Skill Categories

The categories

Every skill belongs to one category: four schools of magic and two of combat. Every category starts at level 0 and grows only through use, up to level 100. Your character level is all of that experience together.

The attribute columns show what one level in that category adds. Fractions add up as you gain experience, so you get each point as soon as you've earned it.

Earning experience

Every hit gives experience to whatever dealt it:

• A spell's hit goes to the spell's category: a Fireball trains Elemental Magic.
• A weapon's hit goes to Melee, or to Ranged for a bow.
• When Modifiers shaped the hit, the spell (or the weapon) keeps half the experience and the Modifiers' categories share the other half. A Modifier that adds hits, such as Split, earns the experience of the hits it adds.
• A Modifier that shapes nothing earns nothing.

Killing quickly, one enemy after another, adds bonus experience on top: see Kill Streaks.

So a mage who socketed Pierce (Ranged) learns a little archery, and a warrior with Ignite (Elemental Magic) in a sword learns a little fire magic.

What the attributes do

• Strength: more health, and more damage with melee weapons.
• Dexterity: better aim (your chance to hit), and more damage with bows.
• Intelligence: more mana, and every point adds 1% to your spell damage.

Your Melee level (or Ranged, with a bow in hand) also raises your weapon damage and your chance to hit. Gaining a character level refills your health and mana.

Socketing requirements

A skill needs a level in its own category before it can go into a slot: "Requires Elemental Magic 8". The first skills of every school need nothing, so you can start any school. Skills that drop later, and higher tiers, need more, so a skill tends to become usable about when it starts to drop. Each skill's page lists its requirements.

Only socketing is gated: any skill can wait in your spellbook until you are ready. A Modifier has a category too, so a caster who wants Split or Fork needs a few levels of Ranged.

Spell power

A spell grows stronger with your level in its category, by 10% per level, and its mana cost grows with it. That growth stops about 20 levels after the level where the skill starts to drop: an early spell keeps up for a while, then needs replacing with a stronger one or a higher tier. The spell's tooltip says when it no longer grows.

Intelligence and spell damage on your gear (every wand and staff carries some) add on top. A Modifier's own elemental damage, such as Ignite's burn, grows with the Modifier's category and your Intelligence, in a spell or a weapon alike.

Skill tiers

Most skills drop in each of the tiers below, a few (such as Homing) only in the first. The higher tiers turn up later and need higher category levels. Greater and Grand Modifiers also reduce the power of copies, jumps and fork pieces less. The mana surcharge stays the same.

Skills drop from enemies (their names show in violet on the ground), and some traders sell them. Drops favor skills from around your enemies' level, and skills you don't have yet.