Question on skill tree

[Rya.Reisender]

Hi there!

 

I have a doubt on how to build my characters and I couldn't really find any guides on it. First of all as I understand to raise a skill on a higher tier all the below tier skills need to be higher.

That means if I want to max one of the two top tier skill I would need to max the 7 skills below it that are connected to it. But maxing one of the requires 9 skill points, so it's impossible! So how can you even get the top tier skill?

 

Can someone post a screenshot of his character builds at the end of the game?

 

Also I know Shamans should get Int and End. How about Blademaster and Shadowwalker? Should both get Dex/End? Does that mean I need to focus on ranged weapons? Or should one of the two go Str/End and become tank? Or am I supposed to go with a mix of Str/Dex/End?

[Lilith]

You can't max out the top-tier skills at 8. The highest you can get them to is 6. Fortunately, 6 is high enough to unlock the upgraded version of the skill.

 

Blademasters and Shadowwalkers both generally do best with a ranged weapon focus, yes. Usually the right balance is to put about 2 or 3 points in Dexterity for every 1 point you put in Endurance. Str/End can work, but they'll get hit more often and take more damage due to the lack of Dexterity.

[Rya.Reisender]

Isn't it a problem without any melee fighter? Ranged classes can't attack when next to an enemy after all. From what I understand a mix of Str and Dex is a bad idea, right? So I need to decide for one.

 

So it's either getting all skills to 6 (middle+left or middle+right) or skip out on the top tier skill and get all to 8?

[Lilith]

Isn't it a problem without any melee fighter? Ranged classes can't attack when next to an enemy after all. From what I understand a mix of Str and Dex is a bad idea, right? So I need to decide for one.

 

You can do fine without any melee fighters. If your intended target is next to you, just take one step away before attacking. The only problem is if you're 100% surrounded, but you can normally avoid letting that happen (and the Shadowwalker can use Shadowstep to teleport out anyway).

 

So it's either getting all skills to 6 (middle+left or middle+right) or skip out on the top tier skill and get all to 8?

 

Pretty much. You can either get one top-tier skill to 6 and have a couple of points left over to spend where you want, or you can forget about top-tier skills entirely and have a lot of skill points to distribute more freely among the lower tiers.

[Randomizer]

Some items will give you points in a top tier skill, but in general you won't use them much.

 

For when you get surrounded there is a pulsating scarab that uses earthquake to push foes away. Also there is a scarab that will allow you to teleport, but it doesn't always make sense where you can go.

[Questionably Legal]

Some items will give you points in a top tier skill, but in general you won't use them much.

 

For when you get surrounded there is a pulsating scarab that uses earthquake to push foes away. Also there is a scarab that will allow you to teleport, but it doesn't always make sense where you can go.

Don't those scarabs technically not give you points in a tree skill, but instead give you a separate but identical ability?

[Edgwyn]

The lower the difficulty level that you are playing, the more flexibility that you have for non-optimized builds. My current party on normal difficulty has both the blademaster and shadowwalker primarily using their swords, only executing ranged attacks when they cannot close on the opponent that turn. It is not the most efficient way to play, but it is how I enjoy playing. Likewise my abilities and skills are not properly optimized to play on torment, but then I have no plans to play on torment. There is a lot of great advice on builds on this site from folks who know the mechanics, tactics and strategy of the game to an incredible level, but you can still complete the game without following most of it, depending on your difficulty setting.

[Randomizer]

Don't those scarabs technically not give you points in a tree skill, but instead give you a separate but identical ability?

Scarabs give active abilities with Blademasters and Shadowwalkers needing dexterity, and Shamans and Sorceresses needing intelligence to increase over base numbers.

[Lilith]

 

Scarabs give active abilities with Blademasters and Shadowwalkers needing dexterity, and Shamans and Sorceresses needing intelligence to increase over base numbers.

