Might & Magic X - Legacy Character Classes and Optimization

Introduction

The purpose of this guide is to get you slaughtering the denizens of MMX as efficiently as you would like to. I won't be dicussing unique items or weapons but will give you an overview of what makes the most sense for your party

Damage, Attributes, And Specialization

The first thing to understand about Might and Magic X is that it does not favor specialization in damage. All damage bonuses are addative with the exception of critical damage. A character who focuses entirely on might won't crit as often as someone who puts point into destiny and so, while they will hit a bit harder normally, won't crit nearly as often.

There are exceptions to this, but they're weapon and class specific

We can also note that weapon/magic skills, at 5%/rank to 10%/rank are farm more potent than attributes (at 2%/rank). Specifically we would note that

1 Rank Endurance = 5 HP = 1.66 points of vitality (1.2 for dwarves)

1 Rank Mysticism = 5 MP = 1.66 points of spirit

1 Rank Warfare = 3 MP = 1 point of Spirit

1 Rank Weapon = 5% damage = 2.5 points of might, 2 points of perception

1 Rank evade = 1 evade < 1 point of destiny

This shows us that the most efficient distribution if we are going to worry about are overall effectiveness is spirit, vitaility, and destiny and weapon skills. This won't hold forever depending on whether or not you find destiny valuable and depending on how much mana/hp you find you need. Once you "have enough" then might is clearly better. But in the early game when you're just starting out, being as efficient as possible is really valuable.

The Damage Calcualtion

Listed Damage = Weapon Base Damage x Damage Multiplier

Regular Damage = Listed Damage * (1-Armor/100)

Critical damage= (Listed Damge x critical multiplier) * (1-Armor/100)

Damage is linear. Armor penetration is non-linear, being better the more armor an enemy has.

Melee Damage Bonuses

Anyway, now that we know that damage values are addative what does this tell us about the difference between someone who say GM's Axes and someone who simply Masters Axes?

GM Axe is 25 ranks at +8% damage/rank = 200% damage bonus

Master Axe is 15 ranks at +5% damage/rank = 75% damage bonus

This is a big difference, equivalent to 62.5 might. Its so large that, if given the choice between two melee weapons always choose the one you can GM. Windswords can't GM but don't worry they have other advantages.

Magic Bonuses

Magic schools have an even larger step up compared to melee weapons. Additionally this applies to non damage effects as well as damaging effects.

Compare GM fire to Master fire:

Master Fire: 15 ranks at +5% effect/rank = 75% effect bonus

GM Fire: 25 Ranks at +10% effect/rank = 300% effect bonus

The only reason to ever put points into a magic skill that you cannot GM is if you want the special effect from a spell.

Ranged Bonuses

Ranged Weapons are a bit strange. Because their mastery effects are not directly damage related GM'ing isn't necessarily important to being decent at them. The extra range on bows will make "pulling" enemies easier and provide two to three rounds of free damage because moving into an enemies aggro radius constitutes an action (whereby they move) being able to hit someone from outside of that gives you the first attack and then an attack during the turn where they would have triggered)

GM Crossbow: 25 ranks at +5%/rank = 125% damage bonus

Master Crossbow: 15 ranks at +5%/rank = 75% damage bonus

As we can see, the GM bonus isn't that great. The GM bow bonus is pretty amazing, 2x +125% attacks is necessarily stronger than 1x +200% attack given the armor ratings. That being said, the ability to hit from 7 spaces out is much more valuable than being able to hit harder.

I am of the opinion that near every melee class should at least expert and possibly master a ranged weapon type by the end of the game.

Tanking And Specialization

While in the damage section we learned that specializing in a single aspect of damage has advantages and disadvantages in tanking we will learn that specialization is king.

Every character in your party should be able to take a few hits. This can be achived through buffing spells, debuffing spells, or simply raw HP/armor/evade. But there will be times when you can't taunt an enemy and your mage will get hit for 400 damage when they have only 200 HP. The only way to stop this from happening is to ehtier have a bunch of HP, or armor, or evade.

