Skills

Skills are the unsung hero of Caves of Qud. In fact, I'd argue that your skills are more important than both your gear and your mutations / cybernetics. While not as obviously powerful as exploding some dude's head with your mind, skills shape your run in the more subtle, less appreciated ways that are nonetheless extremely important. Here, I'll be covering all the skills in the game and analyzing when I would want to have that skill: Early Game (levels 1-20), Mid Game (levels 20-30), or Late Game (levels 30+). For weapon skills, I will be assuming that this weapon plays into your primary weapon build. I will also cover factions that teach the skill and if it's worth it to learn it that way or learn it with skill points if applicable. Finally, if I think the skill is not worth the skill points I will make mention of that.

Acrobatics

Swift Reflexes

  Swift Reflexes is one of those must-have skills and is the intro skill to the   Acrobatics tree. The description of the skill is actually a bit misleading; you see it doesn't actually give you 5 DV. Instead, not having it reduces your DV by 5 against missile weapons. While it won't save you if you just dump DV, this skill makes it so you can perfectly avoid all projectiles from non-legendary creatures at 25 DV or more, which is a reliable DV to have by end game. Of course, it's useful before that since we're bound to be shot quite a bit on our journey to the end game, so avoiding those projectiles means you'll get there more often.

Spry

Free +2 DV, this is an incredible skill. Take this always, literally always.

Jump

Legendary Frogs are actually not so easy to find while legendary Svardym lairs are decently common and you'll probably want Svardym rep anyways so if you don't have   Jump by then, it's worth the pickup.   Jump moves you two squares in a single turn, but you can't   Jump over any creatures so while it's an inferior engage tool to   Charge,   Jump is more defensive in nature or can give you that extra bump to be able to   Charge in.   Jump is functionally similar to   Juke, just not quite as good and with a longer cooldown. The primary reason to use   Jump therefore is to extend your gap between an enemy or to cross hazardous pools of liquid and pits.

This skill also synergizes with   Wings as they greatly increase the distance you can   Jump with mutation level, and if you for some reason want to   Jump further as a true-kin you can install   pneumatic pistons.

Tumble

This skill just buffs   Juke and gives 1 DV, and we're really taking this for the DV. Every free point of DV you get is points you can put to AV instead and make yourself as durable as possible. You want   Juke anyway since it's a good skill, so getting to reduce its cooldown and give that DV is just more incentive to get   Juke.

Axes

Axe Proficiency

A permanent +2 to hit is quite good actually, and is one of the more noticeable weaknesses of   Long Blades. This allows you to focus mainly on Strength for your build and still have a reliable chance to hit (as long as you don't dump Agility). Being the base skill for   Axes, you're gonna have to get this one if you plan on using them seriously.

Charging Strike

  Charge is arguably the best melee skill in the game and skills that synergize directly with it like this are part of the reason why. Double the chance to   Dismember and our   Cleaves are more deadly if they land. Passive benefit that you'll get a lot of mileage out of.

Cleave

This skill really incentivises you to use as many hands as possible with   Axes and pump your Strength up as high as you can as you can very quickly shred apart the armor of enemies. Even early game, cleaving off even just 1 or 2 AV can result in more penetrations and deceptively higher damage. While this skill is not enough for you to rip apart the very highest armored enemies in the game, against anything less you'll shred them to pieces quite fast.

Dismember

  Cleave a few times then hit   Dismember to permanently cripple your enemy. If you chop off their main limb, you may just win the fight outright. Added chance to just do this on normal attacks as well and you can find yourself able to fight and kill enemies beyond what your stats would normally suggest. It's random what limb you chop off so success is likely but not exactly reliable which is the one real drawback of this skill; don't rely on it to save you.

Hook and Drag

  Hook and Drag is pretty underrated; but it is one skill I'm willing to sacrifice if I need the skill points elsewhere. You essentially have up to 9 rounds of guaranteed hits on an enemy, which can be very powerful on enemies that have high DV. If you have decent Agility, then this becomes redundant since you just hit all the time anyways so then it's really just used to attack an enemy as you bring them somewhere which isn't usually any functionally different than just moving there and then picking up combat where you left off.

This changes when you have significantly enhanced movement speed, as now   Hook and Drag lets you attack as fast as you can move which synergizes very well with   Multiple Legs, cathedras and   motorized treads. So unless you have one of those or very poor Agility, you can probably give this a miss for your build.

Decapitate

A low chance to just win the fight immediately (on most enemies). It's not reliable mind you, but happens often enough to be very nice. A surprising number of things need a head, so don't sleep on trying to   Dismember everything you fight; it may be far more effective than you think.

Berserk!

By the time you get this, you should have a powerful enough build already where this skill is nice but not exactly required. Because of this and the massive skill point investment, I'll often avoid taking this until I don't have any other helpful skills to take anymore. Make no mistake though, is extremely powerful and can nearly guarantee your victory against a single enemy.

The duration on it is very bad, but 5 rounds is really all you need for most enemies. Even if they survive, unless none of your attacks penetrate they will be so crippled the fight should just be over. Just don't expect this skill to give you the win against every enemy in the game.

Bow and Rifle

Draw a Bead / Steady Hands

You get both of these at the same time, so I'll analyze them together.   Steady Hands just makes you more accurate, which if you're using   Bow and Rifles then you're gonna want that.   Draw a Bead makes you even more accurate by spending a turn. If you've got a lot of space between you and your target, this is good and especially useful earlier in the game. Once you get highly accurate guns and high Agility you'll stop using   Draw a Bead for the accuracy and instead use it in conjunction with other   Bow and Rifle skills. As the intro skills, these are super useful to anyone using these weapons.

Suppressive Fire

By spamming this you can lock an enemy down indefinitely. The shot does have to penetrate which means enemies with high AV will be able to shrug it off, but for all others this just gives you a practically free win against a melee enemy. It's very good, if only all the other   Bow and Rifle skills were similar this would actually be a cool tree worthy of investment.

Sure Fire

You lose your mark to fire 1 (one!) shot that is guaranteed to hit. Most rifles have fairly high accuracy anyways so any rifle worth using better than a   carbine is getting virtually no benefit from this anyways since it wasn't going to miss with the boost from both   Draw a Bead and   Steady Hands. It's not like 150 skill points is a trivial cost either, this is quite expensive. Get something better.

Wounding Fire

You cause a bleed for each penetration you do and lose your mark. You're probably only penetrating 3-5 times max, so that's a 3-5 damage bleed that the enemy can save from for the cost of your mark. This is pathetic, the cost is too high for too small a benefit.

Disorienting Fire

Even if the effect from this skill was worth the cost (200 skill points with 250 skill points of skill prerequisites), you only get this benefit if the target cannot see or hear any allies; so virtually never unless this is the last enemy. What do we get for this? -4 DV and MA. Most enemies aren't that hard to hit so the DV is pretty useless and unless you're using lots of mental attacks against the last enemy, the MA is also pretty useless. Not worth the investment.

Beacon Fire

You need to ignite your enemy for this to work, which can be done if you're willing to liberally use thermal grenades but all you get from this is your shot critting. If you spend the turns you would need to mark the target and throw the grenade, you'd be doing more damage than if you use this skill. If your target is so ignited that it's locked in place, who cares about a crit it's probably dead soon anyways.

Flattening Fire

The effect of this is insanely good, in fact it's one of the best skill effects in the game. It not only locks them in place, but also knocks them prone and disarms them. So why is it not worth it? Well, in order to gain this benefit the enemy must have 6 walls surrounding them. In case you can't visualize what that means, it means they must be in a 1 tile wide corridor in order for this to work. If you have   Force Wall then you can reliably do this. Otherwise, if you want to meticulously construct corridors for yourself and lure enemies in there to use this skill, go ahead. Simply put, most of the time you won't even be able to use this.

