When you equip a piece of armor which give a + bonus to a skill level … and then remove that piece of armor … a skill is removed randomly from the skill nodes.
It would be nice if there was a feature to lock individual skill nodes … so that they are not removed when such piece of armor is equipped and then unequipped afterwards.
Hello and welcome to the LE forum.
This is intended behaviour and is aimed to deny any kind of explotation.
This will very likely not change as this has been discussed numerous times before.
It’s also not random, there’s an algorithm that works it out. It’s to stop us from abusing the mechanic to get a “free” respec to be able to use it to switch between single target and clear specs at will (ish, like you can in D3 & PoE).
The algorithm sucks then, because it seems random, and it has a nasty habit of taking the point(s) away from nodes that are absolutely key to my use of the skill.
I have to ask the blatantly obvious: why is it not simply the most recent point(s) I spent, ALWAYS. Anything else is just stupid and bad design. I guess that would just be too damn sensible,
Totall agree with Ghostlight. Is it really game breaking abuse to take out the latest skill point that was put in, instead of messing the skill tree of players who just had to swap gear?
Also, what’s the deal about making things more difficult for players to test out nodes in the skill tree without having to grind skill xp just to shift a few points - why punish us for wanting to test the different nodes? If the goal is to dissuade shifting points between fights then why not have a rare currency like orb of regret instead?
Mike. one of their senior devs has talked about this numerous times in this forum and on the friday dev stream.
Here is one of the threads with multiple replies by Mike.
While you can agree or disagree, but the current system has the lowest possibility of explotation.
Every other system suggested so far can be exploited in different ways or causes other issues.
I think the problem with this would be, that this would introduce a whole new core system to the game, which the devs probably want to avoid.
Having a currency specifically for respeccign doesn’t make a lot of sense if the rest of the game does not have such systems.
So if the devs would want respeccing to be more or less impactful they coudl just tune the current already existing things, like exp or gold.
Not being able to swap skills ro skill spec trees on the fly does create some friction, but in teh grand scheme of thigns LE is still one of the games where respeccing is very easy and you reach the same point as before very fast. (Within a couple of minutes during endgame).
The intention is not to “punish” players, but rather make choosing and picking skills or skill spec trees an actual choice and not just some clicks in the interface.
If you want to go down the "make choosing and picking skills or skill spec trees an actual choice " path then shouldn’t the respec be gated behind limited quests e.g d2 or the passives gated behind xp too? When skill trees have sub skills with unclear behaviors, or when new masteries are unveiled, why is it necessary in this time and age to restrict a player’s ability to choose\try the skills they want with pointless busywork? And calling the need to switch skill points “abuse” is even more mind boggling!
Things like this never need to be completely on one side of the spectrum. The way you state it, its either some giga roleplaying involved or its basically free. There can be a middle ground right? If you are not happy with that, that is totally fine and you can voice that.
I am not here to argue, I just stated what has been stated the last dozen times in threads like this. And I am very happy so far, that EHG did not completely gave in on requests like this.
A while ago we already received a somewhat less punishing respec system with things like exp catchup, minimum respec level and an overhauled skill epx progression.
So the system we have now, already is a system that has been shifted slightly away from their original intended system, which I was also very happy with.
Would you really like a system, where the optimal strategy would be to run around with several different gear pieces in your inventory or unequip and re-equip a piece of gear before every boss encounter, just because it will give you more single target damage?
I am very happy, that the devs actively want to deny this!
I don’t see how locking nodes is abusing the system ! You already have the nodes chosen … you just don’t want them randomly removed. Often I end up not using that extra skill point given by the item … because I know if i do … then I know once the item is unequipped some magical unintended mishap will occur to my skill tree. AND CALL THIS GAME DESIGN !!! WOW
I’m telling you in this time and age ARPGs gating the skill tree behind xp leveling at endgame is a dinosaur. I lost count of the number of time I gave up the idea of trying a new build because I need to re-level skill trees on top of swapping gear/resists/blessings.
If skill leveling is not a thing then players will just equip whatever they damn pleases to do which ever content like pretty much every other ARPG in existance. Still find it weird that you should be unhappy/happy if other players can/cannot swap their gears/skill points.
I’d cite this game as having one of the worst and most punishing respec systems of any recent ARPG, because the resource it uses to repec is the player’s TIME - the most precious resource of all. Not to mention that the cost is only painful at low levels, when the player most want to experiment with his build. At high levels it takes mere minutes to respec to level 20. Makes absolutely no sense and feels like trolling the player.
I am still waiting for the answer as to what the painful cost of respecing at low levels adds to the game, given the cost becomes negligible at high levels. Why punish new players?
The fact is that losing your levels in a skill just because you unspeced for an build experiment, feels like a loss of progression, and that is not a nice feeling in any game.
Er…yes, that is EXACTLY how I play this game and every other ARPG I ever played. The thought that someone wouldn’t play like that is mind-blowing.
All my chars walk around with loads of spare gear. I swap gear in and out all the time depending what I am about to face (mostly for resists so I don’t need to waste slots capping them all but also for single target encounters versus arena style encounters and so on - heck absolutely I will swap gear around - perfect gear does not exist; you’re gimping yourself if you don’t).
And for the record, at level 90+ you can swap your skills for others and level them to 20 in mere minutes, so any abuse anyone is fearing is already perfectly possible with the current system.
There are all kinds of different player types out there. And that is ok.
But this is not how many people play these type of games.
I think I personally don’t know anybody who plays like you.
if you are ok with that, that is fine, but this most definitely not the way how these games are supposed to be played.
Yes and that is deemed ok by the devs. If you are ok with respeccing every time you wanna face some boss and spend 1 or 2 echoes releveling a skill, kill the boss and then respec again. That is fine, because you have to spend time and effort into it. if oyu build really struggles with bosses I guess that is a way to compensate for that, but most peopel try to build characters i nsuch a way, that they can deal with all kinds of content without the need of constantly respeccing or changing gear.
So what “abuse” are they trying to prevent?
So you wear all the same gear for a high corruption boss as you would when pushing the Arena? Wow.
Did you even read the thread I linked above? 
It has been discussed thoroughly there…
They are trying to prevent cases, where you have a very build/skill defining node that you can change on the fly by changing gear.
For example:
Lightning Blast can be played as a primarly Multi-Target Skill (with chains).
But it can be converted to a super strong single target ability with just a singular node, namely Convergence.
The devs do not want, that changing gear on the fly will change your build this dramatically, leading to scenarios where changing gear is the best strategy.
I guess I will just never understand why that’s a problem.
No fun allowed?
Yeah I personally find it frustrating also. Especially because swapping items is part of build limit testing. What they want is for you not to be able to swap 1 point between two different major nodes on the skill tree between levels or bosses. Personally I think if the game allows for that, that should be allowed, but y’know. What do I know, right.
Ludicrous. Am I missing something. What harm does that do? It’s QoL.