Posted May 28, 2020
high rated
Update: Apparently I was wrong that Stamina is the best Ability.
I though that it would increase Zaks running distance but unfortunately, running always uses 20% Stamina per second so a higher base Stamina does exactly nothing. I measured it and with Stamina taken the numbers just drop faster than before instead of lasting longer.
The Recovery Ability is therefore more useful for getting faster from A to B since it ups Stamina Regeneration from 10% per second to 20% so essentially at Rank 3 you can run and pause at a rate of 1:1 instead of 1:2.
So my updated advice is to immediately focus on Actions Rank 3 followed by some but not all Ranks of Stamina, Recovery and Encumbrance, each only if and how much you want to, then Intelligence 3 (for XP), Dexterity 3 (ups Actions) and Strength 3.
Sorry for the inconvenience !
OP:
Hello all,
Id like to make a small guide for Evil Islands to make it easier for others that may have picked the wrong Abilities.
1. Before talking about the right and wrong Abilities, there is a very important thing we need to talk about. Getting any Ability, or upgrading an existing one, vastly ups the cost of the next increase including the Ability you just picked and since Abilities have 3 ranks, XP cost increase is DOUBLED for the Ability you picked.
2. Abilities have a tier of sorts which defines how much XP is needed to get and upgrade Abilities. Since XP costs scale with this Tier, selecting low Tier Abilities causes selecting the high Tier Abilities later to have such a hugh cost that you are wasting tens if not hundreds of thousand XP.
3. If you add XP to Skills there is NO increase in XP cost for Abilities and NO XP increase for other Skills. You are free to add points to Skills and you should do this from tha start of the game. Abilities fine-tune you character but Skills are the bread and butter.
So here is what you need to do:
A.) Start with Abilities which have a high Tier and completely ignore low Tier Abilities for now since even after increases, these will cost less later.
B.) If you want to have a high Tier Ability at Rank 3 you need to select this Ability and dedicate all XP to it alone and you have to select it as the first Ability after you start a game. If you pick Stamina 2 then select Actions 1 you waste the XP cost that Stamina 3 just added because you selected a different Ability than Stamina 3.
Meaning: Backstab 1 (Zak starts with it) > Stamina 1 > Stamina 2 > Stamina 3 (if you want to have Stamina 3 at the end and trust me you want to)
then ... > Actions 1 > Actions 2 > Actions 3 (if you also want to have Actions 3 at the end which is also a very solid choice)
What Magic can do and can NOT do:
There are spells that Haste your character and essentially add what the Actions Ability does but notice that the constant Haste effect, which is possible later, only ever adds small amounts of additional Actions to Zak and even then, these stack. Its working the same for all spells and these constant Armor effects are very limited in their scope. This is important to know and is factored into the below Ability breakdown.
High Tier Abilities > always start with these and always Rank up to 3 if you want Rank 3 in the end
Backstab > 100% leave at Rank 1 (Zak starts with it)
- anything beyond Rank 1 is wasted here, you dont need more damage than 500%
- there are methods to Backstab the 280 HP Black Troll in the starting area with Backstab 1 so Rank 2 / 3 are 100% useless, so do NOT rank up
Night Vision > 100% useless
- one of the few Abilities that has a spell you can reliably insert into mid-game Armor and have a constant effect
- also, during the day this Ability is 200% useless, so do NOT pick it
Health > 100% useless
- Zaks Health increases everytime he gets a specific amount of XP and this increase is all you need
- also Health is only a buffer, so do NOT pick it
Stamina > pick as early as possibly and rank up as early as possible to 3
- this is your bread and butter Ability
- Rank 3 means twice the running distance
- as well as allowing to socket only Damage Up into Spells
- which for instance allows you to kill the Golems in the Gipath Tunnel area or the 3x 160 HP Green Dragons
Regeneration > 100% useless
- this ups HP regeneration and is completely useless as you can Heal yourself with spells or even as a continously effect for mid-game Armor
Recovery > 100% useless
- this ups Stamina Regeneration
- however the Stamina Ability ups base Stamina
- and since Stamina Regeneration is applied as 10% of your base Stamina
- the Stamina Ability ups base Stamina AND Stamina Regeneration
- so essentially this Ability is half as useful which makes it moot
Actions > pick after Stamina but still as early as possibly and rank up to 3
- increases Melee / Ranged Attack Speed considerably
- as well as Cast Speed so whatever you do to kill enemies
- you do it faster which means less damage is applied to you
- so less Health problems and repair costs and these are high
Encumbrance > 50 / 50, depends
- better Armor has more weight
- and you will only be able to instert the best continous Spell effects into these
- but some Armor does not weight as much
- and some Armor Slots always have low Weight Armor Pieces (Helmet, Bracer, Boots)
- so you could mix light and heavier pieces to ignore this Ability to some effect
Next, Mid / Low Tier Abilities that ARE COMPLETELY USELESS !!!