Armor

Armor reduces damage from all non-elemental typed damage. Physical damage is, by far, the most common type of damage in the game and so armor is, by far the most effective way to consistently reduce damage.

Damage for enemies works precisely in the same way that damage for allies works. Each point of armor reduces final damage taken by 1%. This means that the easiest way to read your armor value is "% reduced damage". This is neutral to enemy damage type.

Additionally the armor mastery bonuses are very good. Not only do better types of armor require higher mastery (maxing out at master) but the reduction in critical damage taken afforded by the mastery bonuses is actually very significant.

Armor does nothing against magic

Evade

Evade gives you a chance for your enemies to miss depending on your evade skill and their attack value. A high evade value makes you unlikely to be hit by anyone or anything, but when you are you're going to take the full brunt of the damage. When compared to armor this is generally better against enemies who swing once for a lot of damage and worse against enemies who swing a lot for a lower amount. However you must maximize evade to get much use out of it because small changes in the probability of getting hit can mean significant reductions in effectiveness

Evade does nothign against magic

Blocking

Blocking is a % reduction in damage against physical attacks so long as you have block attempts left. Everyone should maximize their block attempts in all situations as there is basically no reason not to.

Similar to evade this is much stronger against enemies who don't attack as often

Resistances

Resistances are damage reduction as a % just like armor. A 75% resist will mean you take only 25% damage from that type (and you ignore 37.5% of the spells as well)

Everyone likes high resistances and just like armor, the mastery bonuses on disicipline are much stronger than they look.

Hit Points

Hit Points defend against everything. If for some reason you don't know what to put points into there is no reason to not put points into vitality or endurance. Hit points are the only multiplictaive scaling in tanking. That is choose one of blocking, resistances, evade, or armor and also stack hit points.

Warfare: Justifies Two Handers

This is going to be very short, but warfare deserves its own section because of its ridiculous power for certain classes. The bonus per rank is pretty low, but the new abilities at Novice, Expert, and Grandmaster make the tree eminently worthwhile and the mana you get as you traverse to those levels negates a lot of the need to put many points into spirit.

Novice

Challenge: Forces an enemy to attack the taunter very good for keeping specific enemies who aren't immune from splatting your mage. At Master level "intercept" does this much better but doesn't do any damage. Taunt is essentially free

Shatter: Shatter scales with your might value and reduces armor. This works on every enemy in the game and is a significant damage increase for everyone. If we remember how we looked at armor prior we find that armor is worth x damage per attack this is very strong in conjunction with dual weilders or dagger weilders since they attack many more times per round.

Expert

Skull Crack: This prevents mages from casting. For the most part mages hit weaker with the melee attacks (though some monsters hit harder). For many enemies this will entirely negate their effect, letting you deal with them last. It only works for 1 round but you can reapply it

Unstoppable Assault: This is the strongest skill in the game for non-dual wielders as it entirely negates the need to have the attack value and entirely negates the need to GM two handed weapons. 10 Mana to always hit. Once you get a weapon which leeches mana you will never run out. If you don't have such a weapon, putting points into spirit, or using bonus potions to increase the spirit of the particular person can definitley be worth it

GrandMaster

Taunt: All enemies direct attacks at you for 1 turn. If you've got a big tank this is amazing at preventing enemies from getting to your squishies. Its expensive in terms of mana though.

Flawless Assault: Guaranteed hit, Guaranteed Crit, Enemy can't block for the rest of the turn. This is amazing damage and justifies Windswords and Defenders right out of the gate. In conjunction with a mana leach weapon this guarantees either high damage axe or sword crits or guaranteed mace stuns.

The Barbarian: Consistent DPS

The barbarian is the most simple of the might based classes. Get a big two handed mace or spear, put two points into might and 2 points into vitality each level. Max maces or spears and then endurance. Expert warfare and two handed along the way and finish up with experting medium armor, bows, and arcane discipline.