Ultra Fire

If there was more than 1 fire ability that was worth it, this would be an insane skill. Unfortunately, they're all trash so you should give this a miss as well.

Cooking and Gathering

Meal Preparation

Being able to gain cooking effects is run changing and very important for any successful run. Cooking is not my preferred way to play as managing ingredients and rerolling when I get an effect I don't want is annoying and tedious for me, so instead I usually just use ingredients that have 1 or 2 effects in order for me to more reliably get the one I want. So unless I'm using an ingredient like spine fruit jam or phase silk I usually just go for jerky for HP effects.

This is an admittedly simplistic approach to cooking and you can get some very strong effects, but often times to really get what you want out of cooking you'll need   Carbide Chef since there's just a ton of variance up until then. Even if you just follow my approach of spamming HP increase cooking effects, this is still a very good skill you should have in every run.

A word of caution though is that you should definitely just get it for reputation from Mayor   Nuntu at Kyakukya. It's not so good that you need it ASAP, and it's pretty safe to just travel to Kyakukya around the time you're going to Grit Gate to save yourself the 100sp.

Harvestry

If you're planning on doing a lot of cooking,   Harvestry is going to be one of your primary ways of getting good ingredients. Even if you're not planning on doing much cooking,   Harvestry is still useful in getting monetarily valuable ingredients and the coveted yondercane for an escape tool. In the very early game it's also quite good for getting you some extra Witchwood Bark in case you get put in one too many dangerous scenarios.

Again, it's so reliable to get Joppa reputation if you take the Joppa start, so just ask   Mehmet or   Irudad to teach you rather than spend the 50sp.

Butchery

  Butchery is the second main way of getting your ingredients. Not only can you get valuable ingredients from   Butchering corpses, the ingredients you get here are typically much more expensive than ones you get from   Harvestry at the cost of being heavier. Further still, you can butcher certain types of corpses for valuable items (  ogre apes,   kaleidoslugs,   quartz baboons, etc). Don't bother wasting time grinding Cannibal rep for this, just spend the 50 skill points. Be careful with this if you don't have   Meal Preparation, since many   Butchered ingredients can be quite heavy when unprocessed.

If you take the Hills village start, your village will teach   Butchery in which case definitely get it for rep.

Spicer

Like   Meal Preparation, you really want   Carbide Chef to actually make use of this because until then you're tossing lots of ingredients into the wind in the hopes that you get what you want. But you can get this for rep from Yd Freehold and there's nothing else to do for that faction rep so might as well. Damage reflection effects in particular are good ones that you'll probably be interested in the enhanced version for.

Carbide Chef

Using this, you're actually able to control what cooking effects you get. If you can get a good amount of ingredients, and especially if you combine this with   Spicer, you can get some very powerful cooking effects with perfect reliability. If you're planning on sophisticated cooking, this is a very useful skill to have.

The most powerful kinds of recipes are pretty much exclusively on-trigger effects. Ideally, you're looking for something that you can trigger often and then do something that's handy. Some standout examples are to trigger certain attacks (  Shank,   Dismember) when you do things you can do often (reflect damage, crit, etc).

Cudgel

Cudgel Proficiency

+2 to hit is pretty big, just like it is for   Axes. Being the intro skill for   Cudgels, if you're interested in seriously using   Cudgels at all then this is a must-have.

Bludgeon

This skill is the single thing that makes   Cudgels good. Daze and stun are both some of the best and most reliable debuffs to put on an enemy, and having a 50% chance at that is pretty huge. Combine this with   Double-muscled and not only do you have the synergy from the extra Strength, but you also get an even better chance to daze and stun. It's not uncommon for many   Cudgel builds to be capable of permanently or nearly permanently stunning all enemies, which is good because   Cudgel damage is pretty awful.

Charging Strike

Start off the fight with a free daze? Potentially even a stun? Incredible, very good skill.   Charge remains a critical part of every melee build, super worth it. Something to note is that this is actually the same skill as the   Axe version; if you have this skill then you have that skill as well and vice-versa.

Conk

It's an activated skill, but the cooldown is incredibly short and gives you a free daze or stun. If they're already stunned, you can actually just put them out of commission for the whole fight in case you're being attacked by multiple enemies. As long as you don't attack them, they'll stay down for an incredibly long time giving you plenty of room to clear out any other attackers.

Backswing

Not only does this just flat out increase your DPS by 25%, but it also gives you more chances to daze and stun since you're attacking more times with a   Cudgel. Great skill to have, seriously improves your fighting abilities. If you are using   Single Weapon Fighting, the   Weapon Expertise and   Weapon Mastery skills do affect your   Backswing strikes as well.

Slam

This is the first   Cudgel skill that I will often skip out on. It's not that it's a bad skill, it's just not quite as good as the rest. The problem with   Slam is that it pushes away your opponent which is usually not what you want to do. If you don't engage with   Charge, then you can follow up a   Slam with a   Charge and is quite effective, but you should probably have just engaged with   Charge. If there's just one enemy, this combo is quite good but when there are multiple enemies, you can't follow up on the   Slam quite as effectively.

Demolish

I'm mixed on   Demolish, but by the time you can get it you're probably not needing the 100% daze chance because you're either already near permanently stunning everything or you have Precision Nanon Fingers and already have a 150% chance to daze anyways. The fact that you need   Slam to get it as well means you need to spend the skill points on   Slam which is only arguably worth it to begin with, and having no cooldown on   Slam is pretty tough to make full use out of since   Demolish only lasts 5 turns and the whole point of   Slam is that you push away the enemy.

If you have   Force Wall, then wrapping your enemy in a forcefield is quite a good combination now. Instead of pushing your opponent away, they're locked in (unless your Strength is obscenely high, in which case they're probably 1 shot anyway) and can highly benefit from   Backswing and   Weapon Mastery/  Weapon Expertise for the whole 5 turns. Can it be good? Yea, it can. Is it really a vital part of a   Cudgel build? Not at all.

Customs and Folklore

Tactful

While you shouldn't really ever purchase this with skill points, it's always worth the pickup from Ezra since you reliably get 200 rep by water ritualing   Haddas and   1-FF. With no other reason to get Ezra rep, this is just a helpful boost that can potentially get you that extra bump to get past reputation thresholds. Again, don't get it with skill points, but always get it for rep.

Trash Divining

Another one you'll probably only want to get through reputation rather than buy with skill points. As long as you're crawling around the world and at least investigating points of interest when prompted, you usually have no shortage of secrets to share. You can learn some pretty obscure secrets and sometimes some pretty useful stuff, but it's all RNG so you may just get nothing but 300 goatfolk villages. It's pretty easy to get Pariah rep, especially because the   Lulihart at the Stilt can be water ritualed.

Multiweapon Fighting

Flurry / Multiweapon Proficiency

In order to be taught these skills, you need to ensure   Eskhind becomes the Hindriarch which is not even a guarantee in every playthrough. If the stars align for you and you for some reason don't have   Flurry /   Multiweapon Proficiency yet, then it's worth the rep.

  Flurry makes a strike with every limb, which is actually quite good to guarantee the hits. It doesn't pair with   Jab, however, so it's not quite as good as it could be.   Multiweapon Proficiency brings our offhand strike chance from 15% to 35%; a considerable increase but still not that great. While   Multiweapon Fighting, you should almost always have an offhand   Short Blade with   Jab; anything else and you're missing out on DPS. One handy thing about   Flurry is that it does have an Agility prerequisite, meaning its cooldown can be nullified with   Triple-jointed.

Something not immediately obvious is that   Flurry actually pairs very well with   Single Weapon Fighting. When   Flurry says it makes an attack with every limb, it really means every limb, and the fact that these strikes are not offhand strikes means that each attack will apply the   Single Weapon Fighting benefits (  Penetrating Strikes and   Weapon Mastery alike).

