Ryzom

Hello there everybody! I'm here because I have some questions about the skill system, in general, that I am hoping you guys can answer for me...

First off I would finally like a definite answer from SOMEONE who can back up what they're saying on the topic of HP upgrades. Now I am a complete newbie to this game and don't know how the late-game skill points progress but I've been asking around about from where I should spend my points to get con and metabolism upgrades? Now my primary focus will most likely be melee so I was wondering should I spend points from Fight? Or should I take them from somewhere else? I have heard people spouting both opinions as if they were fact so I would just like to get an answer! (P.S. Also feel free to let me know if I am power gaming too much. Again, I don't know how this game works and whether or not it matters how much of my points I spend.)

Another question I have comes down to the different branches of the melee tree. Is there a melee specialization designed around duel wielding? I really like the animations and the style of duel wielding as opposed to two-handers in terms of damage and I was just wondering if they were a viable option?

My next question is less skill oriented and more gear oriented. If one is heading into melee combat, should you always be decked out in heavy armor? I can see that when you're casting you should switch to lighter armors but is it a good rule of thumb to keep yourself layered with 7 inches of bone plate? :-p

My final question, for the moment, is just about the scope and depth of the skill trees and the amount of skill points you receive. Is this a game where you really have to weigh your choices between your skills for hours and hours until you finally make a choice and, potentially, regret it for the rest of your character's life? Do your choices sometimes make you have to start over? Or is this a more forgiving and kinder game?

Thank you for you replies and I hope to get to know you all!
Yours truly,
The Recently Subscribed,
Kelandris (IG name)

In the early levels specialise.

Use the magic tree to gain extra SPs for (HP etc) if you want to melee. Make sure you keep one of the attack spells at the highest level you can get for your skill level or you will stuggle to level it later.

The same is true in reverse, level melee to get extra SPs when leveling magic. Make sure you buy accuate attack to the highest level for you skill (or you won't be able to hit the mobs you need to kill).

The only skill area you will stuggle for SPs in the long term is craft and eventually its possible to buy EVERYTHING! (On Aris I have one master skill in harvest, melee and magic in the very high 200s, I have nothing left to buy on the Fight/Magic and Harvest trainers)

You will need to level 'other branches' if you want to get everything. Its not possible to break you character, however it is possible to put yourself in a position where its harder to level, this is easily to resolve with a team.

The simple answer is if you need more SPs for you main branch, level a lower one.


- edit

What to wear:

Heavy gives HPs and protection at a price.
Medium gives some HPs and protection at a smaller price.
Light gives a little protection and only the boosts added by players.

The price you pay is an increase in the credits used when you use a skill. More stam if you use a stam credit, more sap if you use a sap credit. The choice is down to you.

- edit

2hd sword vs dual wield (generic vs specialised)

2hd is great it does good damage and is easy to play.

dual wield is 'hard to level' and at the end of the day is 'useless' solo at high levels. BUT, and its a big but, put a duel wielder in the right situation and they are the best think in the world. The stun/slow/interupt the target, in PvP they have an annoyance factor that is worth all the 'XP leaching' they had to do to level. The same is true of PvE. The 'harder' skils Affliction and Close Combat are seen as 'useless' by many in the early days, but they have a role and its not an easy one to see early on.

Ask anyone whos taken down AEN, if Affliction is of any use.
Ask anyone whos been at an OP battle what happens if a Close Combat melee gets in the middle of the healers.




Hope this helps.

That helps a lot. Thank you so much.

I think its personal choice, i get hp/stam from fight, sap/intel from magic, but thats cos i like to do a little bit of everything and it all boils down to personal choice which is why you get different answers.

If you are gonna concntrate on fight, then if you buy hp with magic sp you can buy more fight stanzas, just be aware that if you then decide to lvl magic, its gonna take you longer to buy the spells cos you used your magic sp on fight. Its not a major issue tho, cos you can buy everything eventually so your not gonna run out of skill points, you might just have to get a few extra lvls.

Dual wield is good for interrupting casts, but is not brilliant damage and very difficult to solo whereas 2h = high damage eaisest mellee to lvl.

The game is quite forgiving and its practically impossible to make a mistake you will regret forever. Again the worst you can do is buy a useless skill which means you need a couple of lvls to buy skills you need.

On the Armour question.

HA is good for mobs that hit you BUT if you are leveling melee on plants then using HA will eat your stam and be of no real use , as the plants do Magic damage. So jewels are the key factor there , good jewels will resist a lot of the plant attacks enabling you to solo them

Alot of good replies to this so I will just spout out my opinions.

