Demigod wizard, how to train skills (disable/enable)

[speciesxx]

Hey all,

currently i am trying out a Demigod Wizard. I am a bit confused about training skills, as i often have many skills enabled but 0 exp in the pool.
This won't train anything right? if i melee alot while having 0 exp in the pool its wasted right?

What is the best approach to level the different skills? Atm i disable everything except spellcasting and fighting. Will this give them priority?

Thx!

[eharper256]

Assuming you're playing 0.8 (Trunk is trying some crazy new thing which I'm not familiar with), how the XP works is that each time you gain XP to your pool, the system looks at the way you gained the XP (killed it with a spell, sword etc.) and tries to assign the XP mostly based upon what it sees. If you have a skill switched on, this proceeds as normal. (I.e. Kill with a Longsword, it assigns 40% to Fighting, 50% Long Blades and the other 10% goes to pool). I'm not sure about the exact figures, but something like that.

If it tries to assign something to a skill you switched off, only a small % actually goes to the skill (say 5% instead of 50%). The rest goes into the pool. It doesn't increase the % that goes in or change the priority, as far as I can tell, but then each time you use a skill, some of your pooled XP can go into that skill as well, hence the practice of Victory Dancing (type that into the Bots if you want to know about it).

Early on in the game, you often will have 0XP in your pool since its too insignifcant in numbers to fraction it up.

But to answer your question, melee'ing with no XP isn't a waste, since you'll be killing as you go (presumably) and the above assignment will occur. However, you won't be Victory Dancing at the same time, reducing the amount going into, say, fighting.

Generally, when you start, leaving all skills on is actually best practice in my opinion, unless you're NEVER going to use it (say a MDFi and Stealth). You can start switching things on and off to specialise once you get past temple.

[speciesxx]

Ok thanks for the clarification .

[eharper256]

Generally, when you start, leaving all skills on is actually best practice in my opinion, unless you're NEVER going to use it (say a MDFi and Stealth). You can start switching things on and off to specialise once you get past temple.

I strongly disagree. The extra point of EV you get from a level of Dodging isn't going to be nearly as useful early on as being able to actually cast your spells.

(Shrug) Nearly all starting characters typically have Dodge to start rather than Armour, so you may as well leave it on. The quicker you get your EV to the mid-range, the more survivable you become according to this. You're going to struggle with Spellcasting for the first few floors of D regardless; and having an extra 1-2% chance to leap out the way is more likely to be seen in effect when you're having those early gamblers moments and push comes to shove; rather than contributing a bit to your limited number of spell shots in an encounter (due to early low MP).

In my experience, turning off Dodge or any used defensive skill is a huge boo-boo akin to turning off Fighting, something you just don't do unless you're specifically Victory Dancing something. But sure, if you don't have to begin with and don't intend to use it, I'd count that as not using it.

[KoboldLord]

An early wizard shouldn't be training dodging whether the player leaves it on or turns it off. Dodging trains when something attempts to hit you, and early wizards that stand around letting things hit them tend to turn into dead wizards fairly quickly.

I don't particularly recommend disabling spell skills as a starting wizard, at least in the old victory dancing system. You start with extra intelligence and a maximum of level 3 spells in your book, so you're not going to be using as much spell hunger compared to most other casters anyway, and you also start with a lot of potentially powerful spells that you can't really use as early as you'd like. Getting Call Imp, Blink, and Mephitic Cloud online as quick as conceivably possible is far more useful than dropping Blink from grape hunger to sultana hunger.

[speciesxx]

I usually just disable dodge / stealth till i get fighting. Even tend to disable conjuration when it matches my spellcasting, to level both fighting and spellcasting more.