Skills and Skill trees

[Gizmo]

Does this game allow you to configure characters via skills and skill trees or is it all item based?

[Kiss My Ax]

Each character has 2 different skill trees

[Froh]

And you can pick in a mix of both.

[lordanthrax]

Having a solid selection of talents and the perks that accompany them makes a HUGE difference in how effective characters are (Garrison being the biggest example, he goes from zero to death god when traited properly).

[thrAsher]

The skill trees aren't massive by any means, but you can respec at will. There's just enough customization to make levelling and experimentation fun.

[caelcyndar5]

I'm guessing it's best to take a mix of offensive and defensive perks? Just unsure which ones are worth taking.

[thrAsher]

I'm not sure at this point, not very far into the game but you can try out a set of perks, and if you don't like them, swap them around after the battle. Very forgiving system, wish more games were this lenient.

[lordanthrax]

Overcharge-related perks are very strong and things you should definitely work towards. Getting free heals after a fight is also useful, especially early on when your ability to heal isn't as strong.

[caelcyndar5]

I've only just made it to lvl12 at Junktown. I do like this game but the fact that everything is based against your level is a bit of a detraction.

[lordanthrax]

Personally I don't mind grinding for things as long as I know my time will be rewarded. Banging my head against the RNG wall pisses me off, which is why I very much dislike how endgame crafting gets bottlenecked so much with needing certain items (looking at you, Living Stone Slab...)

Fortunately you can get around some of it by throwing the scads of other mats you can get at the success chance. I would probably play this game more if we could carry our gear over to NG+, then I could just blaze through the story and get all the cool stuff without having to do Ultimate Weapons and gear again.

[caelcyndar5]

Originally posted by lordanthrax:

Personally I don't mind grinding for things as long as I know my time will be rewarded. Banging my head against the RNG wall pisses me off, which is why I very much dislike how endgame crafting gets bottlenecked so much with needing certain items (looking at you, Living Stone Slab...)

Fortunately you can get around some of it by throwing the scads of other mats you can get at the success chance. I would probably play this game more if we could carry our gear over to NG+, then I could just blaze through the story and get all the cool stuff without having to do Ultimate Weapons and gear again.

What is the point of New Game + then? All the other New Game + I've seen let you carry over levels and even gear.

[lordanthrax]

You carry over your perk points and earned skill unlocks, you just restart at lvl 1 with no gear (though you can access certain items again if you've unlocked them, like the Fishiary sword).

[caelcyndar5]

Originally posted by lordanthrax:

You carry over your perk points and earned skill unlocks, you just restart at lvl 1 with no gear (though you can access certain items again if you've unlocked them, like the Fishiary sword).

And that doesn't sound fun in the slightest with NG+ barely being more then just the regular version. It's taken me 8 hours just to get to Junktown. Far as i can tell, there even isn't really any XP grinding since everything scales off your level. I tried the Harm's Way sewer quest against the slimes at lvl10, the boss was practically 1-shotting my chars, same with the arena. Went to the Tolkar arena and selected the initial difficulty (lvl9) at lvl11 and the mobs were taking off 2/3rd of my HP a hit.

[lordanthrax]

They supposedly upped the difficulty in NG+, I had long since completed it by then, had all the perks that mattered for my main crew, as close to full Legendary as I could get, etc. so any challenge was dead and buried.

Things scale off your level to a point. Go back to the starting area, you'll see you vastly outlevel things. The only mobs who remain overleveled are the Sky Pirates. They DO present a challenge, until you can gear up and get enough perks and talents to overpower them consistently.

Another big factor is having all the skills unlocked. Your first playthrough you'll struggle with the early kit because you won't have skills to let you control the mobs. Once you can use Taunt with Gully, shield her and keep Bretto healing while Garrison DPS-spikes ♥♥♥♥ into the ground with OC and Warblade II/Rage Wave II cheese, things get pretty simple.

[Tenmar]

Originally posted by caelcyndar5:

I'm guessing it's best to take a mix of offensive and defensive perks? Just unsure which ones are worth taking.

If you are new, probably best to focus more on stat based upgrades in the perk tree than abilities. You'll find certain specializations that you might want like improved abilities but core upgrades like % increase to attack(which can improve healing as well), defense, healing to be more helpful for a first time playthrough as stats for gear fluctuate wildly as you play through due to constant changes in focus and rarity of weapons/armor/trinkets.