Magic skills you aren't using still get xp?

[onemeg]

I keep seeing various opinions about whether it's best to have everyone pick up some magic skills, or whether it's best not to "test out" magic skills to avoid having skills you won't be using getting xp.
I read that when you complete a quest etc. the exp you get is divided among all your skills, so if you have magic skills you aren't using it is essentially taking xp from your other skills. Is this true? My main is a dual wielder but I had messed around with illusion, frost and life spells, and now I really only want illusion. If I unslot the other spells and never use them again, are they still getting xp distributed when I complete a quest, thereby essentially taking xp from other skills that I am using? If this is true, I think I need to start over so as to not gimp my characters....Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Furyzx]

All that really matters is that your level. Gaining levels in your magic skills don't harm your dual wield advancement, it is even better that way, since if you will rely only on dual wield to get level up you will be level 10 where Lantry for example will be level 20 As long as you use your weapons in battle you will have sufficent skill in it the more you use the better, quest exp is really low compared to real battle expirience anyway. The more skills you earn overall the more powerfull your character is, near the end of the game your main skills will be leveling much slower and by leveling optional skills you will gain more levels, so there is absolutely no reason to even think about stoping the natural order of it.

The only way you can gimp your character is using one trick combat, the more tricks you use in combat the better your character will be. Crush them with stones, freeze, use illusions, everything will empower you overall. On a contrary of your thinking illusion is your character best friend, blur and mirror image are really handy and a high level ( lore ) mirror image is best defence in a game, that should only encourage you to get/train more lore, nevermind that there are alot of lore dialogues in a game. And more lore only mean more levels!

 

[onemeg]

Hi Furyzxt, thanks for clarifying! It seems more fun to use lots of different magic, so I'm glad to hear that

 

[Furyzx]

Np man. Yea it is really fun to use all kind of magic, even tho i really like to use magic and train in lore my Archer/caster character still has bow skill way higher than anything else, it all depends how you control the battle and what do you encourage to level.

 

[tacodiscussions]

Let me offer the opposite perspective here, and not for the sake of it. As a soloist, max level is a foregone conclusion to me. Therefore, the real concern is how will my character look at max level. Most assuredly having experience distributed among skills I'm not using makes my character weaker than it could be. Also, magic skill is a mighty crappy thing to level up if you're only using it defensively, as then the skill isn't used to overcome anyone's defenses but only gives you a chance for double effect/duration. We could also mention that enemies level up when you do (to a point, anyway) so just getting any kind of messy level doesn't strictly give you an edge... except it probably does anyway because of your talent point, so not the hugest issue.

However, just how hardcore are you? Surely you should experiment a bit with your first characters. You can't expect the first one to be flawlessly powerful. I bet if we could review all your choices (conquest, in particular) we could find some more irreversible damage to your vision of becoming the theoretically strongest dual wielder on Terratus. I wouldn't let it bother me. My first characters all dabbled in magic like hell.

To avoid gaining quest experience in a skill you must first avoid ever gaining experience in that skill. That can happen involuntarily, but I shan't regale you with all the ways and how to avoid them unless you ask.

When I say max level, I mean 21 by the way. After level 21 you generally don't gain more experience in act 2, save through sigils of Life and Emotion... and testing your defenses against traps. I don't know how high you can get in act 3 but it's such a short act.

 

[Khaylon]

Leeching hp with gravelight spells allows also to gain more xp after lv21. So, in theory, it's possible to gain experience from life, emotion and gravelight magic (as long as you have enemies to fight) and increase the other skill up to 150 using the master trainers. I'm not sure about traps increasing defenses because from my experience they target magic - the only way I see to gain xp with them is to take damage and then heal using life magic. Reading scrolls also can add more lore experience after lv21.

The ideal is to increase only an attack skill, a defensive skill and lore (which is needed mostly for spell creation). Magic skills increase only spells accuracy (and counts only for 50%) which can already be increased with accents, lore, finesse or items - that means you should avoid increasing these skills as much as possible if you want to optimize your character. Athletics also is pretty useless unless you have a build using talents based on your athletics skill (personally I stay away from talents using athletics/subterfuge skills). Subterfuge can be nice if you're using stealth a lot (50% damage from stealth can help you OS multiple enemies at the start of a fight using Whirlwind Strike) and you need it for containers, but you don't have to pay special attention to it.

But if you plan to use gravelight, life and emotion magic to reach higher levels then you can play as you want and increase the main skills with master trainers.

 

[tacodiscussions]

I'm not sure about traps increasing defenses because from my experience they target magic - the only way I see to gain xp with them is to take damage and then heal using life magic.

Outdoor ones (usually/always) target parry, but they are also depleted. Oldwalls traps target magic and aren't depleted. With Spectral Blur up you'll train Illusion because it tries to deflect.

 

[AndreaColombo]

@Khaylon How do you avoid leveling magic skills? The moment you imbue your weapons with a lash and use them, the relative magic skill gains experience; Volcanic Weapons adds Control Fire to all lashes; Haste and Mirror Image add to Control Illusion and Control Force.

To avoid that you should go spell-free up to level 21, which is unnecessarily harder and gimps your Lore as well (you won't be getting Lore from using spells.) Then at 21 you'd start using spells you don't need because 21 and half of the game would be behind you already.

What am I missing?

 

[Khaylon]

The traps from the oldwalls are also depleted eventually - not sure how many charges they have...

 

[tacodiscussions]

To avoid that you should go spell-free up to level 21, which is unnecessarily harder and gimps your Lore as well (you won't be getting Lore from using spells.) Then at 21 you'd start using spells you don't need because 21 and half of the game would be behind you already.

