You say 5 years and GS4... either 5 years and you have come back from GS3, or it's more like 4 years and GS4.

First - you need to clarify. Coming from GS3 has major options opened to you that coming back from GS4 does not.

Second - Without posting stats and skills. It's rather hard for any of us to know exactly what you are talking about.

Third - Have you got Tsoran's spreadsheet to figure out your training? Go to his website (Same place you get the maps and get his trainer program.)

Fourth - Get those out of the way - we should be able to help you out.


Xatier

Richard the Mayor of a Little Village up the Coast "I'm a Bearlock now."

>Level: 45

Do you remember what your level was when you left? If you left before GS4 you would have been 52-ish.

You can go to an Inn and CHECKIN to see if you have the STAT reallocation option.

:D

Honestly, his training plan looks like it was a port from GS3. As others have stated, check in at your local inn and see if there are options to change your stats. If so, listen carefully since you have a really good chance to change stats and training for your benefit.

---

~Z

<<Lorminstra and I have tea now, every time I show up...

Isn't she sick of tea by now?


Xatier

Richard the Mayor of a Little Village up the Coast "I'm a Bearlock now."

LOL -- work is unusually slow this afternoon - so I got some time to read and post.


Xatier

Richard the Mayor of a Little Village up the Coast "I'm a Bearlock now."

Go to Tsoran.com and download his spreadsheet. That's your Step 1.

As for warmage - Throgg and couple others can help you with that definitely not my thing to be a stick and board mage.


Xatier

Richard the Mayor of a Little Village up the Coast "I'm a Bearlock now."

When he suggests that you start your professional stats at 80, he means AFTER bonuses. I.E., if you put them at 70, they become 80 just because they are your prime stats. This is fairly good advice, BTW, if you want a lot of TPs ealy on, and don't mind if a couple stats max out in your 40's.

Giantkin being a tad clumsy, you will maybe want a bit higher agi and dex than an elven or more dextrous race might. Even as a warmage, you will occasionally want to toss some bolts around, and dex affects your bolt AS.


"So, what does that green line on the graph represent?"

"Oh, that's the projection of a hypothetical offspring from a union between Sauron and Cruella de Ville; we use that as a baseline for determining character alignment."

>I wanna be able to cast as hard as I swing

Just 2x Spell Aim.

Since you can only 1x a weapon skill your casting AS will eventually exceed your weapon AS.

:D

Askip

Many members of the so-called "pure" casting classes like to go a different route and do the weapon thing. There are "warpaths", weapon using clerics, even the odd "war-sorc" (I know, becuase I have one; hence I an entitled to use the term "sorc". Be warned! A non-sorceror who uses the term "sorc" can prepare to be imploded).

But, the "pure" class most suitable in a practical sense for using weapons is the mage. Why is this? One word: Haste. With the appropriate lores, stat bonuses and spell ranks, self-cast haste allows the warmage to swing any weapon in 1 second (with certain racial/weapon exceptions ... see below). Even if they have a ton of haste imbeds, the best a non-mage can do is a 3 second swing time. Mages also have a fair number of disabling spells, including area-effects ones. (Call wind, e-wave, tremors, major e-wave). This sets up the foe for a weapon strike, even if your AS is less than a square of the same level.

So, what race is best suited for a war-mage? IMO, it's the half-Krolvin; very nice strength bonus, yet a better agi/dex score than a giantkin or dwarf. But, pretty much any race can make it work; you just have to do your stats well, and train very strictly. (My only half-krol is a paladin; my warmage is half-elf).

Now, how to choose stats? The pure casting mage will make sure that they have a preponderance of mental stats higher than physical; they need as many mental TPs as possible, for most efficient TP use. They will end up converting PTP to MTP in any event, but the less conversion done, the more efficient their TP use. Warmages, on the other hand, will need high physical stats, since many of the skills they will be training in require a large amount of PTPs. It may be necessary to take a higher starting value for prime stats than a pure mage would, just in order to get a decent number of MTPs. This means they will max those stats early, and their stats at cap won't be perfect. Big deal.

