I'll have to say the crafting skills seem the least useful. Alchemy ends up being the best of the three due to potions being universally helpful, tinkerer second because of the trap bonuses, and smithing last because it just doesn't provide much in the long run. Assuming (I'm not 100% sure on how this works) archetype levels(rogue/mage/warrior) affect your base stats, all three of the crafting skills fall under rogue which makes smithing less attractive to anyone intending to use the weapons they craft. The skill point would probably be better off in almost any other area including other rogue skills. I feel like the stat system overall could use a bit of fine-tuning in that regard, really. Small edit: I also wonder how people feel about the current recipe system. I think there needs to be some sort of "saved recipe" thing when you die, like you can choose a couple recipes you've found and save them for your next character. Maybe that's just a personal nitpick, though.
Magic Training seems really useless to me. It really needs bigger buffs to your magic power or haywire chance (a big haywire bonus might make it worth it and would make sense with the skill). As it is now, there's no reason to take it over something like Ley lines, which gives about the same amount of extra mana and mana regen. Edit: Realized that maybe the use of taking this skill would just be to influence your stats when leveling. I wonder if the gains are enough to warrant using it.
No mention of Wand Lore? I'm trying a Wand Lore build now. It's a bit tedious as I'm trying to keep all of my wands at 0 Entropy to prevent burnouts. I have to wonder if wands will scale though.
tinkerer, smithing, alchemy, and mushroom skills needs to be empowered. To sell/find loot and buy new stuff is waaaaaaaaaaay easier than crafting or smelting or whatever... And as for the magic schools i only use blood magic and viking...
I think things are more balanced than people make them out to be. Look at all people saying at what does work really well for them. Moreso, it's the total package that counts. I am wondering what can be done to make at least some crafting skills more reliable. Sure, the passive bonuses are nice, but often you need a recipe or ingredients or both. It's usually just not worth it. Also, why do you not get an ingot grinder for alchemy? Health potions are probably the number one motivator to get alchemy for me. Of course, grinders are notoriously hard to find in general. Not that things should be too easy in a roguelike, but in comparison, the crafting skills I've tried (tinkering, smithing, alchemy) are not near as good as skills like.. say, magic training. Even if they are powerful enough.. it's unlikely you'll get to see it because you're lacking one of the prerequisites. Talking about magic training.. IMHO it's good because it increases your magic power and increases your mana. Better, cheaper spells? Yes, please! Compared to ley walking, which offers mana and mana regeneration, I'd rather pick magic training (or both). -edit- Archery and Thrown Weapons also don't seem that useful.
IMO Ley Walking is the least useful of the three supplementary magic skills. +1 Mana regeneration simply means your Mana takes one less turn to regenerate one point: at Medium difficulty, where Mana takes seven turns to regenerate, maximum Ley Walking doesn't even double your Mana regeneration. Wand Lore is another skill I consider quite useless. At first I thought it might be useful because at maximum Wand Lore you get -6 Entropy per use, which should mean that Wands with 6 or less Entropy generation should essentially become permanent. Unfortunately, it turns out that Entropy generation cannot go lower than 5, and I find that even at that level it's far too easy to burn out a wand in a single battle. Not to mention combat-based Wand effects are much weaker than their spell counterparts. It would be nice if Wandlore for example allow us to craft our spells into Wands, paying the cost of the spell in advance if you like.
Like enema216 said, all the crafting skills are useless, except maybe for the mushroom one,it's quite nice. The items you can craft are very lackluster compared to what you find on the ground or shops, not to mention that by the time you find the necessary components for something you will have already advanced a level or two and the item will be greatly inferior to what you find. The last 3 rings recipes in smithing (http://www.dredmorwiki.com/wiki/Crafting), are nice, but I wouldn't sacrifice 4 skill points for it when there are much better talents to get and rings out there are just as good. I regret having selected smithing, stay away from crafting skills, not worth it.
