ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

1)When you've got 1.4 mastery in Dual Weapons, the offhand damage raises to 120%. Does this mean that you should wield the better dagger in the offhand?

2)How on earth do you decide between escort quest rewards for the shadowblade? I normally just go passive stats as find I just don't have any spare points to put anywhere else in terms of Generics or Class points. The exception being arcane eye I guess?

3)So many things to spend points on early game. How on earth do you decide between dual strike, Dirty fighting, Lethality, Shadow magic tree and Dual weapons tree?

Number 1 - Yes.

Number 2, bthen don't get the tree or the stats, just get an ability outright. This is sort of the expected result. Good with thief escorts at the least, and even on some of the others. Precognition has saved my life, multiple times. Arcane eye is inordinately helpful, and so can premonition, though that one might be expensive for a mana using class like shadowblade.

Then there's the light tree, which every magic based class can make GREAT use of. But even failing that, the basic healing light is a great heal spell for a shadowblade, or any mage class.

3 - Go for stuns. Every character needs stuns.

2) Unflinching Resolve pops up often on escorts and it's really useful. Saves a lot of generic points if you get them from escorts instead of investing your points in them.

3) I'm usually going 5/5/0/0 on dual weapons and on dual techniques I just put one point on each since the skill itself is the thing I want, not the damage bonus it gets (though it's nice but class points are tight). The only skill I sometimes put more points in is the first, to get longer stun.
Combat techniques is usually just Rush while Combat veteran tree could eat a whole lot points but usually is the tree that gets the least attention.
Bah! I can't do all the trees. There's not enough points to write even a tight knit essentials.

An advice I could try to give you is that activated skills shine even with one invested point while sustains and passive ones often require more.

Oh and stuns are awesome.