Everquest's Heroic Stats
Heroic Stats/Attributes were introduced in the Secrets of Faydwer expansion pack and have a lot of misinformation out there about them and what they do. Over the years these stats have been tweaked/minorly changed too which doesn't make things any easier.
This guide will go into detail explaining each of the Heroic Stats, what they do, which ones you'll want to focus on and why. To check how much you have of a certain Heroic Stat as well as how much you have of each Mod2 you'll want to open your Inventory and click on the 'Stats' tab. You'll see a screenshot of this above.
As you can see in that screen shot I also moused over one of the Mod2s in the upper right. I'll explain in more detail them shortly. First, let's take a look at each Heroic stat and what it does 'bare bones' style.
Heroic Strength: Increases Endurance. Improves the percentage of AC that gets tranfered from your shield to be used for damage mitigation. It also improves melee attack damage (minimally... very minimally)
Heroic Stamina: Increases HP, HP Regen, and HP Regen Cap as well as all three of the same things for endurance (This is one of the best Heroic Stats for all classes)
Heroic Intelligence: Increases MP, MP Regen and Max MP Regen for Int Casters (This is one of the best Heroic Stats for Int Casters)
Heroic Wisdom: Increases MP, MP Regen and Max MP Regen for Wis Casters (This is one of the best Heroic Stats for Wis Casters)
Heroic Agility: Increases AC, Dodge, Block and Many of the most important Mod2s which we'll discuss later; Also Increases Endurance, Endurance Regen & Endurance Regen Cap (If you take hits as a class - even sometimes - this is a VERY important Heroic Stat)
Heroic Dexterity: Increases the chance that AAs and Combat Abilities like Headshot, Decap and Assassinate Proc as well as increasing Parry/Riposte and Crit Chance (One of the most important Stats for Melee)
Heroic Charisma: Increases Faction Gains/Loses and improves average charm duration.
There you have it! As well as the listed benefits for each Heroic Stat it's worth while to mention that increasing a Heroic Stat will also increase the stat cap of the regular stat. Meaning if you raise your Heroic Strength it'll also increase your regular strength cap.
To the best of my knowledge this is what every single Heroic Stat does at face value. Now, there's definitely more to talk about for these Heroic Stats - what I said above isn't all that they do - it's just the basics. To corroborate the information above here is postings on a few different websites about Heroic Stats and what they do.
Allakhazam Heroic Stats Explanation
Fanra Everquest Wikia Heroic Stats
Daybreak Forums (Roshen's Post) About Heroic Stat Consolidation
Now, let's kick things up a notch and start looking at more advance knowledge of what the Heroic Stats do. For this part of the guide we're going to want to look at the upper right section of the Stats window where it lists all of the Heroic Mods. Remember what I had moused over in the screen shot above? You don't? Well scroll up and look again, I'll wait!
As you can see when I moused over the Accuracy Heroic Mod it tells me that I will gain the next point once I reach 400 Heroic Dexterity. This is the easiest and best way for you to check which Heroic Stats affect each Heroic Mod. Now, these Heroic Mods are arguably more important than anything else for your character. Especially tanks.
Originally you could only get Heroic Stats once the Secrets of Faydwer expansion came out. Recently, with the May 2016 patch that I link to above you can get Heroic Stats as early as Luclin. They start to really come into play though during the GoD/OoW expansion packs. During these expansions you're able to soft cap your Heroic Mods out with Heroic Stats. After that the benefits become staggard and only happen every 25 points.
You'll notice that the gear during these expansions that USED to have Mod2s back in the day now have Heroic Stats. This actually makes you slightly overpowered for this era compared to how things used to be considering Heroic Stats have extra bonuses instead of just giving you Heroic Mods.
Let's break down which Heroics benefit which Heroic Mods and what it is exactly that the Heroic Mods actually even do in the first place. After I explain what each Heroic Mod does the attribute mentioned in parentheses is the one that increases it.
Accuracy: Checks against NPC Avoidance to determine if you hit. (Dexterity)
Avoidance: Checks against an NPCs Accuracy to determine if you're hit. (Agility)
Combat Effects: Increases your chance to proc with all skills, abilities and weapons. (Dexterity)
Damage Shielding: Increases YOUR Damage Shield damage. (Strength)
Damage Shield Mitigation: Decreases damage sustained from enemy Damage Shields. (Strength)
DoT Shielding: Decreases DoT damage sustained. (Intelligence or Wisdom)
Melee Shielding: Mitigates incoming melee damage by a %. (Stamina)
Spell Shielding: Mitigates incoming spell damage by a %. (Intelligence or Wisdom)
Strike Through: Checks against an enemies Parry/Riposte/Dodge. Higher Strike Through gives you a chance to win the roll and punch them in the face anyway. (Agility)
Stun Resistance: Gives you a fixed percent chance to not be stunned (Stamina)
There you have it! The nitty gritty of what each Heroic Stat does in Everquest. Now there is one last question that a lot of people still have. What Heroic Stats should I focus on for my class? Well, this is frequently debated about by many different people and as you could imagine I have my own opinions on it.
