INT.. Just how important is THIS stat?.. very confused.

[Cl]

<div>Hello fellow rangers!</div><div> </div><div>I am preparing myself for the new servers that are eventually coming forth.  As well coming back to the game since leaving in beta.. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  I have made my rounds and am finding EQ2 very enjoyable and now that pvp is coming to the game have made a decision to come back to the game I wanted to play but didnt because of no pvp interaction.</div><div> </div><div>So...</div><div> </div><div>I understand that STR has more impact than AGI, since a couple of updates ago.  But, does INT have a large bearing on magical damage as well poison damage (a very important part of overall dps).  I have played the test server and I am noticing some interesting affects.  I was wondering if its just my imaginataions/hopes OR is there really something to having a decent INT.</div><div> </div><div>I have been testing different races as in to find a good choice for my starting pvp character and have found this synopsis after running three different races through L10.  Wood Elf, Barbarian and Human.  Same weapons DW and same armor (starter island)</div><div> </div><div>1.  Wood Elf:   Does weak amounts of damage but tends to swing more/faster?  could be just me.  Seems to proc poison a little better than Barbarian but not as much as Human? </div><div> </div><div>2.  Barbarian:  Does best amount of damage but tends to swing slower.  Procs poison the least out of the three.</div><div> </div><div>3.  Human:   Does well in all three counts losing the frequency amounts of hitting for the higher damage of weapons but not as bad as WE.. procs poison a good more amount than both.</div><div> </div><div>Is this due to poison having a direct relation to INT.  Also.. does INT make the damage modifier greater for skills where the damage is from arcane sources and not melee.. like fire damage/stun or whether or not the opponent saves to resist being that my INT be higher?..</div><div> </div><div>I want to be effective and I am starting to believe that if INT has a large bearing on proc success or arcane damage, that Human is actually the best choice, pumping STR and INT, with Stam and Wis being secondary, letting AGI to increase on its own as levels progress.  Also if later changes come down the line making AGI a tangible attribute again, a respec wouldnt be as devistating as say respecing a Barbarian with a starter 12 INT.</div><div> </div><div>I am interested in knowing what you guys think, with all of your infinate wisdom.. and ty.</div><div> </div><div>D</div><div> </div><div> </div>

[Zholain]

<font size="2">The current shool of thought says to go Strength, Intelligence, then Agility...at least that seems to be the most popular view.  Intelligence does effect the amount of damage that our poisons do on proc, or any 'magic' type of proc.  Those are the only areas that intelligence effects rangers, but since our damage is based so much on procs, it can have a noticable impact on our dps.</font><div></div>

[hieronym]

<div>int is very good for rangers at the moment, group with a wizard or any other class that buffs your INT and watch the damage increase your poisons and procs do. Its quite jaw dropping sometimes.</div>

[Ronin]

Also AGI isn't as important anymore, plus the fact just your buffs and normal gear you'll get all have decent agi on them, you'll be 200+ agi time your 50 easy anyway. Str is the primary stat, and INT does help alot also. You'll notice this really well on poisons where the dmg done will go up a good deal with higher int. For instance in groups with mages, most times you'll have a int buff on you, putting your int near 100 or past that. Mine averages 130ish with my gear in groups. Also the best str gear you can get is great, as STR increase the proc from arrow fenzy a good deal, and increases the dmg of all your melee dmg CA's, which is most of them. So having high STR coupled with good int can boost your dmg or dps ability way up. At 53 I can turn 500-700dps as an average in groups, and see spikes of it hitting 1000-1100 at times. Granted my CA's are adept 3-master1 but its dmg is greatly effected from str and int. Now the 3rd stat i perfer to keep high is not agi, its Wisdom, but I'm in a raiding guild, and there are times when its impossible to get outside the AE from mobs. SO having your resists for that encounter as close to 4000 as possible really helps. 4000 is the target, which caps resists to that type at 80%. This can cut darathars AE dot from 1500 to barely 200. which is HUGE when it comes to long fights like this.  So for me its STR, INT, then Wis, plus i have sets of items for each resist type. WHich is a must in t5-t6 raids. Also, for when you begin to raid, If the mobs hitting you either your tanks dead or your over agroing, so your taking dmg is mute on raids minus AE's. For this reason is why i wear some really odd armor pieces for raids, like the 20int 8str helm thats cloth, and for cold AE using encounters Spectral gear is sweet, beefing cold resists by 600 for the helm. So STR, INT then Wis is my game plan, doesn't have to be yours though, use what your comfortable with, and just learn what effects you the most per situation.<div></div>