Something to note is that all   Multiweapon Fighting skills affect natural arms, mutated arms (including those from   Multiple Arms), and robotic arms (from   helping hands). They do not affect special limbs that have natural weaponry like the head with the   Horns mutation or   Stinger.

Before the introduction of   Single Weapon Fighting, this tree was the clear best choice in terms of damage. Now, without the proper build to utilize this tree correctly, you're better off with   Single Weapon Fighting. However, if you do decide to build around this tree from character creation, you can create a whirlwind of blades for devastating effect. You'll just have to have this in mind from the start to do it properly.

Multiweapon Expertise

  Multiweapon Expertise brings us up to a 50% offhand strike chance. Combine this with elemental mods on each weapon and we already have a very powerful build. If you still are using a non-  Short Blade in your offhand, stop immediately. Swap to a   Short Blade, it's just miles better.

Multiweapon Mastery

If you're lucky enough to find this being taught by a random village, it actually only offers a 15% increase; it's just all the other increases from required skills continue to give their benefits as well to the cumulative total.   Multiweapon Mastery brings our offhand strike chance to 65%. We've made it all the way to the end here, but to get the most out of this tree we want to staple as many limbs and   Short Blades as possible to our body. Pop in those girshling dentures, strap a   folded carbide wristblade to all 4 of your arms (you picked   Multiple Arms, didn't you?) and just go to town. Bonus points if you have   Double-muscled for the stun chance.

Endurance

Shake It Off

  Shake It Off is not a skill you'll notice particularly often in terms of the "shake off" effect. Only very powerful characters ever get to 30 Toughness, so your chances of shaking off the effect are almost always going to be under 20%. That's still nothing to sneeze at and can definitely save you, but for most of the game you're going to be looking at a much more modest 10-15% chance. The other effect of this skill is the more important one early and that is the 25% less poison damage and duration effect. This is often a very early skill I take since the   Sting of a   scorpiock cannot miss and can easily destroy a lower level character. This skill greatly increases your chance of survival after taking a   Sting.

Swimming

Very, very few enemies have this skill, so not having it simply puts you on par with other enemies that happen to find themselves in deep liquid. You should just avoid deep liquid in general and most of the map doesn't even have deep liquid to begin with; even less places have unavoidable deep liquid. I've always found other, more appealing options to take than this one, but if you have the Fish reputation this skill is just a straight upgrade whenever you find yourself in deep liquid so you might as well, especially because Fish reputation is great to have.

Poison Tolerance

If you're particularly worried about Spoiler: Early game boss  Slog and   scorpiocks, then taking this skill is fine to do early. The issue with this skill is that it's 100 skill points for a damage type that is just extremely rare and becomes even rarer post Golgotha. Something to note is that despite looking very similar, poison gas and corrosive gas are different with corrosive gas being more prevalent, more dangerous, and most importantly of all not poison. Take this skill if you're still uncomfortable around Golgotha otherwise you can skip.

Weathered

  Weathered is a must-have skill as sources of fire and cold damage are everywhere and just taking 15% less damage from that is an easy win. With rank 16   Carapace, you can actually be fully immune to cold and fire damage and swim around in lava for fun. This skill is single-handedly enough for you to have a comfortable amount of cold resistance for Bethesda Susa and can be made even better with many sources of cold or fire resistance early like ape fur gear for cold resistance or Issachari gear for fire resistance.

Juicer

I'm admittedly biased here, but I'm not a huge user of tonics (other than   salve injectors and   love injectors) in general. Being able to ingest 2 has rarely ever been something I have wanted to do but if you play a style where everything revolves around constantly injecting tonics that you craft or something like that then I can see this being a little more useful. Some powerful combinations are skulk + hulk honey, hulk honey + salve, blaze + hulk honey, blaze + salve and salve + skulk. Get other skills first and maybe take another look at this one if you're a menace for those tonics.

Calloused

This is another must-have skill. Get this always right as soon as you have 23 Toughness as there's literally no reason not to. 1 AV with no DV penalty just makes you take less damage on average from everything that hits you. This skill and   Weathered are the whole reason to go into the   Endurance tree.

Longstrider

I usually find that I can   Sprint for longer than I need to with nothing boosting my   Sprint efficiency. There has never been a moment where I thought to myself "If only   Sprint didn't run out so soon".   Sprint being on cooldown has certainly been an issue, but never it not lasting long enough. For 250 skill points we can get better skills that result in us not needing to   Sprint at all, and certainly as the game goes on you will find yourself using   Sprint less and less. By the time you even have the stats to get this, you probably won't need it (even more so because if you have 25 Toughness, you're already beefy).

Heavy Weapon

Strapping Shoulders

If you are using   Heavy Weapons, this skill is an obvious take if you value your sanity. Actually, even if you are not using   Heavy Weapons or not using them often this is still a pretty decent take. This doesn't just reduce their weight for equipped   Heavy Weapons, but also for   Heavy Weapons just sitting in your inventory. Not only will it reduce the weight of the weapon, but it will also reduce the weight of everything in the weapon as well (even the oil in   flamethrowers). It's 100 skill points to make   Heavy Weapons more worth their weight in value so if you tend to pick up   Heavy Weapons often or are tired of that backup   flamethrower weighing you down, give this a pickup.

Tank

Again assuming you are actually using   Heavy Weapons, this is a great skill to have. Lower movement speed is perhaps the most crippling thing about   Heavy Weapons and getting rid of that is fantastic. Not worth it if you are the   Heavy Weapon dabbler, but if you have one constantly equipped make sure to get this skill.

Sweep

It's a steep cost for a skill that's just not that great on the high-tier   Heavy Weapons. In fact, on the explosive ones it's incredibly dangerous to use since you've got a decent chance to just blow yourself up. It requires you to expend ammo for each shot you make, so while you're definitely putting ordinance downrange you're probably better off just shooting normally and controlling where those shots end up; especially since most   Heavy Weapon shots come at a premium.

Long Blade

Long Blade Proficiency

  Long Blades are a class of weapon that has a considerable amount of complexity surrounding it. The secret to understanding these weapons is to understand the stances, which we start with two:   Aggressive Stance and   Defensive Stance. Switching between stances is free, we can do it as many times as we want meaning we may always attack with the stance we want. The tradeoff is that we also have to defend with the same stance as we attack with. Something key to understand is that   Long Blades do not get the free +2 to hit like other weapons, so they particularly benefit from having good Agility. Let's break down each stance.

  Defensive Stance should be the stance you primarily stay in; your de facto stance. This stance is what makes   Long Blades easily the best weapon for non-melee combatants as you can have any   Long Blade equipped and benefit while other classes of weapons only benefit you while you're actively attacking with them. This is also a powerful stance to increase your durability as having bonus DV means you can invest more into AV in the rare event that you do get hit if your build revolves primarily around DV.

  Aggressive Stance is a unique tradeoff, as against enemies with poor DV you can deal more damage than other weapons with your attacks. Against enemies with good or decent DV,   Long Blades suffer quite a bit in comparison to other weapons and this issue is exacerbated even more against enemies like goatfolk with decent DV and AV. Of course, in order for any of this to be useful, you have to have the game knowledge and understand what stats enemies have or use things like scanning to be able to read that information in-game. Stances apply to offhand   Short Blades as well, and since   Short Blades get a +1 to hit from skills, this stance can make   Multiweapon Fighting builds even more lethal as   Short Blades have less penalty and with   Multiweapon Fighting skills can reap even more from the benefit.

Most of the time, you'll end up using   Defensive Stance as   Aggressive Stance is quite situational and requires much more game knowledge to utilize in those proper situations.