The primary choice you have is spears or maces. Everything else is pretty simple. Attack every round, shred armor when you can. If you think you might miss or be blocked, use unstoppable assault. Stack Health so that its easier to use your upgrade, which as was discussed in the damage calculation section is more significant than its numbers appear

Spears

Spears have highly variable damage, but one of the better "non-critical" effects in the game. Since we are not worrying about destiny our criti rate on the barbarian will be pretty low. This makes the extra melee blocks and 50% armor penetration very strong. Since spears have a 70% crtitical damage modifier when you do crit it will be massive

Maces

Consistent is the name of the game for maces. Maces minimum damage is around the same as Spears average damage. The downside is that they don't penetrate any armor and they have an abysmally low critical multiplier. But you're an orc so the critical multiplier isn't a big deal. And you're getting bonus damage from being at "low" health anyway so you care a bit less about the enemies armor.

The Defender: Always Crit, Never Die

The Defender is probably best described as the utility melee. With the ability to GM warfare, Shields, and Heavy armor, and a weapon they're one of the few classes which is legitimately short on skill points in the lategame.

Fortunately the shield GM skill isn't as strong as it could be and so you only really need to master it. Unfortunately this leave the defender with only one build option.

Specifically:

GM Axes, GM Warfare, Master Shield, GM Heavy Armor: Free points into endurance, shield, or expert crossbows.

GM warfare lets you tank for your team and makes your DPS significant though not amazing. Master shield gives you a potential extra attack.

Put 2 points into might and 1 point into vitality and spirit until you have enough mana for your purposes. Then 3 points into might and 1 point into vitality.

The Windsword: Anything You Can Do I Can Do "better"

Windswords are a high difficulty lategame class. They have two primary build paths each one being unique and valuable but because they cannot GM a weapon they're going to be second fiddle for a long time.

Offensive Build Path

Pick Axes. Master that, then expert warfare, GM warfare as soon as you're promoted. Master Endurance and GM Medium armor (or Master Heavy Armor). Put 3 points into might, and 1 point into vitaility each level. Find an axe which gives you mana back

The idea here is very simple. Because you don't need destiny for crit or dodge, and because you don't need perception to increase your attack all you're doing is concentrating on hitting as hard as possible. With a 3 might/1 vit stat distribution you will only be about 30 might short of damage compared to a GM weapon user at lategame. But you will crit for 2.85x extra damage every round (1.9 base critical strike, + 50% of that the next round).

As levels increase the ratio of damage compared to others will steadily decrease and you will still be critting every round.

Technically you can pick any weapon type. But swords are comparatively weaker due to the fact that the bonus attack can miss/be blocked. Spears are comparatively weaker because their critical strike damage is only 70%, and maces are comparatively weaker because they do so little critical damage.

Defensive Build Path

The defensive build path relies on the fact that Windwords are the only one who can GM dodge and master shields at the same time. With a proper amount of destiny and perception, a windsword can hit 3-4 times per round while being almost impervious to enemies at the same time.

The way such a windword deals damage primarily relies on elemental damage. And because it relies on elemental damage swords are the advantaged weapon (since you will have decent destiny so you can add extra sword attacks on crits every once and a while)

The offensive build path is probably the better option

The Bladedancer: Conditional DPS

Halfway between the barbarian and the Windsword the Bladedancer is the king of conditional DPS. If an enemy has low armor and low blocks the bladedancer will shred them like nothing else. If an enemy has high armor and high blocks the bladedancer will feebly hit them feebly. If the blade dancer is promoted, surrounded on each side by 3 enemies, manages to kill one with the first carnage, and has GM dagger, and GM Dual weild (then GM dodges an attack the next round) he or she can potentially make 162 attacks in a single round*

Like the barbarian they only really have two options in their case, daggers or swords.

Like the Windsword they need a larger pool of mana and mana leeching to be maximally effective and additionally they need to be smart about when they attack so as to maximize their effect.

Stat allocation is probably best as 1 might, 1 destiny, 1 vitality, 1 floating (spirit until you have about 100 mana, might if you need more damage, vit if you need more HP, perception if you need to hit more).

