Perk question

[Ambroas]

Just an old question I never did ask, I used to play a Merchant Ranger and I took athletic I believe as his perk.  Looking back over the perk post from October I'm curious if it would have been better to have taken either nimble to carry more things on hand or Miser to get rid of bank/vault fees.  Are these perks ever worth it?  I only ever considered Nimble worth it on bards since you could carry more weapons on hand.

[Magick]

Haven't played a merchant, myself.

 

Miser gets rid of locker fees, too.  Minimum 500 gold per day, every day, empty or not.  Also, if you're constantly putting gold in your bank, that'll add up, too.  Anywhere between 50 and 100k per million banked.  But... Gold is easy to come by, so miser doesn't really do much overall as a lot of merchants generally have plenty in their account anyway.  Except perhaps the max haggle and related skills.

Versus:

Nimble, with +16% carry capacity.  Based on my FG and Halfling that I've had in the past, we're talking 34-43 items base making 40-51 after the perk.  +6 to +8 items.  Items like weapons, sure, but bags, herbs, gyvels, vials, venom sacks, etc too.  You're still limited to 4 rare items on log out and you do get that lag avoidance as well.

 

Between the two, I might go for nimble over miser unless miser fit my RP better.

 

 

[Dale]

As a bonus Merchants can carry +1 items naturally.

[Tantangel]

I don't think Miser is worth it in general unless you're intending to be a Merchant. It's the only way to get 110% in pawn which is useful in its own rights, but overall it's not that great. Now if it gave you the haggle skill regardless of class Monks and Paladins would get a huge bonus by choosing it since you're looking at significant discounts compared to no haggle at all like they usually have. Panhandle not being a Bard skill anymore though and it overall not being that great and still retaining steal, it still makes the perk pointless overall. Even with classes that I've needed to rely on gold for gaining consumables or purchasing staves and such and I still can bank a million and never have to worry about needing to pay for a locker. I once logged into a character well after I last had, and managed to pay a hefty price tag and still had plenty left in the bank for it three times over easily.

Nimble on the other hand has always seemed like a decent perk at least, especially with low dex classes with high strength so you can carry more items. It's an overall good choice regardless of Merchant or not. It's decent for a Monk or Blademaster due to mastery in balance, though with how easy it is to do so it's not essential. If you're fighting a lot of larger races who love to bash/bodyslam, I'd prefer to just go stout, especially with Fire Giants since they tend to have a bonus from time to time by doing so and stout would help against some of that added damage. Athletic perk is honestly a decent perk when you're a melee and even would fit some Clerics and Hybrids. Through and through though, it's what you enjoy that you should go with. I typically stick with lucky perk for varying reasons, but that's just my thoughts on it.

[Lloth]

Nimble is a powerful perk, really only second to lucky, with the exception of a few niche selections/builds where it fluctuates to either best or 3rd.

 

Miser is really only actually worth it for lazy merchants, people that don't like farming gold, or who make excellent use of the locker system.

[Fool_Hardy]

Perk = Lucky

If Race < Man Sized and class offers 0 bash protection, Perk = Stout

If race => Man Sized and class offers 0 bash protection, Perk = Nimble

If class = Necromancer Perk = Tinkerer

Miser is only good for merchants (and I would still not do it), Pious will acquire more than enough extra coin to pay locker fees and cover deposit fees.

But that's just my opinion.

[Kyzarius]

I like lucky myself.  

[Fool_Hardy]

Nimble for Bard seems a bad choice. With Tarot being purchasable Lucky is usually best for anything.

Necromancer 50% cool downs are too sweet to overlook, its the difference of being back in action in half the time that will lead me to Tinkerer every time.

 

[Lloth]

Nimble's benefits are harder to numerically represent, in relation to how important they are to each class. But any class without lag protection will generally appreciate nimble without even attributing it to the perk. There's not really any way of determining whether or not the perk was the deciding factor.

Nimble will most likely save your life more than not having lucky will outright kill you, so long as you keep your luck high through other means... BUT having lucky will make you less likely to have too much variance in your readiness states.

[Unknown Criminal]

Luck effects 'everything' which is why the ability to choose the perk is broken. Choose nimble, choose artificer, choose stout or whatever because those only effect a tiny portion of what your char can do or exceed in, choose luck and you will overachieve more times than not vs someone who didn't choose it. 

The ruse that selectable perks present is offsetting where they sway some races and classes with skill buffs so they do 'not' choose lucky, but don't let a 101 prof in anything misguide you. All defenses, all attacks and all skills pull from the luck perk which makes it far more benificial to choose than anything else. 

Think about it this way, picture 2 warriors:

Warrior 1 has a floating strength of 17- 20 and rarely lands a 3rd attack, but has a higher bash percentage.

Warrior 2 has a solid 22-25 floating strength and usually hits a 4th attack, but no bash bonus. 

Warrior 1 also has his strength drop between 5-10 for long periods of time, but, still has that bash bonus, but... doesn't have the luck to land it.

Warrior 2 maintains his solid 22-25, and is consistent.