Efficiency: since you are going a very errant training route, you need to maximize the efficiency with which your TPs are used; the goal should be to never have to convert any TPs, ever. Now, initial stat placement to a certain extent depends on race. The poster who is asking for advice is a giantkin; we need to offset that race's deficits. So we need better agl/dex than, say, an elf type.

I have posted this before, but I'll do it again, in order to answer the poster's query. (Also I am a terrible narcissist, so posting my training for everyone to admire is ever so much fun!) Errr. Ignore that last sentence ...

>> (at level 59), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 70 15
Shield Use.........................| 161 61
Combat Maneuvers...................| 161 61
Edged Weapons......................| 161 61
Physical Fitness...................| 122 31
Arcane Symbols.....................| 96 22
Magic Item Use.....................| 140 40
Spell Aiming.......................| 222 122
Harness Power......................| 160 60
Elemental Mana Control.............| 140 40
Elemental Lore - Air...............| 102 24
Elemental Lore - Earth.............| 70 15
Perception.........................| 120 30
Climbing...........................| 111 27
Swimming...........................| 82 18

Spell Lists
Major Elemental....................| 36

Spell Lists
Minor Elemental....................| 45

Spell Lists
Wizard.............................| 41
Training Points: 9 Phy 12 Mnt<<

Now, we come to choice of weapons. The poster is a giantkin; giantkin cannot use a lance or awl pike in 1 second, no matter what their stats. Luckily, the poster is interested in THWs; with the right agi/dex bonus, giants can swing any THW in 5 seconds. Why is this important? Because if you can use a weapon in 5 seconds without haste, you can use it in 1 second when hasted, assuming you have the right spells/lores. Myself, I went OHE/shield because 1)it gives better DS, and 2)I had some nice OHEs to start with; a fel hafter handaxe, and a perfect 6x handaxe for undead. Note that I have zero TPs converted; TP efficiency is a paramount concern for the warmage.

Also, using THW requires 1 more MTP per rank than an OHE. If I were to convert to THW use, I'd have enough PTPs (from losing the shield skill), but I'd need to come up with another 50 MTPs in order to be fully trained. But, the questioner has an advantage, being a giantkin! I got all those earth lores, not for any benefit to stone skin, stone fist or boil earth, but just to increase my wimpy half-elf weapon AS, from self cast strength. A giantkin warmage will have a better inherent strength/AS bonus, and so may well not need this at all. Losing those 15 ranks earth lore would more than do the job.

Also, you can see that I am starting to increase my PT ranks from the 24 needed to get to max health. This is to increase my stamina, since using CM needs that. Giants start out with more stamina, simply by being big and fat ... errr, I mean strong ... so the poster won't have to worry as much about this factor. Getting more PF ranks can wait till later on.

To get the most from haste early on, you need 24 ranks air lore and 27 ranks in MjE spells. This will drop your weapon RT to one second, assuming you aren't using a slow polearm. Now, what agi/dex bonus will let you use a claidh in 5 seconds? Ummm, I used to know this, but I forget. I am sure, however, that someone will post this :) If I recall, the bonus where we start to see an impact on weapon use time starts at +8 and goes up in equal increments thereafter, but I don't want to mislead. If no one else posts, I'll look it up later and add it.

"If I am a warmage, can I also use bolts?" Yes, grasshopper; your bolt AS wont be as good, since you cannot have 513 in effect as a warmage, but since most critters bolt DS is less than their weapon DS, yes you can still be an effective bolter. The well placed call wind, followed by a cast of cone, will set the swarmed foe up for a slew of hasted weapon strikes.

*Important note*
The well skilled warmage (or for that matter, any prudent mage of any persuasion!) is NEVER not under the influence of haste! I have my macro "stop 506\rincant 506" which I hit every 30-40 seconds when not in combat. This can save your butt, when the foe uses RT inducing spells/CMans.

What skills does a Warmage need? Basically, try for level+2 in weapons and CM. You won't be able to get 1x in CM right away, in all likelihood, but that is your goal. What CM's are best? Well, as a pure, you won't have access to all that many, but I'd go for disarm first. A disarmed foe can do less damage to you. Feint is designed to drop your foe's DS vs weapons; we have spells to do that, so that's not high on my priority list. The next best thing, IMO, is dirtkick; this will drop the AS of non-weapon using foes (I.E. animal types) and also add RT.