Skill allocation is Primary Weapon> Dodge> Endurance= Dual Weild. Make sure to novice warfare for shred if you don't have another melee with warfare

Swords

Swords have a very good critical effect and have some very effective relics for the bladedancer. Though those relics do not allow the blade dancer to maximize his Carnage use because they don't have mana leach on them the attacks you do make will be crushing.

Because swords don't hit as often as daggers, GM dodge, GM dual weild, and destiny(for critical hits) become more important as they give potential extra attacks.

Its also important to note that Sword GM is available much easlier than Dagger GM, and because the bladedancers promotion quest is available earlier than anyone else besides wardens this make their power scale up very early.

Daggers

Daggers hit a lot. A whole lot. At master level twice as often as swords. At GM level 3 times more than swords not including bonus sword crit attacks, GM dodge bonus attacks, or GM dual weild attacks. Daggers combo particularly well with Crusaders and Dark Magic focused Archmages because they have "per hit" effects which dagger users maixmize.

*GM Dagger+ GM Dual Weild is 7 attacks/round. Carnage is a full attack set against all enemies in melee. So 7 attacks for each enemy. 3 enemies on each side means 21 attacks per side or 84 attacks for the first Carnage. If one of them dies the bladedancer gets another action for which they can use Carnage again. However, since at least one is dead the maximum number of attacks on the second carnage is 77 for a total of 161 attacks. Supposing that anything is still alive it might attack the bladedancer, who can dodge and get a retaliation strike for 162. This doesn't mean this option is optimal, or reasonable, just possible

Ranger/Scout: Jack Of All Trades, Master Of One

The warden and scout are the only two classes which can GM a ranged weapon. Additionally they have only one melee weapon they can GM, one defensive option they can GM, and no spells they can GM.

Rangers and Scouts are primarily "Jack of All Trades". And because of this will suffer in many situations compared to pure mages or pure melee. However there are areas in which they can shine immensely.

Ranger

The ranger should put either 2 points into perception, 1 point into destiny, and 1 point into vitaility per level, or 1 point into might, perception, destiny, and vitality. A ranged weapon in melee will hit about as hard as a one handeded weapon and shield combination. Which is, all together, not particularly strong. There is a reason that the only dedicated one handed weapon warrior is able to GM a weapon and GM warfare.

However, because of its strength at range it is not a poor option to specialize in ranged until far late in the game when melee can keep up. And similarly its also a decent option to specailze in melee until far late in the game when your ranged can keep up. Which you should do depends on your party composition.

Your key abilities are dagger, dodge, and bow all of which you should GM at some point. Dual wield is OK but the only thing it gets you at its master bonus is maybe 20 effective points of desinty and might for your off hand weapon. Because you will almost always have point into perception the attack bonus on Dual Weild is not worth as much and because you have so much evade from dodge and destiny progression the block isn't worth as much. A better fourth skill would be endurance, medium armor, or arcane discipline. Or if you're looking for a particular buff/debuff which your primary mage doesn't get air or earth magic.

The rangers upgrade skill is nearly useless. It costs a large amount of mana and is about as effective as a regular dual weild dagger melee attack if and only if there are three enemies in front of you.

Scout

Similar to the ranger the scout should put either 2 points into perception, 1 point into vitality, and 1 point into might, or 2 points into might, 1 point into perception, and 1 point into vitality. While the Scout gets more out of critical hits because he has GM axe available he also needs more might because axes are not as attuned to elemental damage as daggers are. Whereas with daggers you can almost ignore the physical damage component of them this is not possible with axes since axes do not get nearly so many bonus attacks.

Additionally Scouts do not have access to the full 25 ranks of dodge nor the very strong GM ability. While it might seem like 10 evasion isn't the end of the world you will need every point to make evasion pay off well. This means that a mix of endurance, armor, and arcane dicipline are probably better options. Additionally since this means that our Scout is likely to be wearing armor the attack penalty reduction becomes more important.

On the advantage side, Crossbows are much stronger than bows until GM level, and at GM level they provide significant AoE in situations which you will find yourself in.