Where you buy your HP upgrades depends on what you want to level up in. If all you wan to do is Melee, I recomend working more than one branch of Melee that way you will have enough skill points early on to buy all of what I call "critical" skills. Those being Stat upgrades: ie Con, Str, Balance, Metabolism, Increase Damage, Accurate Attack, Stamina credits, Hitpoint Credits, Taunt, and the Savers: ie Melee protection aura, Invulnability, HP self heal, and speed run. Those are what I call Critical skills, as they are used by every melee no matter what kind of melee they specialize in. The reason I say do more than one branch early on, is that assuming you keep "buying" the stat upgrades "on time" and are only workin one branch, 4 out of 5 of those levels goto just doing that. Thus it does not leave much in the way of extra points to spend on the other "critical" skills.

Now if your planning to work other areas at this point in time, ie Magic, or Crafting/Foraging, you can buy your hp bonuses from any of the other areas. Now most will agree with me when I say dont buy HP/Focus upgrades from the Crafting branch as it takes a long time to work that tree. It also needs the most points per upgrade thus every craft skill point is valuble. I personaly recomend early on Using Foraging points as you get extra skill points there, typicaly after about level 51. Reason I say this is that Foraging has alot of early extra points. While it too has a fair number of "critical skills" many of them could be sacrificed earlier for some hp upgrades. The Criticals for Foraging, or at least the bare minimum are: Quality Level increases for extraction, 5m range prospect, Angle Prospect, Grade level increases Prospecting (meaning prospect for Fine or lower, or Fine only as examples), and Focus stat upgrades. Those while seem to cost alot dont come as often as the Melee Criticals. On average you will have 2 levels to spare out of every 10 on foraging to buy HP upgrades. If you decide to work more than one branch as well for Foraging, eg Forest and Desert, you will have even more skill points extra.


Dual wielding can be viable, yes, however it will take longer to take down most opponents. Choice is yours ultimatly, this is also btw a way to get lots of extra skill points early on as you are workin more than 1 branch at a time. It may seem like your gettin points slower. In a sense yes, but remember xp is being divided between the 2 skills. And No there is no Dual wield branch .

As far as Armor is concerned, that depends mostly on your style of play. If you prefer to solo, I would recomend HA for Agro or High damage type mobs. Most plants i would Recomend Medium armor. Slaveni and Cratcha Are only two I recomend using HA as they do Physical Damage and a fair amount of it. In teams, it would depend again on what your facing and if there are any healers/other melee's. Some mobs will call for Heavy armor because of their high damage, others will Call for Medium armor as their damage is low but have lots of HP, *armas as an example on the latter*. If you dont have a healer or a healer that cant heal stamina, I would recomend medium armor. If your the High melee and have a Higher combat to fall on (thus having a high dodge) and your working a lower melee with others, Medium armor is a good choice as you will use less stamina and ease the pressure off the Healers. Again all this is my personal opinion .

As others have already stated you cant totaly "nerf" you character, You can make it more difficult to solo or even occasionaly team, as your skills arent up to par andwhat not, but again cant "nerf" the character.

I hope my miles of Opinion helps ya.

Daemion

Man....I love you guys .

But seriously though, thanks a lot for the advice guys. Ryzom is turning out to be one of the coolest, most stylish MMO's I have ever played and it, in my opinion, seems to be leaps and bounds ahead of WoW in the character development department.

Good job Nevrax for making a sick game and good job all of you for making the community rock the house.

Sorry for the double post but I've got another question!

Ok so I've gotten my skills up to the low 20s and I started to notice that I was going to need intel points to use the new amps I had so I figured, what the hell, and chucked 20 points into int in order to get it up to 20. So my new question is when should I up sap regen and sap stores?

well not sure, but i buy the sap option as soon as i have access to them , every 5lvl, i noticed. even before buying a new spell.
in my newb mind : more sap -> more to cast, quicker xp
so i can buy new spells soon after.
but its a matter of taste i suppose.

locke547 wrote:Sorry for the double post but I've got another question!

Ok so I've gotten my skills up to the low 20s and I started to notice that I was going to need intel points to use the new amps I had so I figured, what the hell, and chucked 20 points into int in order to get it up to 20. So my new question is when should I up sap regen and sap stores?

Raise your sap stats at every opportunity- but as far as amps are concerned don't upgrade your amps just because you have raised your int and can wear a higher level.

Upgrade your amps based on two criteria:
1) upgrade when you have to upgrade in order to use your newly learned spells.
2)upgrade if you can find a set with better casting stats.


as an example:
if you can wear q110 amps but can only find a set of 71/71 amps at q110 but your q100 amps are 97/97, you actually lose by upgrading.

where it gets iffy is when you run into the situation when you are upgrading amps based on spell level requiremnet but your old amps are better than any new amps you can find. then you have to see if newer amps with lower stats give equal or better results than your old amps with high stats and lower spells.