New Player Skill Guide (For Mortals)

[Atrele]

So I got bored, and decided to write this up, for new visitors!

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Primary Tier
All primary tier skills are already offered on character creation. These are generally the best skills to start with as they offer the easiest start and introductions to the game. It IS possible to "start" with a different skill (Either by resetting the skill for 50 XP or resetting a character entirely) but it's generally not advised as none of the skills will have the levelling/improvement potential of Primary skills.

Engineering: Boring But Effective. Levelling with Engineering is simple: get a Portable Toolkit (which you will start with), find a location capable of being powered, and toggle the switch. Immediate 2.67 xp/ap ratio. It also allows the repairing of doors, although levelling that way is harder and contingent on blowing AP on destroying or finding destroyed doors. Engineering also reduces the difficulty of managing MO, which can be difficult for evil characters. It leads into Structural Engineering which is good for factional support.

First Aid: THE faction support skill, and one of the best ways to get out of evil morality. Factions always need healers, especially any Sorcerer-heavy faction. Being a wandering healer is harder, but not unviable. That said, it also allows you to view the HP of other characters, which makes it a popular secondary skill for combat characters.

Hand to Hand Combat: Probably the simplest, and initially weakest of the combat trees, with a high payoff. H2H's inital benefit is that it requires no real materials in order to work: you're basically good to go. The damage, however, is VERY low. Fortunately, you can find (or start with) equipment that improves it's damage output, and the Boxing skill further reduces the tediousness of leveling with your fists. Once fully trained it becomes very good, and it is the tree used by the innate attacks of higher tier characters as well as touch attacks (like some spells).

Melee Combat: Melee stands at the midpoint between H2H and Ranged Combat in pretty much all aspects. Melee is equipment dependent unlike H2H but not to the degree of Ranged. The damage of melee weapons is usually somwhere between H2H and ranged weapons. Stronger start than H2H, but requires more support. Not as strong as Ranged, but doesn't need as much crafting. You get the idea. That said, like H2H it is the tree used by several later innates and touch attacks (which uses the better of H2H or Melee or a flat 70%). Melee also gets a lot of "improvised" weapons: weapons that are low damage but have no quality attribute (which lowers its accuracy but makes it MUCH more stable as it will not degrade).

Ranged Combat: The inital strongest and overall most expensive and labor intensive of the combat trees: Pistols and Shortbows are fast, high accuracy weapons. Rifles, SMGs and Composite bows in between, and Shotguns and Longbows being the high damage, low accuracy weapons. And then you have throwing weapons which is kind of the black sheep. That said, to be able to fully use a weapon tree requires specialization for that type of weapon (unlike H2H and Melee) and acquiring ammunition usually takes either diligent and repeated searching, factional support, and/or a 20 CP specialization in the Repair Item tree, whereas H2H and Melee are not required to take a specialization unless they want pristine quality equipment. Thrown Weapons is the odd one out in that it's more similar to H2H/Melee in several ways.

Repair Item: The OTHER faction support skill. It's basically a more complex/dependent engineering that starts off weak but has a great payoff. Most combat trees will take this to keep their equipment in good shape, but if you have this and you have factionmates who need stuff repaired... well you get XP in exchange for them not spending their CP. Repair Item also leads to the crafting trees, which allows you to craft and repair better than new, make ammunition, and basically be the quiet powerhouse behind factional logistics. That said, like First Aid, it's not as easy outside of a faction, but unlike First Aid, you can basically repair and craft anywhere that allows it.

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Secondary Tier
Secondary Tier skills are just that: they're usually picked up once a character has their Primary worked out. That said, they will be more initially useful than Tertiary Tier skills.

Athleticism: Athleticism has a powerful inital benefit, especially in Tempest Straits, but is usually best chosen as a second skill, or the 10 CP skill to fill out your Mortal CP requirements.

Lockpicking: Lockpicking is an odd and tedious way to gain experience, requiring several AP to set up or find locked doors to pick, and doesn't really provide much benefit to later characters.

Strength: Excellent inital benefit, so if one intends to level by searching (usually for books), it's not a bad choice. It also leads into Stamina, which is the only way a character can raise their HP as a Mortal. It's also a popular secondary skill for combat characters simply for expanding inventory and making certain weapons less inaccurate.

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Tertiary Tier
Tertiary Tier skills are skills that you basically absolutely should be knowing what you're doing if you pick them. They may offer excellent benefits, but nothing as strong or as useful as even Scondary skills. Even the best of these, as a starting skill, might as well be picked as "no skill".

Dodge: Dodge raises your defense. Against close range (H2H/Melee/Touch) only. By 5%. That's not even a survivability boost, especially with only 50 HP. Unless someone without boxing or H2H tries to punch you to death I suppose.

Hide: Better survivability than dodge, but requires AP. You're still better off knowing where to hide instead of having Hide. Also provides sort of quasi-charged attack, although this is usually pretty tedious unless you have ways to automatically hide and in general Mortals don't get access to auto-hides.

Sense Morality: Solely useful for combat characters who want to manage their MO so they don't just end up Evil, mostly Angels and those in Good factions. That said, test attacks are a thing, and it's really only useful for discerning neutral classes (as Angels and Demons are Good/Evil by default).