Lunge

  Lunge is a costly skill and oftentimes I end up not taking it in order to hit other skills instead, but it's got a low cooldown and some pretty decent effects that synergize with multiple play styles depending on the stance. Something to note is that with every   Lunge you will also attack and apply venom with a   Stinger if you have one and hit with it.

While in   Aggressive Stance,   Lunge will move through a single tile between you and the enemy and make a strike at the enemy. This strike is at +2 PV on top of your existing +1 PV from   Aggressive Stance. This makes this a very powerful opener if you land it. You can combine this with   Juke to get a second   Lunge in the middle of combat or to open yourself up to   Lunge if you happen to find yourself suddenly in melee. Since this takes you through only 1 square, it tends to be less useful than   Charge but is a handy alternative especially since you have extra PV from   Lunge.

While in   Defensive Stance,   Lunge will make an attack and then move you back 2 tiles. The enemy will of course likely just walk towards you on their next turn but this is a great skill in combination with ranged builds which makes   Long Blades and sitting in   Defensive Stance even more appealing as you can back up for some free shots. This skill works particularly well with confusing or paralyzing venom from   Stinger and   Charge; you can   Lunge, apply your venom, and then   Charge back in for a rapid series of attacks since the venom will prevent the enemy from moving closer. It also works in a similar way with high amounts of quickness as the enemy will be too slow to close the gap before you   Charge back in.

While in   Dueling Stance,   Lunge is guaranteed to hit and penetrate at least once, and in addition to all that will have a +1 PV. This makes this particular version of   Lunge the one you'll want to use if   Lunge comes off cooldown in the middle of combat or if you need to secure a kill or bypass heavy amounts of AV or DV. In addition to that, since   Lunge has an Agility prerequisite our cooldown can be potentially nullified by   Triple-jointed in which case we can use this repeatedly. We can also use this to get extra chances on applying our venom with   Stinger since if the enemy resists the poison from our   Lunge, we can then use   Sting to try again.

Dueling Stance

  Dueling Stance alone just gives the +2 to hit that most other weapons enjoy passively. While in isolation this isn't that great and not worth the 200 skill points, it's how   Dueling Stance interacts with the activated   Long Blade skills (particularly   Swipe) that make it a worthwhile pickup. If you don't have those skills, don't get   Dueling Stance but if you do have them, make sure not to skip this one.

Swipe

In   Aggressive Stance, you make an attack against everything in melee with you except allies, which means you attack all enemies and walls / furniture around you. Now, if you're hitting more than 1 enemy with this you have more important problems to worry about than trying to hit them with a single attack. If you're not hitting more than 1 enemy with this, if you're   Multiweapon Fighting then it can be inferior to bump attacking because your offhand strikes will not proc. However, if you're   Single Weapon Fighting then by all means.

In   Defensive Stance, you push all creatures in melee with you back 1 space and try to trip the enemies. This synergizes extremely well with   Lunge in   Aggressive Stance and can be used to give yourself some space for ranged attacks or for positioning adjustments. Another great defensive tool for ranged builds.

In   Dueling Stance, you have the crown jewel of   Long Blade effects: a highly effective disarm. This rarely fails even against powerful enemies and for many creatures that use weapons, being disarmed can completely neuter them. Enemies will not try to pick up their disarmed weapon, and will instead just scratch at you with their   fists or other natural weapons they may have. This is also extraordinarily effective against   turrets as it not only renders them completely useless, it also gives you access to their weapon which is guaranteed to be jacked. This synergizes extraordinarily well with true kin with a   biodynamic power plant or mutants with   Electrical Generation. It also allows you to get your weapon back if you use the   Deploy Turret skill, which can allow you to plant down strong ranged weapons and then get them back at the end of combat. In case all that wasn't enough,   turret weapons are incredibly expensive and a fantastic source of bits, so disassembling or selling the guns and cells can give massive amounts of wealth to quickly purchase stronger weapons and armor.

Improved Dueling Stance

Bumps our +2 to a +3. This is a snoozer since we're probably only using   Dueling Stance for the turns we use   Lunge or   Swipe and then immediately switching back to   Defensive Stance or   Aggressive Stance.

Improved Defensive Stance

+1 DV is worth practically any cost listed, so 100 skill points is chump change for such a boost. Only applies when in   Defensive Stance, sure, but if you're using   Long Blades you should be in   Defensive Stance most of the time.

Improved Aggressive Stance

We get +1 PV at the cost of -1 to hit, which by mid game or late game is very worth it with specifically vibro weapons;   Improved Aggressive Stance goes nuts with vibro weapons which we're fairly likely to have by the time we pick this skill up. Vibro weapons are the key to unlocking the full potential of   Long Blades as a backup weapon to ranged builds or even as a main build with low Strength. They're also one of the best ways of killing powerful endgame enemies with unbelievable amounts of AV, and the PV bonus of   Aggressive Stance is added after the PV of the vibro weapon is set to the enemies AV meaning our PV will always be 2 higher than the enemies' AV. If you have terrible Agility however, don't pick this up though since you'll just never hit anything with it.

En Garde!

The attribute prerequisites are pretty high, so you won't even be capable of getting this until late. 10 rounds is quite a long time to be able to spam   Lunge and   Swipe, but there's a small issue. You don't really want to spam   Swipe unless you are for some reason fighting multiple enemies with weapons and need to disarm them all right now. That means that you're left with just being able to really spam   Lunge. Don't get me wrong, 10 turns of   Lunge can be pretty good but 300 skill points for that is a pretty steep investment. If you didn't get   Lunge or don't plan on using   Lunge for most of the game, then give this skill a pass. If you are an avid   Lunge user, then this is a great skill for you, especially if you have a   Stinger and / or are heavily invested in   Single Weapon Fighting.

Persuasion

Menacing Stare

Let's be clear here, is there never a reason to take this skill? No, this can be a perfectly usable skill and even be pretty clutch in some tight moments. The problem here is that it has a 17 Ego prerequisite and has a chance to fail which means that unless you are building Ego specifically, you will be hard pressed to get much if any use out of this skill. While this is great news for   Espers, for everyone else you'll be better off with other skills. For   Espers and anyone with the Ego to actually make use of this skill, you can use it to create distance between you and scary enemies as well as interrupt   Sunder Mind from a distance. If you have a ton of Flower reputation this can be a somewhat good pickup if you have the stats, but that's not likely and you really want 250 Flower rep to make   tongue tyrants neutral to you by endgame.

Intimidate

In the rare scenario you find yourself surrounded, this can be effective. But the melee range and the long cooldown make this a steep cost for 200 skill points, especially because only Ego builds can make use of it. Even then, if you're an Ego build you probably don't want to be anywhere near enemies and should have many other, better ways of getting away or keeping yourself away from enemies.

Berate

The great thing about this skill is it always works and has a pretty long duration, 6-36 rounds. It also has a decent range of 8 tiles (unlimited with   Telepathy) and is a guaranteed way of breaking   Sunder Mind. It also won't make the target try to kill you, so it naturally synergizes with   Proselytize to get neutral creatures as followers (  Domination and   Beguiling will still anger the creature, so use at your own risk). The bad thing about this skill is that you have to get   Menacing Stare first, so it's usually not worth it in total to take this skill because the cost is a bit higher than displayed. However, if you already have   Menacing Stare then this is actually a pretty good pickup. If you manage to find legendary Hermits, this is also a good pickup to get from them.

Snake Oiler

This skill is incredible because it will essentially nullify the downside of a low Ego build of awful trade prices. The best part of this skill is that it is obtainable by reputation with the Consortium of Phyta, of which you can always find 2 legendary members for you to learn this skill from:   Asphodel and the   oddly-hued glowpad. You can ritual both of them, ritual one and trade 2 secrets, or ritual one with   Tactful and trade 1 secret. Get this skill always, but don't pay skill points for it since getting it through reputation is so reliable and so easy.

