anywhere else thanks to soft caps. If you got vitality up from 16 to 26 you'd see a 5.9%/1.7%/10.7%/9.9% overall boost in hp for Forsaken/Kahlt/Windfall/Stagger respectively. At best you get 10.7% more hp on windfall, but smart use of the extra shards from willpower would likely make a bigger difference in the fight overall. These 10 points poured into endurance would make a 5.8%/5.8%/10.5%/0.7% stamina difference thanks to the very steep cap on endurance returns. Putting these 10 points into strength or dex past 18 will have such a small effect on damage that you'd never notice it.

I would love for the devs to either rework or remove stats altogether because as things currently are, you don't have a good reason to get different stats and they only serve to screw some people over because they went over the soft cap without knowing about how wasteful it is.

If you want to have a look at numbers here's the stat data for vit/end/will: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KX27IGTxBKXs0Z5M-z25n7qScT_noWAJtQR_zNB8PFQ/edit#gid=0

[genghisjayder]

irrelevent. althogh i do apploud your effort. keep playing and you will find something substantial, I do think so.

[obliviondoll]

Not even just that it's out of date. It was never true to begin with unless you worked from the assumption that everyone swaps style every single match. And that everyone plays the same way regardless of style. Neither of those are true, so there's never been a point at which this guide was actually valid.

[vilewitch]

This guide is irrelevant now that you can respec for just one crystal.

[Brutal]

Update the guide please

[balistafreak]

Now out of date, ever since 1.13 and the change of styles to provide scaling rather than flat bonuses.

[Grustus]

@Pancakes, I was level 40 before entering any of the area's, I just stayed on the bridge and did pvp till I was strong(ish)

[Pancakes]

So, I just found this. I'm almost done with the Marks and I've only hit 10 Dex, everything else is below 10. Thanks for the tip! But I find it weird that anyone would hit that number of skill points after just one Mark, like @Brimstone Baritone says

[Rootin']

Really? they're that low? but thats stupid! Soft caps exist for a reason, but thats just so low that you can reach it before you've even beat your second marked one!

[R a d d e r s]

Surprised that it had to be pointed out to people before some of them even noticed..

[Elchardus]

thanks for sharing mate