The skills that are “Only for riff item. Useless pre-riff” could be addressed

[Jakepeng99]

I like skilltrees to an extent, but I don’t like this small trend in skilltrees.
 

Main contenders of this are Wormwood and Wortox. 
They buff specific riff gear. While the effects of wormwood are at least cool and feel like extensions of the items, Wortox just has these abilities randomly slapped onto riff gear for no reason.

Why specifically the bright shade helmet? Why specifically the reaper? Choices post riff are already kinda limited which is a problem already.

 

Further more, the effects Wortox’s affinities offer I don’t find interesting. I often don’t pick them even post riff since I need every skill point, despite them probably being good.

 

In general this doesnt just apply to abilities tied to specific items, skills useless pre riff are already a problem for Wolfgang.

He has 5 skills that just make him on par post riff, and do nothing pre riff. This is extremely misleading especially for new players and they are not affinity locked either. Even for knowledgable players, it just feels not well designed and dilutes Wolfgang’s skilltree by forcing him to have only 10 points to spend post riff.

Wigfrid also has a skill that just gives 5 planar defence, which is just as jarring. 

 

These problems show that skilltrees are ineffective at their designed purpose of helping keep new players and giving them a sense of progression. The players need to Google what “Planar damage” is or not know that their skill points investments anre useless, and they won’t even know this is locked behind lots of complicated content to unlock riffs. I’ve heard from alot of players that skilltrees put off their new friends at the game.

In my opinion, early skills should be pretty easy to understand, and later skills could be more complicated and require more knowledge, but skills like Wolfgang’s planar skills in general dont work.

[Captain_Rage]

Every alignment skill requires the player to defeat the Ancient Fuelweaver and Celestial Champion respectively which sets the player at the same point as having the rifts active in a normal playthrough anyway, assuming they choose to activate them (Klei mentioned that the dialogue option that shows up after defeating the bosses is a temporary thing before all rift gets added to the game, akin to the Jury-Rigged Portal back in the day, if I recall correctly).

Up until that point most skills become progressively available without any active effort apart from playing, so they do help new players.

The logic behind a few skill tree branches is a bit fuzzy though most of the skill trees are very well executed. In the very least the varied skill trees add flair to the characters (well, except perhaps for Wolfgang as you mentioned xd).

[Keigo]

i think those are the best skills to give a sense of progression in a new world,i play with someone who mains woodie and it gets sad when he doesnt get new stuff after rifts

[Jakepeng99]

2 hours ago, Captain_Rage said:

Every alignment skill requires the player to defeat the Ancient Fuelweaver and Celestial Champion respectively which sets the player at the same point as having the rifts active in a normal playthrough anyway, assuming they choose to activate them (Klei mentioned that the dialogue option that shows up after defeating the bosses is a temporary thing before all rift gets added to the game, akin to the Jury-Rigged Portal back in the day, if I recall correctly).

Up until that point most skills become progressively available without any active effort apart from playing, so they do help new players.

The logic behind a few skill tree branches is a bit fuzzy though most of the skill trees are very well executed. In the very least the varied skill trees add flair to the characters (well, except perhaps for Wolfgang as you mentioned xd).

I’d rather for Wortox infinity or something he gains the AOE by eating… pure horror or something or make it any shadow weapon.

[reddocc]

I don't understand this post. these skills you talk about are the among the strongest of these characters. You have to defeat late game bosses in order to even unlock them, if you have no reason to choose them before the rifts why would you choose them.

The thing you may have complains about could be the method of swapping your insight points but I personally think assembling the celestial portal and using an idol is a fair price.

[liolok]

4 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Why specifically the bright shade helmet?

Both helmet and armor are supported.

 

Lunar Swindler: The Cryptic Founder will reward your curiosity by showing you power from wearing a Brightshade Helm or Brightshade Armor. Souls waiting to be freed in a Soul Echo will absorb incoming damage, and expire the timer. 

[Bumber64]

1 hour ago, reddocc said:

I don't understand this post. these skills you talk about are the among the strongest of these characters. You have to defeat late game bosses in order to even unlock them, if you have no reason to choose them before the rifts why would you choose them.

It wasn't mentioned in this thread, but it's in the context of Willow's affinities being usable pre-rifts. (I think Woby's are, too?) There's a severe imbalance with this between certain characters.

Edited September 20, 2025 by Bumber64

[Mike23Ua]

6 hours ago, Captain_Rage said:

Every alignment skill requires the player to defeat the Ancient Fuelweaver and Celestial Champion respectively which sets the player at the same point as having the rifts active in a normal playthrough anyway, assuming they choose to activate them (Klei mentioned that the dialogue option that shows up after defeating the bosses is a temporary thing before all rift gets added to the game, akin to the Jury-Rigged Portal back in the day, if I recall correctly).

Up until that point most skills become progressively available without any active effort apart from playing, so they do help new players.

The logic behind a few skill tree branches is a bit fuzzy though most of the skill trees are very well executed. In the very least the varied skill trees add flair to the characters (well, except perhaps for Wolfgang as you mentioned xd).

Skill trees are the single dumbest thing Klei ever added to this game. Wait no let me rephrase that- “Affinity Skills”***

The player is supposed to kill CC & AFW to unlock these perks, it is not up to me to debate how useful or powerful these skills are (Wilson’s entire skill tree is still a joke cough cough) 

But: The entire point of locking Affinities behind kill CC & AFW is so players can’t just spawn out the portal on Day 1 with these skills unlocked. However: you only need to beat these bosses ONCE and these skills remain unlocked forever even in worlds you haven’t kill CC & AFW within, you can now proudly join any random newbie player server and show off your end game lunar Kamehameha blast Willow.

Its Dumb.. there’s no debating to be had here.

[Uedo]

25 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

But: The entire point of locking Affinities behind kill CC & AFW is so players can’t just spawn out the portal on Day 1 with these skills unlocked. However: you only need to beat these bosses ONCE and these skills remain unlocked forever even in worlds you haven’t kill CC & AFW within, you can now proudly join any random newbie player server and show off your end game lunar Kamehameha blast Willow.

Its Dumb.. there’s no debating to be had here.

That would kinda indicate that it was NOT the entire point, surely?

[Hollow soul 3]

Wortox mains said this during the entire beta. Literally one of the first things I brought up when it came out. 

[Cheggf]

8 hours ago, Keigo said:

i think those are the best skills to give a sense of progression in a new world,i play with someone who mains woodie and it gets sad when he doesnt get new stuff after rifts

Skills aren't earned through progression. You either play through the world with a couple of skills that aren't doing anything until you suddenly get the items that turn on your skills, or you awkwardly use the celestial portal to change from your current character into your current character where you annoyingly click every single skill one by one. If every world had you start out at 0 skill points and you earned them throughout play then these skills would be fine, but as it is right now they're just annoying. 

[AliceShiki]

I do think that non-affinity skills that require you to engage with late-game content are kinda lame, tbh.

Like the Eldling Spear for Wigfrid, which is essentially useless until you activate Moonstorms... Like, why do that instead of just leaving the affinity skills as the stuff that cares about playing late-game content? o.0