Skills, Talents, and Specialties

Besides attributes, your skills, talents or spells, and specializations define who you are and how effective you’ll be in combat. Each level you get more powerful as you add points in these areas. For more specifics on skills, talents, and specializations, see the Classes chapter.

Skills

All three classes share the same skill tree, which includes the following: Coercion, Stealing, Trap-Making, Survival, Herbalism, Poison-Making, Combat Training, Combat Tactics, Runecrafting, Vitality, and Clarity. Whether you want to focus on persuading others, detecting enemies, crafting health potions, or learning combat tricks, among other things, you gain skill points every three levels (or one every two levels if you’re a rogue) to explore the skill tree. Because you can fill out only two to three skills, put some serious thought into which ones you want to master.

Talents and Spells

Talents are specific to warriors and rogues; mages learn spells. You can’t take everything, so choose talents/spells that fit into your play style. For example, a warrior can dual-wield weapons, fight with weapon and shield, rely on a two-handed weapon, or strike at range with bow and arrows. All talents don’t complement each other; choose a path and stick with it to unlock the better talents/spells at higher levels. Talents require stamina, while spells cost mana. Keeping some sustained talents or spells active ties up a certain amount of stamina/mana, which could prevent a character from using other abilities when starting a new encounter. Keep an eye on your stamina/mana levels before and during combat.

Specializations

You unlock your first specialization at level 7, your second at level 14, and your third at level 22. Specializations give an array of attribute bonuses and open up unique talent chains. They are very powerful abilities in the right situation. Specializations for a warrior include Berserker, Templar, Champion, Reaver, Spirit Warrior, and Guardian. Mage specializations include Spirit Healer, Shapeshifter, Arcane Warrior, Blood Mage, Keeper, and Battlemage. Rogue specializations are Ranger, Bard, Duelist, Assassin, Legionnaire Scout, and Shadow.