Proselytize

This skill has a very hefty skill point cost, and since Mechanimist reputation is so easy to get, you shouldn't really get this skill through skill points. If you like followers, then this is a must-have skill. Indeed, followers can be quite powerful and in particular this is the only way to get a   soupy sludge as your follower which can be unbelievably deadly if fed liquids.   Proselytize won't get you just any follower though, you essentially have to both get past their mental armor and be a higher level than them or else you won't succeed, so those with low Ego will struggle in succeeding with   Proselytize for anything but the very weakest in mental armor. On the bright side, you can try this as many times as you want and you will never upset an ally, unlike   Beguiling.

Inspiring Presence

Your followers get a miniscule amount of HP (4 * Ego mod). Even if you stack Ego and have an insane mod, it'll probably only be around 12 which works out to 48 HP for insane end-tier god Ego. Anything less and this just gives even worse HP. If you have literally nothing else to get and you have tons of followers, then sure why not. But there are better things to get.

Physic

Staunch Wounds

Bleeding typically is not a big problem, but there are a couple late-game sources of bleed that are pretty nasty and last for a fairly considerable amount of time. By then, you probably have a mountain of   bandages that you can run through but for 50 skill points this is not too bad. If you've got the skill points hanging around and are looking to start fighting creatures in Lake Hinnom and beyond, you'll get a bit of use out of this one.

Nostrums

There are a few issues with this skill, so let's first cover what it does so we can pick it apart properly. You can instantly cure bleeding, poison, illness and the onset of diseases for anyone in your party, given that you have the resources to do so. Let's start with poison and illness.

There are extremely few sources of poison in the game. There is poison gas, which only a single creature can generate (  girshworms) or comes from poison gas grenades, there is the poison   stinger which only comes from   scorpiocks (a rare, very early game enemy) and there is the poison from Spoiler: Early game boss  Slog, the unique boss at the bottom of Golgotha. Illness is the condition that comes at the end of being poisoned. Let's be real, you're not using this skill for either of those, especially since all illness does is temporarily remove your ability to regen health.

Bleeding can be cured here, but unfortunately you must already have   Staunch Wounds to get this skill. If you have   Staunch Wounds, you don't need to treat bleeding at a campfire. You can just use one of your hundreds of   bandages to do so. If you're at a campfire, it means you're out of danger and also means you can probably just let the bleed heal naturally as well.

The last thing that can be cured is the onset of disease; and note that this is not the full disease itself, this is just the onset of the disease (think sore throat for glotrot). You will still need the   Corpus Choliys (or a cheesy meal that cures negative conditions on a trigger) in order to cure the full-blown disease. The problem with this is that really the only time you're likely to have a chance of getting a disease is during Golgotha, at which point you are extremely unlikely to have the 21 Intelligence necessary for this skill. Even if you did, you could just as easily cure the onset disease by eating the meal in the electric ovens of Grit Gate and munching on some raw yuckwheat. This gives you a massive bonus to saves that is plenty to rid yourself of the onset of the disease.

By the time you have the Intelligence necessary for this skill, you're likely already past Golgotha and have access to regeneration tanks if you're really concerned about whatever disease is onset. This is one of those skills that looks appetizing, but in reality has quite a few flaws that hinder its practical usage.

Amputate Limb

Does what it says on the tin, chop off a part for you or your friends. There are exactly three reasons to use this skill, none of them great:

1. You have a companion infected with a fungal infection and you do not have   Domination or the Clever Girl mod; and this fungal infection annoys you enough to want to cure it.
2. Chop off your face and wear it for an Ego bonus (and the achievement I guess).
3. Chop off a limb to use as an atzmus for the Golem.

To make this worse, your companions won't let you go randomly chopping off their limbs so it's not even that effective at #3 either. If you really want to wear your face and have the 23 Intelligence required for this, go ahead I guess.

Apothecary

This causes   salve injectors and   ubernostrum injectors to last one more round, which means it gives one extra tick of healing. It's 100 skill points for about 20 extra HP per salve. This is technically enough to save you, but by the time you have the staggering 25 Intelligence for this skill, you're probably swimming in salves (if you ever get there). Just pop another one.

Pistol

Steady Hand

Extra accuracy, which works out to be quite important on   Pistols because of their inferior accuracy in comparison to rifles. If you're using   Pistols, gotta start here.

Akimbo

I'll be honest, the only legendary Mysterious Stranger I've ever found is a legendary   star kraken so I put not worth it for the rep just because by the time you find that you should long have   Akimbo.   Akimbo doesn't just shoot both of your   Pistols whenever you shoot, it shoots all of your guns whenever you shoot. That's right, if you happen to have more than just 1 gun of any kind,   Akimbo will fire all of them every time you shoot. This means if you have   gun rack or   giant hands or have magnetized guns,   Akimbo will shoot all those suckers at once making it a worthwhile pickup even if you're not using   Pistols. It's just a straight up DPS increase, very worth it.

Weak Spotter

Higher crit chance for 150 skill points? This is an obvious pick, great skill for   Pistol users, not much else to say.

Sling and Run

I mean you're probably not using   Sprint much and if you are, you're probably not firing your   Pistols. But, it's 50 skill points so if you've got tastier skills and don't have much to buy then why not; it's cheap enough that in the niche use case you'll use it, it'll come in handy.

Disarming Shot

The disarm here isn't as reliable as the disarm from   Long Blades, but with high Agility and many shots you can disarm pretty often. The only difference here is that you'll kill your target more often before you disarm them with   Pistols, but that's rarely a problem except for the case of   turrets where you want their weapons. It's passive and can easily save you, and if you combine this with   Akimbo   chain pistols, you'll actually very reliably disarm enemies. Fantastic skill.

Dead Shot

We already have a skill to increase our crit hit chance, and now we can double the PV bonus from critting? No brainer; a straight upgrade that benefits even more from the masterwork mod.

Empty the Clips

If you're heavily relying on your   Pistols in order to deal damage, this is an incredible skill to get. For 20 turns, you essentially double your DPS and this is more pronounced on energy weapons since you never have to reload and gets even better with enhanced quickness. You'll need to stay still to get the full benefit, but enemies will just melt from your damage here. If you aren't heavily invested in   Pistols and only use them as a backup, you may want to skip this one since the skill point cost is quite high.

Fastest Gun in the Rust

The cost of this one is steep, and I mean steep. This is the most expensive skill in the game and it has a 29 Agility prerequisite. If you can afford it though, this is a fantastic skill to take as it just gives you a permanent increase of DPS by 25%. Again, if   Pistols are more of a seldom used backup, then it may not be worth taking. If you do use   Pistols, this is your crown jewel.

Self-Discipline

Meditate

This one is unusual because it's not that it does something that is particularly useful or game-changing, it just preserves my sanity. I always take this as soon as I get a good amount of HP (150+ or so) just because regenerating from combat takes drastically less time with   Meditate. It's passive so your character will just automatically   Meditate while resting. If you haven't tried this skill, try it. Resting feels so much better with it. If you somehow have the rep to get this, then pick it up; it doesn't hurt.

Fasting Way

It's 50 skill points, why not? You'll use less water and your metabolizing effects will last longer. Don't take it before you get your build up and running, but otherwise it's convenient. If you use the   Amphibious(D) defect, then this is a good offset to that as well and if you have   Photosynthetic Skin (or just cook a lot) then your buffs last longer.

Lionheart

There are 3 creatures that are default hostile to you that will cause the terrified effect:

• Dreadroot
•   Feral lah
•   Knight Commander of the Holy Temple

The first 2 are trash, ignore them. You probably won't even have the Willpower needed for this by the time they're of concern. The Knight Commander however makes this more interesting. Typically, these will be legendary creatures in charge of Templar war bands, giving them very high Ego. This means they will reliably cause terrified form a distance with their   Menacing Stare skill, and this can be a positional nightmare. Not only will it break your position but also give the Knight Commander more opportunities to lock you down, supplementing this with   Shield Slam. Consider this skill by A Call to Arms if you don't have   Two-headed, otherwise give it a miss.

