Posted October 21, 2021
Besides what the obvious ones do, I'll list those that are not obvious at first and figured out what they do through testing.
Summoning - this skill increases the amount of experience your rings receive whenever your character earns experience. All summoned creatures scale directly off of the amount of experience their respective ring has accumulated (HP, AP, Skill Levels). Only the rings you have currently equipped accrue experience. You can see how much XP a ring has by going into its details.
All the creatures you summon also have their own scaling, skills, spells and the % of the HP it takes away from Joseph. Once the skills of the summoned creature reach 10 (max), any further XP you gain on the relevant ring serves only to increase the monster's HP and AP and nothing else. Also, quest rewards that give XP also give XP for your currently equipped rings. Some quest can give a very generous XP reward so you can equip the rings that you want the XP on and turn the quest in.
Magic Resist - Increases your magic resistance by 5% per point. Magic Resistance is universal and works on all 3 elements (Ice, Fire, Energy), reducing the damage by said percentage. Looks good on paper, but it has a strange interaction with the Holy spell that increases magic resist for the party (Faith). Say your character has 40% base magic resistance with 1 point in Magic Resist. A level 15 caster uses the magic resist spell, which sets the magic resistance of the entire party to caster level * 4, so in this case 60. This makes the next 4 points you put into the Magic Resist skill have no effect, because it gets added to the base, which is 40. So raising it from 1 to 5 will still leave you at 60%. Even worse, if the character that casts Faith is level 25 or higher, it sets the magic resistance of everyone in the party to 100% and more. Meaning that this skill becomes useless at that point as you have complete immunity from damaging spells just from Faith. Maintaining the Faith buff is not really that hard as the duration is quite generous. With all this considered, this skill is basically a skill point trap (if you have someone with Holy Spells at level 7 that is, to get access to Faith).
Double Attack - Increased chance of doing chain attacks. All this does is increase the amount of time you have to press the right mouse button to continue your chain. Seems to be roughly doubled when at level 10 so 10% per point. Makes reaching chains of 7-12 much easier but the timer gets shorter the higher in the chain you are so doubling almost nothing still results in almost nothing when at chains of 12+. Also, the higher the chain number, the higher the drain on your AP. If you are good at timings, this skill is not really that useful. It is also usually better to stop at around chain 8 or so to prevent draining all your AP. All in all, not a really useful skill.
Backstab - the damage increase is very noticeable. It can be used in normal fights too, so if your thief is melee, it can cause massive damage in fights when properly micromanaged (meaning having someone else take aggro and positioning the backstabber behind the enemy). Useless for ranged. I don't think I've ever seen backstab miss, but the skill also claims to increase the chance to hit. As for unaware enemies, it is only usable on those that aren't moving. If they are moving (patrolling around), the enemy will always walk out of range due to the length of the Backstab animation.
Sneak - it only makes the enemies not able to hear you. If you enter their vision, they will detect you normally. Mandatory if you want to perform Backstabs on unaware enemies.
Hide - should make it so enemies don't see you, but the skill requires you to remain completely still. Haven't found much use for it.
Skills that have a % chance to do something (like Aimed Attack or Trip etc.) - Always seems to be a straight 10% per point, meaning a 100% chance at level 10, assuming the skill hits. Depends on the skill though. Aimed Attack at level 10 never misses and Counterattack at level 10 always procs, but enemies can still dodge Kick or Trip even at level 10.
Counterattack - Falls into the same category as above (more points increase the chance to trigger when you successfully parry), but when it does trigger, it always hits. Works off of parry, so levelling this skill without raising parry is a complete waste.. It is also a free move, not taking up any turn time, meaning that you get to counterattack and usually can follow it up immediately with a normal attack without the enemy getting to attack inbetween. Quite a useful skill for melee fighters. Only works with melee weapons. Parry can trigger even with a bow so it can serve as an additional defense layer to negate damage. Counterattack can also trigger after a successful bow parry, but nothing will happen afterwards as bows don't have a melee attack.
Chain attack skills - important note: all chain attack have their preset % value for the damage they deal and chance to hit. Some deal no damage, some deal 25% of normal damage, some 50% and so on. Due to most of the chain attacks not being normal hits, it usually results in less damage than normal hits. Depends if you are after the special effects of the chain skills, or raw damage. You just need to experiment with these a little bit. Good thing though, only Joseph receives new chain moves, all the other characters stay at the 4 they start with. It should be noted however, that as long as you maintain your chain and the enemy is focusing on the character performing the chain, the enemy cannot attack, only defend against the chain.
Magic Skills (Dark, Holy, Energy, Fire, Heal, Ice) - NEVER go over 10 points for any magic school. The magic skills serve purely for the purposes of unlocking new spells, of which there are absolutely none past 10 in every school. Damage (or healing) values scale purely off of the caster's level so any points past 10 are wasted. The other skills, like weapon mastery, dodge, parry or skills where additional points increase damage or duration do seem have an effect past 10, but I have no way of confirming it other than "gut feeling".
