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Thread: Appraising is worthless.

  1. #91
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    Quote Originally Posted by blunk View Post
    I have use for it in SMC-> UD dives where every piece of improvement is useful, it's not huge but better than woodcraft, bridgebuilding, haggle (yes this can be useful but I never use it), Survival, Metallurgy and Law (yes this can supposedly have some value for non wiki users).
    On a similar level to fletchery which can be useful in early game when ammo can be scarce, well maybe goblin camp sort of made the skill a bit redundant with all the rock piles.
    I use haggle, but only when it is at a high skill level, as failing raises cost. I also use bridge-building, when I encounter early game water without the swimming skill. Early game I am still keeping my potions of carrot juice to improve Pe.
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  2. #92
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    Even if apprising makes something less of a gamble, it is still a gamble, you can get cursed items that have a fair appraisal. I stopped using it for that reason, and I just have not used it in years. While you can say from time to time once in a blue moon it helps; however, the vast majority of the time is sill is just worthless and in the times it does help most of that time it will not be a big help. I benefit from bridge building, haggling and cooking way more than appraising.
    Last edited by Jeremiah; 08-18-2018 at 04:39 PM.
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  3. #93
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    I disagree with bridge building and haggling being useful. I’ve never found a situation where bridge building was easier to use than any other method in the game. In fact if you are unlucky enough not to find enough carrot juice there even a guaranteed potion shop now. But regardless, all the early quests that can have rivers are easily skipped.

    I’ve used haggling and if my starting dice rolls are high enough I may even add a skill up to it... but I still think it’s not very useful. Because by the time it’s high enough to use, money is plentiful. Even when used with a ME or a DE it’s still not enough to compensate for their racial handicap.

  4. #94
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    Quote Originally Posted by Blank4u47 View Post
    I disagree with bridge building and haggling being useful. I’ve never found a situation where bridge building was easier to use than any other method in the game. In fact if you are unlucky enough not to find enough carrot juice there even a guaranteed potion shop now. But regardless, all the early quests that can have rivers are easily skipped.

    I’ve used haggling and if my starting dice rolls are high enough I may even add a skill up to it... but I still think it’s not very useful. Because by the time it’s high enough to use, money is plentiful. Even when used with a ME or a DE it’s still not enough to compensate for their racial handicap.
    I am not arguing they are useful, I am arguing like appraising they are not devoid of all use. Just because a skill can sometimes be used that doesn't mean it is not in need of improvement.
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  5. #95
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    We can argue that any skill can be used, even woodcraft, but that still doesn't mean it is a worthwhile skill. The whole skill tree is antiquated and could use revision.
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  6. #96
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    Unless the proposed improvement doesn’t make sense. I feel it would be more useful if appraisal could be used to find one or two hidden features to an object. Not like the whole greater id description, but part of its verbose description. Definitely not it’s numerical description either.

  7. #97
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    Quote Originally Posted by Grond
    Tier 1 skills are what I would consider true game-changers. Limitless fireballs, the ability to read scrolls, and not having to worry about positioning in a few critical moments make a difference.

    Tier 2 skills still offer significant bonuses to make the game easier, such as being a bit faster, having the potential for spellcasting, being able to do some easy shoplifting, killing stuff in melee faster (crits, invis backstabs) etc.

    Tier 3 skills are more modest boosts but still clearly make the game easier; bonuses to more minor stats, saving some on healing, not having traps be a hassle, etc.

    Tier 4 skills are just minor utility: avoiding some pitfalls with gear, some occasional tricky situations like viper traps or the door game.

    Tier 5 skills are the true useless ones, with very little point in advancing them. Haggling will occasionally save some money, but you don't really need money and most classes can't even advance it to a level where it works. Listening trains up just fine on its own. Two Weapon Combat is improving an ill-advised method of fighting.
    Tier 1: Alchemy, Literacy, Alertness
    Tier 2: Athletics, Find Weakness, Backstabbing, Concentration, Herbalism, Healing, Smithing, Gardening
    Tier 3: First Aid, Stealth, Swimming, Food Preservation, Dodge, Archery, Detect Traps, Ventriloquism, Gemology, Tactics, Necromancy
    Tier 4: Appraising, Detect Item Status, Music, Disarm Traps, Climbing, Fletchery, Mining, Pick Locks
    Tier 5: Listening, Haggling, Courage, Cooking, Law, Woodcraft, Bridge Building, Survival, Metallurgy, Two Weapon Combat
    Alchemy is Tier 2 at best. Athletics is Tier 3. Ditto Backstabbing. I love Gardening in its current incarnation, but it's probably Tier 3 as well because it's really just a convenience feature. Gemology and Dodge are more like Tier 4; Detect Item Status is a better fit for Tier 3. Tactics and Food Preservation are both Tier 2. Find Weakness is probably Tier 1 if you're using Archery; Concentration is Tier 1 if you're a caster. I'd be tempted to move Smithing down because I find it too tedious to actually play, but I'll acknowledge its value if you actually want to put in the effort. Cooking is Tier 4, at least for non-casters.