Your key abilities are Axe and Crossbow, your secondary abilities are medium armor, endurance, dual weild, and arcane discipline. Do not GM medium armor before you Master Dual weild. Consider, in the mid game, putting fewer points into vitality and more into perception as you trade points in medium armor/dual weild for points in endurance. The advantage of armor or dual weild with vitality points over endurance and perception points is almost entirely in the expert/master/grandmaster bonuses (and more avanced armor types available)

Crusader: The Best Healer

The crusader is the only non-mage who is able to GM a magic skill. Additionally their special ability is very potent (especially so with Rangers and Bladedancers). This gives them two primary ways to play, as a tank or as a mage.

Tank

This is undoubetly the weaker of the two options. The Tank crusader needs expert warfare, master shield, decent heavy armor, endurance, and probably GM swords. Without which they do little damage and have no way of preventing damage to allies.

That being said if it is your option you will want 2 points might, 1 point vitaility, 1 point spirit. You will want to rush master sword, master warfare, master shield, and master heavy armor. From there you will want to round out your ability to take damage. Taunt important enemies, and intercept blows for allies.

Mage

This is undoubtedly the stronger of teh two options. The Mage crusader is able to buff allies attacks, ressurect them from the dead, heal the entire party to full, while also taking a lot of damage. Because you're focused on magic you should put two points into magic, 1 point into vitality, and 1 point into spirit each level. When you're able to put points into endurance and mysticism you may want to drop the point of vitality or spirit and instead put more points into magic.

The key skills for the mage are Light Magic, Mysticism, Shield, Heavy Armor, Endurance, and Sword. However you only need to GM Light Magic in order to be effective, GM'ing Heavy armor and Swords are simply a bonus.

Before promition the Mage Crusader primarly will be used to keep the party alive, functioning almost exactly like a utility/defensive mage. Post promotion(which is available fairly early) the Mage Crusader has the strongest offensive buff (especially for dagger dual weilders) in the game as well as the ability to apply that damage while being defensive. Yes Mandate of Heaven scales with magic ability points and light magic skill points. It is as strong as the Dark Magic spell "Agony" without any of the negative aspects of Grand Mastering Dark Magic as a Free Mage and with all the positive aspects of having a Light Grand Master wearing Heavy Armor with a 65% block rate, Master level Endurance, and potentially Grand Master level arcane discipline.

With Master Level Sword, and shield a Mage Crusader can still potentially get 3 attacks in per round, which while not nearly as good as a Blade Dancers potential 162 is still pretty impressive for someone who is primarily interested in keeping folks alive, combined with "Mandate of Heaven" this makes their offensive not half bad either.

Hunter: Basically A Spear Barbarian

The hunter is a Barbarian minus the Barbarians bonus damage and plus some utility, though limited to spears. When promoted Harpoon and Trap are some of the more useful abilities in the game and allow tactical options few other classes have access to. Hunters are also conceptually easy, playing and building in a very straight forward fashion.

The advantage of the Hunter compared to the Barbarian is that a hunter is able to GM dodge, and dodge can grant retaliation strikes. This means that a focused Hunter can attack between 50% to 100% more than a Barbarian. And because the Hunter will not need nearly so much Health to achieve bonus damage he is able to put points in destiny increasing his ciritical strike chance.

The hunter should put 2 points into might, 1 point into destiny, and 1 point into vitality. Their key skills are GM Spear, GM Dodge, Expert Warfare. From there Master Two handed is nice and Endurance and Arcane Discipline as high as they will go will round out the set.

Mages: Utility Or AoE

Mages don't get their own section because they're all very similar even if each one has its own niche. They all get the same stat distribution. They all have the same primary build path, etc etc.

In general there are two types of mages. Damage Mages and Utility mages. Mages who cannot achieve Grandmaster in Magical Focus cannot be damaged focused. Spells which cannot crit cannot be damage focused.

Damage Mage:

Damage Mages focus on critically hitting their spells for massive damage. They can put points into destiny but destiny points are significantly less efficient than for melee or ranged characters because resistances do not scale in the same way as armor does.

The two best schools for a damage mage are Fire and Air. Both of which have high power AoE spells which can critically strike. Fire has better general AoE and air has better "single group" aoe even though cyclone can't crit.

