Dome of Protection vs. Break the Shackles (Lone Wolf mode)

[Imppen ☮♥]

I'm planning to start a game in Lone Wolf mode and i've never played any game in the DOS series before. I've done all the research i need to get started. But the only thing that's still made me stuck in the character creation screen is: Sebille (Break the Shackles) or Elf (Dome of Protection).

I'd like to choose Sebille cos it's a origin character, the Elf is a custom one. Would i loose a lot of story going with the custom? Are there other good options to Dome of Protection along the way? ups/downs with these two?

[JaSzczur]

Dome is much better (although not that much in lone wolf). Break the Shackles has very limited use, the only effects really worth removing are Shackles of Pain, Silence and maybe Atrophy. As for the story, yeah, you'll miss a bit. If it's your first playthrough and you're going Lone Wolf, I'd choose Sebille for extra content, as difference between abilities is not that huge.

[Chaoslink]

Honestly, Break Shackles would probably be the better ability for lone wolf. In all fairness, Fane's Time Warp is the only good special source skill.

[gregfromthepeg]

Break the shackles can be really useful but I do prefer Dome of Protection just because I use it more. I have a custom character and Sebille on lone wolf. Break the shackles can save you from a tough spot but you will likely use Dome more often.

But if it is a new game to you, choose Sebille for story purposes. Neither skill is all that important.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by gregfromthepeg:

Break the shackles can be really useful but I do prefer Dome of Protection just because I use it more. I have a custom character and Sebille on lone wolf. Break the shackles can save you from a tough spot but you will likely use Dome more often.

But if it is a new game to you, choose Sebille for story purposes. Neither skill is all that important.

Exactly. Dome is a much worse skill than players might initially realize though. It’s similar in concept as to why regeneration or even fortify aren’t the best skills to use. They might do their job, but they’re inefficient. The healing and mitigation you get from Dome really isn’t worth the AP it costs. This is why I’d rank uncanny dodge as one of the highest tier skills in the game. It can mitigate the damage that it’d take 4 fortify casts to recover. A huge part of the game is managing AP usage and being more efficient than the enemy. The reason I’d rank breaking shackles higher is simply because there isn’t another option for removing some effects, meaning there isn’t really a more efficient option.

[Dragon]

Dome of Protection is easily one of the best skills in the game, possibly the very best. No, nothing else does what Dome does and as much as Dome does and as effectively as Dome does.

You definitely want Dome, and it's a huge design flaw that Origin characters are excluded from accessing it.

Break the Shackles is absolute garbage, as are almost all the other Origin skills also absolute garbage, with the exception of Fane's, who has the only Origin skill that is actually good and that is somewhat on par with Dome.

[Chaoslink]

Heh, wasn't sure if this post was gonna draw Dragon out. Turns out it did. Never tried to explain his builds so the community could help him make them work and seems to think that Dome + summoning is the only way to play the game. If I had to rank all the abilities into ranks like S/A/B/C/D/E or however people do that, I'd put Dome like C tier. Its alright, but not great. I saw a guide that ranked all the game's abilities in the same manner and I laughed at how naive the author had to have been.

Not trying to be mean, but take everything Dragon posts with a grain of salt. Never been sure if the posts are meant to troll or if they're legit as I've seen some, even on other forums, that very much would make you question it.