Returning Shaman with some questions

[Nazgrimn]

Ok, so after a 6 year hiatus, I'm returning to the wonderful world of EQ.

Sooo much has changed in my absence, wow! At the time of my return, my shaman was level 58. I promptly bought a full set of defiant gear and noticed that every one of my stats was now capped at 255. Now that I'm level 63, and the stat cap has raised a few points, I noticed that I'm still capped.

My question, is it worth the AA's to increase my stat cap, ie. Planar Power now, or wait until later on? As it stands right now, all my stat buffs are completely useless.(well, unless mercs benefit greatly from them.) The group I was in last night kept talking about how much they loved shaman buffs. I never asked, but was wondering if they were talking about my stat buffs, or my hp/regen/haste buffs. It kind of made me wonder if there was something I was missing. Like a way to greatly increase my stat cap.

Appreciate any and all help.

[Brohg]

The shaman buffs that your teammates were raving about are the successors to the stat buffs you're used to. "In the day", as is said, stat buffs represented a real growth in power to players. Due to various influences ranging from mudflation to we-mostly-stopped-lying-to-players, regular stat buffs are no longer the bees knees. Shaman buffs have had updating to maintain their perception of value. At... looking at Lucy here, level 68's Wunshi's Focusing, the shaman combo stat+hp buff starts raising caps on stats. Better yet, starting with [vanilla, then Primal, Ancient Feral, Ferine] Avatar, shaman buffs add more & more directly to character performance. That line increases the Attack stat directly that was previously dependent on Str. Later versions modify melee damage directly, which is even more powerful. In similar fashion, Dex & Agi buffs evolved into direct modifiers to dodge attacks.

Annnnnyhow, that's the background for "no, stat caps aren't worth priority AA". It's not the stats that players are valuing for their characters. Higher stats do grow power, but in progressive, quantum (that is to say, in the smallest possible increment) fashion, not in paradigmatic leaps as with other options for your exp.

The biggest growth in power comes from leveling up. That said, and I'll bold that for emphasis... there; that said, there are some abilities that change how you get to play along the way to higher power which are by consensus counted as worth diverting from the climb for. Spell Casting Mastery, Mnemonic Retention and Cannibalization AAs are the poster children here, but also all ranks of Spell Casting Reinforcement and Virulent Paralysis and Turgur's Swarm AAs.

Happy hunting

[Nazgrimn]

Very much appreciate the reply and help, Brohg!

That clears up a few questions I had. Thanks again!