Skipping rage skills?

[Namel]

Can I leave rage skills unlearned? I find that rock spirits wall thing never gets enough HP to really be of any use so I rather use my levelups for something else. Can I just not take that skill and get others? Same with poison guys cloud, it is prolly great skill but I can't stand lack of control where it goes so I rather not use it and instead take skills which I can aim myself.

[Tuplis]

You can leave them unlearned but the game will keep occupying the slots on level-ups so if you don't want to take them you'll be having less to pick from on level-ups. And by the way, the rock wall is extremely good in some situations. Sure, it has 100 hp on level 1 but it'll still take one hit from even a huge walker stack giving you one more round before it can reach your ranged units.

[Namel]

I keep restarting game when I get new ideas so I have never played farther than dwarven lands but I have very few times had situation where wall had been useful and where I had the rage to cast it. I do use stuff like shamans totems, phantom, phoenix or poison spirits armor for purpose of slowing enemy.

Big problem I have had with stonewall is that when I have taken one point of it soon I will be offered choice between more stonewall hp or more stonewall duration which both are essentially useless since unless I really get lot of hp events it wont survive more than one hit anyways.

I am now testing not taking it. I got spirits around level 10 and so far they have offered stonewall twice but both times alternative was good and I picked it. Seems really better way to concentrate on 3 skills making them stronger than 4 bit weaker ones.

[Hazimel]

I put only one point in Stone Wall, I think it is enough.
I only upgrade the Smashing Sword, because I prefer big damage on the most dangerous enemy than average damage on every enemy.

[Namel]

Skipping some skills works great. I now got rock guy at level 17 and poison guy at 20. And I have totally skipped stone wall and poison cloud. They aren't even offered that often so I have usually some choice.

I think I chose wrong skill to skip for rock guy. My area meteor thing for rock guy is pretty nice now. It hits 17 squares and does 390-750 damage. Problem is that it is kind of pointless to have both that one and underground spikes. So I think next time I will skip meteor and concentrate on spikes that hit all enemies instead of just 17 squares.

[Zhuangzi]

IMO:

Rock dude:


Smashing Sword is good early but useless later.
Rockwall is pretty useless (others disagree)
Rockfall is horrible.
Underground Blades are excellent when upgraded properly.

I use the first and last a fair bit but ignore the other two.

Sleem:

Poison Spit is useless.
Evil Shoal is extremely good early on, but weak later.
Cloud of Poison is pretty bad.
Glot's Armour can be useful at times.

Evil Shoal is essential early on but Sleem isn't so hot later in the game.

Lina:

Chargers are really, really stupid.
Gizmo can be useful, but ultimately is quite weak.
Ice Ball can be devastating if used correctly (from long distance).
Ice Field or whatever it's called is crap.

In general I use Lina the least.

Reaper:

Soul Drain is THE BEST RAGE SPELL. PERIOD.
Rage Drain is nice, but it interferes with Soul Drain so I don't use it much (unless there are no souls to drain).
Time Back I haven't learned to use properly.
Black Hole seems great initially, but it uses so much rage and you get it so late that you will be facing huge stacks in the later part of the game, so it isn't as good as it seems.

Reaper is the best.

My order of preference by level 20 or so:

Soul Drain
Underground Blades
Ice Ball
Rage Drain
Glot's Armour
Smashing Sword
Evil Shoal

and that's all I use.

[Namel]

Originally Posted by Zhuangzi

Rockfall is horrible.
Underground Blades are excellent when upgraded properly.

Rockfall is horrible at start. But later you can upgrade to hit 9 squares and then 17. (3 across and 5 across). And damage is pretty near same as with underground blades. Problem is that blades hit everyone from start and you don't need to waste 2 levels for more area. So blades are better choice. Going to skip rockfall totally now and concentrate on blades every chance that is given.

[Zhuangzi]

You answered your own question there, Namel. The more you use something, the more chances to upgrade it you will have. So if you leave Rockfall alone you will have more opportunities to upgrade Underground Blades.

Still, by the end of the game, ANY 'fixed amount of damage' type of spell/rage loses its power. Even Black Hole. This is when you need things like Pain Mirror and Soul Drain.

[Shd]

Originally Posted by Zhuangzi

You answered your own question there, Namel. The more you use something, the more chances to upgrade it you will have. So if you leave Rockfall alone you will have more opportunities to upgrade Underground Blades.

Afaik its untrue. Chance to get certain skill upgrades not depending on how much you use that skill. There is very good table about skills in fan manual and about mechanics i already translated most important part in other thread:

For lvl 3 evil shoal you need your rage spirit at least lvl 8. Mechanics works like:
If you reach all prerequisites (in this case lvl 8 and 2nd level of evil shoal) then one of the choices will be lvl 3 evil shoal (of course if at that point you dont have reached prerequisites for 3 skills. In that case it may not propose you to upgrade that skill, but such situation is almost impossible). So you dont have lvl 8, you hadn't lvl 2 shoal when reached lvl 8 or you just missed it... If you missed it or didn't had lvl 2 shoal at lvl 8 then next chance to get it is completely random.

Originally Posted by Zhuangzi

Still, by the end of the game, ANY 'fixed amount of damage' type of spell/rage loses its power. Even Black Hole. This is when you need things like Pain Mirror and Soul Drain.

Totally agree. Especially in hard/impossible. And then most important rage abilities is Stone wall/poison cloud/gizmo/time back

[Tibster]

Poison cloud can be exploited to the point of