What do you think of the 5 skills?

[Heijoushin]

I mean lore, stealth, athletics, mechanics and survival.

 

Obviously, you need one mechanics expert, or you're a bit screwed. Then each character needs a little in athletics (to prevent breaking their ankles in scripted interactions) and a little stealth.

 

Survival and lore doesn't seem terribly useful to me.

 

Its a nice system (since you don't always need a thief in your party) but I hope there are more skills in POE 2. Maybe first-aid? Or bartering? Or something?

[Starwars]

I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. I wouldn't want it flat out removed though.

 

Survival is the least important by far I think. Personally, I typically only eat food (if then even) before a really hard encounter. I can't really be bothered with using food on a regular basis so Survival stays down for my people.

 

Athletics is... well, it's nice I suppose but not enormously so. Feels very "well it's nice to have some but...". If scripted interactions were a bit more numerous and maybe a bit more punishing with the injuries then maybe...

 

The others are highly useful to me. Using scrolls every now and then is a very useful tactic for me so I love having at least one with a high Lore. Some stealth is always good (though again, I suppose not hugely important, more due to how I play really) and Mechanics is absolute key.

[globalCooldown]

Mechanics is essential, but just for one person. Lore and Athletics are great; endgame, almost everyone has a few points in each for scrolls and staving off exhaustion. Stealth is good to have, but not necessary. Survival is...garbage.

 

As a whole, skill system could use some retooling. Or at least, giving Survival something better going for it than just improving items no one uses regularly.

[Elric Galad]

Or maybe Survival could work on potions.

 

Or maybe bonus from Survival could make food bonus last REALLY longer.

[Heijoushin]

I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. I wouldn't want it flat out removed though.

 

Survival is the least important by far I think. Personally, I typically only eat food (if then even) before a really hard encounter. I can't really be bothered with using food on a regular basis so Survival stays down for my people.

 

Athletics is... well, it's nice I suppose but not enormously so. Feels very "well it's nice to have some but...". If scripted interactions were a bit more numerous and maybe a bit more punishing with the injuries then maybe...

 

The others are highly useful to me. Using scrolls every now and then is a very useful tactic for me so I love having at least one with a high Lore. Some stealth is always good (though again, I suppose not hugely important, more due to how I play really) and Mechanics is absolute key.

 

Yeah, so let's say you have one mechanics master, one lore master, and one stealth master. Then I'm never sure what to do with the remaining 3 companions. I tend to just randomly assign points to them...

[Killyox]

I like some survival on Barb since I chug him +50% attack speed potions

[Certus]

How long does food bonus last for? If food gave a long lasting (12hrs) bonus I would use it. As it is its too short. Survival would be pretty important if it changed the magnitude.

[AndreaColombo]

I like to have a couple party members with high Lore to use scrolls of Valor/Paralysis/Defense.

 

Athletics caps at 4 for most of my characters as that's what I need to avoid exhaustion every time I travel or fight.

 

Survival I used to dismiss outright but I'm actually starting to appreciate it. Food provides some good bonuses, as do some potions; having them last longer is groovy.

[jsaving]

 

Yeah, so let's say you have one mechanics master, one lore master, and one stealth master. Then I'm never sure what to do with the remaining 3 companions. I tend to just randomly assign points to them...

 

The key question when allocating skill points should always be, how much combat utility can I get from each skill?  For lore, the answer is "quite a bit" -- people think of it as somehow helping you better understand the game world (and it does help a little bit if the main character maxes lore) but the main purpose is helping characters use combat-relevant scrolls.  Some of these scrolls are quite good and a few are OP, so it pays to give almost everybody some ranks in lore.  If you have characters who you'd like to deliver an opening attack before monsters are aware of them, it pays to give them some ranks in stealth as well (doesn't take that many to be able to move reasonably close).  I agree on mechanics, though -- one person maxing it is all you need.

[MunoValente]

Lore is really good, if you don't know where to put points, put it in Lore.  More people you have slinging revival and paralyze scrolls the better. Quite a few dialogue checks for the main character as well.

 

Athletics you get to 3-4 for everyone except one person who does your scripted events.  I think there should be a better bonus for going over 3 or 4 though, a bonus to evading disengagement attacks or something like that, like tumbling in D&D.

 

Stealth I usually do similar to athletics, a few points for everyone, but one master for the few places your really need to sneak.  With the update though, I'm starting to give to more certain party members that I want to be able to get closer to enemies.

 

Mechanics, one master is essential, otherwise it's fairly limited although everyone can use traps and it works with seals.  I just don't use traps much, if traps were better I'd like it better.

 

Survival is weak, it doesn't make the potions or food stronger, just last longer, unlike Lore that gives you access to better and better spells.  Has more speech options than you might think.  Still should have another use though, maybe some sort of spotting or tracking mechanic or bonus to fortitude or something, I don't know.  

[Nobear]

Mechanics, one master is essential, otherwise it's fairly limited although everyone can use traps and it works with seals.

 

In some patch long before 2.0, priest seals were changed from traps to hazards, so they haven't benefited from Mechanics for quite a while.

[Heijoushin]

 

 

Yeah, so let's say you have one mechanics master, one lore master, and one stealth master. Then I'm never sure what to do with the remaining 3 companions. I tend to just randomly assign points to them...

 

The key question when allocating skill points should always be, how much combat utility can I get from each skill?  For lore, the answer is "quite a bit" -- people think of it as somehow helping you better understand the game world (and it does help a little bit if the main character maxes lore) but the main purpose is helping characters use combat-relevant scrolls.  Some of these scrolls are quite good and a few are OP, so it pays to give almost everybody some ranks in lore.  If you have characters who you'd like to deliver an opening attack before monsters are aware of them, it pays to give them some ranks in stealth as well (doesn't take that many to be able to move reasonably close).  I agree on mechanics, though -- one person maxing it is all you need.