Some rep abilities use lore only. Playing spell-free I don't have problems keeping my lore up to speed (as in, high enough to be a smartass in conversations).

By the way, I take it you've heard the somewhat good news? I bet that other helpful vote is you

 

[AndreaColombo]

Indeed, it is mine; after all this odyssey, I kinda want that sword too

Which abilities give you Lore? Don't have access to the game these days. How high could you get your Lore at 21? Did you build the Infirmary first to get the master Lore trainer? Or did you go for the master Dual Wield trainer?

 

[tacodiscussions]

I like Drain Strength (Vendrien Guard: Wrath 5) and Flesh to Stone (Stonestalker Tribe: Wrath 5). There's also Withering Touch (Unbroken: Wrath 5, enjoy the railroad) but it doesn't see as much use. Altogether these have left me at 105 Lore at 21 (71 base), which is more than enough for my smartass purposes. Don't think I've seen a check requiring 90 even.

(Obviously I'm a conversational smartass when apt and I read scrolls, so that contributes too)

Infirmary is always my last upgrade, so trainer hasn't been involved. Maybe in act 1 when 1h/parry were trainer-maxed.

 

[Khaylon]

@Khaylon How do you avoid leveling magic skills? The moment you imbue your weapons with a lash and use them, the relative magic skill gains experience; Volcanic Weapons adds Control Fire to all lashes; Haste and Mirror Image add to Control Illusion and Control Force.

To avoid that you should go spell-free up to level 21, which is unnecessarily harder and gimps your Lore as well (you won't be getting Lore from using spells.) Then at 21 you'd start using spells you don't need because 21 and half of the game would be behind you already.

What am I missing?

If you want to optimize you basically have to avoid magic until lv21 as much as possible - most fights are easy even without magic. Lore can be increased with scrolls, interactions and trainers (act 1 mostly).

 

[Furyzx]

Your optimizing guys might only work in solo playthrough. When i played in full party, characters that only use their primary skills fell behind in levels like 3-4+, idk why would you recommend it in general. Levels are far more important than skills. Anyway if you only use your main skill and occasional spell i don't see how it affects your dual-wield for example, you still get full dual-wield exp and ALOT of freebies for using simple magic. I agree that magic skill level is kinda useless, except pure mages but still as i said even if i mix archery and casting, my bow skill near the end of act 2 way higher than anything else and nothing even near to cause me troubles on path difficulty, so all that stuff might work only solo.

 

[tacodiscussions]

What's "full" dual-wield exp? Anyway, nothing stops you from xp whoring in a party playthrough. Also, ironically enough, you get the strongest party by soloing. I soloed a toon to 26. When she picked up Lantry, he was 30 ^^

 

[Furyzx]

Magic skills increase only spells accuracy (and counts only for 50%) which can already be increased with accents, lore, finesse or items - that means you should avoid increasing these skills as much as possible if you want to optimize your character.

Description says it also increase critical chance of that magic and to think about it, it is actually only says about critical chance and nothing else, where did you get that they add to accuracy? I mean it probably should add to accuracy, didn't exactly test this one.

 

[Furyzx]

What's "full" dual-wield exp? Anyway, nothing stops you from xp whoring in a party playthrough. Also, ironically enough, you get the strongest party by soloing. I soloed a toon to 26. When she picked up Lantry, he was 30 ^^

It's mean that major of skill expirience is earned in combat. If you use moslty or ONLY dual wield to proceed in combat. you will get alot expirience in it during fight, but if you will throw occasional spell being bad at it, you will get like +5/10 controll that school skill and get major level increase, don't know how is it might ruin anything. Naturally you will earn way more level expirience solo due to longer fights and all combat exp going to you, optimizing skills, but in party playthrough your minions will "eat" alot of combat expirience.

Soloing game might be fun after completing it, but it also means missing ALOT of rpg content with your minions.

 

[tacodiscussions]

where did you get that they add to accuracy?

If you check an offensive spell it'll list Lore and Control <school> as its attack skills.

As for experience, you gain DW experience every time you attack with two weapons. So I dunno, full experience sounds like spending the whole level only DW attacking and never even getting your dodge or parry tested ;p if you spend a whole level only DW attacking you'll of course gain more DW skill than if you dabble in magic too. I'm not contesting that magic makes you stronger or that it makes you level faster, just that unless you're a nuker it's a waste of experience.

 

[Furyzx]

If you check an offensive spell it'll list Lore and Control <school> as its attack skills.

yea right, forgot about that one.

 

[Furyzx]

As for experience, you gain DW experience every time you attack with two weapons. So I dunno, full experience sounds like spending the whole level only DW attacking and never even getting your dodge or parry tested ;p if you spend a whole level only DW attacking you'll of course gain more DW skill than if you dabble in magic too. I'm not contesting that magic makes you stronger or that it makes you level faster, just that unless you're a nuker it's a waste of experience.

I mean i have petrify, rolling stone and illusion spells on my PC and later in the game i didn't use it much so my weapon skill is far superior, but i can't say quest expirience really give that much to abandon everything for extra 1-2? point in skill which is already doing work. But mirror image or extra petrify in combat might really help me when i need and wouldn't eat that much of comat time, so i duno, i really doubt extra few bow skills with "optimizing" would give me more that extra control or mirror image.

Im not argue that your "otimizing" route weaker or smth, but TS wanted to restart game for no reason, and while "playing as intended" might be overall a bit weaker character it is MORE than enough to complete game and more important, enjoy it for the first time, using weapons and magic instead of hoarding skill expirience and aiming for something which is not relevant.