Iron Mind

Very few things in the game confuse you, so unless you are an   Esper with high amounts of glimmer this will rarely be used. The Seekers that use this are very rarely found anyways, so essentially your only real source of   Confusion are   enigma snails and   Esper hunters. Despite this, you will want it if you are planning on taking on the most difficult challenges in Qud (without any spoilers). By the time you'll need it, you should be swimming in skill points so don't bother taking it early.

Conatus

If you're really interested in increasing your   Sprint duration, this is the one to take over   Longstrider. However, for the same reasons as   Longstrider isn't worth it, this is also not worth it.

Mind Over Body

  Fasting Way is already enough in case you're being bothered by eating often, this takes that to the extreme. Again if you've got nothing to spend points on, this can be convenient but 150 skill points is not negligible and you can definitely get better skills for that cost. Something not noted in the description of the skill is that it will also allow you to eat food marked as "gross" like corpses without being famished, which is kinda neat.

Shield

Block

Again, like all equipment skills I am rating these assuming you are playing a build that utilizes them. Let's take this time to explain   Shield mechanics, since they are not simple or obvious.

Baseline, you have a 25% chance to block an attack if you are wielding a   Shield in any hand. An equipped   Shield will constantly apply the DV penalty (if it has one), but only apply its AV benefit on a successful block. If you have multiple   Shields equipped, the DV penalty will apply for each   Shield. When a creature makes an attack on its turn, the chance to block is rolled once. If the block was successful, you gain an AV bonus for that attack only equal to the highest AV bonus of all your equipped   Shields. That   Shield can then no longer block any other attack that creature makes this turn. If the block was unsuccessful, then you gain no   Shield benefit for that attack. This process repeats for every subsequent attack made by that creature on this turn.

This means that since many enemies only attack with one limb (or only with an occasional offhand strike), wearing multiple   Shields usually isn't worth it since we incur the negatives of the   Shield at all times. Now that we know   Shield mechanics,   Block increases our block chance to 50%; not much more to say just makes your   Shields more effective.

Shield Slam

This skill is very powerful, and especially so if you have high Strength and a powerful   Shield. The attack can be resisted in which case it doesn't do anything, but if it's not resisted then it will do guaranteed damage that bypasses DV and AV and will knock the enemy prone which will mean their counterattack is negated for that turn since they'll have to spend it standing up. With decent Strength, this attack will rarely be resisted so you have a very reliable attack in   Shield Slam. Not only do you get the activated attack, but you will also always   Shield Slam when you   Charge which makes your engagements even more deadly. You can also improve your   Shield Slam damage by modding your   Shield to be spiked.

Swift Blocking

There's no rush to pick this skill up, especially at the cost since for most of the game enemies will attack once and rarely twice. However, just because enemies rarely attack more than once doesn't mean they never attack more than once, and they certainly start to much more often as you progress through the game so this is still a very worthwhile pickup since it'll give you the benefit of wielding multiple   Shields without actually having to wield multiple   Shields.

Deft Blocking

We now have a 75% chance to block, this is an easy take. A   Shield can't benefit you if it doesn't block so we want to boost this at every opportunity.

Staggering Block

This skill is by no means reliable in any way. With very high Strength, it can become somewhat common but will never be anything but a little sugar on top. A stun for 1-2 rounds is a little low for how uncommon it is to get the stun since you not only have to roll the % chance, but you also have to have blocked the attack in the first place which we can have a maximum 75% chance to do (without relics). Can this skill save you? Absolutely. But there's certainly better, more reliable ways to save yourself or get advantages for the cost so don't go for it until you've filled out the rest of your build.

Shield Wall

  Shield Wall is like other stance skills, it has zero activation cost. Unlike other stance skills, it has much more attainable costs and the benefits are equally huge. Unfortunately, it does only last 3 turns which isn't much, but can be the difference between life and death if you get yourself caught with enemies on all sides since it literally does block every attack for those 3 turns, regardless of your other   Shield skills and regardless of just how many attacks are made against you. You could have 9 Spoiler: Hidden endgame creature, it has a lot of limbs trust me  Oboroqoru using   Flurry for a total of 54 attacks in one turn,   Shield Wall will block them all. Note that blocking means that you get the benefit of your   Shield; which for the non-bucklers that you can use this with means you get a significant increase but doesn't make you invincible.

The real thing that puts this stance over others despite its short duration is that it also has a fairly short cooldown as well; meaning that at high Willpower you can essentially just spam this for massive AV benefit. While high AV won't make you invincible to everything, it will make you exceptionally difficult to kill for the vast majority of creatures. However, the big caveat is that there are relic / extradimensional shields that gain a bonus to block will let you reach a natural 100% block chance. If you have one of those, this leans more towards unnecessary.

Short Blades

Short Blade Expertise

The +1 to hit is marginal here, but because it makes our main hand   Short Blade attacks be 25% faster, this actually starts to make   Short Blades look attractive to high quickness builds. Typically though, the real reason to use   Short Blades is for offhand attacks with   Jab. Multiweapon   Short Blade builds are essentially mandatory if you're planning on using   Short Blades in your main hand just because   Short Blades have very few effects that require being wielding in your primary hand to be effective, so why not equip a more powerful weapon and get its benefits as well? Aside from this skill, if you're going for offhand   Short Blades, you'll really just want   Jab and maybe   Bloodletter and   Rejoinder.

Jab

  Jab got a sneaky nerf that seems to have largely flown under the radar, but it went from doubling your offhand   Short Blade strike chance to making it so that when you strike with your offhand   Short Blade, you strike with it twice. Note here that the key word is strike and not hit, so all your offhand strikes with   Short Blades are attacking twice with   Jab. While this may seem like the same thing on first glance, it's not. Instead of ensuring you reliably attack with all your offhand   Short Blades (by raising your hit chance above 100%), you are now vulnerable to probability bringing you into a damage lull when you really need that damage. Of course, it just as likely has the chance to give you more damage than possible with the old version of   Jab and over a long enough period of time, it will almost be just as good.

The other part of the nerf is that bringing your hit chance above 100% will occasionally allow a second attack in addition the guaranteed attack. Since you cannot get an offhand strike chance above 100% without   Multiple Arms, you cannot otherwise benefit from this property of offhand strikes anymore and thus the damage is marginally worse in the aggregate.

  Jab is still extremely good; it definitely still makes   Short Blades the best choice when it comes to offhand strike. If you're not investing in   Multiweapon Fighting then of course it won't be any good for you, but if you are then this skill is a must-have.

Bloodletter

This makes your   Short Blade attacks do just a bit more damage. It eventually synergizes well with   Shank, so it will become important for full   Short Blade builds. Free damage is always nice though, and while   Bloodletter doesn't give you that significant of an increase, you can stack this quite quickly with multiple   Short Blades and high offhand strike chance.

Hobble

A hobbled enemy is quite easy to get away from and this will give you a guaranteed penetration on hit. The problem with this skill is you can only use it with a   Short Blade in your primary hand, which most builds that use   Short Blades will use it as an offhand. If you happen to use   Short Blades in your main hand, then this is a good skill. If you don't, then you can give this an easy pass.

Pointed Circle

I'm giving this a really big caveat: If you specifically are stacking   Triple-jointed and are using main hand   Short Blades, then you can actually do some pretty nasty damage for free if you get lucky with your procs since   Juke has an Agility prerequisite. If you don't, then in order to get any use out of this skill you have to   Juke into the enemy which you usually specifically don't want to do unless you've found yourself way out of position and an enemy is blocking you. There are many common scenarios where you really, really do not want to swap places with the enemy because it will just be way worse for you. Using   Juke offensively also means that you cannot use it defensively for the duration of its cooldown, which can be risky. All in all, there are definitely some silly builds where you can stack this a crazy amount but usually this is not worth it.

