Can somebody explain the "big picture" with the passive skill tree?

I'm trying really hard to pre plan a build and I'm just completely lost. It feels like I'm looking at a bowl of spaghetti, trying to find a way to differentiate between the noodles.

Anyway, I'm looking for general idea of what the passive skill tree is trying to accomplish. Just big picture overview of patterns, how to "read" it, how to theory craft with it, etc.

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logicliker wrote:

I'm trying really hard to pre plan a build and I'm just completely lost. It feels like I'm looking at a bowl of spaghetti, trying to find a way to differentiate between the noodles.

Anyway, I'm looking for general idea of what the passive skill tree is trying to accomplish. Just big picture overview of patterns, how to "read" it, how to theory craft with it, etc.

Just play the damn game and it'll come naturally. Planning on your first character will just leave you filled with regrets later. First character is for funsies.

If you would like there are many different builds people have posted for you to try as a newcomer.

I would suggest just running with one of those builds and pick your favorite class to start with and go from there. The approach toward the passive web will come naturally.

Just do this roll a witch and take all the summoner passives you can on the tree plus all the energy shield nodes and chaos inoculation , you will be fine and it is not a gear heavy build other than ES stuff but with CI you wont need hp on gear which makes finding upgrades easier since you are not competing with 95 % of the other players for the HP duel resist plus armor evasion ext gear that they all want.

Ohh try not to be bothered by postings like the guy above me a lot of the forum respondents seem to have no patience for anyone new. Comments like just play the damn game are the height of stupidity.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll give it a shot.

I know it didn't sound like good advice but it is. :)

I've take 3+ characters to 40, before i singled in on my current build which is both successful and fun. :)

The skill tree in closed beta was much worse IMHO, it's somewhat organized and makes some sense now, before it was just mish mashed and scary.

Pick what you want to play, play style wise, and go for the most obvious to start.

If you want to be a nuker, player a witch, a tank play a marauder etc until you get more comfortable with how the tree and skills work. :)

Thanks for all of the fantastic feedback.

I read the FAQ in the general discussion, and found out some good information as well that explained the skill tree.

Thanks for your input and feedback.

A: The Passive Skill 'Tree' is a large network of passive buffs and raw attribute increases for your character. All classes are on the same tree, but start in different places. When you level up, you gain one skill point. You can use that point to activate a node, but you must be connected to that node. This is how the character's passive 'path' is formed.

While the passive tree (sometimes referred to in-game as the Skilldrasil or Skill Web) may seem complicated, it actually only has two parts. It can be thought of as a map, with suburbs and roads.

The clusters of related passive nodes that boost a specific area (sword, hammer, archery, fire damage, evasion, and so on) are like suburbs. These will form the bulk of your character's build. The pathways between these clusters, comprised entirely of nodes that give +10 to a certain attribute, are like roads. Some of these roads can cover a great distance much quicker than if you detour through the suburbs: what may look like a short path with passive boosts could in fact be much longer than taking the +10 to attribute path.

You can see what these attributes do by pressing 'c' and hovering your mouse over each of the three. Anything the attributes don't do, such as increase ranged damage or attack speed, will likely be handled by passive nodes on the skill 'tree'.

I believe they touch on it in the OB video as well, not sure, I remember seeing a video recently that breaks it down into 3 sections (Int, Dex, Str) and what kind of characters want to travel into neighboring, like duelist going more into Dex to be crit daggers or bow users, or Marauders going into Int to be more spell based, etc.

There are even a few successful melee witch builds.

Once you get more comfortable with it, it's really amazing what you can do, hopefully they get a little balance in game going on and free up some defensive points from a lot of builds to make the builds more dynamic. :)

Given that I'm on my first character, and only up to level 31, my input is likely fairly meaningless. That said, my confusion when staring at the skill web is precisely why I started with a "pure" character, as opposed to a hybrid. While it certainly appears that you can, through the passive tree, build any class as a hybrid, my initial thought was that I'd have an easier time trying to focus on a character who centers around a single attribute.

Remains to be seen if I'm talking out an unpleasant orifice.

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Thaelyn wrote:

Given that I'm on my first character, and only up to level 31, my input is likely fairly meaningless. That said, my confusion when staring at the skill web is precisely why I started with a "pure" character, as opposed to a hybrid. While it certainly appears that you can, through the passive tree, build any class as a hybrid, my initial thought was that I'd have an easier time trying to focus on a character who centers around a single attribute.

Remains to be seen if I'm talking out an unpleasant orifice.

I think this is an excellent plan. Pick either tank/melee (marauder), caster (witch), or archer (ranger). From there pick an equal amount of damage and defensive nodes. Pick anything that sounds arch-typical. You will learn something from this character and build a better one next time.

Also, for a stupid overly boring analysis of the skill tree....at first, your choice is between two branches; one that offers stronger offense, and one that offers stronger defense. This gets muddled the further into the tree you get, but is true enough in the beginning.

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Artaniz wrote:

Ohh try not to be bothered by postings like the guy above me a lot of the forum respondents seem to have no patience for anyone new. Comments like just play the damn game are the height of stupidity.

It was the best advice I could give him. It is not a stupid suggestion at all. When you are new to playing a game you either A. research heavily into it before playing to understand how everything works, or B. play it and it'll all come naturally.

I'm typically in favor of B. The game encourages you to just try builds out on your first character. GGG doesn't expect you to know how to build your first character right off the bat. You telling the dude to roll a summoner does not help things. Let the dude build how he wants and learn the game on his own like he really should.

Now... keep your insults to yourself.