YiffySquirrel's NeoQuest Guide: Skills

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Skills

Skills are definitely the most important strategic part of the game. They define what attributes your character has, along with your strengths and weaknesses.

First, let's take a quick look at all the skills.

Fire Magic
Fire Weapons [Auto]: Increases your chances of getting an additional fire attack while wielding a fire weapon. Not very useful at times, rarely occurs during boss fights.
Firepower [Auto]: Increases damage of all fire attacks. With its little combat bonus, this skill is useless.
Fire Ball [Cast]: Deals decent fire damage.
Wall of Flame [Cast]: Reflects damage back onto enemy. Good skill, but not worth spending four skill points to raise it one notch.

Ice Magic
Ice Weapons [Auto]: Increases your chances of getting an additional ice attack while wielding an ice weapon. Not very useful at times, rarely occurs during boss fights.
Heart of Ice [Auto]: Gives you a chance of "freezing" your opponents. This only prevents regular attacks from being blocked, not special attacks.
Snowball [Cast]: Deals decent ice damage.
Glacier Strike [Cast]: Takes three rounds to execute, but does massive damage if it doesn't miss. Glacier Strike is cancelled if you attack regularly, but casting other spells or using healing potions is okay. Anyone know if it still works if you're stunned? This skill is moderately good, but later on, it's possible to do more damage with normal attacks.

Shock Magic
Shock Weapons [Auto]: Increases your chances of stunning your opponent for one round. Useful at times, rarely occurs during boss fights.
Disable [Auto]: Supposedly reduces your opponent's defensive rating, but most often the change in damage is insignificant. After about three successful uses, attacks do a bit more damage. Not the best skill, but still useful.
Fortitude [Auto]: Resistance to fire, ice, and stun increases. Excellent skill, a lifesaver at times!
Shockwave [Auto]: Gives you a chance of doing an extra attack that deals damage and stuns. Enemies can resist it at times, but it more often hits with satisfying results. Another excellent skill.

Spectral Magic
Spectral Weapons [Auto]: Increases defensive ability while wielding a spectral weapon. Not very useful.
Evasion [Auto]: Gives you a chance of evading your opponent's attack completely. In other wrods, it decreases your enemy's accuracy, a satisfying bonus in any battle.
Absorption [Cast]: When cast, you absorb a portion of your enemy's next successful physical attack. Superb at the beginning of the game, but once you reach the point where enemies rely on other forms of damage, this skill loses ground.
Reflex [Auto]: If any skill in the game calls for an evil laugh, it's this one. Just seeing the Archmagus of Roo hit himself instead of you will make you feel warm and tingly inside.

Life Magic
Life Weapons [Auto]: Increases effectiveness of healing poitons. Very useful. Also heals you while walking around (random roll), but only if you're wielding a Life Weapon.
Field Medic [Auto]: Randomly restores a small amouth of health every round of combat. Very useful at the beginning of the game, but later on, this skill can't keep up with all the damage.
Lifesteal [Auto]: Grants you a chance of absorbing a small amount of damage with every successful attack you make. Just like Field Medic, useful at the beginning, but it can't keep up.
Resurrection [Auto]: If you die, this skill gives you a chance of being restored to 50% health instead of dying. You shouldn't be dying, y'know, so this is a useless skill.

Finally, we have our game plan. For the useful skills, you will want to have a final outcome of a level of 6-10 in them. For the less useful ones, a level of 1-3 is appropriate. Remember, you have 57 skill points to divy in your game. Make sure all these skills are at level 1 before upgrading any of them to level 2.

Ice Weapons | Heart of Ice: Save 2-6 skill points for this chain.
Shock Weapons | Disable | Fortitude | Shockwave: Save 24-40 skill points for this chain.
Spectral Weapons | Evasion | Absorption | Reflex: Save 4-12 skill points for this chain.
Life Weapons | Field Medic | Lifesteal: Save 8-16 skill points for this chain.

Now that you've made it this far, you can follow your own plan. The following is a reccomended path. You may alter it to your liking and your personal battle plan.

Level 1: Shock Weapons: 1 | Disable: 1 | Fortitude: 1 | Shockwave: 1 | Life Weapons: 1 | Field Medic: 1 | Lifesteal: 1
Level 2: Spectral Weapons: 1
Level 3: Evasion: 1
Level 4: Absorption: 1
Level 5: Reflex: 1
Level 6: Ice Weapons: 1
Level 7: Heart of Ice: 1
Level 8: Life Weapons: 2
Level 9: Field Medic: 2
Level 10: Spectral Weapons: 2
Level 11: Evasion: 2
Level 12: Absorption: 2 (Fight Xantan)
Level 13: Reflex: 2
Level 14: Shock Weapons: 2
Level 15: Disable: 2
Level 16: Fortitude: 2
Level 17: Shockwave: 2
Level 18: Shock Weapons: 3
Level 19: Disable: 3
Level 20: Fortitude: 3 (Fight Kreai)
Level 21: Shockwave: 3 (Fight Gors)
Level 22: Life Weapons: 3
Level 23: Spectral Weapons: 3
Level 24: Evasion: 3
Level 25: Absorption: 3
Level 26: Reflex: 3 (Fight Rollay)
Level 27: Shock Weapons: 4
Level 28: Disable: 4
Level 29: Fortitude: 4
Level 30: Shockwave: 4
Level 31: Life Weapons: 4 (Fight Archie)
Level 32: Shock Weapons: 5
Level 33: Disable: 5
Level 34: Fortitude: 5
Level 35: Shockwave: 5
Level 36: Life Weapons: 5
Level 37: Shock Weapons: 6
Level 38: Disable: 6
Level 39: Fortitude: 6
Level 40: Shockwave: 6
Level 41: Life Weapons: 6
Level 42: Shock Weapons: 7
Level 43: Disable: 7 (Fight the Guardians)
Level 44: Fortitude: 7
Level 45: Shockwave: 7 (Fight Faleinn)
Level 46: Life Weapons: 7
Level 47: Shock Weapons: 8
Level 48: Disable: 8
Level 49: Fortitude: 8
Level 50: Shockwave: 8 (Fight Jahbal)

Final Product:

Shock Weapons:	8	Spectral Weapons:	3
Disable:	8	Evasion:	3
Fortitude:	8	Absorption:	3
Shockwave:	8	Reflex:	3
Life Weapons:	7	Ice Weapons:	1
Field Medic:	2	Heart of Ice:	1
Lifesteal:	1

Why is this path so advantageous? Well, every battle, you will have a moderate amount of protection, and you will have the choice to either Attack, cast Absorption, or use a healing potion. Healing potions are a last resort. Absorption is good, because it's like converting one enemy attack from damage to life. The best part is when you attack.

When you attack, you can freeze the enemy's next attack, reduce the enemy's defense, stun the enemy for one turn, do additional damage and another turn of stun from Shockwave, drain some of the damage and add it to your own HP, and regenerate HP! If that wasn't good enough, when the enemy attacks, it could miss entirely, be frozen, be stunned, miss because of your evasion, or even hit itself! Do not pass up this combination for something worse and skill point-consuming, like Glacier Strike and Wall of Flames. Do the math.