The skills thread

[cjdevito]

Figured it might be useful to have a thread devoted to different skills. Here are the ones I've used so far:

Deadly gift -- the 'set traps' skill. Incredibly powerful, because of the scorpion 'traps'. Once you use this skill with a caged scorpion in your inventory (which are cheap... when you finally find some for sale, they cost around 40 gold) it creates a high level scorpion who wanders the area and attacks enemies. You have no control of it, and it does not follow you. It is -extremely- hard to kill, and while it doesn't do a lot of damage, it almost always hits.... making it a near surefire way to take down boss monsters if you set it up right. One point in this skill seems sufficient. The other traps, trail bombs and spider eggs, don't seem as useful.

(side note: don't know if the aura of command skill will cause scorpions from traps to follow you. If it does, it would be -very- worthwhile in combination with this skill).

Envenom weapon (from the survivors skills, not the warriors poison damage) -- another extremely powerful skill, it adds a tremendous amount of damage to your attacks once you coat your weapon in poison. A warrior who uses this attack combined with their spinning special attack can take down everything in range in one attack. Poison must be constantly re-applied (each rank of the skill equals 10 poison charges on a weapon per each bottle of poison

Assassin's blade -- the backstab skill. I'm not sure about this one yet. None of the weapon mastery skills apply to dagger, so at best the damage output of a dagger weapon is it's base damage + strength modifier + double damage from assassin's blade (50% base chance, at skill level five). On the other hand, all daggers are one handed weapons, extremely fast; one can attack about five times more often with a dagger then with an axe. If you go for this skill, I think it needs the full five points.

Weapon mastery skills -- note that the skills for different weapons do -not- have the same effects, which may have a significant bearing on play style. If you don't plan on using a dagger, pick one weapon type and stick with it, building five points in it's relevent skill.

Augment defense -- great. Worth five points.

Augment damage -- not so great. While the damage is 100% guaranteed, it's not all that much, even at level 5. I'd recommend either ignoring this skill entirely or building it the full five points.

Warrior lightning, fire, poison, cold damage skills -- the percentage chance of them kicking in at low skill levels is very minor. Might be worth building one or two of them all the way up to level 5, though.

Warrior spiritual damage -- unlike the other warrior damage skills, this one always 100% does damage, making it worth investing in.

Repair -- either ignore it, or build it all the way to five. It can save you a bundle of gold.

Identify -- useful, but only with multiple skill points, which isn't worth it.

Enchant weapon -- definitely worth at least a couple of points, worth maxing to 5 if possible. Charms are hard to come by in the early game but much more common later. Even a few low power charms in items can have very significant effects, though.

Lockpick -- pretty much neccessary. Get it to level 3, there are ways to earn two free points in it later in the game.

[fable]

I'd suggest one point in Repair, even if you don't plan on anything more. Simply put, it's the difference between an unusuable weapon or piece of armor, and one that works in battle.

Freeze: Definitely a great spell. It doesn't work with undead or a few other beasties, but when it does work, it literally paralyzes them in ice for a period of time. Then you can wail away.

Elemental Arrow: I've yet to use this, but I've heard from people who have that it is a wonderful spell which can do damage to just about every foe in the game.

[cjdevito]

Wisdom: I'm still undecided on this one, even after investing five points in it myself. As far as I can tell, the exp you earn from quests is level dependent.... a quest that will earn you 1000 xp at level one might earn you 17000 xp at level 15, for example. It seems that the quests are designated to earn you a percentage of the total xp needed to get you to your next level (healing each soldier in Aleroth is worth exactly 50% of what you need to level, near as I can tell). If that's the case, then the extra 10% earned exp with five points of wisdom might turn out to be significant. If I'm wrong about the above, though, wisdom would be worthless.... even at five points and a 10% bonus, I don't think it'd earn even enough xp for one additional level by the end of the game.

Wizard's Sight: worth one point and one point only. WIthout this spell to make building roofs transparent, you'll never be able to get into buildings that have locked doors that are on the "hidden" sides of the building.

Pickpocket: one point is required for a quest. Actually trying to pickpocket other NPCs seems nearly impossible, though.

Alchemy: Probably not worth investing in. Early in the game it's nice, but once you get out of Aleroth you'll be tripping over potions right and left in any case.

[fable]

Weapon mastery skills -- note that the skills for different weapons do -not- have the same effects, which may have a significant bearing on play style. If you don't plan on using a dagger, pick one weapon type and stick with it, building five points in it's relevent skill.

Problem is, you'll probably encounter a few randomly generated weapons relatively early in the game that offer significant bonuses that work with different kinds of monsters; and you may find that these weapons belong to different groups. For example, my best weapon for damage is a sword, but I found a Club of Biting that actually restores some health and mana with hits. So when I'm low on vitality and mana, I switch to the club. Then there's the bow, which an essential weapon, IMO, when dealing with monsters that are either at the edge of range (and unaware of you) or can wield damage more impressively in melee than at a distance. Elite orc crossbow units, for example, do more damage up close, but they prefer to stay at a range. Rather than waste 'em with Elemental Arrow (an excellent spell), I take 'em out with a good bow, unless they're present in groups.