MID TIER ABILITY Magic of Fire / Lightning / Acid / Sensory / Astral > all 100% useless
- rather increase Elemental / Sensory / Astral Magic under Skills to have the same effect for much less XP
- Elemental Magic Skill increases ALL 3 Magic subschools so there is no sane reason to select this Ability
LOW TIER
Sword / Axe / Dagger / Spear / Bludgeon > ALL 100% useless, adds to Attack AND Defense
- as with the Magic Abilities, increasing the Skill is much cheaper
- and the Melee Skill adds Attack AND Defense for ALL these weapons
Bow / Crossbow > ALL 100% useless, only adds to Attack BUT NOT Defense
- as with the Magic Abilities, increasing the Skill is much cheaper
- and the Ranged Skill adds Attack BUT NO Defense for BOTH these weapons
Lastly, USEFUL low Tier Abilities > if you select any of these, note you will waste XP if you go back to the High Tier Abilities so ony start picking these if you have all the Hight Tier Abilities you want
Intelligence > pick as 1st low Tier Ability
- increases the XP after you get it so Rank up to 3
- more XP means you can select more Abilities after it
- however if you select it after the game starts you still waste XP
- since the XP cost increase High Tier Abilities get far outweight the added XP
- also reduces Spells Stamina costs
Dexterity > pick as 2nd low Tier Ability
- adds to Actions which means Attack / Cast speed
- and makes the Actions Ability that more useful
- also adds to base Stamina
- which makes the Stamina Ability that more useful
- and adds points to Melee AND Ranged Skills
Strength > pick as 3rd low Tier Ability
- adds to Melee Damage, base Health and Encumbrance
- and since you wont need as many Encumbrance
- it actually makes selecting that Ability and especially Rank 3 moot
- (this is why I stated '50 / 50, depends' with the Encumbrance High Tier Ability)
I didnt play through the whole game but if you still have XP after this you can add a Weapon to maximize the Attack and Defense stats when using it. Swords have the most Defense so less damage and repair costs but its up to you. I favor Ranged weapons for instance.
Sincerely
I though that it would increase Zaks running distance but unfortunately, running always uses 20% Stamina per second so a higher base Stamina does exactly nothing. I measured it and with Stamina taken the numbers just drop faster than before instead of lasting longer.
The Recovery Ability is therefore more useful for getting faster from A to B since it ups Stamina Regeneration from 10% per second to 20% so essentially at Rank 3 you can run and pause at a rate of 1:1 instead of 1:2.
So my updated advice is to immediately focus on Actions Rank 3 followed by some but not all Ranks of Stamina, Recovery and Encumbrance, each only if and how much you want to, then Intelligence 3 (for XP), Dexterity 3 (ups Actions) and Strength 3.
Sorry for the inconvenience !
OP:
Hello all,
Id like to make a small guide for Evil Islands to make it easier for others that may have picked the wrong Abilities.
1. Before talking about the right and wrong Abilities, there is a very important thing we need to talk about. Getting any Ability, or upgrading an existing one, vastly ups the cost of the next increase including the Ability you just picked and since Abilities have 3 ranks, XP cost increase is DOUBLED for the Ability you picked.
2. Abilities have a tier of sorts which defines how much XP is needed to get and upgrade Abilities. Since XP costs scale with this Tier, selecting low Tier Abilities causes selecting the high Tier Abilities later to have such a hugh cost that you are wasting tens if not hundreds of thousand XP.
3. If you add XP to Skills there is NO increase in XP cost for Abilities and NO XP increase for other Skills. You are free to add points to Skills and you should do this from tha start of the game. Abilities fine-tune you character but Skills are the bread and butter.
So here is what you need to do:
A.) Start with Abilities which have a high Tier and completely ignore low Tier Abilities for now since even after increases, these will cost less later.
B.) If you want to have a high Tier Ability at Rank 3 you need to select this Ability and dedicate all XP to it alone and you have to select it as the first Ability after you start a game. If you pick Stamina 2 then select Actions 1 you waste the XP cost that Stamina 3 just added because you selected a different Ability than Stamina 3.
