Talents

[Blank4u47]

So, just curious what others on the board think about the new improved talents, and what everyone’s new favorites are, if any.

For me, there’s a few clear winners; melee weapon master, the skilled tree, and healthy.

[Grond]

I like Healthy a lot as well. It makes life as a non-Candle starsign much more enjoyable. Charged is also neat on certain characters; at the minimum natural PP regen interval it gives a substantial boost (> 2 PP / 5 turns).

Affinity with X talents on their own are quite good. But I don't end up getting Melee Weapon Master very much. The talent is definitely worth it once you have it, but I think the investment ends up being somewhat impractical in a lot of cases. If you've got max starting talents and can get it at level 6 it's nice, but with 3 starting talents it can't be picked up until 15, and delaying with safer early-game talents pushes it back to the point where you don't really need it.

I'm not entirely sold on the skilled line. While I understand that looking at a bleak level-up screen with a lot of +1 "dice" is not the most fun, is it really that big of a deal? It seems like these talents would be worth considering for a pretty narrow range of combos; you'd need good skills, bad dice, and an easy early-game. Druid and necromancer maybe?

A couple thoughts on talents not worth taking:
Strong Legs - the chance to break traps is disappointingly low, but you owe it to yourself to take it once for a laugh.
Shop talents - the increased chance for shops is actually noticeable. If you like shops and you like doing random dungeons, it can be fun.

[Blank4u47]

I’m currently playing a grey elf healer, and started with the 3 skilled talents and strong of will. I’m at lvl 18 now and So far ive gotten most of my skills to 100. Alertness required 0 grinding, and dodge just got to 100 (we all know that would be impossible otherwise) and I have all the thief skills almost maxed. (Most people wouldn’t care about that, but I for some reason like using disarm traps and open lock)

I think the best part about skilled is that it raises skill dice even for skills you don’t have yet.

As for MWM I only get it because I’d get most of the other talents anyways. In addition, it lets you swap weapon types with less penalties because of the 10% energy cost reduction. It also makes dual wielding more feasible if you have decent end game gear and want to drop the shield.

[Grond]

I’m currently playing a grey elf healer, and started with the 3 skilled talents and strong of will. I’m at lvl 18 now and So far ive gotten most of my skills to 100. Alertness required 0 grinding, and dodge just got to 100 (we all know that would be impossible otherwise) and I have all the thief skills almost maxed. (Most people wouldn’t care about that, but I for some reason like using disarm traps and open lock)

Healer has good dice in a lot of skills though. So the substantive benefit by level 18 is that you're getting significantly better Alertness and Dodge. These skills are at least ones that get much better at high levels, but I'm not convinced that's worth 3 starting talents. I would probably still start with PV/speed talents, as it's a classic crummy-starting-gear true-berserk combo.

As for MWM I only get it because I’d get most of the other talents anyways.

On example you gave, you're at best getting Melee Weapon Master at level 21. Strong of Will isn't worth it independently, Careful and Defensive Fighter aren't high priority pickups, and two of the Affinity talents are pretty much useless. In short, you are suffering pretty much up to ToEF in exchange for a slight edge after that point. I'd rather have an edge for the early and mid game.

[Blank4u47]

The +2 damage from the weapon talent is amazing in the early game imo, and I skimp on str and will with point buy and put points into toughness, mana, and dex. So in a nutshell I use those to compensate a bit. Besides, I never get the pv talents anyways so what else am I going to buy?

Im pretty sure healer has poor dice on thief skills, but regardless, bonus dice on all skills means less picks wasted leveling them up, and much faster high levels in skills, so you can actually use them when they’re needed.

I’m sure skilled talents aren’t for everyone, nor would I advocate everyone get them. They are useful however, just probably not game-changingly so

In fact, the healthy talent as it is, is pretty brokenly good. It seems to double all hp gain, so regen, natural healing, and healing skill are all at 2hp. Have you noticed if two sources of regen do 3 or 4 hp? It just occurred to me to check right now!

Edit: on a side note, I actually got haggling to 100 before lvl 10, because of skilled, so it actually came in handy when I needed it at barnabus’s and at hmv

[Grond]

Healthy doesn't affect magical regeneration.

[Blank4u47]

It seemed to for me, I’ll go check again though, maybe it was an observational error on my part.

[Blank4u47]

Healthy doesn't affect magical regeneration.

You are correct of course. Finally got to test it out. Don’t know how I got to that conclusion now. Oh well!

[grobblewobble]

Woops, I should have replied to this thread instead of starting a new one.

In fact, the healthy talent as it is, is pretty brokenly good.

While it does not affect magical regen, it does seem to work with an Amulet of Rapid Healing. That give you some crazy regen.

[blunk]

I've tried the gnome point buy 6 starting talent variant and rushed to melee weapon master, while I think other stuff are better you can get crazy early game damage which probably is cool. (char still did not have long term success).
I think basher tree is stronger since you only need 3 talents for it.
The melee weapon master have too many prereqs for me.

Didn't even read up on the changes on skilled, I can think of atleast 3 classes where it's useful , farmer, mindcrafter and weaponsmith get horrible dice and probably can benefit from it.

I am using affinity to weapon here and there.

I usually have my set path of talents which I probably should let go a bit of.