User blog:Circy/Blades of Light & Shadow: Skill Points

(I update this blog while we progress through this story. I like your input, if you want to give it to me.)

I wanted to make a blog about the Skillpoints and what seems to be the most efficient ways to level up in the story. Most of this information, you can also find somewhere else on the Wiki, but I like to do this for myself for easy access.

How do the Experience Points work?
The theory so far for counting up the XP is:

Starter: 1/5 skillbar = 2XP on correct choices

Level 1: 1/50 skillbar = 5 or 10XP on correct choices

Level 2: 1/100 skillbar = 10 or 20XP on correct choices

Level 3: 1/750 skillbar = 25 or 50XP on correct choices

Level 4: 1/2500 skillbar = 100 to 300XP on correct choices

The Skills, Species-specific Skills and Elite Skills
How often are the Skills used? And where? And were there alternative choices to get points?

The Tests
So, to test this, I'm going to do a Diamondfree route and a Diamond route. The Diamondfree route is on Elf and the Diamond route I do on Orc. I'm not sure if this is a true test, but eh, I'm doing this mostly for my own fun, sooo... :D


 * Diamond Route : The Female Orc: Brawling, Charisma, Woodslore and Beastmaster. (As of Chapter 5, I replayed and now I use Bows, Seduction, Medicine, like with elf. I still choose Beastmaster and after that Brawling.)

Max Skill points:

6/100 at end of chapter 2

36/100 at end of chapter 3

86/100 (with Bows) at end of chapter 4 (I ended with 76/100 (with Brawling))

306/750 at end of chapter 5

556/750 (max points with Woodslore) at end of chapter 6 (I ended with 531/750 with Brawling)

706/750 at end of chapter 7

606/2500 at end of chapter 8

1906/2500 at end of chapter 9


 * Diamondfree Route : The Female Elf: Bows, Seduction, Medicine and Charisma 

Max Skill points:

11/100 at end of chapter 2

31/100 at end of chapter 3

81/100 at end of chapter 4

My findings so far:
It looks like the best skills for each chapter are:


 * Chapter 1 and 2:

For Orc + Diamond Route : Any Combat skill will do and choose Seduction or Charisma as your second. And later, as a third, you best choose Medicine or Woodslore. These skills are the most used for the first few chapters and, if you do all your choices right, should give you the chance to level up to skillbar 1/100 before the end of chapter 2 (when you plan on buying the tablet). And give you the opportunity to pick your fourth skill. Not sure yet what would be the best pick for that.

For Elf + Diamondfree Route : Any Combat skill will do and choose Seduction as your second. And later, as a third, you best choose Medicine or Woodslore. These skills are the most used for the first few chapters and, if you do all your choices right, should give you the chance to level up to skillbar 1/100 after the fighting at the Temple of Ellara. You can then choose your fourth skill. If you choose Charisma, you have the opportunity to charm Mal and so get the maximum amount of points for chapter 2 (when you don't plan on buying the tablet).

It seems I have made the right choices in the first 2 chapters to easily navigate the choices in chapter 3. For both playthroughs I'm still below half of 1/100 skillbar. For Orc Beastmaster was a good choice, but I could have also gone with Seduction. For Elf, choosing Charisma was the only right choice to make.
 * Chapter 3:

For Elf, it looks like I'm on the right track, so far, by choosing the Bows combat skill at the beginning of the book. It looks like that is the combat skill to start with to get the most points out of the current chapters. I could have reached 1/750 skillbar if I had bought the Lore Tablet. As you can see on the table of Skills I made above, There are some Skills that are not immediately needed in the first 5 chapters: Blades, Brawling, Deception and Woodslore. Because when these skills were asked in choices, there is for them an alternative choice available to still get points. So I decided to change some things up for my Orc: Change Brawling to Bows, Charisma to Seduction and change Woodslore to Medicine. Fourth skill will be Beastmaster. Still going with Brawling as the fifth skill. I'm hoping to get some good use out of the Gauntlet of Pain I bought in chapter 5... We will find out. For Elf: It doesn't really matter what I do in chapter 5 to get my fifth skill, since I'm not buying the Gauntlet, so I wait to play it till Chapter 6, to see if things become more clear then. It appears I should have taken the Woodslore skill for my Orc in chapter 5, instead of the Brawling skill to get the maximum amount of points in chapter 6. Because even though I did get to use the Gauntlet of Pain, there were also some alternatives availeble to still get points. For my diamondfree route on elf, I should take the Deception skill in chapter 5. It is the only way to not get injured in chapter 6! (if you get injured, you can sometimes miss out on future skill points!) I've been replaying the book a few times, and maybe have to do that again, to choose the right new skill that you can get from chapter 7 (for elf) or 8 (for orc/human). I'm getting a bit annoyed by how big the gap in points is now between Elf and Orc. It looks like people are supposed to play as elf, if you want the maximum amount in points. While I very much like playing as Orc. With my diamondfree route I haven't tried out much yet. It's kind of put on hold. Possibly untill the book is finished, because I want to see what best route is, that I can take for free route.
 * Chapter 4:
 * Chapter 5:
 * Chapter 6:
 * Chapter 7, 8 & 9: