quantity vs quality of skills

[Deaddropping]

A question I wonder about, as I am currently about 2/3 or 3/4 of the way through restoring the hush house; Is it better to get as many different skills as you can, or focus on improving a relative handful of them with the right aspects?

[Pandorian]

I'm of the opinion that you should learn each skill once and then using any of the extra lessons to boost your higher level aspect skills. Typically you're going to want level 7+ skills for the endgame. There are also some skills that are more useful than others and should probably receive priority treatment for upgrades even if you have higher level aspect skills. (Lockworks and Clockworks).

[Deaddropping]

I suppose to elaborate on my question further to help get my point across; can I use specifically the "drums and dances" skill for anything, or is it only useful for its associated aspects? Can bells even be crafted with Bells and Brazieries? So on and so forth.

[Pandorian]

Originally posted by Deaddropping:

I suppose to elaborate on my question further to help get my point across; can I use specifically the "drums and dances" skill for anything, or is it only useful for its associated aspects? Can bells even be crafted with Bells and Brazieries? So on and so forth.

Drums & Dances has a unique Nectar craft at scholar rank. Bells and Brazieries is just another common Forge/Sky skill that other skills can craft the same items it does.

[Deaddropping]

Originally posted by Pandorian:

Originally posted by Deaddropping:

I suppose to elaborate on my question further to help get my point across; can I use specifically the "drums and dances" skill for anything, or is it only useful for its associated aspects? Can bells even be crafted with Bells and Brazieries? So on and so forth.

Drums & Dances has a unique Nectar craft at scholar rank. Bells and Brazieries is just another common Forge/Sky skill that other skills can craft the same items it does.

So there are unique recipes tied to certain skills.... but no way to know which ones.

[Xgpmcnp]

Early game, getting specific skills increased is much more important, imo. You want to get skills for every aspect, splitting it up evenly. Like getting one winter/moon, getting one rose/moth, getting one forge/nectar, etc, and levelling those as high as possible, even if that means not learning some skills. This way you can read way more books, and obtain more lessons, levelling up even more your skills, and ultimately being able to get level 9 skills all around. After that you want to focus on learning more skills and finding out which ones you want to level up for crafts and such; some have very unique crafts, like Edicts Martial has crafts no other skills do.

At your stage of the game, definitely always learn new skills, you should be swimming in lessons.

[Xgpmcnp]

Originally posted by Deaddropping:

Originally posted by Pandorian:

Drums & Dances has a unique Nectar craft at scholar rank. Bells and Brazieries is just another common Forge/Sky skill that other skills can craft the same items it does.

So there are unique recipes tied to certain skills.... but no way to know which ones.

Mid-level books commonly tell you in plain text how to perform specific recipes, and give you related skills. Aside from that, trial and error is generally how it goes; majority of skills have crafts for level 5, 10 and 15 of their related aspects.

[Pandorian]

Originally posted by Deaddropping:

So there are unique recipes tied to certain skills.... but no way to know which ones.

Not without experimenting or looking up lists. I made a spreadsheet as I went and then once it was mostly complete I cross-referenced other lists and the gamecode for any I was missing.

[Victoria]

I'd argue that it's generally best to learn each skill. There are enough lessons in the game (thought it might require some intensely tedious auction house grinding) to get most slots on the tree of wisdom filled to 4-5. Further, there are some skills that as far as I know are singular in their use for certain recipes, with nothing else being able to replace them such as Lockworks and Clockworks.

[Psyringe]

As others already said, learning each skill is probably the best way, as some of the skills offer unique crafts. Theoretically, since every lesson (as far as I'm aware) can be sourced from multiple different books, you _could_ use a lesson of a not-yet-learned skill to level another one up, and just wait for the next time that this lesson shows up. But that sounds like a nightmare to manage if you also want to be safe that you're not accidentally using up _all_ of the lessons for that skill. It's easier and safer to just learn each skill as soon as you get the opportunity. That also makes the skill available for crafting, and I found lots of crafts by just switching out skills in the workbench and seeing what it gets me.

