Re-Spec

From Townstons

Pressing the C letter of any keyboard will open up the character pane for your character. You will see different components of your character broken down in several ways, which can help you refine the structure of your strengths and weaknesses. This comes in handy when your opponent is a heavy poison user (Sissirat, for example), and can show you how you need to setup your character to beat the enemy.

The first line of the character pane tells you the name of your character and how many Player vs Player (PvP) wins you have had with this character so far.

Below this line you'll find a dynamic description system that reflects the way you've spent your Attributes. Alot of strength can make your title include Brutish, while a lot of endurance can say toned. This is a great little feature that just helps your character seem a little more personalized than just having blue hair.

After the dynamic title we find the first really interesting section of our character - the attributes section. There are three columns, base, magic and total. Base attributes are what you have spent your level points upon. Magic attributes tell you how much of a particular attribute is coming from items bonuses. This leaves the total column, which obviously combines the base+magic columns to tell you how much you have. So 46 base strength + 53 magic strength = 99 total strength.

At the end of the attributes section there's a box telling you how many level points you still have to spend. Usually this will say 0, and after you gain a level it will show 5 points as your level bonus. These can be spent in any way you choose, but there are certain benefits in spending them in different ways based upon your class and skills chosen. Typically a mage will not have alot of agility, but will have alot of intellect to increase endurance and magical damage from spells. Luckily, if you happen to have a mage with alot of agility and wish to change it, this is where you can purchase your re-spec (and hence we finally see the reason behind this page! Without the other information here, a re-spec help is hard to describe). Re-specs start cheaply at low levels, then raise with each level just like regular health and mana potions. Once you click the re-spec button you're free to adjust the attribute points in any way you want to for a total of 15 minutes. This gives you plenty of time to see how strength and agility affect your attack/defense ratings, how endurance affects your maximum hitpoints and intellect changes your mana. There are other subtle nuances that change with attributes, so you should pay close attention to the way your statistics move.

Underneath this table there is another table with the headings damage and attack. Below damage there are two columns titled min and max. This is the sum of a hidden formula that takes your current weapon's min/max damage, adds any +damage modifiers found on items, any power skills that increase damage and finally the total strength of your character. A similar formula is used to calculate your character's attack speed, and your current attack rating. The mechanics these formulas are used in are typically hidden from users, and have been since the dawn of pen-based Dungeons and Dragons, to text-based games [1] before the graphical MMO explosion and todays crop of MMORPGS. Obviously with the attack rating we assume higher is better, while conversely a lower attack speed is better (example: 0.5 is quicker and better than 1.0). Main weapon damage is if you were using one weapon, and the offhand rating is for when you dual wield two weapons. Offhand min/max tends to be lower than main, so if you have a weak weapon in your offhand you may want to consider using a shield instead.

Below here we have a defense rating and blocking percentage. As with attack rating etc, defense rating is the result of a hidden formula combing item bonuses, agility and skills. Typically blocking percentage only comes with a shield's benefit, although there may be other items I've not noticed that increase it too.

Right under defense rating is the resistances information for your character, listing all the things you could have a resistance to and how much resistance you have. As mentioned earlier, if you were fighting mobs that used a lot of poison (like Sissirat) then you would try to increase poison resistance as much as possible. This can be done with bonuses from items and certain ranger skills.