When I stopped playing GD a few years back it seems the advice was to pour stats into Phys, and only Cunning for special builds, and Spirit not really ever (apart from equipment needs)
It seems to be more complex than that again now!
Is there a guide or rule of thumb people use?
Three rules:
Hope it helps! 
Thanks v much !
And for some builds, just meeting gear requirements already takes all your attribute points and even requires some attributes from items 
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Of course, these rules arent set in stone, but most of the time, they’re correct, especially 1-st one.
The only recommendation that I find a bit questionable. I do Spirit dumps myself but I do Physique (sometimes some Cunning) dumps as well. Not casual builds 
I don’t think other builders always make Spirit dumps either.
There are exceptions, I agree. These are just general rules.
I checked your let’s say 10 last builds of these damage types and none of them made a full Spirit dump (rest for req). You should follow your advice more
3rd rule. I am a casual player 
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Yeah, right, casual that kills Celestials left and right 
you don’t have to be speedrunning Crucible or SR to not be a casual.
Anyway, if I have an Energy intensive build, then I go for it 100% - QoL is huge for me and together with increased damage it’s a big incentive. Besides that I don’t think it matters that much (except those cases that need to go for thousands of Spirit to have good DPS / Arcanist) although I do sometimes like having more Health and DA not to be atrocious on some builds where I may also prefer to not swim in greens.
Btw since you’re not a speedrunner, you also have less pressure to grab to every bit of damage provided a build has solid fundamentals.
I completely agree with the Cunning recommendation though. At least for Pierce / Physical I’ve played the most.
I guess I’ve been molded too long by D2 but I still go for phys dumps on everything unless the build is already swimming in survivability and just really needs the damage. That said, every build I make has to have an over 50 % success rate in SR75-80 runs within timer for me to consider it successful so I go maybe overly safe because of that.
If your build deals physical/pierce/bleed damage, then Cunning dump is the way to go. Because OA+damage are far better, than DA+HP, and those builds usually depend on crits a lot too.
Well, not if you’re under threat of a single crit from Fabius or Korvaak at SR80 ending your potentially successful deathless run. That’s my mentality. Being able to output, say 5-7% extra DPS is worthless if I can’t outlast that one big hit that’s guaranteed to come at some point between SR75-80. I’m not saying my approach is better, but this is why I use it.
That’s the thing I love about this game. Everyone can play it differently and have fun the way they like. Me personally I prefer squeezing every last drop of damage out of a build I can, so cunning/spirit dump and no regard for DA. And sometimes my builds in only sr65-66 feel suuper glassy. 
Basically you can’t deal damage if you’re dead.
I do balanced approach, i do cunning/spirit investment as long i have a good DA and health number. I kind of hate dying in this game, for some reason i get demotivated to continue playing a character when they die.
Getting more HP solves that problem too. Even if they crit, you survive. Unless they have +60% crit damage mutator, but why in the world would you tryhard it instead of reroll?
That’s how i finally made a character who can facetank everything in Crucible. 20k HP? I die occasinally. 26k HP? I dont. Even though my DA is around 2.3k. And i still manage to make 3 runs before buffs fade. Even though it’s a bit slower, but i’m sure i’ll do it every time regardless of mutators and RNG. And i dumped his free attributes into spirit because he has some problems with energy regen.
Though, what’s the point of farming SR80? SR75-76 is maximum you can open for loot, everything above is just challenging yourself for no reward.
Didn’t you have that argument elsewhere already? “Why not just get more HP, duh?” Like HP’s just hanging out on trees everywhere and people are too stupid to reach up and pluck it. I don’t feel that argument even needs rebutting.
And who says I’m farming? After 5k+ hours I’m not lacking for gear. I’m testing. Seeing if a build I made can farm SR75-76 is no testing at all, I have yet to play a build that can’t do that, even the shit unoptimised ones could. But can they be polished up to do 75-80 within timer with reliability? Now that’s a challenge I’m up for. And I don’t give up on runs and reroll till I get comfy mutators. If a build can’t stand up to everything the game throws at it, then it can’t and its scores will refect that. Those that can will do so deservedly and will get their rating by being actually reliable, not coddled to success. Stacking up on physique to shrug off Cruel + Brutal mutators goes a long way in that respect.
Sometimes it does, and people indeed ignore gear with more HP. There ARE options to get more HP in this game - MI items with base HP + HP mods (“of Vitality”, “of Soulwarding”, etc.), getting enough resistances even without augments and then putting HP augments on gear, changing devotion setup a bit and maxing your +HP passives. Yes, some people post their builds that didnt maxed Haven or Heart of the Wild! Or trying to put legendaries into every slot that doesnt have an obvious BiS item. Just because “purple is gud”. Of course they wont have much HP then.
Then you should focus on farming it faster and safer for SR75-76. Or make it suitable for Crucible as well. And dont tell me Crucible isnt worth farming - i’m yet to get a single double rare MI from SR, while Crucible does drop them occasionally. I just dont see the point to hone your build for unrewarding content.
Well, if your goal is to make a build to delve into SR as deep as possible - then it’s OK. But i usually make “jack of all trades” builds, not specialists dedicated to a single purpose.
And your answer is…
I’m starting to wonder if you even read what you’re answering to. If you can’t grasp the simple concept of “I don’t care about farming” I really don’t know how to make it any clearer. This conversation is over.
This is me; I have min Phy & Cunning for gear and everything is Spirit for damage!
I appreciated this thread because I am running a Saboteur to The End and while leveling I was putting nearly all my points into Cunning because I was leveling with the Blind Assassin gear and Physical+Pierce was everything. Also, so many procs require crits.
Now at 100, I flipped to Nex + Ortus as I had them and the Demo+Nightblade synergy seems to be one of the weaker pairings out there, so kit to mash them up is a little limited. Out of the gate with a full re-laying out of gear and devotions to support cold damage this combo is a ton of fun but is missing a top gear. I am thinking that I need to re-evaluate attribute points and see if that elemental damage push takes it even further.