Making my first character. How much body is good for a starting character?

I'm making my first character and i don't know how much build i should set aside for body. I'm going to be playing a melee combat oriented character. I wanted to get some opinions from seasoned players.

Two considerations: Body vs. Armor. In melee you can be struck by straight damage which is applied to armor, or you can be struck by attacks which go straight to body. In your case you have to decide how often are you going to be armored up and don't need as much body, as opposed to how often will an attack by body damage subtract from your body total directly.

From a purely mathematical point of view I recommend that all characters spend at least 15 build on body at some point early in their careers. The first 15 build you spend you get a bonus of +1 to your body ratio.

This means that for a straight up melee fighter you will likely get 60 body for those 15 build. That is an awesome return on investment. Alternatively you could spend those 15 build on 3 parries and, assuming you aren't going toe to toe with the main mod boss, stop at most 3 hits that probably average about 5 to 10 damage. With the 60 body you could stop much more low level damage.

Armor is a huge benefit to. But don't overlook just a small investment in body. Even 10 build early on can make a huge difference.

I went almost a year without spending anything on body. It really depends on how you play.

A Melee Fighter might want a good chunk body depending on how exactly up-close they want to get. If you plan on being support and tanking, dock some into build into body. If you're confidant in your actual physical combat skills, try to save some build for skills and other things that suit your fancy. However, when it comes to the out of game (OOG) technicalities, I have to agree with Joe Hines. You get a boost to your ratio after your first 15 build into body? Sounds like a good deal for someone looking for a fight, especially a new player.
But that's just my two cents. I play a rogue...Not a fighter. But there are a lot of good fighters and great people that you'll meet at game. And I know that they'll love to help you out. They helped me.

When I was a lower level pure fighter the thing I found to be most useful with body is to have an easy to heal total. For a healer 60 is right in the middle of their heal 12 per point and 5 for everything up to 400 spells, so depending on how much you are down they'll be using the larger one on you (and some would be annoyed they used such a large heal on such a low total).

I got by with 36 health for a long time, as that allows you to not be killed by things like Bloody Roar (which is hard to defend for a long time), and most assail attacks you'd encounter outside main mod (which do direct body). Plus 36 health is a common total that the various classes can easily heal up to (via their 6, 9, and 12 ratios).

So basically, if you plan to wear a decent amount of armor, you can get by quite a bit by just putting 8 build into body. Otherwise it may just be worthwhile to get up to that first chunk of 15 build into body for better survivability.