    Appraising is great in Ironman runs or similar challenges (not as good as item status, but decent enough) where you have some difficulty in identifying your gear.
    Hoping to win with every class, doomed. Archer, Barbarian, Bard, Beastfighter, Druid, Elementalist, Farmer, Fighter, Monk, and ULE Priest down.

  8. #98
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    Quote Originally Posted by JellySlayer View Post
    Alchemy is Tier 2 at best. Athletics is Tier 3. Ditto Backstabbing. I love Gardening in its current incarnation, but it's probably Tier 3 as well because it's really just a convenience feature. Gemology and Dodge are more like Tier 4; Detect Item Status is a better fit for Tier 3. Tactics and Food Preservation are both Tier 2. Find Weakness is probably Tier 1 if you're using Archery; Concentration is Tier 1 if you're a caster.
    If Alchemy is Tier 2, then Literacy is the only Tier 1 skill. Perhaps an accurate assessment, as merely having Literacy makes life a lot easier, regardless of the character type. I may be biased in favor of Alchemy due to playing at higher difficulty levels, where you really want forms of attack that don't care about DV and PV.

    Athletics is that high mainly to due to the speed bonus at higher ranks. If being fast doesn't matter, you probably don't need any skills. Backstabbing I have that high because blindness backstabbing is very strong versus certain otherwise difficult monsters. Perhaps other comparably good strategies are possible without it, though.

    You are probably right about Gardening. But I would say that Gemology is closer in usefulness to Gardening than to Fletchery. Some gems are quite useful in bulk, and it's impractical to farm them without the skill.

    Dodge is tricky due to the difficulty in training it. Still, I think a few points of DV and some other side benefits are good enough for Tier 3. It's certainly not much less useful than the minor bonuses granted by Tactics, which also suffers from training difficulties.

    Detect Item Status is very much in the same boat as Appraising. Nice for early-game, and close to a pure convenience feature after that.

    You are probably right about Food Preservation. Getting intrinsics earlier is quite helpful, and it has minor benefits throughout the game.

    Since Tier 1 now consists of Literacy, I can't imagine putting Find Weakness there. You get better crit multipliers with ranged, but you also get less crit chance from Find Weakness. I didn't make the list for specific classes or archetypes, so I don't really care that Concentration is Tier 1 for casters.

  9. #99
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    Quote Originally Posted by JellySlayer View Post
    Cooking is Tier 4, at least for non-casters.
    Minor nitpick, but imo it is tier two for Chaos knights when they start out Extremely Thin and Nimble.
    And tier three for hurthlings that have game changing crowning gifts (beastfighter comes to mind), if you are aiming at crowning as early as possible.

    Wait, are we appraising skills?
    You steal a scroll labelled HITME. The orc hits you.

  10. #100
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    If Alchemy is Tier 2, then Literacy is the only Tier 1 skill. Perhaps an accurate assessment, as merely having Literacy makes life a lot easier, regardless of the character type. I may be biased in favor of Alchemy due to playing at higher difficulty levels, where you really want forms of attack that don't care about DV and PV.
    I've won the game on higher difficulties too, and never really found much use for offensive alchemy except maybe on Merchants (and even then, most of my merchants I find taking wand gives much better returns). Then again, I almost never play the classes that have this skill other than Merchants, so I'll admit I may be biased there.

    Athletics is that high mainly to due to the speed bonus at higher ranks.
    It's not that big of a speed bonus, and by the time you actually start to get the benefits here, most classes have other ways to buff their speed if needed.

    But I would say that Gemology is closer in usefulness to Gardening than to Fletchery.
    Gemology is like a worse version of smithing in terms of value/turn invested. Fletchery at least requires very little grinding. But any skill that requires you to put in 10000+ turns of grinding in order to see any benefit is bad, IMHO.

    Dodge is tricky due to the difficulty in training it. Still, I think a few points of DV and some other side benefits are good enough for Tier 3. It's certainly not much less useful than the minor bonuses granted by Tactics, which also suffers from training difficulties.
    +8 DV isn't all that much, though I'll grant that the bonuses from tactics aren't as big as I thought they were. I guess Archery/Tactics/Dodge are all probably in about the same range of utility.

    Detect Item Status is very much in the same boat as Appraising. Nice for early-game, and close to a pure convenience feature after that.
    DIS gives you much more practical feedback than Appraising does, especially for items whose values aren't so clearly defined as weapons (e.g. scrolls, wands, and potions). In scenarios where your inventory is necessarily light, both of these skills are better, but DIS is MUCH better.
    Hoping to win with every class, doomed. Archer, Barbarian, Bard, Beastfighter, Druid, Elementalist, Farmer, Fighter, Monk, and ULE Priest down.

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