SKILLS
2.1 Unlocking Skills
Skills can be unlocked upon reaching certain character levels, after investing a certain number of passive points into a class, or after selecting a Mastery Class.
Opening the Skills Window (bound to the [S] key by default) allows you to see which skills your character can unlock, and how to do so. You can also click on any skill to view its Specialization Tree.
Clicking one of the 5 skill slots on your Action Bar at the bottom of the screen allows you to change which skill is equipped there.
2.2 Skill Specialization
Skill Specialization Slots are unlocked as your character levels up, to a maximum of 5 (to match how many skills can be equipped on the Action Bar).
Upon unlocking a Skill Specialization Slot, you can choose to Specialize in a skill that your character currently knows. Doing so allows you to level up that skill and invest points into its Specialization Tree. Skills have a maximum level of 20, but can have this level increased further through the use of + skill level affixes on gear.
If you would like to specialize in a different skill, you can press the Respec button at the top right of the Skills Window while viewing the tree for a specialized skill.
Newly specialized skills will be automatically set to your Minimum Skill Level, and may receive a bonus to XP so that they can catch up to your other skills.
You can see your current Minimum Skill Level on the Respec button inside a skill’s tree. Skills currently affected by a XP bonus will state so above their XP bar on the left side of their tree.
2.3 + Skill Level Affixes
Body Armour, Helmets, Relics, Uniques, and Sets can all have affixes which grant additional levels to certain skills. These affixes can exceed the normal 20 level limit of skills.
Any skill levels currently granted by items will be shown in blue above a skill’s XP bar inside its skill tree.
Unequipping an item which grants levels to your skills will remove points from them, unless you have a number of unspent points greater than or equal to the levels lost. Nodes which have lost points in this way will be highlighted in red when you next view that skill’s tree.
2.4 Tooltip DPS
Skills will display their Damage Per Second, or Average Damage if they have a cooldown, when the cursor if hovered over them.
https://i.imgur.com/ivn0NYv.png
Tooltips for sub-abilities (such as Fury Leap’s Lightning Bolts) are accessed by holding [Alt] while viewing the tooltip for the node which adds it. Tooltips for skills mentioned on Unique items (both normal player skills and skills that are only granted by that item) are also accessed by holding [Alt] while viewing the item’s tooltip.
DPS is very complicated to calculate, so the DPS value of a skill won’t account for absolutely every node or effect in the game. Conditional effects (i.e. “Your next attack deals 30% damage”) will not affect tooltip DPS as they only take effect when the skill is used.
Tooltip DPS is very useful to help evaluate how much a piece of gear or node affects your skill, but the values can’t be directly compared between skills or other players in all situations.
Minion skills, and nodes that exclusively affect sub-abilities (i.e. Increased Fire Aura Damage) are not currently supported, but will be in the future.
2.5 Scaling Tags
Each skill will have one or more scaling tags associated with it. These tags highlight the sources that scale the damage, the damage type(s) of the skill, and other unique properties of the skill.
You can hover over skills to see their scaling tags. Hold the [Alt] key to view further information about the skill, and the benefit any attribute tag(s) may provide.
The scaling tags that can appear on skills are as follows;
Melee: Scales with increases from melee based stats (e.g. “melee physical damage”, “melee fire damage”, “melee cold damage”, etc.).
Spell: Scales with increases from spell based stats (e.g. “increased spell damage”, “spell critical strike chance”, “adaptive spell damage”, etc.).
Throwing Attack: Scales with increases from throwing based stats (e.g. “throwing attack damage”, “throwing attack speed”, “throwing damage and fire vulnerability”, etc.)
Bow Attack: Scales with increases from bow based stats (e.g. “increased bow damage”, “increased bow attack speed”, “bow physical damage”, “bow fire damage”, etc.).
There is also a bow attack minion scaling tag for the Summon Skeleton skill. Skeleton Archers that are summoned use a bow to attack enemies.
Area: The skill has an area of effect which can be scaled with increased area stats. All sources of increased area for area skills are additive with other sources of increased area.
Curse: A skill that applies some form of debuff to enemies over a specified period of time.
Channelled: Requires the player to stand in-place while performing the skill (unless it is a skill like Warpath that also has the movement tag, which will allow you to both move and perform the skill at the same time).
Skills with both the spell and channelled tags do not receive bonuses from increased casting speed.
Skills with both the melee and channelled tags do not receive bonuses from increased attack speed, with Flurry and Warpath being the lone exceptions at this time.
Damage over Time: Skills with this tag will not hit, or proc “on hit” effects. However, DoT attacks cannot be dodged, blocked, turned into a glancing blow, and neglect armour.
Buff: A skill that offers a boost to certain offensive and/or defensive stats while it is active.
Instant Cast: The skill is performed without a casting time allowing you to use it during other actions as well as not stopping your movement.
Movement: The skill provides some form of movement, but does not move the character far enough to be considered a traversal skill.
Traversal: Traversal skills are a subset of movement skills. Using a traversal skill will put all other traversal skills on cooldown and while you are using a traversal skill, traversal skills’ cooldowns will not recover.
Transform: Changes the characters appearance and adds new skills and/or functionality that is unique to that transformation.
Minion: Scales with increases from minion based stats (e.g. “minion physical damage”).
Companion: Companions are a type of minion with special mechanics that the Primalist class uses. Skills with this tag will benefit from both increases to minion and companion stats.
Totem: Totems are a type of minion that is used by the Primalist class. Skills with this tag will benefit from both increases to minion and totem stats.
[Damage Type Tag]: For damage type tags (elemental, cold, fire, lightning, necrotic, physical, poison, void) the tag means that it has base [insert damage type], and that makes “increased [insert damage type]” scale that specific damage type.
For example, a skill with the Cold tag means that it has base cold damage, and that makes “increased cold damage” scale that damage.
These damage type tags determine the split of the base damage the skill does. For example, if a skill has 2 damage types (such as both physical & cold) then the damage will be split evenly between the two.
Also, Elemental damage includes Cold, Fire, and Lightning damage types and would provide increases to each.
Attunement: This attribute will boost the skill in some way. Press [Alt] while hovering over the skill to see its influence.
Dexterity: This attribute will boost the skill in some way. Press [Alt] while hovering over the skill to see its influence.
Intelligence: This attribute will boost the skill in some way. Press [Alt] while hovering over the skill to see its influence.
Strength: This attribute will boost the skill in some way. Press [Alt] while hovering over the skill to see its influence.
Vitality: This attribute will boost the skill in some way. Press [Alt] while hovering over the skill to see its influence.
