Good read. I don't have as much issue with Abilities as I do with Talents and Skills. But here are my thoughts - if just for the sake of chiming in.
- Retribution: if my impression is right, if you're playing on Classic, NPCs and enemies actually have HP/armors comparable to your team's. Unless you're saying that Retribution is doing too little even on Classic. I haven't tried a Retribution build so idk.
- Perseverance: another reason why we might skip Perseverance is because, since it's possible to cc pretty much anyone, most of us would opt to go all-in on damage output instead. We don't have to worry about taking damage if we just wipe them all out and cc anyone who's not dead after the first turn. It was more or less like that for me when I played Tactician, and it's not like my team were the strongest in the world or something.
To be fair, all 3 Defence abilities are more or less in the same situation: if you get 2 or 3 points in these abilities from items, they give you a bit of an edge. But otherwise, to me they don't stand out as something you would dedicate a build to. At 10 Leadership you provide +20% dodging and +30 Resistance, which is not terrible I guess, but enemies have so many AoE attacks that more often than not your team are probably better off being far apart from one another. The +20/+30 bonuses are not that significant when they just occasionally apply to one or two guys - AND THAT IS AT +10. Again, you might as well invest on damage instead.
Not to mention, if you build around these 3 abilities to have a tank for your team, the problem is, the enemies generally just focus on the other guys on your team. The fact that everyone and their dog (quite literally actually!) have a teleport-like ability means they can simply ignore the hell out of your tank and jump straight into your mage's face. Where is Taunt when you... oh wait we all just agree that Taunt is near useless.
- Wits: this is pretty much your "crit chance". I mean it might as well say "Crit chance", instead of Wits. It does some other stuff, but for other purposes, you can stack Wits on just one guy. I think it's still alright if the sole purpose of bumping Wits is to get the crit chance. Since even if you're a mage Savage Sortilege is pretty much a must anyway.
Initiative on items helps when you want to make sure this guy goes before that guy in your team, without having to tweak your attributes. Maybe for a particular fight, or just generally. I don't think it hurts.
- Telekinesis: I remember back in D:OS Telekinesis was really handy. So when I first started D:OS2 I didn't hesitate to invest into Telekinesis for one of my team. But later on in the game, I realized it was pretty useless. I wonder if this game is indeed different from D:OS, or I just didn't realize it when I was playing D:OS? Is crushing enemies with chest loaded with stuff an actual strat???
I feel that Sneaking *should* be pretty handy if you sneak around a lot, but to be honest, in my playthrough, I didn't get the feeling that it was particularly useful. And I believe I did sneak often enough, at least on a casual level. I stopped at rank 3. The fact that combat sneaking is nonexistent makes it a lot less useful. Also, as you pointed out, you can just use Cloak and Dagger.
EDIT: As for Pyro and Air, I'm not sure. They boost damage from wands, staffs, and surfaces, right? Does INT also boost these damages by the same amount? I mean, at least one advantage of these two schools over Hydro is they have potential surface damage; Hydro doesn't. So one reason to invest in these schools is to boost the surface damage. unless you're saying INT does boost surface damage by the same amount.
Last edited by Try2Handing; 18/11/17 04:59 AM.