 

In answer to the question that was asked, though, a skill given by a scarab is indeed separate from a skill on your actual skill list. You can tell because if you have both, they'll have separate cooldowns.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

Isn't it a problem without any melee fighter? Ranged classes can't attack when next to an enemy after all. From what I understand a mix of Str and Dex is a bad idea, right? So I need to decide for one.

 

So it's either getting all skills to 6 (middle+left or middle+right) or skip out on the top tier skill and get all to 8?

 

Keep in mind that even a dexterity-focused BM or SW can still tank and hit stuff in melee. They won't do as much damage as a strength-focused character, but they'll actually be better tanks: they'll gain massive physical evasion from dexterity, while strength doesn't have any real defensive bonuses beyond the few points necessary to wear the heaviest armor. It also helps that the SW's area attack, Blade Whirlwind, gets increased damage from dex rather than strength.

[Rya.Reisender]

Does it make sense to put 1-2 points into STR to be able to equip better (and more) equips earlier? I'm thinking of getting 1-2 points in STR and then go 2:1 DEX/END after that.

 

I think I'll go for the left/middle columns to level 6 version since I like offensive skills (not a big fan of status changes) and only plan to play through the game once (so I rather see a wide variety in skills rather than having one very powerful version) and play on Normal difficulty. Also it makes it much easier to decide what build to go for as the options are quite limited like that.

[Lilith]

Does it make sense to put 1-2 points into STR to be able to equip better (and more) equips earlier? I'm thinking of getting 1-2 points in STR and then go 2:1 DEX/END after that.

 

It's not the worst idea in the world. You can always retrain them away once they become unnecessary. (Conveniently, the point where you meet the retrainer is about the point where Str-based builds start to fall seriously behind Dex-based builds, so you can experiment with a Str-build early on and then switch it over to a Dex build by the time it's likely to have trouble keeping up.)

 

I think I'll go for the left/middle columns to level 6 version since I like offensive skills (not a big fan of status changes) and only plan to play through the game once (so I rather see a wide variety in skills rather than having one very powerful version) and play on Normal difficulty. Also it makes it much easier to decide what build to go for as the options are quite limited like that.

 

On Normal difficulty, just about any reasonable build will be viable anyway. (And by "reasonable" I mean "you didn't pump all your Sorceress's stat points into Strength for no reason".)

[Edgwyn]

All of my characters (even the sorceress and shaman) got at least a little extra strength early, just because I do not like having a bunch of cool armor and weapons that I cannot wear/use. Later on, as the characters gained strength at one per four levels, I reduced the sorceress and shaman' strength back down via retraining and put it in more useful attributes for them. The biggest failure that I had in my party is that while both the Shadowalker and Sorceress can have unlock ability, I only had it in one, which is fine for the end game, but I wasted a lot of lock picks during Sevilin's quest as I did not have my character with unlock ability along. That ability is one that you can develop in the early part of the game and then get rid of the duplication during a visit to the trainer later on.

[Lilith]

Yeah, lockpicking is one of the reasons why people recommend a Shadowwalker as the main character. (The other is that it's a very well-rounded class that's never going to be a liability to have in your party.)

[Ceiling Durkheim]

Does it make sense to put 1-2 points into STR to be able to equip better (and more) equips earlier? I'm thinking of getting 1-2 points in STR and then go 2:1 DEX/END after that.

 

It is worth it, especially for blademasters. The best BM armor tends to be very heavy, especially if you're going for sword and board over two handed weapons (and this is generally the more optimal build, since your primary damage source will be the bow if you go for a dex build, plus in the later game you'll get two sets of item bonuses instead of one if you equip a shield), so even with all the strength points you get by the end of the game, you'll still need a few more to equip the phattest loot. This is less important for the other classes, since the SW-specific gear tends to be chain rather than plate, and sorceresses and shamans can only equip cloth/leather and cloth/leather/chain respectively. For them you're better off putting a few points into strength early on for equipment, and then retraining midway through the game.