Thread: Diminishing returns on stats

Hey folks,

So I came back to the game after a year+ absence about 4-6 weeks ago and used that time to level up from 60ish to the current level cap 75. My question now is how you level capped folks distribute your stats. I mostly focus on Vit/Might and then mitigation but at what point does increasing a particular stat start losing its value? Should I stop increasing Vit when I reach a certain level and instead focus on something else? I think there was a cap on stats at one point but that is gone now correct? (I understand that the answer here will depend largely on play style but I am guessing you folks will have some good information regardless. In any case, I included some info about play style at the bottom of the post)

Second question. As I stated earlier I was gone from the game for a long time and the Kinnie I was in booted me for inactivity. For the time being I am in a kin with a few people from work. This kin is really nothing more than a glorified in game chat room. For now, I mostly rely on PUGs for instances and the like. So this question is for those who are more casual. What armour sets did you focus on getting? It seems to me from reading threads, inspecting people, and watching GLFF that most sets are pretty attainable without being in a raid every other night situation.

By the way, I tend to fill the tank role in groups (no surprise there). Lately, when I get a chance to join a group in a non tanking role, I have been experimenting a bit in Assailment just for fun. If had to put an estimate on how I spend my (non-solo) time it would be 75% Tanking role, 15-20% DPS, and 5-10% experimenting with Assail.

Wardens can't DPS.

As I previously stated, I spend time in PUGs which means sometimes there is already another tank. When that is the case you do whatever you can to contribute. Are Wardens ideal for DPS? Nope, there are obviously better options. But since most people would rather play then sitting around trying to put together the most bestestestest min/max group possible sometimes you have to adapt to what you have.

Originally Posted by Sechaii

I mostly focus on Vit/Might and then mitigation but at what point does increasing a particular stat start losing its value? Should I stop increasing Vit when I reach a certain level and instead focus on something else? I think there was a cap on stats at one point but that is gone now correct?
...
Second question. ... this question is for those who are more casual. What armour sets did you focus on getting?
...
By the way, I tend to fill the tank role in groups (no surprise there). Lately, when I get a chance to join a group in a non tanking role, I have been experimenting a bit in Assailment just for fun. If had to put an estimate on how I spend my (non-solo) time it would be 75% Tanking role, 15-20% DPS, and 5-10% experimenting with Assail.

Correct, there is no hard cap on stats anymore. Vitality suffers the least from diminishing returns - the tactical mit part of it does, but you will always get 5 morale per point. Of course, that doesn't mean it's best to max Vit at the expense of everything else. If you have at least 15k morale, physical mit above 45% without scrolls, and tactical mit above 40% without scrolls, you should be fine tanking any skirmish raid and any 3- or 6-man content T1 or T2. Your BPE will probably be fine too if the rest is in place. Mostly BPE doesn't need to be so high anymore because of the extended length buffs.

As for armour sets, I would say the Galtrev/Draigoch set is the best bang for the buck. You can grind it solo with medallions if you want, or if you do get seals from group content then you can spend those. You can get 4 pieces by yourself, the helm and shoulders come from tokens dropped in the Draigoch raid. If you can find runs with people that mostly already have their helms/shoulders then you should have a good chance to grab the tokens.

Draigoch armour vs Ox-Clan armour is mostly a preference thing, the newer sets aren't overwhelmingly better. You can tank all of Orthanc T1 with Draigoch armour and good skirmish jewelry.

And at the risk of feeding a potential troll, Wardens can DPS, and Champs can tank the vast majority of content. Secondary role means "not the best," not "cannot do it."

Originally Posted by Nydorewyth

Correct, there is no hard cap on stats anymore. Vitality suffers the least from diminishing returns - the tactical mit part of it does, but you will always get 5 morale per point. Of course, that doesn't mean it's best to max Vit at the expense of everything else. If you have at least 15k morale, physical mit above 45% without scrolls, and tactical mit above 40% without scrolls, you should be fine tanking any skirmish raid and any 3- or 6-man content T1 or T2. Your BPE will probably be fine too if the rest is in place. Mostly BPE doesn't need to be so high anymore because of the extended length buffs.

As for armour sets, I would say the Galtrev/Draigoch set is the best bang for the buck. You can grind it solo with medallions if you want, or if you do get seals from group content then you can spend those. You can get 4 pieces by yourself, the helm and shoulders come from tokens dropped in the Draigoch raid. If you can find runs with people that mostly already have their helms/shoulders then you should have a good chance to grab the tokens.

Draigoch armour vs Ox-Clan armour is mostly a preference thing, the newer sets aren't overwhelmingly better. You can tank all of Orthanc T1 with Draigoch armour and good skirmish jewelry.

And at the risk of feeding a potential troll, Wardens can DPS, and Champs can tank the vast majority of content. Secondary role means "not the best," not "cannot do it."

Thanks for the input... This is good information. Since Moria, I have pretty much just stopped focusing on gear and just went through the quest line. I ended up with a hodge podge of stuff. When I hit 75 I realized just how poorly built I was when compared with other Wardens. I have a ways to go to get my Morale to 15k although some of that is due to neglecting some deeds as well.

It is crazy, in order not to out-level quests I pretty much gave up repeatable/daily questing. I still ended up hitting the cap with a couple of zones worth of content mostly untouched. A lot of people suggested bypassing Mirkwood but I really enjoyed that expansion.

Stats were caped at 700 before, so you could have might, vitality and agility almost maxed out as a warden or at least very close to each other,now when it's lifted you got 1 main stat, 1 secondary and all the others. For a warden most important things to look after are: vitality, might, mitigations, bpe, everything else... in that order. Someone will say agility too, but everything that the tanking set doesn't bring above 500 I don't find very useful. If you're a group player at the end of your gaming you should be somewhere around 2+k vitality, 1k-ish might, ...

Originally Posted by Gandalphor

Stats were caped at 700 before, ...

Close but slightly wrong, cap was 650, or 10 per lvl.

Actually, from my calculations, in avoidance stats (BPE) the effect is the exact opposite. They have *increasing* returns, since the rating/level->% conversion is not damped enough to reduce the marginal increase.... go figure what the developers were thinking (in case you're wondering, one point of block at near-cap avoidance values is worth more than 6 times more than one point of block at zero avoidance).

EDIT: hmmm the value is certainly wrong, I must have a factor of 2 traling somewhere. 3 is a much more reasonable value... in any case it cannot be higher than 4. I'll check my numbers

EDIT: comparing apples to oranges does not work. The increasing return is 30%, i.e. when approaching cap block/parry/evade rating provides an additional 30% average damage reduction compared to when you are at near-zero avoidance.

Originally Posted by Irishpubber

Wardens can't DPS.

Thats wrong, you just fail on it.