A damage mage has three options after GMing Magical Focus and their primary cast type. They can either pick up utility spells by experting schools in order to pick up specific spells which they might want to use. They can get a second utility focus by GM'ing a second school. Or they can focus on mysticism and endurance/medium armor/arcane discipline to make themselves as tanky as possible.

Utility Mage

Utility Mages don't worry about GM'ing magical focus and because of this have absolutely zero need of destiny. They should GM two utility focused schools to have as many strong defensive or offensive spells as possible. After GM'ing these two schools they should concentrate on defensive options and mysticism.

Freemage

The advantage of the freemage is the ability to use dark spells. As a Utiltiy focused mage, Primordial and Dark are very strong though more offensive focused. As a Damage Focused Mage air is the only option. Additinally Air has the strongest damage of any type in the game against a "single square"

Runepriest

Runepriests in damage should focus on fire, and in utiltiy should focus on earth. Light is very strong but Earth is probably overall better. Even a utility focused mage should GM fire at some point for the strong buffs and the Searing rune, which (iirc) cannot crit. Fire is the king of multi-square AoE damage.

Shaman

Shamans pretty much never run out of mana due to their upgrade passive and have access to Water and Earth, the strongest defensive schools. Because they can Master Spears their melee DPS will be decent as well. The Shaman is the only mage which does not get Primordial magic and this may be a selling point for another utility mage

Druid

Druids have the best healing buff in the game in nurture and so most definitely should pick up earth. Primoridial is a good second due to hour of power and implosion not needing critical strike to be effective. Water is also amazing on them and a decent second to earth but if you're going to go earth and water you should probably take a Shaman since no one will die if you have mana and since the Shaman will not run out of mana you won't need nutrue.

Party Composition

For the most part, any party can beat the game. Some parties will have a harder time than others, and some parties will have to rely on potions and scrolls. But there is enough income in the game to achieve that, and each class is individually strong enough to make it through.

If its your first time however, and you're looking to have an easier time you're going to want a combination of a few things

1) A way to shred enemy blocks. Some enemies will have a large amount of armor and blocks. If you do not have a light expert, warfare grandmaster, dagger dual weild expert (or have all your melee party have expert warfare) you will struggle with enemies that have large amounts of blocks

2) A way to protect from status effects: Status effects are doubly terrible in this game. Not only do they knock your player out of the fight(potentially permanently) but they also mean that the hampered player doesn't get XP for the monsters killed. Generally this isn't a big deal but the other people in your party don't get anything extra for it. A fire expert will give you a temporary buff which will prevent the "knocked out of a fight" status effects and air/light/earth/water/resting will have cures for many other common effects. Items can protect against specific effects, so be on the look out for items if you're not protected in another way.

3) AoE damage. There will be instances where you will have to fight a large number of enemies at the same time. Sometimes you will be able to cordon them off so that they only come from one side, but even when this is the case, the ability to do damage through the enemy is immensely valuable in making those fights easier to handle.

Two of the things which some people believe you need, but you don't really are

1) Primordial Magic Expert: This is nice for identifying items, but its not too hard to find a hireling which will do it for you. Since you will have plenty of XP and money losing out on a bit to identify isn't a big deal if for some reason a Shaman/Rune Priest/Free Mage don't fit into your party. That being said, the ability to identify items for free from the early game is a very large convenience which does make taking one of those mages worth it.

2) Dark Magic Expert: This allows you to see hidden doors. Seeing hidden doors is something which is easily attainable by a free hireling and which isn't necessary at all. There is more loot behind hidden doors but nothing unique or which will hamper your parties development. There is also a point in the plot(well technically not but you have to go out of your way to miss it) where you will be given the ability to see hidden doors without using a spell. Free Mages are the only class who can use dark magic. Do not feel the need to have one in your party.

Comment Responses

sigloxx asks:

"I m very surprised you give air and fire as the main magical categories for damage dealing. In my experience water (for tsunami) and primordial magic (for the master AoE spell, forgot name) are kinda more effective. Very interesting guide overall though, makes me want to experiment some new builds ;)"

The main reason is that Water is not as able to take advantage of crits and air is much more mana efficient than primordial.

