The Best Talents for Skald

[Zechnophobe]

Mind True has a few very powerful skills
Level 1 Edda is very very good. Boosts to initiative or mana/rage production help quite a bit. Possibility for +1 Morale for the entire team is also very good.

Diversion skill is quite strong, as is sense weakness, and tactics. Some of the higher level skills aren't so generally good, but Oratory is at least worthwhile, and Persuasion can allow you to build some more interesting armies. Between Edda and Oratory and Persuasion, you can get most troop combos with +1 or +2 Morale.

[Loopy]

Morale isn't THAT important. It's usually only about +1-2 att/def and +2% crit rate per level. It only boosts off of base stats, and for level 4/5 stacks often the boost doesn't even matter because you are already more than 60 above your enemies before the morale boost. All that really matters is keeping your morale out of the negatives, which hurts you a lot more than positive morale helps.

Sense Weakness, Power of Spirit, and lvl 1 Edda are the only Mind skills I would consider must have. Persuasion if you want to combine races that hate each other, because morale penalties HURT.

IMO, go for a mage-oriented Skald. I say this because mage spells are army-enhancers, and Skald has the army. Might is rage focused for the most part. Rage is nice, but it doesn't synergize with your large army. Also, other than Wisdom/Meditation mage spells require a lot of Might/Mind runes, so your Skald's good spread of runes works to your advantage. Plus, even with no rage abilities at all you'll still get to use rage skills fairly often, with no mage abilities you'll have practically no spells to use.

Which magic school to focus on will probably depend heavily on what spells you find. Distortion is the best early on if you can find stuff like Stone Skin/Magic Spring/Berserker/Target/Phantom. Much later in the game if you can reach Creation you'll be the most badass thing imaginable.

[gunnyhighway]

Nice info Loopy thanks that helped make life easier

[Nevar]

Originally Posted by Loopy

Morale isn't THAT important. It's usually only about +1-2 att/def and +2% crit rate per level.

True, but on the other hand, it also helps avoid dropping into negative morale. Nothing wrong with having a small bonus which is also protection from the morale penalty brought by negative effects. Morale is also a lot better on level 4/5 creatures.