Jack-of-all-trades build enjoyable?

[flagadoss]

Hi! I’m probably buying this game sooner or later, but anyways I was curious: can an average player succeed with a Jack-of-all-trades build? I’ll be playing this solo and I don’t really feel like sticking to a specific archetype. On a related note: respeccing, is it possible? Constrained in any way?

[Tirien66]

You can respec at your base for a very small cost of runes, which you can get a ton of fighting enemies in the shroud or using the salvage option on weapons you find. havent tried a jack of all trades build, but changing and trying out different styles is very easy and fast.

[xitooner]

I think you can be jack-of-all-trades for a while; its a fine way to start the game and get familiar with whats possible. I started that way. Near end-game though, I have a feeling that you will run out of skill points to be as effective as you will want to be. You will always be able to USE bows,daggers,magic,hammers,swords, gliders, etc .... you just wont be able to do any of them well damage-wise. Fighters might have insufficient stamina/constitution to stay in a fight and hold their own... mages really want a deeper well of mana than you'll have .... those really nice skills you see and know you could use will be out of each skill-wise... because you dont COMMIT to any playstyle. That kind of stuff.

You can mitigate some of that via food buffs, and swapping around your rings/armor buffs. Heck, you can respec your skill points on the spot to become a great warrior and 10 minutes later respec to become a great mage.. the cost isnt much to respec as was said above. The game allows it just fine (although I find it a bit of a pain because there is so much skill selection to do)

In other words "jack-of-all-trades" can easily become "master-of-none", and sticking to that might become frustrating. At some point that frustration is due more to your chosen middle-of-the-road approach than due to the the game itself. But it probably is POSSIBLE if you try hard enough; some people find the combat quite easy. It might make you frustrated late-game, just remember... you asked for it :) For me, I eventually specced into a playstyle I found most enjoyable... and have swapped around to try others as well. About to respec into a dagger/bow combo to give that a try.

[Nerevar]

respecs are essentially cost free and infinite. with the new update you can get so many points that hybrids will become the new standard anyway as you will have way more points than 1 tree can even take.

its not possible to be good at everything at once currently. but its not practical to use lets say a mage staff and a bow at the same time to begin with.

just look at the skilltree to get the idea.

skillpoints dont only come from leveling up but also from roots. these are limited per map. new zones add more levels and roots and the biggest new zone is about to release raiseing the level cap to 35 from 25. so youll have even more points.

[xitooner]

Originally posted by Nerevar:

skillpoints dont only come from leveling up but also from roots. these are limited per map. new zones add more levels and roots and the biggest new zone is about to release raiseing the level cap to 35 from 25. so youll have even more points.

Just to put some context into that; current skillpoint limit is 114, when you are level 25 and have done all roots. With them raising the level to 35 and adding a new area with still more roots.... we could be getting a pretty decent boost in total skillpoints (to something around 130 or so?) in about a week (Nov 5).

[Eightball]

You can jack-of-all-trades and be fine, but there are some synergistic perks for each style of play (melee, magic, ranged) that are deep within their respective 'colors' on the perk tree (magic is blue, ranged is green, melee is red). Then there are also some utility perks for things like resource gathering.

By the time you get all your perk points you can stretch your skills out a bit, but even then if you want to maximize any one style of play you will probably invest heavily into that color as opposed to spreading your points around to thinly.

[flagadoss]

Sounds like there's plenty of room to experiment! Thanks everyone, I'm gonna try it out.

[Faceplant]

Just to point out the obvious, you only get the skill points when you clear the roots in an area, which is arguably(?) the hardest thing to do in a new area, and doing so with your skill points spread around the board is not going to be easy.

Re-skilling is an option, but is that really a jack-of-all-trades?

[Jmantis]

I started with some friends but they all slowly started falling off before the first big capital city boss. Now I have about 300 hours soloing in survival hard-mode and have beaten every quest, and dungeon, just trying to finish up the last artifact hunt. I use every style of weapon except 2 hands and mage staffs. Dont waste your time with two handers imo and only really use mage staffs if you go mage on your skills(otherwise just the wand is fine for magic). I focus my skill points all in the green mostly(archer, endurance, animals dont attack etc). Daggers and bow main weapon but one hand and shield is always ready for big hordes. wand helps pick apart solos.