[King Leor]

<div></div><p>Wisdom I dont feel is all to important. Ya it helps with resists. but the only AE's we cant avoid are that of Darathar and Tremblar (both t5) luckily all t6 mobs have short AE's so we can obliterate the mob non stop. As for INT, it's uber and fantasic to have. In raid for example, I get INT to cap out and it has Adestes doing roughly 650 dmg from the usual 420's by myself. And form this it adds alot of DPS even to the small DoT from the poisons. Than it also adds dmg to weapon and bow procs, and shield if your using the scout shields. So it makes  TONNE of difference if you INT is really high.</p><p>LeoricLevel 60 ranger</p>

[Sete Soujiro]

<div><blockquote><hr>King Leoric wrote:<div></div><p>Wisdom I dont feel is all to important. Ya it helps with resists. but the only AE's we cant avoid are that of Darathar and Tremblar (both t5) luckily all t6 mobs have short AE's so we can obliterate the mob non stop. As for INT, it's uber and fantasic to have. In raid for example, I get INT to cap out and it has Adestes doing roughly 650 dmg from the usual 420's by myself. And form this it adds alot of DPS even to the small DoT from the poisons. Than it also adds dmg to weapon and bow procs, and shield if your using the scout shields. So it makes  TONNE of difference if you INT is really high.</p><p>LeoricLevel 60 ranger</p><hr></blockquote>I'm sure int helps increase poison dmg, but i dont think it impacts it that much.  On a raid its more likely that the mob is debuffed for adestes to hit that hard.  I'm a brigand and when I solo, my poison is hitting for about 680 with 70 int.</div>

[King Leor]

<div></div><p>That would make sense......but.... I am talking about when I examine the poison to see what the normal dmg is. On a uber debuffed raid mob the poisons hit for almost 1k. (sorry I didn't specify when I said what dmg it did)</p><p>LeoricLevel 60 ranger</p>

[Beldin_]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>King Leoric wrote:<div></div><p>In raid for example, I get INT to cap out and it has Adestes doing roughly 650 dmg from the usual 420's by myself.</p><hr></blockquote>Thats really not mainly the int .. +10 Int makes +1% Damage .. so to increase int based damage for over 50% you would need to increase your int by 500 !! and that isn't possibly because of the caps <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Zholain]

<div></div><font size="2">There obviously comes a point with good gear and such that when raid buffed, and sometimes even group buffed, when strength and/or agility is at or above cap...and you're now at the state of diminishing returns.  At that point, there are other ways to absolutely maximize dps (or general efficiency/effectiveness) that are more efficient than trying to increase str/agi even further.  In my opinion, intelligence is at the top of that ladder.  And that's even if you've placed agility high on your priority list.You have to look at the big picture.  Agility comes by default, whether by self buffs, group buffs, or the inherent agility that comes along with much of leather and chain armor, it's easy to get.  I almost completey ignore agility now.  I almost never run out of power (granted I do have some gear that regens power, however the only times I'm running out of power are the most difficult of fights, i.e. named 65^^^ x4's and up), I hardly every solo so aviodance means almost nothing to me.    (******Crap, I got interruped and was gone for about 15 minutes and lost my train of thought, so I'll just jump to the conclusion for brevity.******)A lot depends on your playstyle, but you always have to remember all of the things that effect us, and the things that don't.  The discovery of how intelligence effects us is actually relatively recent, but even before then I had begun to nearly completely ignore agility.  I have said this what seems like a thousand times or more on these boards, and the veterans will attest to it.  PLAY YOUR CHARACTER HOW YOU WANT TO PLAY HER/HIM.  It's your toon, and no one else's opinion means a darn to how you enjoy this game.But if you're a serious player stiving to get everthing out of your ranger tha you can, don't limit yourself by not experimenting with intelligence.  I think you'll be surprised. I know I was.</font><div></div><p>Message Edited by Zholain on <span class="date_text">01-22-2006</span><span class="time_text">11:52 AM</span></p>

[GLAARG]

get yourself 4 different 10%+ procs to stack, have a conju , a wiz , a warlock , etc.. in group and youll notice the HUGE difference int can do if you want to reach real high dps <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />but i dont wanna spoil it all, so go try out what comes to ya mind <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[kitcabood]