[cjdevito]

I haven't bothered with bows much at all myself, to be honest. Envenoming weapons has, for me, pretty much led to one-hit kills 90% of the time. My technique for dealing with elite orc crossbowmen, for example, is to run to one, swing at'em once with a poisoned sword, then run to the next. The first one I hit dies a second or so later, and I just repeat the process.

As far as the random generation, you're right about that. But it -is- really random. If you quick save and quick load a lot, you can pretty much force a good drop if you're really hurting for one. There are some non-random weapons in the game though that are very cool, and I think there's at least one of each type.

One thing I'm noticing is that there really is a multitude of ways to be successful. For example, another way around ever using a bow would be to go with spear mastery and the boomerang skill.... then you can chuck your weapon at enemies from a distance and it returns to you. Or invest 2-3 points in meteorstrike and you get a low mana, high damage attack that works on nearly everything you'll encounter throughout the first main map.

[fable]

True. I've not done much with poison, but I'm wondering if I can insert gems/charms in weapons to make 'em poison *and* restore vitality/mana. That would be excellent.

Still, poison doesn't work against the undead, or against poisonous critters.

[cjdevito]

Don't go the charm route or the warrior poison damage route when it comes to poison.... they actually both do little actual damage. The survivor skill, though, is far more powerful (just limited to having to have poison potions to use). Just one skill point in it is plenty if you don't mind buying poison more often.

As far as undead, it's definitely mixed. The survivor poison skill -does- affect liches, vampires and demons. Just not skeletons. I don't recall offhand if it works on corpses or zombies, I'm afraid.

[fable]

Some good ideas, there. Thanks. I'll give a try to the Survivor's poison skill.

Have you done much with charms, though? Those orcs do drop 'em a great deal, and they've also got a ready supply of gems--which in DD seem to provide nothing more than ready coin.

[cjdevito]

I've done a lot with charms, but so far I've only found stat-raising and resistance types.... haven't seen any really appropriate for weapons. As far as the resistances go.... I've got something like 35 fire resistance, 25 lightning, 50 poison and 85 spirit

[fable]

Resistance on the charms: yes. You know about avoiding the red ones, right? Go for the gold and silver: best bonuses. The random distribution of many objects means you're never quite sure what will in many cases popup.

Have you tried any of the shapechanging statuettes you can find? Can't say I have. Nor do they seem to take up any weight, at least, none is listed. But I've found at least a good ten or more. I think they're substitutes for the charms, but I'd just as soon take the latter.

[cjdevito]

I've mucked about some with the statuettes (just click on one in your inventory to activate it, you don't insert it in a charm slot if that's what you meant?). Largely, they seem pointless but cool. The only advantage at all I've seen is that both frog and cat forms can run about twice as fast as your character normally can.

[fable]

Quote:

Originally posted by cjdevito I've mucked about some with the statuettes (just click on one in your inventory to activate it, you don't insert it in a charm slot if that's what you meant?). Largely, they seem pointless but cool. The only advantage at all I've seen is that both frog and cat forms can run about twice as fast as your character normally can.

No, by charms, I was referring to the globular jewels (though they don't look like jewels) that you enchant selected objects with. But yeah, I agree with you: the statuettes are a cool idea that they really didn't run with. Best to sell 'em.

[cjdevito]

Aura of Command: Gets one summoned critter to follow you around per skill level. It -does- work on scorpions from the 'deadly gift' skill, making it definitely worth a point.

Bow mastery - I've been playing around with a bow user, and I really dislike this skill. All it does is reduce the time between attacks. Every other mastery skill does at at least two things, this one only does one.

Trader's Tongue - worthless. You'll be floating cash by mid-game in any case.

[cjdevito]

Stun - absolutely great, especially at level 5. Locks a foe in place unable to move or attack for a variable period based on skill level (it's a passive skill, kicks in 25% of the time at level 5). The effect lasts a good two seconds at level 5. The only drawback is a critter who's killed while stunned doesn't actually "die" until the stun wears off.... can be a pain when you kill something, start to wander off, and then hear the sound of gold finally dropping half a screen behind you.

Freeze - Fable has already mentioned it, but I have to reiterate it. I went up against the dragonrider in the Imp's castle with a level 32 survivor and that guy ate me for lunch. Level 5 envenom weapon did me no good, neither did releasing something like 30 scorpions. As soon as I used my pathetic level 1 Freeze spell, though, I took him out with only minimal effort.

[Gargor]

Hi there!
What does "spiritual damage" do (except nothing at all)?
I put a point on it and nothing changed at all.
Am I missing something here?

Gargor