Just as title says. I've read you have to keep it at your level in order for it to even be effective, but it doesn't seem to have much of a pay off. At least for my 23 Dwarf (silver mode if that matters). So when do I actually start seeing better gear at vendors, I can't help but feel I am just throwing away points every level. There has been nothing at any vendor that I haven't gotten a better version of from quest rewards/using Greed as I finish tougher mobs. Is it ineffective during single player, or is it just that I have really bad luck heh

All I can tell you is that in a LOT of good dwarf builds (even my dwarf) have trading. The skill is most beneficial at higher levels in the later playthroughs when things like resist actually mean something. The ability to browse any merchant and know they will have awesome gear with good resistances means saving you so much time hoping for a lucky drop. That being said its up to you, greed is good but I get lazy with activating it all of the time, I really should use it more.

Don't freak out, lvl 23 is nothing major to spend wrong points in, don't freak out about putting wrong points in things, you aren't showing off in multiplayer or anything and the difference isn't that big at the hardest difficulties. It's all about the gear

So, I'll be seeing the payoff for raising it once I get to Gold difficulty or higher? All I'm seeing now is essentially the low quality gear that I was seeing at the start of the game, just higher level to match my own level. I guess I just expected to start seeing more things with +skills or whatnot by now for Dwarf. The VERY few cases of +skill gear I've found are always for other classes. Since lower levels give so few training points per level my other skills are kind of hurting due to keeping trading topped off, didn't know if it was worth it to keep going or should I stop and raise other skills for a while

Ah ok, if its 100+ then no wonder I'm not seeing much difference at only 23 ranks. Thanks a bunch for clearing that up for me

No worries man :)

Just remember the game becomes truly a challenge at the harder difficulties, you really don't need to worry about poison or fire resist etc until then. Silver is nice and hack n' slash and you don't really need to think about which enemies you can fight 1 by 1 or in groups, but the ability to give yourself a headstart by buying cool gear is just too valuable later on!

Best of luck dude, its a great, huge and fun game

You have some wrong information. You dont have to keep trading at least at your chars level to get better gear, because you wont get better gear with points above your level, than you would with points equal to your level. In short: the max level of trading that will give you any benefit is exactly the level of your char.

I would even recommend not to waste to much points in it, because gear with bonuses to trading (so called trading suits) that is worn before talking to a merchant would have the same effect. Also it is recommend to find 2 merchants standing close to each other, because talking to a new merchant will reset its inventory with new stuff, that you are maybe looking for. Only then you will be able to gain the best out of the skill.

Trading increases the stats and bonuses of the gear you will find at the inventory of a merchant even at low player levels, but the gear at this levels is just low and a little bit of nearly nothing is still nothing, thats why you will gain more of trading at higher levels than lower ones and especially at higher difficulties, because the base equipment is just much better, so an improvment will have a much bigger impact.