That said, there is also value in having a few highly leveled skills, as opposed to leveling all skills evenly. The game is all about beating point thresholds, and that gets easier the higher your skill is leveled. So while I would recommend learning all skills so that you have all crafts available, I also recommend focusing your leveling-up of skills on just a few of them, ideally 7 skills that cover all 13 aspects (Lantern, Knock, Grail, etc.). It doesn't matter much which skills you choose, though over time, you'll learn which skills provide more useful crafting options than others.

[SDSkinner2011]

Originally posted by Deaddropping:

So there are unique recipes tied to certain skills.... but no way to know which ones.

You'll eventually get to the point where crafting scholar (level 10) recipes with untrained skills is easy (memory+tool giving 6 aspect), so the real question is unique keeper level. Edicts Martial is the only one in the game with a unique keeper skills (persistent memory).

As many people have pointed out you will want Lockworks and Clockworks (Glaziery & Lightsmithing can produce Gervinite, but Lockworks and Clockworks produces Amethyst Ampoule at level 5, which is the raw material to produce Gervinite).

[Pandorian]

Originally posted by SDSkinner2011:

As many people have pointed out you will want Lockworks and Clockworks (Glaziery & Lightsmithing can produce Gervinite, but Lockworks and Clockworks produces Amethyst Ampoule at level 5, which is the raw material to produce Gervinite).

The major reason you want Lockworks over Glaziery is because Glaziery needs metal to make metal. Lockworks needs glass to make metal, glass which it can also make.

[Victoria]

Originally posted by Pandorian:

Originally posted by SDSkinner2011:

As many people have pointed out you will want Lockworks and Clockworks (Glaziery & Lightsmithing can produce Gervinite, but Lockworks and Clockworks produces Amethyst Ampoule at level 5, which is the raw material to produce Gervinite).

The major reason you want Lockworks over Glaziery is because Glaziery needs metal to make metal. Lockworks needs glass to make metal, glass which it can also make.

Out of curiosity, do any of the Forge skills make metals without requiring a metal? It's weird that the skill capable of making metal from something other than such is tied to... Knock.

[SDSkinner2011]

Originally posted by Pandorian:

The major reason you want Lockworks over Glaziery is because Glaziery needs metal to make metal. Lockworks needs glass to make metal, glass which it can also make.

My bad. Yeah, Lockworks is one of the two unique skills.

Originally posted by Victoria:

Out of curiosity, do any of the Forge skills make metals without requiring a metal? It's weird that the skill capable of making metal from something other than such is tied to... Knock.

No. Lockworks and Clockworks is the only way in the game to make metal from something else- it makes glass from scratch (5 aspect) and transforms glass into metal (10 aspect) and metal into a tool (15 aspect).

It lets you skip at the nun at the Inn and use the blacksmith for knock aspect rooms. (there are 11 10+ knock rooms)

[Victoria]

Originally posted by SDSkinner2011:

Originally posted by Pandorian:

The major reason you want Lockworks over Glaziery is because Glaziery needs metal to make metal. Lockworks needs glass to make metal, glass which it can also make.

My bad. Yeah, Lockworks is one of the two unique skills.

Originally posted by Victoria:

Out of curiosity, do any of the Forge skills make metals without requiring a metal? It's weird that the skill capable of making metal from something other than such is tied to... Knock.

No. Lockworks and Clockworks is the only way in the game to make metal from something else- it makes glass from scratch (5 aspect) and transforms glass into metal (10 aspect) and metal into a tool (15 aspect).

It lets you skip at the nun at the Inn and use the blacksmith for knock aspect rooms. (there are 11 10+ knock rooms)

A shame. Honestly, I hope some of the other crafting trees get fleshed out more. As you mentioned, the 15 aspect Knock tool is incredibly useful, and only feels matched in utility and power by Sky with its craftable tools and permanent 15 aspect memories.

[Ananym]

Haha, yep. It seems like MOST skills are completely forgettable, but SOME skills are extremely important, and you've just gotta learn everything so you don't miss any of the latter.