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Dax -> RE: Is Dex a wasted stat? (3/31/2011 0:40:52)
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I certainly don't believe dexterity is a wasted stat. The problem is, dexterity does not do much to improve offensive skills. It improves overload, supercharge and technician for mages. While I like using overload and supercharge in certain circumstances their energy cost makes them hard to justify using as the centerpiece of a level cap build. Technician requires a turn to use but does improve bot damage somewhat.
For bounties multishot and stun improve with dexterity. While stun has its uses, it is only an augment, not a centerpiece of a build. However as many of you doubtless noticed, I used a very effective bounty build with 84 dexterity for a long time. However, that build also utilized 84 strength. The strength provided the damage, the dexterity coupled with HP improved my survival time in order to allow me to absorb crits and continue to inflict damage - usually culminating in a 4th turn massacre.
Mercenaries have no skills that improve with dexterity. I see merit in dexterity based mercenary builds but they MUST have another stat trained high enough to inflict high damage. Unforunately energy spamming, 5 focus mercenaries tend to outhit the dexterity based mercenaries. Because the 5 focus tech merc can now have 90+ tech, the 5 focus bounty build is now annihilated because bounties MUST train at least 84 dex to be relevant.
I can agree however that dexterity is becoming less relevant as time progresses. The problem is the trendy builds end battles in 2-4 moves. (most notably str merc, but also support merc and str bh) The chance of getting blocked at least once in 1-3 moves is far less then the chance of being blocked at least once in 4-9 moves. This problem is made worse by the fact that energy primary strength mercs can be blocked once and still win in 3 moves against higher dex builds.(block either maul or strike and zerker still connects = 100++ damage) The chance of blocking at least 1 move out of 2 against a strength merc assuming you have 84 dex and they have 66 is 34% if I did my math correctly. Chances are if they connect on both, you've lost. Even if you train your dexterity very high, say 93 vs 66 that percent is still only 42%. Moreover you're likely sacrificing tech to raise your dex thus raising the damage they inflict and minimizing your str and support thus limiting your damage to them. Furthermore many mercs simply train their dex higher - as high as 87 in some cases along with 100+ strength(yes it's possible with the number of stat points available)
Ultimately training dexterity is an interesting problem. You have to have it as a bh or mage or you're destroyed by str bh and physical primary str mercs. But if you train it your offense and resistence is compromised.
Dexterity still works somewhat, but I'll let you try it and see how successful you are. Since I don't play as much as I used to I don't mind sharing my better builds on forums. You're welcome to try the following dex mage if you wish: http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm82/Dax94/DaxMagev31.png Dexterity builds must have a source of offense to be relevant. The robot provides that here.
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