<div></div><p>Oo!  Interesting.  Thanks for the tip on boosting Int - will have to give it a go.</p><p>I'd been under the impression that it wasn't really much use to us except for maybe boosting one of our CAs.  Had no idea that it was actually that significant for a Ranger. </p><p>I've got some rather nice no-trade caster light armour that I picked up in Splitpaw & couldn't bring myself to sell, due to the lovely stats, thought I'd hang on to it just in case they ever changed rules regarding no-trade to allow swapping to alts (I can dream!)  Can't remember what level it was but if I haven't out-grown it then I'll have a run around in those slippers or whatever they were & see what difference it makes.</p><p>Cheers!</p><p>Kitcaboodle</p><p>Splitpaw</p>

[Jay]

<div></div><div>Human, Barbarian, and Wood Elf are all well and good, but you forgot the race that's a natural fit for the ranger class: KERRA!</div><div> </div><div>We have a good balance of STR and AGI, don't compromise too heavily on any other stats, and we look <strong>so</strong> much better than any of the other three you mentioned. Plus, you can make male kerra, unlike wood elves which feature only breasted and non-breasted female models.  <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  <hugs Demlar></div><div> </div><div>I have nothing to say to INT. It drives me nuts that this stat plays any role in our damage output, it's ridiculous.</div>

[Zholain]

<div></div><div><span><blockquote><hr><font size="2">Jay42 wrote:</font><font size="2"></font><div><font size="2">I have nothing to say to INT. It drives me nuts that this stat plays any role in our damage output, it's ridiculous.</font></div><hr></blockquote><font size="2">I agree wholeheartedly, but I'll take advantage of it regardless.  It's going to really stink, however, when they change it and we're stuck with a bunch of useless INT gear.</font></span></div><p>Message Edited by Zholain on <span class="date_text">01-23-2006</span><span class="time_text">01:12 PM</span></p>

[Jay]

<div></div><p>Right, Cat. I haven't taken any kind of moral high-road here and refused to gear myself with +INT stuff, but I also have not aggressively sought out +INT gear. I'm sure my Intelligence is still lousy, but my damage is good enough. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I'm not a min-maxer and I don't raid as often as many of you, so it's not as important for me to squeeze every last bit of damage out of my toon.</p><p>So, how much would you guys hate me if I started campaigning to have INT changed back so it doesn't affect poison or proc damage? LOL  <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <ducks></p>

[Zholain]

<font size="2">I would be right beside you.</font><div></div>

[Ranja]

<div></div><p>As would I Jay! I think it is ridiculous that Intelligence affects anything we do other than our ability to read and write.</p><p>Let's start the campaign!</p><p> </p><p>Elbryan</p><p>59 Ranger</p><p>Blind Guardians</p><p>Everfrost</p>

[Gareorn]

<div></div>Go ahead.  My INT is 59 and it would save me a lot of plat if i could just leave it there. :smileytongue:

[Impetus]

Good discussion.Clix, just so you know, your race will not affect your swing rate or your proc rate. It only affects starting stats and which racial "traditions" you can choose from. Oh, and special vision type, too.Anyway, the differences in starting stats are really not anything to worry much about. When you're up in the hundreds of strength, an extra 20 that an ogre would have over a high elf won't be a very big deal. I personally would just choose the race that you think looks the best. You'll be seeing it for many many levels, hopefully. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[King Leor]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>King Leoric wrote:<div></div><p>In raid for example, I get INT to cap out and it has Adestes doing roughly 650 dmg from the usual 420's by myself.</p><p></p><hr><p>Beldin_ wrote:</p></blockquote><p>Thats really not mainly the int .. +10 Int makes +1% Damage .. so to increase int based damage for over 50% you would need to increase your int by 500 !! and that isn't possibly because of the caps <img height="16" border="0" width="16" src="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/i/smilies/16x16_smiley-wink.gif"></p><hr>Umm, ya that is the INT that raised the poison dmg that much. If you examin your poison dmg it gives you  the dmg it does. Buff your INT a crapload and re-examine and the # is alot higher. And the INT also raises the dmg from sword and shield proc as well. Along with spells that can be put on you via other classes.<p>LeoricLevel 60 ranger</p>