[renowner]

So to put it bluntly, my recent character was designed to make use of the new Eye traits for humans. As a result I decided to build an alastasian with 60 scaled guile. After doing so, I learned a few things.

Firstly: Flanking caps at 15, and;
Secondly: Getting a lot of guile isn't very efficient.

I personally think the flanking bonus should have no cap, or at least have a cap of thirty. It seems that most people only get 15 guile for the reason of the flanking bonus, because any more just becomes very much not worth it. (Generally speaking. Some weapons do scale with guile, though even then I Don't think people tend to go over 30. )

For example:

You have a 130% crit multiplier weapon (Most daggers) and 15 guile. Your crit multiplier is now 145% for an 12% total boost. You have 15 flanking, so if you attack from the side, you get the hit bonus of 15 luck. Or if from behind, 15 skill. That's a net worth of 1-2 hit per point, and 0.8 crit multiplier per point.

But now let's say you have 30 guile.

Your crit multiplier is now 160% a 23% increase from the base total crit damage. And your flanking remains at 15. The equivilent of at best, 15 skill for 30 guile. 0.5-1 hit per point with flanking, and .76% total critical damage boost per point.

And now at the most extreme end of the situation: 60 guile.

Crit rate goes up to 190%, a 46% increase over the base level. Flanking remains 15, so at best, 15 skill worth of hit from behind for 60 guile. 0.25-0.5 hit per guile flanking. And a .76% total critical damage boost per point.


To put it simply, even without diminishing returns, the more guile you put in, the less and less useful it becomes. Since crit multiplier is additive not multiplicative, after awhile the crit damage you get as a boost is likely outweighed by choosing some actual damage stats. And if you invest into guile more than 15, your hit rate will suffer. As will your survivability considering you also have to still invest heavily into skill and luck. After all, critical multiplier is useless if you can't land a hit, as well as crit.

And only two weapons in the game scale heavily with guile. One being a spear that is almost never used. The other being an arguably very very strong dagger, making it not that useful of a damage dump stat. Every other weapon as far as I know is a 50% scaling of guile or lower, making the other stat better to dump into generally, unless its strength. Which arguably also has very little going for it if it weren't for the fact that so many strong weapons scale with it. (Conveniently enough, the two weapons that scale heavilly with guile [more than 50%] scale with str too.)


TLDR: Guile becomes very unuseful 90% of the time after 15 due to criticals being additive, and getting less bang for your buck the more points you put in, and flanking capping at only 15. Making most people take 0 or 15 and not ever more than 30, leading to a lot less build variety from what I've seen.


In my opinion I have two possible solutions that would fix my perceived problem.

Originally i'd have said no cap on flanking. But now that we have 240 total points, splashing guile to get more hit in the form of flanking would just trump dodgers for the most part, now that they lost their dodge traits. With more points to throw around, its not as build destroying to invest in guile. So I don't think no flanking cap is good.

One possible solution is to cap flanking at 30 instead, making it so that 30 guile now is quite beneficial. However I dislike the idea of a flanking cap in general, as it promotes the idea of getting a certain amount of the stat, and never any more regardless of build. So instead, my idea is simply:

No flanking cap. But instead of 1 flank per guile, you get 0.5 flank per guile. So in order to get the 15 flanking you had, you'd need 30 guile. But if you were to meme 60 guile, you'd be rewarded 30 flanking. Which would be a whopping 60 hit from behind. as much as 30 scaled skill, for your 60 scaled guile. . . From behind. Still no benefit from the front of course.

As a result Guile is still able to be countered by dodgers who buff up and dodge their attacks, people who have massive crit resist, and by people who have their backs to the wall, or wear armor of eyes. (Which by the way, armor of eyes is very "Meta" And widely used in general.)

For the most part, skill and luck just do more than guile. Less of a waste to get most of the time. As obtaining a lot of guile usually comes at the cost of not being able to dodge things, or being extremely paper thin.


Now a disclaimer: My 60 guile character actually seems decently strong. I don't think he's uselessly weak or anything. And I don't think guile is a uselessly weak stat, even if you have 60 of it. I just think guile is weaker than it should be and having a flanking cap of 15 stifles a lot of build creativity, by making most people just take 15 of it due to efficiency's sake. 15 is basically no splash at all. Especially now with 240 points.