Rejoinder

If you have high DV, then this is just a no-brainer take as it'll give you a straight upgrade to your DPS. This can be used regardless of how many times you're attacked at once, so the increase can be quite significant and potentially even allow you to kill weaker support enemies while you focus on a bigger threat. If you have terrible DV then this won't do anything for you, but otherwise is a great addition.

Something to note is that if you have   Horns, you can   Rejoinder with them. You can do this even if you have   Single Weapon Fighting on, and it will still benefit from all the things   Single Weapon Fighting gives.

Shank

While this seems like just free damage from an activated ability, in   Multiweapon Fighting builds this is typically not worth it since you only get a single attack instead of your multiple attacks from your multiple equipped weapons. If you can get multiple bleeds stacked on your target, this can potentially hit for massive damage. While you probably won't be using this to punch through crazy AV, it can be used to nuke high HP targets especially if you have ways of applying status effects outside of bleed and have a powerful   Short Blade.   Triple-jointed builds can also make use of the Agility prerequisite to potentially spam this attack.

If you have   Weapon Mastery /   Weapon Expertise, this will cause your   Shank to hit twice / potentially twice; both with the enhanced PV. In these instances, you can pump out some pretty crazy damage if you're able to stack negative effects on your target.

Single Weapon Fighting

Opportune Attacks

The way this tree is designed is you either take it or you take   Multiweapon Fighting (or neither, if you hate yourself I guess). If you are a true kin or a mutant without the   Multiple Arms mutation, you should probably be taking this tree.   Multiweapon Fighting with 4+ limbs is superior in terms of damage with full support, but   Single Weapon Fighting is a lot more flexible in playstyle. I'm not doing a lot of talking about this skill in particular because it's pretty mid, but necessary for the rest of the tree. Let's switch gears and discuss the actual skill.

You're very likely to get this skill very early on because you just have to for the actually good skills, and when you get it you'll probably not notice its impact at all. Critical hits are uncommon enough that refreshing weapon or shield cooldowns won't do a whole lot (and you probably don't have many to begin with). However, in the mid-late game this skill goes absolutely insane with long cooldown stance skills like   En Garde! and   Berserk!, especially because by then you're likely to have   Weapon Expertise or   Weapon Mastery and you're striking more often meaning more crits or have masterwork gear /   precision nanon fingers to boost your crit chances further. It becomes fairly likely for you to crit and then refresh those powerful, long cooldowns and go on an absolute tear, so don't forget you have this as you gain those powerful cooldown skills!

Weapon Expertise

50% chance to strike again, but the crazy thing about this chance is that it can proc from any attack while you're   Single Weapon Fighting. This includes the extra attack from   Backswing, meaning   Cudgels can get a large amount of attacks while still benefitting from all of the powerful   Single Weapon Fighting skills. It also includes   Horns and   Stinger procs, and if there are guaranteed procs (like from   Charge or   Lunge) then those are affected too. There's not much more to say; it's a powerful passive, if you're not   Multiweapon Fighting then get this skill.

Penetrating Strikes

And here it is, the crown jewel of this skill tree. The way this works is that the game will roll its penetrations normally. It will then add 1 to that number. This means that if you hit, your attack will always penetrate. No matter the enemy AV, you will always penetrate at least once. Combine this with the naturally high PV of two-handed weapons or the extremely reliable   ceremonial vibrokhopesh and you will absolutely rip through enemies. With the vibrokhopesh and this skill, you can turn any build into a melee threat, regardless of their attribute spread.

This also means it pairs extremely well with   Axes, as in order to   Dismember you must penetrate the enemies' AV. This means as long as you make contact with a   Dismember strike, it will always   Dismember. Combine this with   Berserk! and Opportune Strikes and limbs will go flying. Any creature not immune to decapitation is on a serious timer with this brutal combination.

Weapon Mastery

There isn't a lot to say about this skill; it's   Weapon Expertise but better. Everything that applied to   Weapon Expertise applies here, x2. Get it.

Tactics

Hurdle

You'll probably not see the value in this very often, but it's common enough to want to   Sprint to either close the gap on a ranged enemy or to escape from a ranged enemy so having a better chance of dodging those attacks is quite useful. This is especially useful early on in combating   slugsnouts since you'll absolutely want to get away or close the gap on them as fast as possible because of their high damage. Aside from these, you'll have to get this one in order to get better skills in the tree so this is an easy early take.

If you happen to not have   Sprint (like through permanent   Domination), you can gain that ability when you buy this skill.

Deft Throwing

Most of my runs will just ignore this one since I don't throw things very often in general. That's not to say this is a bad skill because for what it does it's actually quite good. It's just that throwing things and more so being accurate with what you throw is rarely that important. If your playstyle revolves heavily on crafting and throwing grenades, then by all means take this skill, you'll see great return. Otherwise, it's just not necessary.

Charge

This is my favorite skill in the game, and arguably also the best skill in the game. It has so many applications and so many synergies that it's really hard to overvalue it.   Charge actually has quite a few mechanics around it, so let's first cover what it does.

When you use   Charge, you need to select a target 2-3 tiles away from you. Any target within 1 tile is too close. After selecting your target, you'll make an attack on the first wall or creature you hit on the way to that target. You'll then make an attack and if you hit, your attack has +1 PV on it. If you are in melee with a hostile enemy, you will be unable to use   Charge.

The first thing to add to the mix is what constitutes a target. A target can be anything that isn't an empty tile, which means you can even target items on the floor. You won't attack items on the floor, so in these cases you will actually   Charge beyond your target and get stunned for one turn. You can use this fact as well as the fact that you can   Charge walls to use   Charge as an escape tool as well as an initiation tool. While using   Charge in this way has more requirements, it gets you farther than anything else in a single turn.

The second thing to add to the mix is that   Axes,   Cudgels and   Shields have a dedicated skill that just improves your   Charge strikes. Those were covered already in their own sections.

The third thing to add is that if you have a   Stinger or   Horns, you will automatically make strikes with them when you   Charge. This means that with these mutations you can make your initiations that much more powerful to potentially kill or disable an enemy on the   Charge itself.

The fourth thing to add is that you can improve your range significantly whether you're a true kin or a mutant. Mutants can get a level based increase with   Wings and true kin can use the   pentaceps cybernetic. This means that both your escape and initiation range increase significantly.

The fifth thing to add is that   Charge synergizes naturally with many other skills like   Jump,   Juke,   Swipe and   Slam as they all move yourself or the enemy which allow you to get another   Charge in the middle of an extended combat.   Charge has a low cooldown which with middling levels of Willpower can easily allow it to come off cooldown in the middle of many mid-late game fights.

All in all, there's no reason to not get   Charge in any run; even runs that you don't fight in melee because of its escape potential.

Kickback

If you use guns as your primary weapon, this is actually quite good as it'll give you space for more shots. This used to be locked behind the   Bow and Rifle tree, so now that it's in the   Tactics tree it's much more valuable since you don't have to buy any   Bow and Rifle skills for non-rifle builds.

Juke

  Juke moves you in any tile you want (except for walls) for literally no opportunity cost. It doesn't just move you fast, it moves you instantly; regardless of quickness you move in that tile right away and can act again. This makes   Juke the perfect defensive tool especially when combined with skills like   Jump and   Charge. There are many scenarios where the difference between a great position and a compromised position is a single tile and situations where an enemy cuts off your escape route.