Before I say anything I would like to link to you some useful reading for aspiring Tanks. Since Tanks are the most pivotal class in the entire game it's really important that if you are a tank you don't mess this part up. DPS classes can dump all their Heroic Stats into something stupid like Heroic Wis/Cha/Sta and you won't really notice as much on parses that they botched their heroic choices this badly.
If a tank did something silly like this though you'd notice him dying faster than the other tanks.
Tank Parses Thread on Daybreak Forums (Debate about HAgi, HDex and HSta)
What is your "Real" AC Post by Lead Developer Dzarn
What is your "Real" AC Post 2 by Lead Developer Dzarn
What Heroic Stats Should I Focus on as a Healer?
Clerics will want to focus on Heroic Agility, Heroic Stamina and Heroic Wisdom
Shamans will want to focus on Heroic Stamina, Heroic Agility and Heroic Wisdom
Druids will want to focus on Heroic Stamina, Heroic Agiltiy and Heroic Wisdom
Each of these listings is in order from the most important stats to focus on to the least important. The reason Heroic Agility is listed first for Clerics and not the others is because Clerics are most commonly used as tank healers. It's not uncommon for adds to punch the Cleric in the face a few times and you don't want your Cleric getting one rounded.
The reason I listed Heroic Stamina as most important/second important is because not dying is extremely important. You're going to see this as a theme throughout this guide and it's where I argue/disagree with most of the EQ community. I value Heroic Stamina equal to all other Heroics for almost all classes.
What Heroic Stats Should I Focus on as Melee DPS?
Rangers will want to focus on Heroic Dexterity, Heroic Stamina and Heroic Agility
Monks will want to focus on Heroic Dexterity, Heroic Stamina and Heroic Agility
Rogues will want to focus on Heroic Dexterity, Heroic Stamina and Heroic Agility
Beastlords will want to focus on Heroic Dexterity, Heroic Stamina and Heroic Agility
Berserkers will want to focus on Heroic Dexterity, Heroic Stamina and Heroic Agility
Bards will want to focus on Heroic Dexterity, Heroic Stamina and Heroic Agility
This choice is a bit controversial for my own tastes. I believe Heroic Dexterity is severly over valued for Melee DPS, it's almost as if no one's researched what it actually does and just listens to whatever people say is best. If you plan to raid the above choices are best for you. Heroic Dexterity would be the best choice followed by Heroic Stamina.
If you're just soloing though and you aren't a raider - you do NOT want to focus on Heroic Dexterity. You're going to want to focus on Heroic Agility first then Heroic Stamina and then Heroic Dexterity. The amount of DPS Heroic Dex gives you is minimalistic and nothing is better than not dying. Determine your Heroic Stats based on your own personal play style.
What Heroic Stats Should I Focus on as INT Caster DPS?
Wizards will want to focus on Heroic Stamina primarily followed by Heroic Intelligence
Magicians will want to focus on Heroic Stamina primarily followed by Heroic Intelligence
Enchanters will want to focus on Heroic Stamina primarily followed by Heroic Intelligence
Necromancers will want to focus on Heroic Stamina primarily followed by Heroic Intelligence
This will probably be one of my more controversial Heroic Stat suggestions - if you wanna fight about it let's go in the comments at the bottom! Basically here's my line of thought.... You don't do any DPS if you're dead. You may suggest Heroic Agility then and I disagree. It's always better to be able to take a hit than to try and avoid a hit. Plus let's see hAgi save you from spells.
A Dead DPS does no DPS. Stay alive and you'll do more DPS. Always. I personally go all in for Heroic Stamina when it comes to INT Casters. Heroic Intelligence comes second.
What Heroic Stats Should I Focus on as a Tank?
Warriors will want to focus on Heroic Agility, Heroic Stamina and Heroic Dexterity
Shadow Knights will want to focus on Heroic Agility, Heroic Stamina and Heroic Dexterity
Paladins will want to focus on Heroic Agility, Heroic Stamina and Heroic Dexterity
As a tank your main priority is to stay alive and to be able to take a hit. The most important thing for you to do is reach the 'soft cap' on your Heroic Agility which I think is at 1000. I could be wrong about this, I've been out of the 'raid game' for awhile.
After you reach the soft cap for Heroic Agility and the amount of Avoidance it gives you per point slows down you'll want to switch almost your entire focus to Heroic Stamina for the bonus HP. Many... many tanks argue Heroic Dexterity is better but if you take a look at the threads I linked above for tanks which have parses and more opinions & you do the math yourself you'll slowly begin to realize that the argument "Avoiding damage is better than being able to take damage" is invalid.
It's always better for you to be able to take the hits that a mob dishes out than to rely on avoiding them or mitigating the damage. Lady luck isn't always going to be on your side while playing which means you don't want to leave your survival as well as your groups survival up to random chance. That's bad tanking!