Alchemy at least I find very much worth it, at least for Mages. Even at level 1 you can distill alcoholic beverages into much more potent versions, and at level 2 double Mana Potions (and Health Potions) is excellent. You can also create a whole range of other potions, although I find most of them to be rather lackluster (especially compared to Fungi). There's also the Sagacity bonus, which is nice.
Tinkering isn't useless, as it lets you create ammunition. Smithing isn't useless, as it lets you generate more bars per ore (though it's underpowered, and needs something to buff smithing-only characters once their gear has surpassed its best options). Don't forget, too, that both of the above have other bonuses. Tinkering lets you pick up even the strongest traps off the ground, while Smithing gives you bonuses to your burliness stat.
Magic Training and Wand Lore aren't for mana regen. I think everyone is messing up the icons. Sagacity = more mana, sure, but more importantly they are some of the only talents that increase magic DAMAGE. Ley Lines is a get-and-forget skill. Sure 1 mana regen is nice to have without doing anything, but 1 regen + 3 mana for a skill point? No thanks.
Well, that's why I was suggesting that Blood Arts invalidates Magic Training, unless you're taking both. It takes the same amount of skill points to max out, and when you do, the buff gives the same magic bonuses as the Magic Training tree. You're just swapping out a higher max mana for more mana back from a kill (4 at max). The buff activates on any monster death, lasts 25 turns, and gives 4 sagacity. Considering that spells get very cheap once you get high magic stats, you're going to be buffed pretty much all the time and more than making back your mana, which I think is clearly the better choice.
All crafting skills (Fungal Arts isn't really one, I think) have passive bonuses. Tinkering has savvy and traps Smithing has burlishness Alchemy has sagacity Regarding taking tinkering for dealing with traps: there are other skills which give trap affinity/sight radius. Archaeology, perception, burglary and smithing all give some. Then again, tinkering gives lots. So it depends. On most characters I don't care about traps at all.
Blood Mage does not give the same bonuses as Magic Training. You are forgetting that Magic Training levels 1 and 2 also provide magic power bonuses, which for all intents and purposes are the same as Sagacity. That means Magic Training provides cheaper and more powerful spells, as well as higher maximum Mana; while Blood Mage provides Mana regeneration in combat. Personally, I think any serious Mage should get both. Ley Walker should only ever be chosen if you really don't see yourself needing another skill, it's bonuses are just too small to be worth it.
Blood Magic works best for area effects. If your spell costs nine mana, and you get three mana back per kill, and take out three monsters with one cast, it was effectively a free spell. If you take out four, you GAIN mana for casting it. Try Promethean Magic with it; it turns monster houses into complete jokes. The trick is figuring out what builds a skill line is best for. For instance, my Promethean/Blood mage does occassionally finish something off with his sword, but I could have skipped the Sword line entirely.
Weapon skills are useless on a pure mage (which Promethean should be). You can still equip weapons without the mastery.
Promethean Blood Magic Ley Lines Mathemagic Psionics Filler Filler Seems to be the way to go for a mage build. For filler, I usually pick rogue skills (Archaeology and Burglary) but skills like Magic Training and Astrology definitely have their uses as well.
I don't think there are any truly useless skills. They just arent being utilized right in certain situations or builds. The randomness of the dungeons can dictate the usefulness of a skill on that run. Alchemy served me well on one time, I had around 15+ health potions. while on the other run, I found myself hardly using it until I got to the third floor. And while a lot of people claim tinkering to be the best, I think its only suitable for certain builds (using traps/crossbows/throwing items). At least everyone is capable of drinking a potion. For the sake of conversation, if I had to pick something it would be archaeology. I always pick it and find myself putting off on raising it. The final tier for that skill seems useful but serves no use in survival or combat. It's probably nice to have once you got all of your important skills and want the trap affinity.
Archaeology is one of the better skills. You get free experience for all those items you can't use. Plus on the artifacts you can use, you can reroll their stats until you get something useful. No artifact is worthless.