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Bottom Tier
No. Just no. Trying to "start" with these skills is actually worse than starting with no skill, as it costs even more CP for benefits Mortals will never see. (It's also not even Hard Mode, as you're just depriving yourself of CP that could much more immediately useful somewhere else.

Tap Font: Tap Font is super long term, and only of greatest benefits to particular classes and builds. Mortals do not have access to any of these benefits, and cannot even see Fonts besides. It's also the only skill in the Mortal tree that initally costs 20 CP.

[kylinn]

I would have suggested Search for those who are planning to initially level via book reading, and may later find it useful for finding FAKs or crafting and alchemy components, but it seems not to exist anymore.

[Karlito]

Search was removed and all search rates were increased to compensate.

[Atrele]

I would have suggested Search for those who are planning to initially level via book reading, and may later find it useful for finding FAKs or crafting and alchemy components, but it seems not to exist anymore.

Yeah, if Search (And as a note, Sense Magic and Planar Protection) remained, they'd be Primary (and Secondary skills) respectively, but Search was written out because it was so ubituquous that they might have well considered all characters to have the skill and it was considered an unnecessary CP tax. Sense Magic was the same way, except that it was moved to being innate to characters Level 10 and up, and Planar Protection is no longer a T1 skill and as such irrelevant to Mortals.

[Riss]

I think it’s appropriate to specify (for the new entries) that there are currently no ‘factions’, and therefore all support skills such as First Aid or Repair Item are less useful.

Moreover, but this is just my personal opinion, Hand-to-Hand Combat becomes really effective only for a couple of very specific classes: Eternal Soldier and Infernal Behemoth. And I'm not so sure about the second one.

[erikune]

Hand-to-Hand is also good for Revenant and Elementalist, and I'd assume that it might be useful for Lich and Holy Champion as well.

My take is that Hand-to-Hand is less damage and more CP investment than Melee, and less accurate in comparison. and so it's only really useful if there are some T2 or T3 skills that make use of the tree. Arguably Hand-to-Hand can also help with inventory, since you just need 1-weight Brass Knuckles compared to carrying around an Axe for Melee, but the best HtH weapon is the Tonfa (-10% to hit, 7 damage with Boxing) which is still inferior to the Sword (+0% to hit, 7 damage) or the Warhammer (-5% to hit, 8 damage). If all you want is to hit things without worrying about reloading and finding more ammo, then Melee is probably the best option.

[kylinn]

I think it’s appropriate to specify (for the new entries) that there are currently no ‘factions’, and therefore all support skills such as First Aid or Repair Item are less useful.

Well, there are factions, but with no Strongholds, the point stands.

On the other paw, a black-footed ferret was astonished and delighted to discover - after a week back! - that he can gain XP by both removing and restoring power to the same building, something which used to be impossible. So, woot.

[SkullFace]

Classes which make good use of different combat trees based on T3 synergy:

HTH - Eternal Soldier, Revenant, Lich, Infernal Behemoth, Void Walker*, Dark Oppressor, Doom Howler, Redeemed
Melee - Nexus Champion, Revenant*, Lich*, Infernal Behemoth, Corruptor, Seraph, Exalted Harbinger, Holy Champion
Archery - Nexus Champion, Void Walker, Seraph, Exalted Harbinger, Redeemed
Firearms - Wizard, Oathbreaker Fallen, Seraph
Thrown - Conduit, Doom Howler*, Wyrm Master, Holy Champion
Spells - Wizard, Elementalist, Corruptor, Heretic Fallen, Advocate*, Archon

* open to argument although I have experience of these with exception of Advocate, Archon, Redeemed

[erikune]

On the other paw, a black-footed ferret was astonished and delighted to discover - after a week back! - that he can gain XP by both removing and restoring power to the same building, something which used to be impossible. So, woot.

Yep. This change was made sometime in B5, from what I understand. It makes Engineering much more useful for an EXP grind, as you can camp outside a building and just play with the light switches for a constant stream of EXP. It's not necessarily better than other options, but it is consistent.


As for this thread, I've had the pros and cons of each skill on my mind for awhile. Let's see if I can sum up my thoughts quickly enough here.

Combat Skills:

• Hand-to-Hand Positives: Low maintenance, especially if you drop the Tonfa/Katar for Haymaker. Low inventory weight, with Brass Knuckles and Spiked Knuckles taking up just 3 weight together. Tonfa/Katar can be used early on for damage and then dropped later. Boxing improves damage of T2 and T3 skills for HtH combat damage as well.
• Hand-to-Hand Negatives: Low damage, low accuracy, high CP cost for the full combat tree, Tonfa/Katar requires Repair Item to keep maintained for the long term, still need to pick up Boxing to improve even Tonfa/Katar damage. Affected by enemy auras. Cannot hit flying targets.
• Melee Positives: Improvised melee weapons require no upkeep, quality weapons are even better, heavy melee weapons provide even more damage. More damage and better accuracy than hand-to-hand, less CP for the full accuracy tree. Can be use for touch spells/skills.
• Melee Negatives: Unless your just going to use the Axe/Crowbar/etc, requires Repair Item (if not Mastersmith) to keep weapons maintained. Less damage than most ranged options. Still affected by auras. Cannot hit flying targets.
• Archery Positives: Higher damage than hand-to-hand or melee, can craft bows anywhere, can repair equipment anywhere, can craft arrows anywhere, Quiver of Arrows is universal across weapons. Ignores most auras, can hit flying targets.
• Archery Negatives: Requires holding a 10-weight Portable Toolkit to do any crafting or repair, needs Piece of Wood to craft or repair (hard to find on some maps), less damage than guns. Needs the Bowyer skill before can craft arrows, meaning that Advanced Archery probably won't be picked up until T2. No improvised bows.
• Guns Positives: Highest damage on weapons, can change one ammo type to another. That's kind of all you need.
• Guns Negatives: Requires a gun shop or similar building to repair items or craft ammo. Need to spend AP to convert between ammo types. Needs to Gunsmith skill to craft ammo, so Advanced Firearms will take some time to get. There are no T3 classes with both gun and heavy weapon synergy. No improvised guns.
• Thrown Positives: Cheapest combat tree, just taking 40CP for full accuracy. Nexal Return is not needed outside live combat, so it can be skipped if you want. Throwing Knives are currently abundant and just 2 weight.
• Thrown Negatives: Worst damage, even worse than hand-to-hand. Improvised throws weapons are even worst than kicking, and cannot be improved, so it involves picking up Repair Item (at least) for long-term use.

As usual, if you know what T3 class you want to end up in, then that will decide the combat tree choice more than anything else. This is more focusing on what characters can do at level 10 or below. There's nothing wrong with picking a combat tree and then deciding on T3 later. If you want to play a punchy Seraph, go right ahead! Just know that there's no skills to help HtH in the Seraph class, outside general damage improvement.

Non-Combat Skills:

• Engineering: Good Choice for a starting skill and a good early utility choice. You can sit on a building and turn power on/off for a constant stream of EXP. The Portable Toolkit never breaks, so you don't need to worry about death. It also contributes to the Doors Repaired/Destroyed grind for some alternative EXP. Biggest disadvantage is that some other planes don't have powered buildings, with Elysium and Stygia usually not having them.
• Repair Item: Good secondary choice for combat skills, since you'll frequently be needing to repair damaged equipment. It can also be useful when sitting on a Factory, since you can harvest Chunk of Steel and craft daggers/carving knives than pristine them for good EXP. With Archery instead, you can sit in a forest and do the same with Piece of Wood and crafting/repairing bows. The biggest problem is that if someone kills you, you could respawn far away from your crafting place of choice and need to spend AP to get back there.
• First Aid: This tends to drop off as the Breath moves on. The big reason is that, as characters get stronger, they tend to not leave targets half-dead anymore, meaning it gets much and much harder to find someone to heal. It's very useful in factions, since you can get a constant stream of injured factionmates to heal there. It can also be useful on combat characters, to heal themselves for 10 HP per FAK and to see enemy HP, but it's more utility than EXP gain at that point.

Other Options:

• Athleticism: Good choice for movement. A lot of T3 skills grant half movement cost, but you're still charged 2AP for moving over difficult terrain, so picking up Athleticism is still useful in most cases. It's not going to generate you EXP and just saves you AP when moving around, so it's mostly just picked up when you have a way to get EXP already.
• Dodge: I've only ever picked this up when it's on a character who already has T3 skills to increase Defense (lowering to-hit) as well. The full bonus isn't worth much, and you'd probably rather hide or move away over attempting to rely on a -5% drop to enemy to-hit to keep you alive.
• Hide: Fairly pointless at low level, especially if you don't care where you are and the respawn cost is so low. It starts to get more useful the higher your respawn increases. All characters need to manually search a tile to find a hidden character, so even just hiding in an odd spot is useful. Note that spellcasters can learn the Shadow Wrap spell to immediately hide themselves, so they might pass on this skill.
• Lockpicking: Kind of a joke and a holdover to when some combat trees (and spellcasting in general) couldn't get thru a locked door.
• Sense Morality: Good for someone focused on their MO. That said, unless you drop to -20 MO or less, just not attacking and working at recovering MO is generally easy. Angels will pick this up after grabbing at least one combat skill, unless they want to test-attack characters to check their MO that way.
• Strength: Mostly used by characters who want to use heavy weapons in combat or just want to hold a large inventory. Not useful as an early skill, mostly just once you've established what you want to do and the 50 inventory is too limiting.
• Tracking/Psychometry: Both of these are general "tracking" skills and while they can be useful, they aren't too great. The biggest problem is that you can end up spending a bunch of AP following another character who might've already been killed. Not too great, especially when everybody is crowded around the same locations anyway. They're more useful along with tracking skills of other classes, and can be used in combination. I haven't found them too good in finding targets to kill/heal.
• Tap Font: A way to generate MP, which is pretty useless for a mortal character. It can be useful for later tiers, as pet summoning and enhancing can be very MP-hungry. But it's not going to be useful for a character below level 10 and most likely won't be useful for most characters below level 20.