Water because no water domain class has both GM water and GM arcane focus. If you cannot crit you cannot declare yourself a king of damage.

Primordial because Air is just... better efficiency AoE and Single target. AoE Air has Thunderstorm, Cyclone, And Chain Lightning. Thunderstorm and Chain Lightning do damage based on the number of enemies. As a result a stack of 3 enemies getting CL'd take 3x as much damage each as a stack of 1. So if you hit 3 enemies rather than doing 3x the damage you do 9x the damage.

As a result Lightning Bolt is more efficient than implosion when only hitting one target but you get it earlier and Chain Lighting is more efficient when hitting 2 or 3 targets than implosion (by an increasing amount) and you get it at the same point. And Thunderstorm is even more efficient.

Fire is just... Oh man the Master and Gm fire spells wreck face. They can hit up to 9 and 12 enemies and do truckloads of damage at high efficiency numbers.

叫我大叔 asks:

"I have a question though regarding the ranger.

I've been to a few websites to check about that particular class (I really want to make it work without being too useless).

What if for each level, we put 2 points in might and perception. If I remember correctly, ranger can GM medium armor and master endurance (or maybe the other way around). Therefore, instead of investing points into vitality, we use skill points to augment the HP pool and increase the armor. This is just a theory, I wanted to have more opinions about it, I've never tried picking an archer before in my team."

This is possible but its a very lategame oriented build. This is because for elves 1 Rank Endurance = 5 HP = 1.66 points of vitality and 1 Rank Weapon = 5% damage = 2.5 points of might, 2 points of perception

So if you put 2 points into might and perception and 3 points into endurance you gain an equivalent of 2 might, 2 perception, and 5 points of vitality. Compare to this: 4 points into vitality, 1 point into dagger, 1 point into Bow, 1 point into endurance.

This gets me 2.5 points of might, 2.5/2(bow/dagger) points of perception and 5.66 points of vitality. This ranger is better than your ranger in every conceivable statistic

The reason that your build is a lategame build is because most builds will round out by putting points into endurance and many builds will get tanky enough that they can shift from the standard 2/1/1 or 1/1/1/1 into a full on offensive set by droping vitality. This mainly occurs when your defensive magic users get online in a big way and when you've gotten a good number of points into vitality. If it is the case that your ranger gets strong enough with endurance alone to not need vitality then the might/perception build will make him overall more powerful.

The 1/1/1/1 build will be all together a more well rounded character. The evade and critical strikes from destiny are not to be underestimated both because of the high number of attacks that the dagger/bow users havel; but also because of their high critical multiplier. It is also important to remember that defensive stats like evade have increasing marginal returns, so the 100th point is more valuable than the 99th point. If you're dropping 1 point of evade/level then you may be at the point where evade is alltogether a useless stat versus a very powerful one. \

This would change your GM skills to Dagger, Bow, and Endurance with expert in dual weild and light armor to round out your defenses. You will be better against spells, but probably much weaker against physical attacks. Your DPS with a bow will probably better, but your DPS with daggers will probably be a bit worse due to the lack of critical strike (and the power of critical strike with daggers)

Nivrax writes:

"Regarding armor, I was browsing yt video where a bestiary was showcased from early access and even heavily armored enemies like Militia had maximum of 10 armor, I would guess armor being straight damage reduction was early mechanic, but changed on live?"

The short answer is "not unless something has changed since i wrote this guide, which was significantly after the Early Access ended. If it were the case that armor reduced a percentage of damage and not a flat damage then the number that you see when you increase your damage(and when you crit) are wrong. It may be the case that monsters have a second resistance to physical damage which is lited in their "armor" stat. But its much more likely that the bestariy is wrong.

The simple answer for this comes in looking how much damage you're supposed to do versus how much damage you do do when you hit a high armor target. Quite simply you could never hit for zero damage (as is a common occurance in the game) if armor was a % value.

A simpler answer is that my Paladin has 128 armor and sure as heck isn't immune to physical damage.

