I haven't played in a very long time, and just came back to play on the TLE. The mechanics relevant to my question most likely work the same on live and TLE, though. When I played, Wisdom contributed to your magic resistances, Intelligence affected your magic damage output, Strength affected your melee damage output, Agility affected your melee avoidance. Regardless of your combat class. So a mage would naturally focus on getting items that would improve his Intelligence, but getting some Wisdom on it would also make him more sturdy against magic attacks. A fighter would probably want strength to improve his damage and thus his hate output, but agility and wisdom would improve his survivability (along with stamina, of course). And the same was true for mobs. So debuffing a mob's Wisdom would make it more vulnerable to magic attacks, debuffing its Agility would make it easier for melee fighters to hit them, etc. I have since learned that stats were reworked so that only your class' primary statistic affects you in any meaningful way. But buffs, debuffs, poisons have not been reworked to reflect this, as far as I can see. For example, the Warding Ebb poison still debuffs a target's Wisdom (in addition to their arcane, noxious, and elemental resists). Swashbuckler's Double Cross reduces an enemy's Wisdom as well. Templars' Virtue buffs a target's Wisdom. Do these still work as intended, or are these components effectively obsolete and useless?
It all depends on what you're fighting. If you are facing a boss encounter with a healer in it, then a poison debuffing wisdom might be a Real Good Idea. My ranger uses hemotoxin; either fettering (solo) or ignorant bliss (deaggro in groups); and one of the debuff poisons (STR, AGI, WIS, or INT). Just for general use, I like Warding Ebb because it debuffs mitigation as well as WIS. But if I were raiding with the ranger, I'd carry a stack of each type of debuff, and apply as needed based on the name we're fighting.
After reading through past update notes, I finally found where this all happened: GU59, aka Destiny of Velious. Buffs were changed. For example, Virtue now gives resistance bonus as well as Wisdom. Swashbucklers' Bladeweaver buffs the player's base avoidance as well as Agility. Other classes' buffs were adjusted accordingly. Some debuffs were not adjusted. A swashbuckler's Double Cross debuffs Wisdom and Defense. Before the stat change, it would affect the target's magic resistances, but it no longer does. Likewise, Viscerate debuffs Agility, which used to affect the target's melee avoidance, but no longer does. I wonder whether this was intentional or an oversight. Personally, I consider this a bug and think it should be fixed. The warding ebb poison was adjusted to debuff magic resitances in addition to Wisdom, which is nice. As for whether mobs' stats were consolidated the same way player's were, I can only assume this to be the case. Why would they keep both mechanics in game?
