Project: Community Skills Guide

I'll second the final point - getting 20% block from a skill line is nice - but it's not going to make a huge difference in your game if it's just taking you from 10 block to 30.

At the other extreme, if you go unarmed and dual-wield shields, you can pretty easily get over 100% block WITHOUT either skill.

So the best time to use these skills is when you anticipate using gear that gets you around 40-50 block - these skills can get you up to (or close) to that magical 95-100% threshold.

The other general use for these skills is when you simply need more beef in your build. Taking a Warrior skill AT ALL is often a significant boost in your HP and survivability, and most characters don't wane more than 1 weapon skill. That only leaves a scant few warrior options, and Shield Bearer / Master of Arms are unobjectionable skills in any build.

 

It's worth noting that shield bearer's defensive bash gives you an active tool to knock back dangerous foes out of melee range, while master at arms provides earlier passive pierce resistance and more base health.

Shield bearer's buffs also slightly exacerbate the nimbleness penalty that most shields carry. Shields tend to have more resistances (and straight magic resistance/spell reflect) that can combine with block to negate incoming exotic damage and possibly make brittle buffs last longer (potions of steeling, lobstermane, radiant aura).

Master of arms has a proc that adds to burl, which can help taking out annoying caster targets and synergizes well with berserker rage.

 

I think that Shield Bearer is a better skill tree than Master of Arms myself. Currently you don't need a shield for the any of the tree's skills and I hope it stays that way (or else I would consider it underpowered). Remember a block reduces normal damage by 75% and exotic damage by 50%. So that 35% chance to block with this tree allow is pretty amazing. My favorite part is whole well this tree works with demonology's celestial circle.

Celestial circle gives you 9999 10 -12 3 45 70 5. Now combine that with duck and cover and tortoise maneuver you got 72 7 70 13(enough for 1hp a turn even in going rogue) 9999 and that is and that is before adding in stats or equipment. The best part is it only take 5 levels to set this up! You can do this by floor 2 without burglary or archaeology.

 

Assassination
Type: Rogue
Role: Turbocharger or Payload
Assassination makes attacking better by upping crit rate and providing nifty procs, but it's not gonna kill that diggle on its own.
Theme: Hit 'Em Where It Hurts
Strategy:
This skill is all about dealing the most possible damage with your physical attacks. You'll need to give a lot of thought to how you're going to deliver those attacks, and how you might increase your critical hit rate even more.
Pros:
Two procs here steal turns. While sleeping monsters will awaken if you are attacked by something else, paralysis pins them down regardless of outside actions. On DL1, the sleep proc alone will probably save your hide more than once. Add the huge critical hit bonuses and the raw damage potential of three damaging procs going off all the time and you have the rogue's equivalent of berserk rage. A high enough critical hit chance also significantly weakens a monster's primary means of ranged defense, namely blocking, so this provides some benefit for crossbow users and throwers.
Cons:
The tree is short, and Slim Jim and Venomous Infusion are both very meh skills. Neither stealth nor toxic damage are very useful at the moment, and the presence of the skills on the tree really slows down your getting to the good stuff at the top (which, admittedly, is probably they point.)
Synergies:
Dual axe wielding assassins may not make much sense, but in DoD they pack loads of awesome. Pirate Assassins will benefit from their increased caddishness. Critical hits double melee power, so anything that boosts that is probably a step in the right direction. So, berserk dual axe wielding assassin-pirates with clockwork limbs? Yeah, now you're getting the picture.
Takeaway:
Assassination is a solid support skill that helps take physical attacks to the next level. That said, it's pretty mindless. If you want to have the most control you can over when and how things happen, it's probably not for you.

 

I find assassination to be a very meh skill. It was made back when critical hit by passed a target's ability to counter, dodge, or block. That made it godly to have high . Now it is nice, but not needed. It was never balanced for the nerf that critical hit received.

 

Everyone thinks that does nothing for crossbows but it does in fact double the mundane damage dealt by the attack. So barbed bolts are great with crits. For thrown weapons they already use melee power so their crits should work fine.

 

