Wizardry 6: Evaluating the Best/Work Skills

As I worked my way through my thoughts on Wizardry 6’s spells, I wanted to offer my thoughts on the skills next. Some skills are completely worthless where spending any points is wasteful. Others are invaluable to the point where each class should eventually seek them out. What I want to do is list out all skills and mark which ones fall into a good or bad category as well as why.

• Axe – Not worth taking as there aren’t any great axe weapons. I do like the Bipennis just because I enjoy saying bi-penis.

• Bow – The only character that can really make use of a bow is the Ranger and Rangers generally are a terrible class except for novelty. There is a decent Elven Bow you can obtain near the end of the game but you have to deal with ammunition that does weak damage and you can’t really get multiple attacks per round. Maybe if you swap into a Ranger in the late game where you have already picked up Kirijitsu. But there are other classes that can do a better job.

• Hand & Feet – Once you start getting some serious levels with a Ninja and/or Monk, you can do some of the best damage in the game. Also, you won’t have to lug weapons around.

• Mace & Flail – The Vulcan Hammer you can buy from Smithy is one of the best midgame weapons around as a one hander. But you don’t need to put any points here.

• Pole & Staff – Some of the best weapons in the game that can be applied to several classes are found here. If you play a Valkyrie, you’ll level a polearm naturally. If you play a Priest, Bishop or Mage, you’ll probably pick up a staff of some kind. Two Handed versions allow you to hit from the back rows so when you’re out of spells, this is a great way for anyone in the 4th slot or further back to get a hit off. Not to mention you can knock creatures unconscious with a few 2H staves.

• Shield – Sadly, there’s not a lot of shields in the game and the ones that are available are heavily restricted. The only class that probably should use a shield is a Lord. Bards and Rangers can use Bucklers if you want a little extra AC but it’s not a lot.

• Sling – Since most players will start with a Bard (unless they swap classes into one), you’ll have this as a weapon. But there’s not many upgrades and the ammo aspect sucks. Most likely, you’ll be belting out Sleep spells with your Lute for a very long time. So not a great weapon/skill at all.

• Sword – Some of the best weapons are swords. Lords, Bards and Samurai will certainly want to use this skill. But don’t ever put points manually into it since you’ll be training it through usage naturally.

• Throw – Not many good options. Pretty much not worth the investment unless you’re bored.

• Wand & Dagger – For thief type of characters, you’ll probably want to dual wield with a dagger type of offhand such as with a Main Gauche. For Mage type of characters, wands by themselves aren’t great weapons. But the key is to combine a Wand and 1H staff to receive any passive benefits. The only time you’ll want to attack with a wand is through some backstabbing ability once you get Ninjitsu.

• Legerdemain – Some people think that this is a great skill. However, there’s just not enough traders where it’s worth spending any points. And if you get caught, you should just reload. So don’t bother with this unless you have nothing else to spend your skill points on.

• Music – Pretty much a must have skill. Bards can be useful at any point in the game and you never want to sell off the rare instruments except when you manage to find a rare spare.

• Ninjutsu – Perhaps, the single most powerful skill in the game. Once your party all have Ninjitsu, you will almost all the time be able to hide in the shadows. Once you are in the shadows, you pretty much become immune to damage, except lingering DoT spells until you leave/attack. And even if you’re in the shadows, you can cast spells at your enemies without breaking stealth. It does take a great deal of time to level this skill up but you’ll eventually want every character to have this. When beat the game for the first time, I kept my characters in the shadows and was able to avoid all damage and just messed around against the bosses with zero threat.

• Oratory – Absolute must have for any non-alchemist spell caster type. It might take a few early manual points but you should try to get it to 100% for anyone who can cast spells. If you’re afraid of failure or spell reflection, cast lower level spells like a low risk heal spell to avoid something backfiring. Certainly, don’t cast spells at max level if your party’s lives depended on its success and your Oratory skill is low.

• Scout – Easily the most useless skill of the bunch. Everything can be found using a clue book or by some online hint. For Rangers, this skill has automatic point assignment which prevents your Ranger to obtain better skills like Alchemy or Skulduggery.

• Skulduggery – An unfortunate must have skill that you probably should put points into manually. There’s simply not enough places to practice this skill. However, you could potentially lock yourself out of a critical room. I do think you can get around some of these issues by finding the right keys. But for chests, you probably will get less lucky or require a Divine Trap.

• Alchemy – Not the best of the magic skills but not the worst. Alchemy is great for avoiding the Oratory spell requirement though. So one thing you may want early on is at least one character with Alchemy like an Alchemist who transitions into a Ninja or Ranger if you’re desperate and do not have enough attributes for a class swap.

• Artifacts – Honestly, this isn’t really a big deal. There’s simply not enough good magic items in the games to make it worth putting much effort here.

• Kirijutsu – You will want to place at least one point into this skill so you can level it constantly regardless of a class you swap into. But doing a critical hit during a fight can prevent not only long fights but situations where an OP opponent is rendered dead. All characters should eventually pick this skill up.

• Mythology – It’s nice knowing what a creature is to respond (like certain type of skeletons) to deal with their abilities. Most time you’ll see a pattern emerge. But this should improve naturally so you should only place points into this when there’s no other skills worth spending.

• Scribe – Scrolls seem more useful at a lower level. But I think making gold from them is better than their actual usage.

• Theology – Absolute must have. You need healing, buffs, cures and dispelling of undead. All characters should eventually get this skill.

• Theosophy – The least important of all the spell skills. There’s only three real distinct offensive spells and their main effects are limited to certain opponents. There aren’t any mandatory Theosophy spells either. It is fun to turn your foes insane and that’s about it.

• Thaumaturgy – Pretty much mandatory. You will want a few mass damage dealers especially for the end game.