With regards to blocking, you're misunderstanding what is going on. If i reduce damage to 0 50% of the time, this is roughly the same as reducing damage to 50% 100% of the time. Its true that blocking reduces damage to zero but thinking of the mechanic overall in that manner isn't correct. Though you are right in that i was not as clear as I could have been in that section

Destiny Math (WIP)

Alright so lets talk destiny since I had a question about it. For the purposes of this section we will talk about Might/Magic/Perception as "primary" stats and so we are discussing optimal "Primary/destiny" distribution. Where this portion disagrees with the above guide feel free to use this portion of the guide. Since primary sections were written before i did the math and was just eyeballing it. In general though skill and itemization/build choiices will probably make more of a difference to your ability to beat the game on warrior than tweaking your max DPR via optimal primary/destiny stat distribution.

At its heart the issue can be written fairly simply as:

Max (DPR) s.t. P+D=T

That is, we max damage per round subject to having the same total amount of points in your primary stat and your destiny stat. We ignore non-primary stats because its reasonable to assume that the amount of DPR stats (I.E. primary/destiny stats) relative to survivability stats (Vit/Spirit) is the same.

This math is not all that complicated. You simply solve the system of equations which is descrived by equating the partial derivatives of DPR with respect to the primary and destiny stat and P+D=T. Anyone who can do a derivative can slog through it.

The problem is that the result changes quite a bit based on different item and build setups and the actual function for DPR is fairly ugly.

Specifically Damage per Action = [Base Damage * (1+Crit_Mod*Crit_D_Bonus*Destiny + Crit_Mod + Bonus_Crit) * (1+Bonus_Dmg + Primary_Dmg_Bonus * Primary Stat) + Weapon_Elemental_Damage * (1+Crit_Mod*Crit_D_Bonus*Destiny + Crit_Mod + Bonus_Crit) + crit_Bonus_damage * (Bonus_Crit + Crit_D_Bonus*Destiny)] * hit chance

Note that DPA has a physical and elemental portion for which I am ignoring relative resistances and just assuming they're all zero. It may or may not be the case that relative resistances make a difference to your build and so that may or may not be another modifier to the above function.

And so DPR = Sum of the DPA of each action in the round.

For different builds/classes the number of actions, type of actions, as well as the critical damage modifier, critical bonus chance per point of destiny, damage bonus per point of might, hit chance, hit chance subject to criting a previous attack, Elemental damage on a weapon relative to its base damage will all change. And so the optimal amount of primary stat and destiny stat relative to the base stat will change. Which is to say that that simple looking thing i wrote earlier becomes a long long slog. [maybe wolfram alpha can do it fast for you. And you can definitely make a spreadsheet to solve it quick on inputting different values. But i will be doing none of these things]

I have solved that in the past for various builds but won't do it again here. Mainly because I don't want to slog through it. I will say that the end values have some general effects

The higher your bonus crit damage the more destiny you will tend to want. The higher your weapon elemental damage relative to your base weapon damage the more destiny you will want. The higher your bonus damage mod from skills the more destiny you want. The higher your bonus damage mod from your primary stat the less destiny you want. The higher your bonus critical chance the less destiny you will want. If you have guaranteed crit then you don't want any destiny.

IIRC from when i did the math:

A Master Two handed GM Axe user does the highest DPR with about P = 170 + D. Which is to say that your might should be 170 points higher than your destiny. Since you won't ever achieve 170 points in might alone you shouldn't even bother with destiny. Adding elemental damage won't even make a dent in this

A GM bow user does the highest DPR assuming no elemental damage around P = 120 + D.

A GM Magical Focus GM offensive spell does the highest DPR around P = 120 + D [assuming you have two max quality one handed magical focus's]

I don't recall doing a full daggerdancer build but i am guessing that these (especially boosted with a Paladin's bonus light damage) will tend to want a more destiny than might.

Its also possible to maximize considering that you might be say, use a different weapon part of the time but again this just makes things more complicated and I really don't want to solve the math. In general though this will push things even further towards destiny.

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=241056551

Character Classes and Optimization