In addition to being a great tool for the purposes of moving that one tricky tile, it also will break the hold enemies can have on you since you can use   Juke even in these scenarios.   Juke also has an Agility prerequisite which makes it a prime candidate for   Triple-jointed. Finally,   Juke is also a prerequisite for   Tumble which gives us access to +1 DV permanently, so it's worth taking even if it wasn't already great.

Tinkering

Gadget Inspector

  Gadget Inspector will improve your ability to identify artifacts, which is pretty handy. With it, you will quite rarely fail at inspecting artifacts even with low Intelligence and even on high complexity artifacts. Even more rarely will you break artifacts you try to identify. Deploying wiring is, as of now, rather useless but if you need to repair power links for gates then this is what you need.

There are several ways to learn artifact recipes that don't involve   data disks. The most well-known is   Psychometry which anyone can get from cooking with bananas, but you can also learn recipes from Barathrumites and Daughters of Exile you can water ritual. However, you will still need the dedicated   Tinkering skills in order to craft the recipes that you learn.   Gadget Inspector will also allow you to see what recipes are on   data disks so you can begin your collection for when you get Tinker X skills.

In my experience, you should always save the skill points here and get this skill for reputation from the Barathrumites. Barathrumite rep is absurdly easy to get as you do tons of quests for them and you won't need the benefit from this skill until about the point you can get the skill for rep from the Barathrumites.

Disassemble

This is your only way of getting bits, so if you're planning on doing literally any   Tinkering you must have this skill. There's not much more analysis required for this one because of its necessity.

Scavenger

If you're planning on doing insane amounts of   Tinkering right from the start, then this skill can see some use. However, the problem is that you don't get that many useful bits from this in the short term. Typically, there will be no shortage of artifacts that aren't of much use or are duplicates that you can   Disassemble for all the bits you really need. Again, unless you're doing some insane levels of   Tinkering like throwing grenades for literally every enemy you find, you'll probably run into no shortage of bits. You can find some other useful stuff in the   trash besides just scrap, but you'll probably be better off putting your skill points elsewhere.

Lay Mine / Set Bomb

You'll rarely find situations where you can actually use this skill well as places you've already been probably won't have any enemies in them and if you can get around a mine, the enemies can also probably get around the mine. You can combine this skill with   Jump for decent effect, but it always seems to be the case that it takes far more effort than is worth it in order for this skill to actually be effective in the way you'd expect.

While mines are mostly useless, bombs are more useful since these work on a timer; meaning that if you can plan well enough you can get your enemy in the range and not catch yourself in it as well. Again, this does take more effort than is usually worth it and so suffers from the same problem as mines. You're just going to be better off tossing the grenades right on their head. The only situation where that's not viable is with cherubim so in that particular niche you can see a bit more use out of bombs specifically.

Repair

Another skill that while definitely has its uses is far better off being purchased for rep instead of skill points. Keep the skill points for combat effectiveness and such, by the time you need this skill you can buy it from   Yla Haj in Ezra. This skill will repair both broken and rusted items, so it's definitely worth the pickup at some point just in case.

Deploy Turret

  Deploy Turret is an interesting skill because it has a lot of potential, but needs a considerable amount of setup and support. If you have high Strength (to carry weapons / ammo / cells) and the   Long Blades disarm (to get those guns back), this can be quite strong with the right setup. The downside is it leads to an (in my opinion) very boring playstyle where you secure a location, set up your killbox and then lure in enemies to be obliterated by your   turrets. You can also use   flamethrower /   freeze ray   turrets in order to disable your opponents. If you don't mind playing extremely slow and have the right setup for this skill, it can be pretty good. If you're not planning on playing around this skill, then you probably will find little to no use from it.

Something to note is that if you have the ability to disarm and   Electrical Generation or a   biodynamic power plant, the guns you disarm from this skill will be jacked and this can be an easy way to get the mod without knowing the recipe.

Tinker I

  Tinker I is conveniently for us the best of the 3 Tinker X skills. With it, we get access to learn recipes through   data disks and with it the majority of tinkerable items. Mind you, most of those items aren't that great but   Tinker I really isn't about the artifacts, it's about the mods. The vast majority of useful mods can be found in   Tinker I and since the cost to get this is so cheap and the power of mods you can get so high,   Tinker I is always useful no matter what build or style you're playing.

Tinker II

  Tinker II is very notable for the powerful artifacts you're able to craft with it. In particular, the   geomagnetic disc,   portable wall and   high-powered magnet are all very useful items to be able to build, and while the mods aren't quite as spectacular as those in   Tinker I, with certain builds mods like jacked and overloaded are great and radio-powered is always a fantastic mod to get. In particular, I really want to have this skill by A Call To Arms in order to build the   portable walls that I need. While this skill doesn't have quite the magnitude of   Tinker I, the prerequisites are low enough and the benefits high enough that this is an easy pickup.

Reverse Engineer

  Reverse Engineer has two effects:

1. You have a 25% chance to learn to build an artifact upon disassembling it.
2. You have a 15% chance to learn a mod on an artifact upon disassembling it.

It's that second one that makes the difference here. 25 Intelligence is a fairly steep cost to pay, but you're quite likely to find all kinds of artifacts that you don't want anyway with a huge variety of mods. It can be endlessly frustrating to try and find the ones you want from just merchants, especially if you spawn a world with a low amount of   schematics drafters in the Stilt. Learning how to make an artifact is generally not helpful as artifacts you want to make in bulk you can just learn from   Psychometry and artifacts you want just to have you generally only need one copy and disassembling it is a huge risk. Depending on how rare that artifact is, you may just want to use   metamorphic polygel instead of risking the chance to not learn the recipe.

15% chance is pretty low, but some mods can be quite common to find on items but difficult to find on merchants. Jacked is one that comes to the front of mind. Not only are you able to get any mod you'd like, but you also have the side benefit of being able to turn bits from low-value or useless artifacts / scrap into sellable artifacts for items that you do want, which is extremely valuable. This skill becomes available to most builds around the time you finish Earl of Omonporch, which is also around the time you will be purchasing extremely expensive items and will want some cash to throw around.

Tinker III

Don't get me wrong, you can build some pretty insane gear with   Tinker III and assuming you just have it somewhat early from something like a random village, you can get some powerful artifacts (assuming you have a way of buying the right scrap for bits). Unfortunately, there is a substantial cost besides the 300 skill points which is the 29 Intelligence prerequisite. Since Intelligence has an awful return on investment (at some point, you just have all the skills you need), investing the points all the way up to 29 to build these artifacts only slightly earlier than you could otherwise get them (since you still need the bits) just ends up not being worth it.

Wayfaring

Mind's Compass / Make Camp

The obvious use of this skill is to save your sanity by making overworld travel not completely awful, but this is actually highly beneficial to your survival as you won't get lost as often in dangerous areas. While getting lost isn't an immediate death sentence, depending on your abilities, how dangerous the area is you got lost in and the look of the map you got lost in, you can be pretty dead pretty quickly with the wrong luck. This is especially true early game, so this is a must-have as soon as you start looking to leave for Grit Gate.   Make Camp comes standard on all player characters, but if you've gone through permanent   Domination you won't have this. In this scenario, getting the first   Wayfaring skill becomes even more important since not being able to ease your hunger whenever you want becomes seriously annoying (believe me).

Wilderness Lore

These are all really cheap skills to grab and almost every single one of them is worth it. The only exceptions are Flower Field lore, Ruins lore and Salt Dune lore. These are either too easy to walk around, not dangerous, and / or don't contain interesting locations. Jungle lore is especially good to grab just for the sheer amount of Jungle tiles on the map. The rest of the lore is super handy to find lairs in order to improve your reputation with factions like Unshelled Reptiles, Fish and Flowers as well as finding lairs with high concentrations of legendary creatures like Baboon and Goatfolk lairs. Make sure your combat build is online before grabbing these, but once you've got your core these are very nice to go into.