Does Dexterity Help With Trade Skills?

[Tejaye]

I heard Dexterity now helps with Trade Skills? If so, what does it do?
Does the higher Dexterity help while combining, or even when Fishing?
If so....an Enchanter could cast Night Terror on me and get my Dexterity to over 200. Would this make my skill much better?

[llaffer]

Depends on the tradeskill:

I think the conventional wisdom is:

The higher of WIS, INT, and <Insert Tertiary Stat here> is used in the chance to get a skill up on a combine.

No stats have anything do to with the actual combine itself. That's just based on your raw skill, trivial of the item, and any skill enhancing items you may or may not have.

So for things like Pottery, Tailoring, etc. could use Dex. Smithing could use Strength, etc.

But if you have your WIS or INT higher than all other stats, increasing them won't help unless they can go above them.

[Dalur]

It has been stated on other threads for certain skills that alternate stats do help.

Like for smithing, the higher of WIS/INT is the main factor, but high STR also helps.

I also have read that for fletching, DEX is a secondary factor also.

[Kentarre]

the FAQ knows all

[Ambrya]

DEX, according to the CharacterSelect screen, only helps with fletching and making poisons, and then, only if it is higher than your WIS or INT. So if you're doing fletching, and your WIS is over 200, and your DEX is only 160, your WIS will be used to calculate your chances of increasing your skill. If your DEX is maxed at 255 with shammy or chanter buffs and your WIS is lower, your DEX will determine your chances of getting a skillup.

Smithing works the same way using STR instead of DEX. It CAN affect your ability to get a skillup, but only if it is higher than your WIS or INT.

(Personally, I've always thought that CHA should affect brewing skillups. I mean, the prettier you are, the better beer you make, right? Or is that the other way around...?)

I have seen people say that in order to skillup effectively, you need Brilliance, Intellectual Superiority, C3, Focus, Night's Dark Terror and Blessing of Reverence and probably a few others I am not remembering here. Strictly according to the CharacterSelect screen, only a few of these should matter and then only in certain circumstances. Intellectual Superiority and Blessing of Reverence are either fizzle reducers or spell haste buffs. They don't affect your stats at all. And yet, some tradeskillers swear by them. The only way I can think that these might have an effect is if the chances of getting skillup are somehow determined by the same code your chances of fizzling a spell is.

Focus and NDT will boost your DEX, so if you are doing fletching or poisonmaking, then they most certainly can help. IF they bring your DEX higher than your WIS/INT. If your WIS/INT will be higher than your DEX even after the buffs, then there should be no point in having the buffs.

C3 and Brilliance affect WIS/INT, so again, these CAN have an impact. For baking, brewing, tailoring, pottery and jewelcraft, they are really the only buffs that matter. But if you are doing fletching, smithing, or poisonmaking, and C3 is not going to raise your WIS/INT higher than your DEX or STR, then there is no point in getting them.

But again, that is all according to the characterselect screen, and despite that, some people SWEAR they make a difference even if the numbers don't add up. It would be interesting to compile some anecdotal evidence that buffs do, in fact, help. So I'll start.

I recently did my very final fletching skillup session. I started at a skill of 237 and made components for 400 Mithril Arrow Combines. My unbuffed dex was 231 and my unbuffed wis was 146, so I figured my dex was probably high enough to get decent skillups. I did 160 combines and only got a single skillup, which happened on my second combine. By that time, it was 3 AM so I quit for the night. The next day I got on and caught an MGB Focus almost immediately upon logging in (I tend to work on my combines at the Nexus stone in PoK for just that reason.) This brought my DEX up to its max, 275. There was no MGB C3 at the time, however, and I was still determined to test the veracity of the whole WIS vs DEX, buffs vs. unbuffed thing, so I performed the rest of the 240 combines I had components for and got 11 skillups, bringing me to 249 skill (and let me tell you, I was NOT a happy camper than I didn't get that final skillup in the last stack.)

I had sufficient chunks of condensed flame and shadow to make nearly two more stacks of arrowheads. So I made some acrylia shafts and went back to my combines. I got my 250 skillup on the fifth combine.

So, what does this tell us? Not much of anything, really. The Pro-Buffs person will say that it was changing my DEX from 231 to 275 that made the difference, but I somehow suspect that, since maximum stats prior to level 61 is 255, once you're past 200, the actual number of your DEX stat isn't going to make such a huge difference as to go from a 1/160 skillup ratio to an 11/240 ratio. The Anti-Buff person will say it was the 12 hour break I took between the two skillup sessions that made the difference, giving the RNG a chance to get into a kinder mood, essentially. So who knows? The only "facts" we have on the matter that can't be controverted are what are stated on the CharacterSelect screen.

Ambrya

[Itek]

Originally posted by Ambrya

SAM and FRODO tie up GOLLUM.
GOLLUM: No! Smeagol not into ropes, nassty kinky hobbitses.
FRODO: We just want you to take us to Mordor, you sicko.
GOLLUM: Mordor? Hobbitses having little Goth phase, maybe? Very angsssty, wanting to go to Mordor, yes yes, precious. Can Smeagol offer black eyeliner to angsssty hobbitses?
SAM: You stop talking to Mr.--hmm. (to FRODO) You know, you wouldn't look half bad in eyeliner.

Love it love it love it....

I actually DID laugh out loud. Classic.

[scaevola]

I love that sig as well.


So dex is really only useful for fletching then. So it to say that just max int or wis? Seems to me whenever I max dex I always seem to do better but I guess that's maybe a supersition on my part.

[Ambrya]

Originally posted by Itek


Love it love it love it....

I actually DID laugh out loud. Classic.

Lol thanks...if you want to read more, this is where I borrowed it from:

TTT:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/mol...aith/1826.html

ROTK:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/mol...aith/5635.html

Ambrya

[Zyrtryx Conjureblade]

I've actually gotten KEI'd before doing some tradeskilling on a couple of occasions.

One time I donated for it, and another time someone cast it on me while I was in the PoK bank without me even asking for it, and I wasn't in the mood to hunt, so I went and did some Baking.

(That was a while back, before they changed it so you had to be lvl 45 or higher to have KEI cast on you. I was around lvl 40 back then)

[andyhre]

Before I maxed my wisdom, KEI was a boon to trade skilling.

I think yuou will find that the folks who have pushed their WIS/INT (or tertiary stat where applicable) to 305 have much faster skill ups than the folks stuck at a 255 cap, who in turn have much faster skill ups than folks with lesser levels.

As one quick example, I skilled up my main, Guiscard, and my bazaar alt, from 36 to 66 in Tailoring on Woven Mandrake. It cost about 500pp of combines on Guiscard, who back then has mid-100's wisdom at best, maybe 140 at the time. It took the alt, who is an INT-based character, only 200pp of combines, with INT at 209.

The best advice I can give anyone interested in taking more than 1 tradeskill above 100 is to focus on acquiring WIS or INT pieces and start with 200 (or more), as you will fly through the early stuff and have decent skill ups much later. I learned this by stalling in the 170s or so on fletching and then coming back when I had 100 more Wisdom, and seeing the difference.

And yes, you can use STR for smithing, and DEX for fletching (and I guess poison making though I don't play a rogue so I don't know). But if you are going to do more than one, get a WIS/INT suit instead, keep it for all tradeskills, and save in the long-run.

[Lothay]

Please see the FAQ Forum's post Stats & Tradeskills.