Skill usefulness analysis accurate?

[Alex_Mars]

I found this on the DDO wiki and was wondering if the analysis of skills is accurate and if anything has changed since this document was prepared.

http://ddowiki.com/page/Skill_usefulness

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

From a quick skimread there seems like quite a lot of plain inaccuracies (diplomacy affecting end loot, balance skill usefulness) differences of opinion (e.g. usefulness of spot) and missing information (e.g. swim affecting fly speed in Reaver). But, being a wiki, it's probably better to just fix the page than duplicate the information here :)

Wikis should really be about facts though and not opinions - if I saw that page on wikipedia I would mark it all over with 'this is opinion and not fact' markers.

Garth

[Freeman]

A lot of the information in there looks either inaccurate, outdated, or simply wrong. You can probably find more accurate information on the forums, although you'll have to search for each individual skill.

[Angelus_dead]

That document is very old, so there are several places where it's obviously out of date. But the general results are correct.

Some notes of things that have changed since it was written:
* The Intimidate and Diplomacy skills originally had 500 ms casting time, 6 sec duration, and 10 sec cooldown. Now the casting is fast and the duration equals the cooldown, meaning you can keep them going essentially 100% of the time. That's a lot more powerful.

* A Balance check was added to stand back up after a trip-like attack. That can be important, although the DC doesn't climb very high.

* With the increased level cap, Heal scrolls have increased importance compared to wand healing, so UMD is more valuable. Also the higher level cap means it's easier for more characters to reach adequate UMD numbers.

* Tumble is good as a reaction to debuffs that reduce your movement speed, including the voluntary self-debuffs of the Paladin/Fighter Defender specialties.

* Concentration is crucial for the new Monk class. It determines their energy storage.

* When that page was written, the spells to buff Jump and Tumble only gave a little improvement. Now they have a much stronger effect.

* Open, Search, and Disable are still important for Rogues. It won't kill you not to have them, but there's no better use for all those skillpoints.

[Riorik]

At the minimum, most of it is dated to older modules and it's changed and much of the rest is an opinion. I've never thought Spot was valueless...and I'm a player that generally knows where everything is and don't really need it for traps or can run thru them with ridiculous saves.