Thats a nutshell of luck perk vs anything else, enjoy the enlightenment    

UC

[f0xx]

Thanks to UC I now understand the lucky perk

That being said....

Kotrag was athletic.

I would have probably chosen nimble if I was to roll the character again though.

[Celerity]

If you max luck through any other of the 239048 in game means, the lucky perk suddenly isn't as nice as it might seem.

[Erelei]

The lucky perk doesn't just help you maintain high luck guys. It's useful for many different reasons.

[f0xx]

Cel you always ruin the fun, let people figure stuff on their own

Just like every EQ piece, every perk has pros and cons. 

Some perks' cons are that you haven't picked a different one.

If that makes any sense.

[Lloth]

Luck by itself is a decent stat. Not being able to be hexed, not being able to die in a certain game of chance, and not being able to draw any tarot worse than wheel of fortune, though, is what makes lucky so dominant.

That said...

Luck helps A LITTLE in everything with a random chance. Not a lot.

Even "positive" tarot draws are most neutral tarot draws.

I still never bother with that game of chance with my lucky characters. I'm lazy. But that's not true for everyone, so it's not wise to completely discount that bonus. 

How many shamans are there, really, that you need a perk to remove one annoying spell?

Lucky being as good as it is has less to do with any one part, and more to do with how useful the culmination of the parts affects yoyr character's life. If you don't play that chance game, and don't draw traits on the regular... It's not great. If you do, you're hard-pressed to find a better perk. Because dying when you can literally do nothing else to outright prevent it kiiiiinda sucks.

As f0xx said, some perks have the hidden con that they aren't other perks, not that they are bad perks themselves. But that is less of a universal statement on the strength of those perks, and more dependent on what you actually do with the "better" perk.

[Unknown Criminal]

I'm not sure why you guys are downplaying lucks factor in attacks per round, all defenses and 'probably' all skill executions outside spells. 

Attacks per round is how people die.

Defenses is what saves you from attacks per round.

Skill executions are what's done when your using attacks and defenses.

Other perks seem great if all you are doing is the 'one or two things they offer', but what about those three things you are gonna be doing reguardless? 

And don't get me wrong, player skill can override luck, but so can broken classes and bug abusers  

[Lloth]

You are vastly over-emphasizing the role of luck in those calculations. 

[Magick]

Example through exaggeration, I hope.

[Lloth]

As the discussion of the viability of different perk choices is based firmly in the balance of the perks themselves, example by exaggeration is counter-productive.

[f0xx]

4 hours ago, Unknown Criminal said:

I'm not sure why you guys are downplaying lucks factor in attacks per round, all defenses and 'probably' all skill executions outside spells. 

Attacks per round is how people die.

Defenses is what saves you from attacks per round.

Skill executions are what's done when your using attacks and defenses.

Other perks seem great if all you are doing is the 'one or two things they offer', but what about those three things you are gonna be doing reguardless? 

And don't get me wrong, player skill can override luck, but so can broken classes and bug abusers  

UC, noone is downplaying anything.

If you are as good of a coder as you claim, you will know that the lucky perk itself is not that big of a thing, especially if you have whet Cel mentioned earlier.

Luck might be great, but lucky perk does not guarantee you high luck. It guarantees you slightly higher chance of getting better luck. It's basically +luck gear.

Does that give you more overall value than say, 3 hit/dam (which is what the athletic perk gives you, for example) is a matter of interpretation and play style.

If you feel that the lucky perk is OP as hell, you are free to have it on every character you roll.

[Fool_Hardy]

I think the Perks are balanced well enough.

My choice in going lucky plays on several key factors, because I perceive that Luck helps with:

• Mining/Harvesting
• Tarot
• Learning
• Flee

 

[Lloth]

Luck helps with 2.5 of those.

[Unknown Criminal]

I think you guys are missing what I'm saying... 

If there are 500 skills 'not spells' luck is probably called in 450 of them. 

When your luck fluctuates if you are 'lucky' it's more likely to go up than down.

Wearing + luck gear takes away from the better gear you could be wearing in those slots.

Two chars fighting, both have 100% skills, same hit dam, same armor, the one with better luck will win every time.

When luck calculations are done char vs char and both are lucky it's a wash, however, suffering from bad luck against a high luck opponent can be a 22 point chance differential for skills landing or missing. To put that into perspective, racial bonuses to skills and spells are usually a 5-10 point chance boost. An example of that would be halfling thieves who get a 5 point boost to plant and pry. 

Overall it's just the best perk, choosing it doesn't mean you win by any means, it just gives you the best case scenario to win at all times  

[Trick]

Don't think I've ever heard ANYONE say:

" God damn it! If only my luck was 4 and not 3 I wouldn't have died. "

Stop looking at everything so deeply, lol. Just play the game.

[Unknown Criminal]

1 minute ago, Fireman said:

Don't think I've ever heard ANYONE say:

" God damn it! If only my luck was 4 and not 3 I wouldn't have died. "

Stop looking at everything so deeply, lol. Just play the game.

Ive actually said that... lol