Andor's Trail

Yeah I read the sticky. But it still doesn't give me an idea of how to build my character....it just simply hands me information. I don't know how to interpret it.

That's the way the game is tho. Were are to make our own discussions and hope for the best. You I
will make multiple build to you find the one you like

There are many possible builds that will work. It depends on how you prefer to play. One approach is to go for high AC and AD. The theory is that if you kill everything quickly you are less likely to get killed. Another approach is to go for very high BC. The theory is that if you can't get hit often then you can't get killed often. Or you could go for something in between, as a more balanced build It's up to you. For a high AC build got for light armor and weapons with a critical chance. For a high BC build go for heavy armor. The weapon is up to you.

As for planning skills and items, you can only do that to a limited extent, because you don't know what they will be until you get to certain points in the game. Even the available skills are not all in the list at the start. You can look them all up of course, but even that won't tell you much. There are a lot of items and skills, and the only way you can really understand the relative merits is to play the game, and try things out.

Lastly, the game is not complete. Things will change, possibly a lot (I believe the combat system will change a lot in the next release). Since you don't know what's coming, there's a limit to how much you can plan even if you do look up every item and every skill that's in the game.

One more tip:

Hmmm..... Ultima Online was like this. "Here is a lot of stuff, have fun" I spent 2 years finding out all the different stat caps so I could maximize my gear and skills and such...

Lol, I think the crucial thing to note here is that even the base mechanics of the game aren't set in stone so what may be BiS (best-in-slot) now, might not be in the future. My recommendation is to make your goals very generic with a simple focus that allows adaptability within that focus. There are really only a handful of vastly different builds, the rest are just slight modifications of those. Rijackson touched on the main two: 1) Kill stuff quickly and 2) Become untouchable. How you reach those goals may vary from the way someone else achieves the same goals.

1) AC and AD are the two stats to focus on. Beyond that you have a couple of variations such as Fast or Slow, Status Effects, and Crits. I went with the Fast variation which means I wield a single Quickstrike Dagger and choose skills that will help me in killing things fast before they even have a chance to attack me. Others may go with Fast and Status Effects by choosing a weapon such as Shadowfang or Chaosreaper that deals status effects but that are still relatively fast. Or you could choose Slow and Status Effects, Fast and Crits, Slow and Crits, Fast and Status Effects and Crits.... you get the picture? None of these are, in and of themselves, bad options. You can theoretically make a character with any of these goals and wind up very successful. Some options are more difficult at certain levels than others are but they may also be stronger at other points. My QSD build, for example, had quite a bit of difficulty getting to Remgard because of the lack of maneuverability in the spider caves that led to the spiders being able to attack me first on several occasions and apply status effects to me. A crit based build might struggle in areas where there are a lot of ghosts and status effect based builds won't do very much against low hp monsters that only last 2 rounds anyways.

The best recommendation I can possibly make is to try several builds until you find one you enjoy playing. With no "best build", you might as well enjoy playing how you prefer to play.

A good comparison that makes the point might be my stats vs those of fiernaq (see our signatures). They are both light builds, at about the same level. We both stick to light armor, which has a lower BC, but no AC penalty. The similarity ends there.

Fiernaq's build is about as fast and light as it gets . HP are low, because only one skill point was used for increased fortitude. However, 3 points were used for Evasion, which guarantees fiernaq gets to hit first. BC is also low, partly because of the QSD, but also probably because level-ups were not put into BC. AC and AD are really high, which is where a lot of the level-ups obviously went. With the high AC and an AP of only 2, there is a high chance of hitting, and there are 6 hits per round, at 42-52 AD each hit. That's a lot of damage! Better hope it works though, because with a BC of only 27% and only 88 HP getting attacked by anything nasty is a bad idea.

My build is more balanced, but I would still consider it fast and light. I have a lot more hit points because I put 3 skill points into IF (and at level 50, a 4th). But I only have 1 level of Evasion so I pay a price for that! I spread my level-ups mostly between AD and BC, so I have a highish BC. My AD is much lower than Fiernaq's, and I only get 4 strikes per round rather than 6, but I have a 21% chance of a critical hit with x3 damage. To get my AC up (and somewhat my AD) I went for dual wield, so I use two weapons (mostly DotSp and a BSS). Not having a shield is one reason I had to put more level-ups into increasing my base BC.

Which is better? Who can say. We both made it to level 50

Or you can spend the 6 skills points needed to get cleave lvl 2 on something else.

Like Evasion, evasion can be a huge help when dealing with mobbing NPCs

Pshh, you should already be stacking HH and WA (what else is there to spend skill points on?) so you really only need 2 skill points to get Cleave 2

Heh, I died recently in the Iquan caves because I wasn't paying close enough attention and a couple of nasty crits is all it took to take me out. Then again, the rest of the time that content is super easy - I can run all the way from the entrance to the end and back in under 6 minutes

So yeah, I'm the epitome of a glass cannon. If I don't get the kill in quick I'm basically toast. But hey, I like my build. It's fun!