Ley Walker
Type: Wizard
Role: Fuel Tank
This skill is all about having mana all the time.
Theme: Tap In, Pump Out
Strategy:
Ley Walker is the polar opposite of Blood Mana in the attrition wars, it makes sure you're always getting a little trickle of mana, but if you're full up that trickle doesn't do much.
Pros:
Boosting your mana regen isn't a huge perk, but this plus a good hat and orb can give you the magic one mana per turn, even on GRPD. While this isn't enough to carry you through zoos, it is enough to top off the tank quickly in between most combats. Mana regen can also help offset the costs of hungry buffs. The conflux proc on level four guarantees one man per turn while it's active, and pumps your spell power some, at the expense of magic resistance. But most importantly, Thaumaturgic Tap will solve all your early mana problems and alleviate most of your later ones. It gives 24 MP over 12 turns, essentially doubling your mana regen rate over the 30 turns it takes to cool down, and this mana come in on top of normal mana regen and booze. It's not Transcendental Meditation, but it'll keep you going when you need it.
Cons:
Mana regen is powerful, but once your tank tops off it doesn't do you anything, and when things get intense and you need a spell every turn it usually doesn't give you more than one or two spells extra before you run dry. The capstone is pretty lame. There's rarely a situation where a directional teleport will be more useful than one of your cheaper spells, and it will seriously hurt your MP, leaving you at the mercy of any wandering monster you encounter in the first few turns afterwards.
Synergies:
Ley Walker goes great with Viking Magic, Astrology or Warlocky, those schools with powerful hungry buffs. It goes fine with all other magic builds, but your mileage versus Blood Magic will vary.
Takeaway:
This skill is solid, but not exciting, as Fuel Tanks are wont to be. That said, it does a ton of valuable work in many spellcasting builds. If you've played mages without it and found yourself low on mana, it might be worth looking into for your next run.

 

Never take both Ley Walker and Blood Magic at the same time. There are no builds in the vanilla game that need both of those skills to be viable.

 

Warlockery.

 

...wait, really?

 

Warlockery for sure - 1 mana per turn + you want to be casting spells. Need 1/turn AND blood magic to keep that up, with Ley OP crap thing for when you're lacking tons of mobs to kill.

 

I find it amusing that something that was supposed to be a gish magic skill tree is the only skill tree in the game to benefit from taking two mana regeneration skill trees.

 

Actually, I think that Astrology benefits from both, particularly if The Stars Aligned is your endgame. I had a fun run where I played Astrology, the three mage support skills, Dual Wielding, Staves and Master of Arms. You can take out ten or so monsters per cast in midgame zoos with one casting. The catch is the late game, when a single casting of TSA won't cut it anymore.

 

Runecaster, too, actually. Oh, wait, that's not core? Why the hell not?

 

Do you really want people who are yet to find about the nuances of inventory management to have access to that skill?

You... you... you monster!

 

That skill is pretty terrifying...

 

Oh, right, y'all don't have a Pocket Dimension yet. Fear not. `

 

It had to happen sooner or later. I guess now is the time...

Archaeology
Type: Rogue
Role: Turbocharger or Fuel Tank or something...
Archaeology helps you out with traps and does truly wacky things to that all important resource meter, the XP bar.
Theme: I'm So Glad There's No Snakes In This Dungeon
Strategy:
Archaeology encourages you to explore every little nook and cranny in the dungeon. It helps you get around most of the non-combat obstacles and it turns artifacts from an extremely marginal sidestrategy into a spammable well of XP.
Pros:
Let's just get it out of the way; It Belongs In a Museum = Craploads of XP. It will more than pay for the one level you put in it over the course of the game, probably keeping you two or three levels ahead of the curve the whole time. But there's actually more to the skill line than that. For starters, there's the hat. While it seems marginal at first, the roguely bonuses on that hat are not equaled by any other piece of headgear in the game (the Vampire Hunter's Hat is admittedly better, but also very rare). Plus, you can Krong it bunches, particularly when you learn the Ritual, which is a decent but not spectacular skill. Unless you like Kronging stuff (Disclaimer: I don't.) This Translation is All Wrong, a confusing skill which is explained as clearly as possible here, is useful if you're a Krong lover or just like tinkering with Lutefisk/Inconsequentia swag. Most Importantly, Remember Your Charlemagne is a fantastic multipurpose AoE skill suited to retrieving stuff on islands, opening destroyable walls and occasionally knocking foes out of your face.
Cons:
All that XP is probably superfluous by the end, unless you like skipping floors or have bunches of 8 point skill trees (a rarity at the moment). Other than its artifact manipulation abilities, and the afore mentioned XP, the skill doesn't really offer a whole lot, and it's short.
Synergies:
Blacksmithing and BGH allow you to crank out artifacts (Omnipotent Pork Sword) that can be cashed in. Piracy and Alchemy do the same. The trap skill stacks well with Tinkering to let you disarm everything in the game.
Takeaway:
Like Burglary and Perception, the other non-combat non-craft skills, it's extremely powerful in extremely narrow ways. Some people will take it for the XP every time, and it is good for helping you flesh out a build and test synergies, but I highly recommend breaking yourself of the addiction if you put it in every build. There's so much else out there that's worthwhile...

 

Archaeology's most useful on Going Rogue. On that difficulty, you'll need all the levels you can get.

Don't take it on Elvish Easy, you don't need levels that badly on that difficulty.

 

That is, unless you have enough patience to be able to watch the paint drying process, in which case you might want to just spend a lot of time grinding and get a more combat-oriented skill instead.