Jump around... jump around

Bow skill is the only weapon skill that gives an exponential increase in DPS since both weapon damage increases and weapon speed increases.

Block skill is also very worthwhile as it reduces the damage you take on a successful block or parry *and* decreases the chance for you to be staggered.

Mostly they make you want to avoid death. The little bonuses are nice, but in practice their most important function is to make you want to avoid death at all costs, even if you've stored all your gear. If you didn't lose numbers on death, you could ignore them entirely and the experience would be no worse off.

Skills affect Stamina, speed, damage you can cause and the height you may jump.
Note that you will lose some percentage of your skills every time you "die".

So the effect of skills might be not very noticable for new players who usually die early and often.

Hi there,
as far as i recognized the skills will make you better, f.e.
woodcutting makes you chop trees faster
bow skill makes you shoot faster
running makes you run faster
jumping makes you jump higher
and so on.

As said before, all skills reduce stamina usage in their respective fields.

Weapon skills increase damage (level 100 does 2.5x as much damage as level 0 with the same weapon - more specifically, 0.4x the weapon's rating at level 0 and the full 1x at level 100).

On top of the changes applicable to all weapon type skills, Bows also speeds up how quickly your character builds draw power (the shrinking circle when getting ready to fire). Draw power influences both range and damage.

Blocking increases the defensive rating of shields (1x the shield's rating at level 0, 1.5x at level 100)

Pickaxe increases damage output against mining objects (and monsters that are susceptible to that kind of damage, such as Stone Golems) similar to weapon skills. (Pickaxes typically do both Piercing and Pickaxe damage, this skill only improves the Pickaxe damage type).

Woodcutting does the same as Pickaxe, but applies to trees and other things that can take Chop-type damage (Axes typically do both Slashing and Chop damage, this skill only improves Chop damage and is only improved when using an axe against chop-damageable targets, while the Axe skill will improve the Slashing component and only improves when striking creatures).

Running, on top of the reduced stamina usage, slightly increases running speed (only about 10%, though - build it more for improving distance than speed).

Jumping, on top of the reduced stamina usage, increases jumping height (up to around 2.5 to 3 meters or more at level 100).

Swimming just reduces stamina usage allowing for slightly better range.

Originally posted by Gladi8er65:

There are definitely 2 camps when it comes to the skills...

Players like myself don't bother fussing over the skill tree... I simply never look at it, and just play the game... always solo... always vanilla, and have finished the game (up to the current content "end-game") several times and haven't bothered with any skill training, outside of the normal gains from playing the game and NOT dying (as much as possible), but honestly a death here or there, never seemed to register any great "setback" or that I had somehow crippled myself, all of a sudden, because I had died... I just play through and have a great time, and by the end, I STILL don't even look at the skills... I just don't acknowledge that they are even there.

On the other hand.... I have seen quite a few comments about how players will purposely "train" their skills for hours, hopping in place or other boring, mundane activities to try to get 100 on as many skills as they feel they need... and swear it makes all the difference in the world.... **shrug** Either way is acceptable... to each their own, and all that...

From my own personal point of view as a player who doesn't bother with the skill manipulation, I can say that it is totally possible to beat all the content without worrying over the skill tree.

Take that for what it's worth and bottom line is play it the way that is most fun for yourself...

Cheers

I agree for the most part

But, players should get adept at

-running
-jumping
-weapons
-swimming

I personally only do the "waste time to level up" for swimming. I will just swim next to the shore as much as I can, because I want to have the highest probability of making it *somewhere* if I am stranded at sea.

The other skills help you survive the most

Mostly each lvl of weapon skill increase 0.5% of damage and reduce 0.25% stamina usage ...thats why you will not notice until very high lvls
Only bow run and jump skills are really noticeable when lvl up higher than 50

Skills are very noticeable though when you have played with one type of wepon for a long time and change to a new one that you never used before.
And if you are playing the game the first time it's easy to fool oneself that the new wepon you try out is really bad.
But in fact all wepons are really great, but some of them is better than another depending on the enemy or the boss you fight.

But then again as other have said here, skills is nothing to fuss about as they tend to take a very long time to get and is very hard to notice since the wepon upgrade will take more stamina.

Edit: Also, if you open up the skill menue and point at every skill you will see a explanation on what it do.

All skills will decrease stamina usage. The higher skill level, the less stamina is used for using that skill. Weapon skill levels will increase dmg, but you wont feel the difference that much as in stamina usage.
The best skill where you can tell the difference is jumping skill, because you will be able to jump higher and further.
I have been testing spears in debugmode. Not sure what were exact numbers, but if you use 10 stamina for one hit with a spear on skill level zero, then you will use 5 stamina at skill level 100. So its basically one stamina point less used per 20 skill levels.

The reason you didn’t notice the difference is that higher tier weapons use more stamina. So your skill level improvement is actually annulled by higher tier weapons.

There are definitely 2 camps when it comes to the skills...

Players like myself don't bother fussing over the skill tree... I simply never look at it, and just play the game... always solo... always vanilla, and have finished the game (up to the current content "end-game") several times and haven't bothered with any skill training, outside of the normal gains from playing the game and NOT dying (as much as possible), but honestly a death here or there, never seemed to register any great "setback" or that I had somehow crippled myself, all of a sudden, because I had died... I just play through and have a great time, and by the end, I STILL don't even look at the skills... I just don't acknowledge that they are even there.

On the other hand.... I have seen quite a few comments about how players will purposely "train" their skills for hours, hopping in place or other boring, mundane activities to try to get 100 on as many skills as they feel they need... and swear it makes all the difference in the world.... **shrug** Either way is acceptable... to each their own, and all that...

From my own personal point of view as a player who doesn't bother with the skill manipulation, I can say that it is totally possible to beat all the content without worrying over the skill tree.

Take that for what it's worth and bottom line is play it the way that is most fun for yourself...

Cheers

Originally posted by Gladi8er65:

Players like myself don't bother fussing over the skill tree... I simply never look at it, and just play the game... always solo... always vanilla, and have finished the game (up to the current content "end-game") several times and haven't bothered with any skill training, outside of the normal gains from playing the game and NOT dying (as much as possible), but honestly a death here or there, never seemed to register any great "setback" or that I had somehow crippled myself, all of a sudden, because I had died... I just play through and have a great time, and by the end, I STILL don't even look at the skills... I just don't acknowledge that they are
Cheers

Same here. I have never looked at skills while playing solo because i try not to die. On average i die less than 10 times during the playthrough so i could not feel the impact of lost skill points. However, now i run modded server for my friends and i’m preparing a lot of challenges with a lot of powerful mobs and we die up to 10 times per night. And trust me, we can feel it. We feel it so bad that i had to add no-skill-lose-on-death mod.

Originally posted by Lemur:

I wonder, if i level any kind of skill like swimming, running woodcutting
Do they reduce stamina usage?
And does skill axes, spears, swords
Does the same such as reduce stamina usage and add some dmg too?

Cus from long time being in game, i didnt notice anything what leveling those skill gives me something.
Only upgrading or creating new items changes something (mainly dmg)

Do anyone can explain what benefits i do gain when leveling those skill?

You get miniscule gains that are not really noticeable until near max stats. Its really bare bones of a skill system that will maybe change in the future so like someone mentioned before better to just ignore it and play like it doesnt exist.

The 3 skills I tend to level up (due to usage) are Run, Bow and Sword. I like my Bow skills to be high (60 to 80ish). I find I can draw and shoot a lot quicker which has come in very handy many times (especially during raids).