What to pick? I'm so busy trying them all.

[Kohrrl]

Combat skills. Darn they all seem really good or at least decent (I'm looking at you knife fighting).

So what do I pick?

I really wanted to go Staff / Shield, finally got shield and it's good. Although I think I ruined myself because before Staff / Shield I was...

Staff / Necromancy holy wow. This was a solid combo, I could heal myself, heal my pets and just keep rolling (also helps I got staff to around 20 at this point)

Trying Necromancy / Fire Magic and fire magic is low right now, but seems like it could be decent? People post a lot of complaints about fire magic not scaling well?

Sword / Shield solid damage, decent defense even a little aoe to round things off. Seems like a good choice.

Unarmed / Psy also really good. Heals, stuns, throws.

Knife fighting / animal handling going to want to look at this one when I have access to better gear. This was brutal.

I haven't unlocked Bard yet, I've thought about Druid or lycan but don't want to pigeon whole myself.


What is interesting is I don't think there is a bad skill set, there might be a couple that need tweaked, but nothing terrible. I imagine Necro will get MUCH better once I get the free summon skele archer so I don't have to be on the lookout for tombstones.

What do you folks run? What do you like? What do you dislike? What combination of skills is a must have in your opinion? How can combo's be increased?

Also do you keep just your main two weapons? Or do you keep a tertiary weapon for special occasions?

[Sasho]

I use a variety of skills and load outs. I use battle chemistry/shield right now for when I run from place to place but I use sword/archery for fighting. My recommendation is get something like psych up if you don't know what to do. The reason is because if you decide to later change skills, you could pair your new skill with psych (that both pairs with every skill including the animal forms, and doesn't take up a hand slot) and use it to level up your new skill. For myself I can use archery to carry a new skill from 1-40 in a couple of hours. This is of course because I have end game weapons/armors/abilities. But the downside is that archery is an offhand item, so I can't use archery to level up shield or Cow form. So my advice is to not choose today what you want to do. You can always switch it up in the future. Just give yourself the option to make it easy to switch when you do decide.

[Deldaron]

To Sasho's point - you will definitely end up trying a lot of different things. If nothing else you'll end up leveling a skill you didn't think of because it offers synergy levels to a skill you like. This needs to be updated but there's a combat compatibility chart on the wiki: http://wiki.projectgorgon.com/wiki/Skill_Compatibility_Chart that can help you decide if you're want something generic/transferrable.

[Temjiu]

Skill system is amazing. I love they synergize...as a matter of fact, many skills provide extra levels for other skills...it's how you can end game fully max a skill (or beyond).

Right now my Favorite is Hammer/Mentalist, though I am also working on Sword, and just started Fire magic.

[poulter]

As all combos are viable, pick the skills that match your play style and give you the most enjoyment. Expect your choices to change over time as your experience with PG grows.

Some pointers:
It might be better if you pair a damage skill with a healing skill as your first set to level e.g. sword / psychology.

At /near current end-game:
My opinion based on my experience. Yours will be different. If I haven't mentioned a skill (e.g. rabbit, pig) it is because I haven't used them recently

High DPS skills: Werewolf then Fire, Priest, Archery, Hammer & Sword. Especially Fire /Priest, Hammer /Mentalism (Electricity build), Archery /Mentalism (or Druid)
High Healing: Druid, Priest, Mentalism, Psychology.
Rage Management: Ice Magic (with a healing support skill e.g Psychology or Druid). Very reliable for soloing single patrols in Gazluk Keep
'Immortal' specs: Bard with Druid or Mentalism using a Song Twist build aka 'I WIN' button build

Specialised specs: Spider /Druid (Poison build) aka DOT, DOT, DOT - I win
Pulling /'Tank': Staff /Shield, Cow with supporting heal skill, Unarmed with supporting healing skill

Feel goos specs: Animal Handling, Necromancy. Especially if you are into pet micro-management. Lots of fun to play, if you don't get frustrated from the mechanics.

My 'go to' builds: Fire /Battle Chemistry, Archery /Druid, Bard /Druid
My favourite build: Cow /Druid, Spider /Druid
Most boring build: Bard /Druid (Twist those songs and wait for the monsters to die)

Gearing and modifications:
Items are generally stat. sticks and the number of mods on your gear and which ones are critical to your survival.

Mod numbers & stacking
- The game feels to be balanced on 9 items with 3 mods each = 27 mods (applicable to the spells you use) = likely success vs. monsters at your level
A player with max crafted with augments gear can have up to 60 mods (all focussed on the spells used, often 8+ in quantity on the same spell)
e.g. the 27 mods gear equipped player dies a lot, the 60 mod player 1 or 2-shot kills the same mob most every time
Gold gear, stacking mods & augments make a huge difference to survival

[Golliathe]

As all combos are viable, pick the skills that match your play style and give you the most enjoyment. Expect your choices to change over time as your experience with PG grows.

Skills A,B,C,D (not gonna name names but just as a general idea) will make you work WAY harder to get a working build going and will really only shine at X level with these mods.

Battle chemistry looks really cool but the amount of effort you need to make it work as a new player is crazy (alchemy 50,mycology, fishing 50, gardening 55, cooking, meditation 45). Not to mention it has extra costs associated with the skill because you buy golem powers in addition to all your regular powers. And note that many people use battlechemistry as just a run skill with shield (what an expensive hobby!)

I would encourage you to spend about 3 hours reading the forum/talking to people before you decide your first two lvl 50 skills. Once you pick I suggest you stick with that choice up to 50 and then decide to change. Why? Because you can re-grind using 50 gear solo (lower skills 25 levels and you can get new skill to 25 in a few hrs). This is significant because you can fight as 25/50 and use the full extent of lvl 50 powers to power up the new class even more.

Things to consider.

1) Aoe vs single target (killing faster = more xp/hr = less time on the "boring" levels to get to the cool end game stuff)
2) survivability/utility (in terms of heals or defense or bonus aspects like mentalism infinite power so you dont need food)
3) run speed (and more specifically do I need a mod to get run speed? If so that means you will probably not have good gear with good run speed until lvl ~50)***
4) does either choice work as an animal if I want to do that later
5) Gear availability (pick something strange like ice necro and you will probably never be able to buy gear - but sword/psych you can buy probably whatever you want)

*** Note that you can alter gear but as a first time character you probably won't have access to that early on unless someone prompts you to start it very early.