Don’t worry that much. As long as you put some points in some attack skills somewhere, you can survive.
You can also refund skill points later on, if you decide some skills are no longer worth using and you’d rather shift the points elsewhere. (Except in the masteries, but you’d eventually max those out anyway.)
The more I look at the manual, the more I want to play a Sorcerer (Rogue / Storm), focusing on the Throwing Knife, Envenom Weapon, and Storm Nimbus trees. Seems like flurries of flying poisoned, freezing, electrified daggers would be downright festive.
The only question: are throwing knives nerfed? They tend to be kind of a little side weapon in most RPGs. Sure, they’re in there, but just try finding a purple (or even blue) throwing knife. Is this likely to be an issue?
I think they’re all pretty cool except for Spirit, since it’s all leeching stuff. It’s pretty damn hard to use that one on it’s own as a primary mastery. I would say it’s better to use that in tandem if you have to.
I was having fun with my Conqueror (Warfare/Defensive).
The throwing knives aren’t really a primary weapon; they act more like a spell. They’re great for spreading poison around, because you throw multiples and they pierce opponents, but I don’t think they carry the storm nimbus effect because they aren’t a real weapon attack. You’ll end up tossing a fistfull of them into a pack to spread poison/slow/confusion around, then closing in to melee them to death with elementally-charged attacks. If this sounds like fun, go for it.
Oh, and don’t pay too much attention to the skill descriptions in the manual because they got pretty heavily reworked in the 1.2 patch. Use Titan Calc http://www.titancalc.com/ instead.
When it comes to points I’ve always tended towards maxing one mastery before starting another. Every level I put one point in the mastery and the other points in skills. This isn’t a hard rule but it’s worked nicely for me and points put in masteries can’t be removed later so if you want to experiment it pays to be conservative and put as much as you can in your skills.
It also pays to be selective with skills. You can’t and shouldn’t pick all skills in a mastery.
Defense has the shield smash, which rocks. It’s quite powerful. I’m going with spirit, which is kind of weak on its own.
TQ Rogue forum consensus is that you’re wrong about that.
So I’m glad, because this sounds like ten tons of fun. TQ here I come, probably tonight!
Greetings:
Given the complexity of balancing 160 skills across 8 masteries, I cannot tell you how pleased I am at the results of this poll.
Best,
Michael.
Spirit has that crazy anti-undead line of skills that toasts undead. I’d like to make a anti-undead sort of Paladin-like class, maybe defense based, hmm…
In fact i like those undead skills so much i’m thinking of basing a character around them; i’ve just got to find a way to kill stuff that’s alive :).
Has anyone done well with the anti-magic skills in the Storm line?
Yep, I have a mid-40’s Thane. Not only does Spell Shock + Spell Breaker crush casters, it can cripple enemies that rely on Energy for melee abilities. Most bosses have too much Energy Drain/Skill Disruption resistance for it to shut them down, but it’s great for everything else. I did manage to get undead Typhon to zero energy with it, though, and I used mostly those skills and the Wisp to kill both Cerberus and the Grey Sisters.
The only problem I ran into with Spell Breaker was that I had to set it to a mouse button for it to be effective because it’s one of those targetted abilities that pops up a reticle.
There is no sucky mastery. There is only the wrong mastery for the playstyle. Don’t go defense spirit if you prefer to use bows for example. THin kabout how you like playing and what skills you’d benifit from most in your play style also don’t forget to make an alt and try something different.
There’s no mastery that is poor, and all are good when combined with any other, but if I was to choose which mastery I thought was the weakest I’d probably go with Nature. That’s not to say it’s a bad one, just that I think it the weakest of the bunch. Mayhap it depends on your play style a bit, though.