Max stats for maximizing skill-ups

[Shendare]

After researching the skill-up formula and sussing out a little bit of missing information via the calculator, I was able to calculate the necessary character stats to maximize your chances of skilling up when learning tradeskills.

Each tradeskill has an inherent difficulty value, and a stat adjustment (0 for the tradeskills that have a secondary stat, 15 for the rest). The level of INT/WIS/STR/DEX you need in order to get the fastest possible skill-ups in that tradeskill is affected by that difficulty and the adjustment.

In a nutshell, you need 100 * Difficulty in order to maximize your skill-up potential on successful combines, and 200 * Difficulty to maximize skill-ups on failures, plus the +15 adjustment for the applicable tradeskills.

For example, Smithing has a Difficulty of 2 and an Adjustment of 0 (because it has a secondary stat, STR). In order to make sure you're getting the maximum skill-ups while levelling your Smithing, you need to make sure you have at least 400 INT/WIS/STR. Any more than that is technically wasted, but every point up to that 400 will make a difference in your chance of skilling up on failures. If you can't make 400, you should at least try to make the halfway point, 200, as that will give you the maximum chances of skilling up on successful combines.

Alchemy's another beast entirely, with a Difficulty of 4 and an Adjustment of 15. To maximize your skill-up chances in Alchemy, you'd need (200 * 4) + 15 = 815 INT/WIS! I'm not even sure that's possible, so basically, suffice it to say, any INT/WIS you can get will make a difference in your Alchemy skill-ups. Nothing is wasted unless you can go past 815. The same goes for the other Difficulty 4 tradeskills, Fletching, Jewelling, and Pottery.

Here's the full table, based on my playing with numbers in Excel (apparently I can't use the Table code):

Tradeskill  Difficulty Adjustment Successes Failures
Alchemy              4         15       415      815
Baking               3         15       315      615
Brewing              3         15       315      615
Fletching            4  (0 - DEX)       400      800
Jewelling            4         15       415      815
Poisonmaking         2  (0 - DEX)       200      400
Pottery              4         15       415      815
Smithing             2  (0 - STR)       200      400
Research             1         15       115      215
Tailoring            2         15       215      415
Tinkering            2         15       215      415
Fishing              8         15       815     1615
Bandaging            2         15       215      415
Begging             28         15      2815     5615

The difference between your character's stat and the cap for your tradeskill means less as you get farther along in the tradeskill. The best possible chance of skilling up from 299 to 300 in any tradeskill is 2.58% (38.76 combines, on average). Divide your stat by the cap for your tradeskill and that's how much difference you'll see. For Smithing, 400 WIS would give you the 2.58% chance of skillup on failure, and 200 WIS would give you half that, or a 1.29% chance. 399 WIS would give you (399/400 * 2.58%) = 2.57355%.

Let me know if this isn't the best place to post this, or if I broke any kind of rule in trying to figure this information out.

After years and years of playing EQ and skilling up various characters, and starting again on a new server after coming back from a 3-year hiatus, I had recently been wondering just what kind of stats I really need for skilling up my tradeskills, and I managed to figure out that there was enough information available in the skill-up formula that's been shared around from the SOE dev in 2007, along with some adjustments based on the results on the EQTraders calculator.

I thought others might find it useful, too.

[Paloverde]

This is fascinating.

I know these are not trade skills, but since you included Bandaging and Begging, I am wondering if you have stats on Disarm and that bugaboo Intimidation.

[Shendare]

I believe Intimidation works exactly the same as Beg, but I'm not 100% on that. I included all of the skills that Ngreth made available on the site's Calculator, but don't have any way of determining the difficulty of any other skills.

I suspect that the skill-up formula that's used for tradeskills is actually the formula used for ALL skillups in the game, including combat, bard instruments, etc.

That would mean that each skill in the game has an inherent difficulty value that determines its rate of skilling up, a possible secondary stat that affects skillups outside of INT/WIS, and the -15 stat adjustment factor if it doesn't have a secondary stat. I imagine most combat skills likely do, like STR for blunt/slash and DEX for pierce/archery, AGI for Dodge, and so forth.