Sky's Minmaxing Guide—Actually Max-maxxing, But Who Cares
Mabinogi is quite unique in that levels are less important than skills in all ways, because skills give permanent bonuses to stats while levels give transitional ones. This guide is intended to inform the player of which skills to hunt down and grind for every last drop of whatever stat they want. Some skills are more efficient in stat-to-AP-ratio than others, and life skills are generally grindy, so keep that in mind.
For a handy Google Docs interactive chart,
click here. The little arrows at the top can be used to sort alphabetically, by type, by AP consumption, by stat, or by efficiency. Input STR or LUCK or WILL or DEX or HP or MP or STA in the green field to change to AP-per-stat calculations. You can also sort by efficiency ratio. Please note that life skills are treasure lodes of DEX, but they also require tons of grinding.
StrengthAh, Strength, the most needed stat for Combat Bards, Fighters, Warriors, and basically anyone who isn't strong enough to kill everything without being hit once. It affects all melee, non-ranged damage.
Strength-giving skills are Final Hit, Carpentry, Combat Mastery, Stomp, Windmill, Taunt, Dischord, Lance Charge, Blunt Mastery, Lance Mastery, Assault Slash, Charge, Throw Attack, Chain Mastery, Ranged Combat Mastery, Arrow Revolver, Fireball, Smash, Blaze, Fishing, and Rest, in order of amount of STR given. Refer to the Google Doc for specific stats. For 4845 AP you can get 402 STR, which is a roughly 10 to 1 ratio.
Luck has only two skills that give it, Harvest Song and Gold Strike, with 22 and 20 each. For a total of 490 AP you can get 42 of that precious luck, again roughly 10:1.
Will increases your chance of being knocked deadly instead of dying after a hit that should have killed you, especially when you're in the deadly state. It also increases your knockdown and stun recovery speeds. It's not an important stat, though, except it also raises your Crit rate.
Will-giving skills are Windmill, Critical Hit, Chain Mastery, Thunder, Wind Breaker (giant only), Lance Charge, Throw Attack (giant only), Axe Mastery, Mount, Crossbow Mastery, Knuckle Mastery, Screw Upper, Somersault, Dropkick, Fishing, Final Hit, Charging Fist, Dash Punch, Fire Magic Shield, Hailstorm, Ice Magic Shield, Lightning Magic Shield, Natural Magic Shield and Smash. For 5393 AP you can get 461 Will. That's 11.6 to 1.
Dex is an essential stat for all archers and production characters, and is a useful stat for warriors too. It increases Ranged damage, Balance, and production success rate, except for a few skills like Potion Making which are unaffected by Dex.
Dex-giving skills are Ranged Combat Mastery, Weaving, Final Shot, Refining, Crash Shot, Arrow Revoler, Handicraft, Playing Instrument, Tailoring, Mirage Missile, Blacksmith, First Aid, Support Shot, Bow Mastery, Luring Ballad, Sword MAstery, Magnum Shot, Production Mastery, Counter Attack, Enchant, Backstep, Herbalism, Lance Counter, Metallurgy, Combat Mastery, Metal Conversion, Cooking, Potion Making, Evasion and Fishing. 4942 AP brings you 631 Dex, for a ratio of 7.8:1, most likely skewed by the cheap grindy Life skills.
Intelligence is a coveted stat for mages, and it's also given by the boatload by Musical skills. Int makes less difference per point than Str or Dex for mages, thus why it's given so freely. Int-giving skills are Musical Knowledge, Composing, Fireball, Firebolt, Ice Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Party Healing, Potion Making, Hailstorm, Blaze, Bolt Composer, Ice Spear, Blacksmith, Herbalism, March, Fire/Ice/Lightning Mastery, MAgic MAstery, Enchant, Mirage Missile, Cooking, Magic Shield. 4519 AP for 861 Int. 5.2:1 ratio.
All in all, if you play Mabinogi long enough to do all the grinding, leveling, and ranking in it as of now, and cough up enough money to pay for frequent rebirths while spending all of your time playing games instead of having a life, you will have the final bonuses from skills as follows:
20987 AP used.
402 STR
42 LUCK
461 WILL
631 DEX
861 INT
429 HP
717 MP
743 Stamina
Quite impressive a resumé, but the 20987 AP, also known to be roughly 20000 levels, is rather daunting. However, a lot of it is from Alchemy skills. Most alchemy skills give no stats at all, or give only Stamina. Additionally, some 500 of those AP is probably from the duplicate ",elf" skills I had, because elfs cost more in magic and ranged.
Meanwhile, you will have +12% Crit from Luck and +46% from Will. Your max damage would be roughly 250 without weapons.
Seeing a screenshot by a person with 200+ all around, and 300 in STR, he has 125% Crit rate (helped by a 46% crit rate sword), 107~246; seems that that's a setting to go for Alby Advanced 3 person with little trouble, just gliding through critting left right and center. >.>
Seeing maximized gamers always makes me both be slightly awed and also makes me feel like they might have wasted quite a lot of time doing that. xD I wonder if anyone in Mabinogi has done all of the skills. I do know one person who finished all Magic skills that came out before G9, and another who was cumulative level 5000+, so there just might be. I'd think I'd be bored long before then, though.
Drinking an HP elixir can keep up DK for the duration of it.
PS: Offence is always better than defense in Mabinogi :3 Monsters deal much much more damage than you can handle.
PPS: Luck gives roughly .3 per point, and Will .1 per point. I mean critical rate, by the way.