How dyes raise one base stat and lower another: the +5 limit, the three kinds of bottles, shop and Mammon dyes, three ways to get the balanced ones, what each stat gives and the rules of symbols by profession.
Tattoo dyes are an important component of the game. With a dye you can raise one of the player's basic parameters and lower another. An example: the dye 
Greater Dye of WIT <Wit+3 Int-3> will raise WIT by 3 and lower INT by 3. The maximum by which one characteristic of a character can be raised is +5. You can apply two identical +4 dyes, which should add up to +8, but no: only +5 will work, and the remaining +3 will not be counted. The minuses, however, are always counted, that is, from two identical +4 dyes you will add only +5 to yourself, while the minus will be the full -8, so dyes have to be chosen wisely. For that the game has dyes +1, +2, +3 and +4; combining them, you can raise one of the characteristics to the maximum while lowering as little as possible another one, not much needed by your class.
How a symbol is made
A dye can be applied only when you have 10 pieces of one kind. You have to go up to the NPC Symbol Maker, who is in all towns, standing either in the magic shop or in an ordinary shop, address him, choose the dye you want to apply and confirm your choice. Bear in mind that in the menu these confirmations are swapped, and instead of the usual "yes" and "no" there will be "no" and "yes", so watch where exactly you click.
A Symbol Maker stands in the magic shop or the grocery of every town; Marsden is one of them. Bring ten identical dyes and pay a fee of about a tenth of their price plus the town tax. Each dye raises one stat and lowers another, for example 
Greater Dye of STR <Str+1 Con-1>.
If the dye was not applied, check the quantity (there must be at least 10 pieces of the kind you want to apply), the dye itself (there are kinds of dyes that are applied only before the second profession), and also check whether this dye can be applied to your class at all (all this is written on the dye itself; it is enough to hover the mouse over it). For example, if the dye has the text "Can be used by the Wizard class after completion of their second class transfer", it can be applied only to mages after the second profession; if it says "Can be used after completion of first class transfer and prior to completion of second class transfer", such a dye can be used only after the first profession and before the second. All dyes carry a reminder that only a set of 10 pieces of one kind can be applied.
- Before the first class change no symbols can be drawn.
- After the first class change, from level 20: two symbols, made of ordinary dyes sold by the traders of the same shop.
- After the second profession, from level 40: three symbols, and only from Greater Dyes.
- Symbols made before the second class change stop working after it. Remove them and draw new ones.
The Symbol Maker also removes a symbol for a fee and gives back half of the dyes that went into it, so think the set over before you pay for greater dyes.
Kinds of dyes by bottle
- The first,
Dye of WIT <Wit+1 Int-1>, is a small thin bottle; such a dye can be applied only before getting the second profession. It can raise a characteristic only by +1 (and rightly so, or else you would get a cheating character at a low level). Such dyes are useful to those who, for example, keep a destroyer of level 32 to go to small raid bosses and level academy members. - The second, a Greater Dye such as Wit+1 Int-2, is a fat pot-bellied bottle; such a dye can be applied only after getting the second profession. The drawback of these dyes is that the pot-bellied bottles do not give an equal balance: when one characteristic is raised by +1, another is lowered by -2 or even -3. Such dyes suit those who are going to farm mobs right after the second profession and do not aspire to PvP. They are sold in all shops for ordinary adena.
- The third, Greater Dye of WIT <Wit+1 Int-1>, is a medium bottle, the so-called Mammon dye. This dye too can be applied only after the second profession. The ideal variant: as much as was added, exactly so much is taken off another stat. Such dyes are applied by those who constantly PvP or take part in Olympiad fights, where every point in the basic characteristics is very important. Getting such dyes is harder: they are either bought for ancient adena from Mammon, or crafted, or knocked out of mobs.
Where to get the balanced dyes
If the plus in the characteristics is smaller than the minus (+1 -2, +4 -5 and so on), such dyes can only be thin or pot-bellied; all of them are sold in any town for ordinary adena, and there is nothing much to say here. If the plus equals the minus (+1 -1, +4 -4 and so on), these are the Mammon dyes: they can be bought only from the Merchant of Mammon in the week of the Seven Signs victory, crafted if you have mastered fishing (Fishing: rules, skills, lures and fishing shots), or knocked out of mobs.
- Buying dyes from the Merchant of Mammon is the simplest variant. You gather ancient adena, go to the trader and buy the dyes. I no longer remember the exact price, but reckon that a full set (20 dyes +4 -4 and 10 dyes +1 -1) will cost roughly about 10kk ancient adena.
- The craft of dyes is rather tedious, since many resources from fishing are needed. For example, to craft one dye +4 -4 you need the recipe, 16
Premium Fish Oil, 230 
Thin Fish Bone and 60 
Thick Fish Bone. You will agree that is quite a lot, and what if you craft 10 dyes? So this way suits only those who fish for days on end and have nowhere to put the catch. - Getting dyes from mobs is our variant. Mostly dyes drop from raid bosses of the middle levels; from ordinary mobs they are much harder to get. But there are exceptions: for example, for the +STR -CON tattoo a set of dyes can be got quite easily, since they are spoiled from many mobs in various versions (+2, +3 and even +4). On the page of each dye there is the list of monsters it drops and is spoiled from.
What each stat gives
- STR: physical damage.
- DEX: attack speed, accuracy, evasion, the chance of a physical critical hit, shield use and running speed.
- CON: maximum HP and CP, HP regeneration, weight limit and resistance to stun, poison and bleeding.
- INT: magic damage and the chance that curses and debuffs land.
- WIT: casting speed, the chance of a magic critical hit and resistance to hold and curses.
- MEN: magic defence, maximum MP, MP regeneration and a lower chance of an interrupted cast.