What Passive Skills Should I Invest In?

[Cyrus_Blackfeather]

Hey guys, 

 

So, I was wondering which two passive skills would serve me the best from a roleplaying perspective, or if they're all used fairly equally in conversations/quest resolutions? My character definitely leans more toward the insightful intimidation route - he's very good at reading people, but favors a blunter/more direct approach when dealing with them. I've also considered a small investment into Metaphysics, though I'm not sure where that pays off down the line. I feel like it'd be best to focus on the ones I already have points in from class/background first and then once I have those up to, say, ten or so invest in others. 

[ntbittle]

Insight and Diplomacy are used often.

Because of the diminishing returns on Party Assist, it is best to give all Companions in every skill.  There are a few exceptions like Xoti.

[mazeltov]

With the dialogue passives one strategy would be to either push one to 10 or so (on your main, modified), or ignore it completely, since a check around 5 or 6 won't get you far past the second half of the game. There are lots of Intimidate checks, probably way more than the bunch I saw since I didn't do the crime/pirate/slaver quest lines. It's certainly an alternative to Diplomacy for resolving many situations, though it will jack up your Aggressive Disposition score (probably Cruel too), though, if that matters.

[Arddv]

I'm playing Bleak Walker so intimidate was an obvious choice. And I don't feel the need for diplomacy or bluff, although there were couple occasions I wished I had better insight. So I think focusing on any one of diplomacy/bluff/intimidate + insight is optimal.

Edited May 25, 2018 by Arddv

[hippofant]

Insight and Diplomacy are used often.

 

Because of the diminishing returns on Party Assist, it is best to give all Companions in every skill.  There are a few exceptions like Xoti.

I'm not sure this makes sense. Whether you spread skill points out or concentrate them on one character, the Party Assist effect is the same. (Remember, higher skill levels don't cost more points in PoE2.)

 

The question of whether you want to spread around skills or concentrate them on a party member comes down to whether you want to pass skill checks that check a single party member which could have high thresholds versus skill checks that check all/your lowest party member that could have low thresholds, and I don't know the answer to that.

[evilcat]

I went with Diplomacy + Insight as main character.

Intimidation, Bluff... i have seen them often. Streetwise, History i remember. The rest is very rare i suppose.

 

Could someone elaborate how party support skill works?

Is it better to have 1 companion with 10 or more, 4x3?

[flamesium]

I don’t think you want to spread your own points over more than a couple of passive skills. There are quite often multiple check options in the same event, so you’re better being strong at one or two than middling at all of them I think.

 

I spent them them around 2/3 Streetwise, 1/3 Metaphysics. Streetwise comes up a lot. Metaphysics didn’t come up very often, but when it did it seemed to be at important moments.

 

Survival I would leave to a party member you know you’ll always have with you. It’s used all the time in the scripted vignettes but there you often get to nominate a party member to perform the check, rather than doing it yourself.

 

There are a few weapons in the game which improve based on your passive skills, but I wouldn’t worry about that on a first playthrough.

[JerekKruger]

I'm not sure this makes sense. Whether you spread skill points out or concentrate them on one character, the Party Assist effect is the same. (Remember, higher skill levels don't cost more points in PoE2.)

Higher skill levels don't cost more points, but party assist is not one to one. If I recall correctly you need 1, 2, 4, 7, 11, 16 skill points on a companion to get a +1, +2, +3, +4, +5, +6 assist bonus, so having all your companions with lots of skills at 2 will be better than having each one with a few skills at higher levels.

[omegazen]

Intimidate/Diplomacy with Insight is good for your main guy. I had metaphysics. otherwise it doesn't matter that much, except when you want to use an item that is dependent on passive skills. Like every point of Religion making Xoti's lantern upgrade better. I think there's an item that improves with History and another with Metaphysics. Not sure which items are like this but that's the only reason I would focus a passive skill.

Edited May 25, 2018 by omegazen

[hippofant]

 

I'm not sure this makes sense. Whether you spread skill points out or concentrate them on one character, the Party Assist effect is the same. (Remember, higher skill levels don't cost more points in PoE2.)

Higher skill levels don't cost more points, but party assist is not one to one. If I recall correctly you need 1, 2, 4, 7, 11, 16 skill points on a companion to get a +1, +2, +3, +4, +5, +6 assist bonus, so having all your companions with lots of skills at 2 will be better than having each one with a few skills at higher levels.

 

That's not how it works. Party Assist is based on the sum of the skills in your party. Having 4 companions with 2 in Survival grants you the exact same amount of Party Assist as if you have 1 companion with 8 in Survival.

[Gromnir]

Insight and Diplomacy are used often.

 

Because of the diminishing returns on Party Assist, it is best to give all Companions in every skill.  There are a few exceptions like Xoti.

is worth noting, insight frequent is an "or" option with perception.  dialogue checks will often include insight/perception.

 

a few o' the pivotal plot advancing dialogues appeared to be skewed towards metaphysics and religion.

 

cutscene skill checks which had a tendency to lead to combat (or avoid such) were frequent using athletics, stealth, survival, and the aforementioned insight/perception checks. bluff and intimidate were less useful with cutscene and more impactful in dialogues. 

 

history is most useful for metagame reasons related to a single late-game magic item.  for the most part, history checks got us the option to sound like a know-it-all in dialogues, but rare opened up new options. 

 

streetwise were particular useful when dealing with pirates, the poor and the vtc.  

 

our impressions.  am knowing what the data mining shows, but actual gameplay tells a slight different story in our experience as the datamining doesn't actual explain context.  

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps our most frequent dialogue checks (not cut scene) were insight/perception followed distant by diplomacy.  diplomacy were indeed our mostest frequent check.

Edited May 25, 2018 by Gromnir

[Enoch]

I've found it useful to have one companion specialize in Survival, as that seems to be the passive that comes up most frequently in "pick a character" scripted interactions.  It has more in common with Active skills in that regard-- every character having 2 or 3 ranks there isn't going to help much.

 

Otherwise, it's probably a good practice to pick one or two of the talky skills for your whole party to not bother with.  If you're a Bleak Walker who is never going to be picking Diplo options, you can have relatively higher skills everywhere else if you disregard Diplomacy across-the-board.  To me, this makes some sense even for non-Pally/Priest Watchers who lack a mechanical reason to disfavor certain dispositions.  Decide who your character is and own it. 

[JerekKruger]

That's not how it works. Party Assist is based on the sum of the skills in your party. Having 4 companions with 2 in Survival grants you the exact same amount of Party Assist as if you have 1 companion with 8 in Survival.

Someone tested it and claimed it was how I described. I haven't tested it myself so you might be right, but I'm pretty sure it's not one-to-one.

 

EDIT: I just tested it and you are correct. There are diminishing returns on skill points, but those diminishing returns on companion assist bonuses, but they are on the total of your companions' skills, they aren't calculated for each companion.

Edited May 25, 2018 by JerekKruger