 

 

You are quite right. I didnt bother with this initially, but when you are fighting the dragons, it really helps having extra people throwing revive spells.

[Tomice]

I prefer having some mechanics on multiple characters.

My party walks in formation, and if the mechanics expert is not a frontliner, you seem to miss quite a few secrets because your backrow never enters some corners (of course you could manually send the mechanics guy ahead, but i tend to forget this)

[Nobear]

I prefer having some mechanics on multiple characters.

My party walks in formation, and if the mechanics expert is not a frontliner, you seem to miss quite a few secrets because your backrow never enters some corners (of course you could manually send the mechanics guy ahead, but i tend to forget this)

 

Or you could have Mechanics only on a front row character. Or you could switch between two formations if your mechanic is normally in the back row, one formation with him in front instead, for scouting dungeons without leaving the rest of your party too far behind. There are multiple ways to overcome this problem.

Edited September 13, 2015 by Nobear

[Ymarsakar]

people think of it as somehow helping you better understand the game world (and it does help a little bit if the main character maxes lore)

 

 

I read every single lore book article on the game wikipedia before the game was out. So the in game lore skill was starting to tell me stuff I already knew.

 

For mechanics, I moved everyone into a box or rectangular formation. That allowed the trap to be detected before the front row ran into it, but barely. The detect trap auto pause option must be on for that.

 

The secrets are a lot easier to get now because you don't need to be in scout mode to see some of them. I'm getting a lot more secret spots now just running around.

Edited September 13, 2015 by Ymarsakar

[Nobear]

For mechanics, I moved everyone into a box or rectangular formation. That allowed the trap to be detected before the front row ran into it, but barely. The detect trap auto pause option must be on for that.

 

The secrets are a lot easier to get now because you don't need to be in scout mode to see some of them. I'm getting a lot more secret spots now just running around.

 

 

Thanks, I forgot to mention that autopause option. Yes, that's yet another good thing to know about so you can avoid having multiple mechanics, and put those points in something better for those other characters (like Lore).

 

As for the secrets, you say some of them appear outside of scout mode now. Do some still require scouting?

[Killyox]

1) Lore

2) Mechanics

3) Stealth

4) Atlethics

5) Survival

 

Lore is the best all around to have as it increases your options a lot. Mechanics is good enough. It's ok if you have it on 1 char. I have it on 2 and sometimes place 2 traps + Priest seal for a deadly combo.

 

Stealth because next 2 are pretty useless

 

Atlethics ~2 for casters but can go higher if first 2-3 are high/not needed.

 

Survi, pretty useless. Maybe if they buffed it to do double what it does now. Or maybe scale effects too so duration + intensity.

 

PS

 

You don't NEED mechanics expert. It's just good to have one. Not sure if people noticed but 95% traps are visible without anything. You just need to look for it, like a strange hole on the wall looking like it can shoot arrows, or strange panel on the ground. There are many telltales of traps being there :>

Edited September 14, 2015 by Killyox

[Ymarsakar]

 

For mechanics, I moved everyone into a box or rectangular formation. That allowed the trap to be detected before the front row ran into it, but barely. The detect trap auto pause option must be on for that.

 

The secrets are a lot easier to get now because you don't need to be in scout mode to see some of them. I'm getting a lot more secret spots now just running around.

 

 

Thanks, I forgot to mention that autopause option. Yes, that's yet another good thing to know about so you can avoid having multiple mechanics, and put those points in something better for those other characters (like Lore).

 

As for the secrets, you say some of them appear outside of scout mode now. Do some still require scouting?

 

 

I haven't actually tested that. From what little I remember, some secret loot (random day loot containers) I missed because I wasn't in scout mode so never checked for them, others I might have missed because my mechanics skill was low. But I prioritized most of my cipher skill points into mechanics. Then I reload the game in 1.06 and start running around and I start getting loot spots I didn't know were there before, automatically. Can do a lot of running around on fast speed with scout off.

 

What I heard is that out of scout mode, you can still detect secrets at -4 mechanics or whatever it was. So I guessed it applied a debuff, so some containers needed a higher mechanics for active searching. But that's only speculation, really.

 

Another surmise is that only the containers with special stuff in them require a higher check. Like Tidefall or something like it. Someone posted a random loot table telling us what each day gives out for each "random" secret container before.

 

Just rename it to .xlsx and get a free excel viewer if needed. For testing purposes, if you or anyone wanted to isolate this down, you could probably just hit the cache in search and out of search mode, with low mechanics or high mechanics to see if there's a difference.

PoErandom-no-pics-1.01 - Copy.txt

Edited September 14, 2015 by Ymarsakar

[Teioh_White]

I do think the skills could use a little re-work. Right you just need one Mechanic Monkey (brings in a lot of money through traps+hidden loot. often which has gear you can't buy) one Athletics dude (this one's not nearly as key, most atheletics checks can be skipped with cheap items, and there are very few items to get with soley atheletics). After that, it's maybe 3 points in stealth so you can open with an Alpha Strike if you like to micro that much, and then whatever left into Lore. Survival is really weak, not a ton of worthwhile potions to use, and often they last long enough on their own. Maybe it'd be more pressing if potions required survival to use, like scrolls do Lore.

 

Lore's actually so good to the point I'm starting to consider it cheese on my play throughs. No matter what my team build is, if I struggle with even the toughest fights in the game, I know I can just scroll spam to beat it. Still never go without 4 guys doing it in Trials of Iron/ExpertMode/PotD though, I'd have a ton more failed games if half the team couldn't revive half the other team, or just have half the team fire of a volley of paraylze scrolls to get some breathing room. Or make a Moonwell for everyone to stand in.