Originally posted by Damnion:

Skills matter, but not enough to bother trying to focus on leveling them. The higher they are when you die the more xp you lose, and the more xp it takes to level them. Unless you already know how to ace the game, you are likely to die at least once or twice with each new zone you encounter as you acclimate to enemy moves and gear up. Or just from dumb luck like running into a 2* archer drauger while you are still wearing troll hide, or running into your first pack of wolves on the hunt when you are no where near an object to hop on etc. Just play as normal and ignore the skills. You'll spend a lot less time not having fun (doing a repetitive task just to gain skill points you are gonna lose anyway)

Thus far, blood magic seems to be the most relevant / useful to raise if you intend to utilize it.

I can't remember what the default value is for the shield, 200 I think? It goes all the way up to 700hp at max lvl so the scaling there is pretty huge. I want to say 5hp per level. That's absolutely worth it, at least getting to lvl 50ish which isint too difficult if you cheese a spawner.

But I otherwise agree about the tedium. Raising skills takes way too long and I feel like the exp gain needs to be increased. Having skills above 75 and maintaining them is a huge chore that is not fun. Games should be fun to play. While not "required" to beat the game. It's kinda silly to have them the way they are.