Meaning: Backstab 1 (Zak starts with it) > Stamina 1 > Stamina 2 > Stamina 3 (if you want to have Stamina 3 at the end and trust me you want to)
then ... > Actions 1 > Actions 2 > Actions 3 (if you also want to have Actions 3 at the end which is also a very solid choice)
What Magic can do and can NOT do:
There are spells that Haste your character and essentially add what the Actions Ability does but notice that the constant Haste effect, which is possible later, only ever adds small amounts of additional Actions to Zak and even then, these stack. Its working the same for all spells and these constant Armor effects are very limited in their scope. This is important to know and is factored into the below Ability breakdown.
High Tier Abilities > always start with these and always Rank up to 3 if you want Rank 3 in the end
Backstab > 100% leave at Rank 1 (Zak starts with it)
- anything beyond Rank 1 is wasted here, you dont need more damage than 500%
- there are methods to Backstab the 280 HP Black Troll in the starting area with Backstab 1 so Rank 2 / 3 are 100% useless, so do NOT rank up
Night Vision > 100% useless
- one of the few Abilities that has a spell you can reliably insert into mid-game Armor and have a constant effect
- also, during the day this Ability is 200% useless, so do NOT pick it
Health > 100% useless
- Zaks Health increases everytime he gets a specific amount of XP and this increase is all you need
- also Health is only a buffer, so do NOT pick it
Stamina > pick as early as possibly and rank up as early as possible to 3
- this is your bread and butter Ability
- Rank 3 means twice the running distance
- as well as allowing to socket only Damage Up into Spells
- which for instance allows you to kill the Golems in the Gipath Tunnel area or the 3x 160 HP Green Dragons
Regeneration > 100% useless
- this ups HP regeneration and is completely useless as you can Heal yourself with spells or even as a continously effect for mid-game Armor
Recovery > 100% useless
- this ups Stamina Regeneration
- however the Stamina Ability ups base Stamina
- and since Stamina Regeneration is applied as 10% of your base Stamina
- the Stamina Ability ups base Stamina AND Stamina Regeneration
- so essentially this Ability is half as useful which makes it moot
Actions > pick after Stamina but still as early as possibly and rank up to 3
- increases Melee / Ranged Attack Speed considerably
- as well as Cast Speed so whatever you do to kill enemies
- you do it faster which means less damage is applied to you
- so less Health problems and repair costs and these are high
Encumbrance > 50 / 50, depends
- better Armor has more weight
- and you will only be able to instert the best continous Spell effects into these
- but some Armor does not weight as much
- and some Armor Slots always have low Weight Armor Pieces (Helmet, Bracer, Boots)
- so you could mix light and heavier pieces to ignore this Ability to some effect
Next, Mid / Low Tier Abilities that ARE COMPLETELY USELESS !!!
MID TIER ABILITY Magic of Fire / Lightning / Acid / Sensory / Astral > all 100% useless
- rather increase Elemental / Sensory / Astral Magic under Skills to have the same effect for much less XP
- Elemental Magic Skill increases ALL 3 Magic subschools so there is no sane reason to select this Ability
LOW TIER
Sword / Axe / Dagger / Spear / Bludgeon > ALL 100% useless, adds to Attack AND Defense
- as with the Magic Abilities, increasing the Skill is much cheaper
- and the Melee Skill adds Attack AND Defense for ALL these weapons
Bow / Crossbow > ALL 100% useless, only adds to Attack BUT NOT Defense
- as with the Magic Abilities, increasing the Skill is much cheaper
- and the Ranged Skill adds Attack BUT NO Defense for BOTH these weapons
Lastly, USEFUL low Tier Abilities > if you select any of these, note you will waste XP if you go back to the High Tier Abilities so ony start picking these if you have all the Hight Tier Abilities you want
Intelligence > pick as 1st low Tier Ability
- increases the XP after you get it so Rank up to 3
- more XP means you can select more Abilities after it
- however if you select it after the game starts you still waste XP
- since the XP cost increase High Tier Abilities get far outweight the added XP
- also reduces Spells Stamina costs
Dexterity > pick as 2nd low Tier Ability
- adds to Actions which means Attack / Cast speed
- and makes the Actions Ability that more useful
- also adds to base Stamina
- which makes the Stamina Ability that more useful
- and adds points to Melee AND Ranged Skills
Strength > pick as 3rd low Tier Ability
- adds to Melee Damage, base Health and Encumbrance
- and since you wont need as many Encumbrance
- it actually makes selecting that Ability and especially Rank 3 moot
- (this is why I stated '50 / 50, depends' with the Encumbrance High Tier Ability)
I didnt play through the whole game but if you still have XP after this you can add a Weapon to maximize the Attack and Defense stats when using it. Swords have the most Defense so less damage and repair costs but its up to you. I favor Ranged weapons for instance.
Sincerely
Post edited May 29, 2020 by Xan0010