Summoning - this skill increases the amount of experience your rings receive whenever your character earns experience. All summoned creatures scale directly off of the amount of experience their respective ring has accumulated (HP, AP, Skill Levels). Only the rings you have currently equipped accrue experience. You can see how much XP a ring has by going into its details.
All the creatures you summon also have their own scaling, skills, spells and the % of the HP it takes away from Joseph. Once the skills of the summoned creature reach 10 (max), any further XP you gain on the relevant ring serves only to increase the monster's HP and AP and nothing else. Also, quest rewards that give XP also give XP for your currently equipped rings. Some quest can give a very generous XP reward so you can equip the rings that you want the XP on and turn the quest in.
Magic Resist - Increases your magic resistance by 5% per point. Magic Resistance is universal and works on all 3 elements (Ice, Fire, Energy), reducing the damage by said percentage. Looks good on paper, but it has a strange interaction with the Holy spell that increases magic resist for the party (Faith). Say your character has 40% base magic resistance with 1 point in Magic Resist. A level 15 caster uses the magic resist spell, which sets the magic resistance of the entire party to caster level * 4, so in this case 60. This makes the next 4 points you put into the Magic Resist skill have no effect, because it gets added to the base, which is 40. So raising it from 1 to 5 will still leave you at 60%. Even worse, if the character that casts Faith is level 25 or higher, it sets the magic resistance of everyone in the party to 100% and more. Meaning that this skill becomes useless at that point as you have complete immunity from damaging spells just from Faith. Maintaining the Faith buff is not really that hard as the duration is quite generous. With all this considered, this skill is basically a skill point trap (if you have someone with Holy Spells at level 7 that is, to get access to Faith).
Double Attack - Increased chance of doing chain attacks. All this does is increase the amount of time you have to press the right mouse button to continue your chain. Seems to be roughly doubled when at level 10 so 10% per point. Makes reaching chains of 7-12 much easier but the timer gets shorter the higher in the chain you are so doubling almost nothing still results in almost nothing when at chains of 12+. Also, the higher the chain number, the higher the drain on your AP. If you are good at timings, this skill is not really that useful. It is also usually better to stop at around chain 8 or so to prevent draining all your AP. All in all, not a really useful skill.
Backstab - the damage increase is very noticeable. It can be used in normal fights too, so if your thief is melee, it can cause massive damage in fights when properly micromanaged (meaning having someone else take aggro and positioning the backstabber behind the enemy). Useless for ranged. I don't think I've ever seen backstab miss, but the skill also claims to increase the chance to hit. As for unaware enemies, it is only usable on those that aren't moving. If they are moving (patrolling around), the enemy will always walk out of range due to the length of the Backstab animation.
Sneak - it only makes the enemies not able to hear you. If you enter their vision, they will detect you normally. Mandatory if you want to perform Backstabs on unaware enemies.
Hide - should make it so enemies don't see you, but the skill requires you to remain completely still. Haven't found much use for it.
Skills that have a % chance to do something (like Aimed Attack or Trip etc.) - Always seems to be a straight 10% per point, meaning a 100% chance at level 10, assuming the skill hits. Depends on the skill though. Aimed Attack at level 10 never misses and Counterattack at level 10 always procs, but enemies can still dodge Kick or Trip even at level 10.
Counterattack - Falls into the same category as above (more points increase the chance to trigger when you successfully parry), but when it does trigger, it always hits. Works off of parry, so levelling this skill without raising parry is a complete waste.. It is also a free move, not taking up any turn time, meaning that you get to counterattack and usually can follow it up immediately with a normal attack without the enemy getting to attack inbetween. Quite a useful skill for melee fighters. Only works with melee weapons. Parry can trigger even with a bow so it can serve as an additional defense layer to negate damage. Counterattack can also trigger after a successful bow parry, but nothing will happen afterwards as bows don't have a melee attack.
Chain attack skills - important note: all chain attack have their preset % value for the damage they deal and chance to hit. Some deal no damage, some deal 25% of normal damage, some 50% and so on. Due to most of the chain attacks not being normal hits, it usually results in less damage than normal hits. Depends if you are after the special effects of the chain skills, or raw damage. You just need to experiment with these a little bit. Good thing though, only Joseph receives new chain moves, all the other characters stay at the 4 they start with. It should be noted however, that as long as you maintain your chain and the enemy is focusing on the character performing the chain, the enemy cannot attack, only defend against the chain.
Magic Skills (Dark, Holy, Energy, Fire, Heal, Ice) - NEVER go over 10 points for any magic school. The magic skills serve purely for the purposes of unlocking new spells, of which there are absolutely none past 10 in every school. Damage (or healing) values scale purely off of the caster's level so any points past 10 are wasted. The other skills, like weapon mastery, dodge, parry or skills where additional points increase damage or duration do seem have an effect past 10, but I have no way of confirming it other than "gut feeling".
Post edited October 24, 2021 by idbeholdME