What Are Skills?
Most of the terms used in Gems of War are fairly self-explanatory, however there are one or two that confused me as a beginner. One of these is the keyword ‘Skill’.
Gems of War uses the word ‘Skill’ a lot. Many Traits and Spells affect one or more Skills of one or more troops in a battle. But the way the term is used can be a bit confusing at first, so this article is a quick clarification for beginners to the game.
What does ‘Skill’ mean? Well, if you’re used to other role-playing games (RPGs) – either computer or IRL – you probably think of a skill as being the ability to perform a particular task: using a particular weapon, climbing, trout tickling, etc. Gems of War has no such skills. It isn’t what I think of as an RPG.
Instead, Gems of War uses the word Skills to refer to four key combat numbers:
- Armour
- Health
- Attack
- Magic
Of these, Attack and Magic might more usually be called Attributes in other games. (Some people also refer to Gem Mastery as a skill, but I that’s not how the game interprets the word).
It’s a strange combination to lump together under one term, especially when you have spells that effect random Skills or all Skills. Armour and Health are numbers you would expect to go down during combat, regardless of Spells and Traits. Whereas Attack and Magic are not values that normally go up or down in that way.
So a spell that affects a Skill at random can have vastly different effects – and strength – depending on which of the four the RNG selects. Something to bear in mind when building your team.
Increasing Skills
How do you improve the skills of a Troop? If you play RPGs then you might expect there to be some way of training up and improving individual skills. There isn’t. Skills can be temporarily changed during a battle (up or down), but there’s no way of training up a single skill outside of battle.
Instead, Skills are improved as the Troop gains levels, with more levels (and hence more skill points) available after the Troop is Ascended. But the improvements are fixed on a per-Troop basis, you don’t get points to spend on your choice of skill. There are also skill bonuses from passive buffs and, later in the game, Elite levels etc. But again, you have no control over which specific skills get raised.