What armor to use? Sort of depends on your style; for myself, I stopped at double leather (15 ranks armor use skill). Full body coverage, and fairly small spell hindrance. Those who place a greater reliance on spells might want to stop at full leather, to reduce spell failure; those who want more physical protection might want to go for leather breastplate. It also depends on other resources; I have a ton of unused Premium points, so when I get my armor up to 6x (I have it at 5x right now), I'll probbaly get it HCW padded. If you don't have that luxury, you may want to get those extra armor ranks and get LBP in lieu of padding. Better armor = lower crit ranks of wounds when you do get hit.

Can a warmage enchant? Yes, but not as early as a pure mage who has more spell ranks and magic skills. I can routinely do 6x enchants; I'd be reluctant to try a 7x right now, although since I have been doing 6x for several trains, maybe I could. But why risk failure, and blow all that enchant time, when I know I can nail a 6x?. Maybe in another 10 trains I'll start trying the 7x. Seriously, though; the difference between a 6x and a 7x item is pretty small. +5 DS? +5 AS? Ok, this might mean a lot when selling it on auction, but really; think about it. Does a +5 really make a huge practical difference in game combat? Not to mention the extra time needed to do the 7x enchant. I think not.

Ok, that's all I can think of right now. Feel free to ask any relevant queries, and have fun as a member of that community of most powerful of characters, the warmage!



"So, what does that green line on the graph represent?"

"Oh, that's the projection of a hypothetical offspring from a union between Sauron and Cruella de Ville; we use that as a baseline for determining character alignment."

1. View your stats
2. View your skills and spells
3. Adjust Skill Goals
4. Done
86. Start again! (recreate your character)
Are any of these the options I want... ::cough:: I dont want to make a fatal mistake. I tried the goals and fixskills, but that only took me to go training. Any help please?

DO NOT use the fixskills option until after the thirty days break in period is over. Adjust skiils (in the Inn) or tyoing goals (outside) will let you change these.

When you view stats in the Inn, can you change them? You should be able to do so if you are coming back from GS3, and are in the 30 day window but I forget the exact procedure, other than the fact that you need to be in the Inn do do so.


"So, what does that green line on the graph represent?"

"Oh, that's the projection of a hypothetical offspring from a union between Sauron and Cruella de Ville; we use that as a baseline for determining character alignment."

Well I came back briefly a few years ago after the transition to GS4, in fact I didn't even know about all the stat changes or skill changes or anything at that time. I just logged in a few times and didn't come back. So when I came back last fall I didn't have the stat change option or the instant migration, but was still able to move my skills over at a much accelerated rate. So I take it our giantkin wizard in question should have the same opportunity correct? Doesn't it start automatically as soon as you "lessen" a stat in the skill goals trainer?

<You will start to migrate the points down to your new set goal, but it will migrate normally, with no sort of acceleration.>

Well aren't the first 30 days though a much higher rate of "unlearning?" Like 0.1 per pulse instead of the usual .001? Then it goes down to .01 for 30 more days and then .001? Anyway it isn't as great as instant migration but it is better than starting out with .001. I have a cleric "unlearning" 70 ranks of spell aiming and I want to just cry! It is better than the previous system so I can't be that upset I suppose.

If indeed you have lost the 30 crossover from GS3, then your best bet, assuming that you don't want to use your fixskills, is to migrate one skill at a time. Yes, initially you migrate TPs faster each month, but then the rate of TP migration drops. You don't want to try to migrate 10 skills at once; it will take forever.


"So, what does that green line on the graph represent?"

"Oh, that's the projection of a hypothetical offspring from a union between Sauron and Cruella de Ville; we use that as a baseline for determining character alignment."

<<ok, one more thing, dont freak out - we just need some basic stuff and get you going - just ask Reallia, Rimalon has got her killed dozens of times! Then she listened to the rest of us and only commiting suicide once or twice a night.>>-XH8ter

Make sure you ask Xatier how to use Charge Item too, he loves to help new people with that spell :)

Jinsem
EVIL