Does anyone spend category points to upgrade a tree?

[jenx]

If you're going to make a claim at least present the facts in a specific manner.

Here is an album with pictures comparing each tree's abilities you mentioned and the benefits a category point provides:

http://imgur.com/a/kpEcX#0

NOTE: Where it says "improves with mindpower", please think in terms of percentage increase.

Nightmare

Nightmare: Damage increases by 6%.
Night Terror: Resistance penetration from 32% to 33%, Night Terror 12 to 13 turns.
Waking Nightmare: Damage increases by 6%, Chance to blind/stun/confusion from 33% to 35%.
Inner Demons: Increase turns from 14 to 15, 19% to 20% chance for demon to be summoned.

Comments: Really not seeing any meaningful benefit here, moving on.

Ooze

Mitosis: HP of ooze increases by 6%. 33% to 35% all damage resistance.
Reabsorb: Increases mana burn damage by 6%.
Call of the Ooze: HP of ooze increases by 8%. Melee attack through ooze increases from 195% to 204%.
Indiscernible Anatomy: Enemy multiple crit modifier decreases from 60% to 67%. Resistance to disease/poison/wounds/blindness form 75% to 78%.

Comments: The HP increases a little bit I suppose, but by a laughable amount. Again, not really much to see here.

Dream Hammer

Dream Smith's Hammer: 219% to 225% weapon damage. Base Power increases by 4%. Accuracy increases by 14%, APR from 10 to 11, physical crit from 10 to 11 (10% increase).
Hammer Toss: Increases damage from 157% to 161%. Accuracy of Dream Hammer from 65 to 75 (14%).
Dream Crusher: Increases damage from 157% to 161%. Increases Dream hammer from 65 to 75 physical power (14%). All Dream Hammer from 57% to 61%.
Forge Echoes: Increase damage from 157% to 161%. Adds 6% more damage to burning.

Comments: Again, very minimal benefits, the only "significant" % increases are fairly irrelevant.

Solipsism

Solipsism: Convert damage from 56% to 60% into psi, 56% to 60% heal regens psi. Reduce psi damage from 46.4% to 47.2%.
Balance: 75% to 85% of mental save substitutes others.
Clarity: Increase global speed by 4% effectively.
Dismissal: 68% to 74% of mental rolled against damage.

Comments: Again very minimal benefits, the mental save doesn't even go beyond 100% and the Dismissal really doesn't improve significantly.

"increases range, duration, a key percentage (e.g. somethings goes from ~90% to over 100%, making them failsafe)"

1. No abilities improve in range for the ones mentioned and even if they did an increase in 1 range is insignificant
2. Duration increases only in Nightmare and by 1 turn, again insignificant.
3. Key percentages do not go above 100% and always gain marginal benefits.

Please provide some evidence before making such claims, it is fairly clear that a category point in an already unlocked tree is a very bad decision and even if you were focusing on that tree (I don't see why you would) the benefits are really pathetic and a waste of time.

Well, I'm tempted to say, "I rest my case". The numbers you give above show the benefits very clearly. I think you'll find Dream Hammer range is increased, unless that was nerfed.

Those percentage increases are very valuable. I mostly play on Nightmare too btw.

[Thomas]

In my opinion, for optimal play, it's almost never worth investing a cat point in improving a mastery. The one exception is if you've unlocked all 5 rune/infusion slots and you've unlocked all the locked trees (either talent or generic) that you will need.

There are very few occasions where this will occur, unless you're a Cornac, and even then it's pretty rare.

Looking at Mex's post, I find none of those cat point investments worth it.

That being said, it's down to the individual player to make their choices. For optimal success however, I suggest always using cat points to unlock, not improve.

[Mankeli]

There are very few occasions where this will occur, unless you're a Cornac, and even then it's pretty rare.

Yeah, and even a Cornac can find useful escorts to get possible uses for cat points -and they usually have the generics to spend as well, being racial treeless and all.

The cases where it's good to upgrade a tree are not common -if they exist at all (I think a case can be made in some situations for upgrading). Also, I think one important point, that no one has yet mentioned, is that in the rare cases that upgrading a tree might be worth it, it can already be an inferior position to be in in the first place. An example: If you are playing a cornac solipsist who killed off all escorts (or only got like temporal escorts lol) then it may already be a position where you are worse off than picking a better race for the class or picking cornac and getting a good escort category! So it's not that upgrading a tree is very good even in this case.

(And yeah, I know Dreamforge exists but it's kind of awful IMHO).

I have maybe something like 20 wins and IIRC I have used category upgrading excatly once -on a cornac marauder. Too buzy to do the math with class talent points, but even in this instance it could have easily be better to unlock poisons. I just wanted to get thuggery as high as I could for s hits and giggles because I had equip boosts for it as well.

My two cents.

[malboro_urchin]

I'd be tempted to increase Solipsism with those numbers.

I second this, especially as a Yeek Solipsist. The more damage to psi, the better, and it's not hard to crank mental save given the Yeek racial, a little from generics like Lucid Dreamer, and a dreamer's robe (I think that's the ego, mine gives me +24 mental save)

[Mankeli]

I'd be tempted to increase Solipsism with those numbers.

I second this, especially as a Yeek Solipsist. The more damage to psi, the better, and it's not hard to crank mental save given the Yeek racial, a little from generics like Lucid Dreamer, and a dreamer's robe (I think that's the ego, mine gives me +24 mental save)

Because there is an opportunity cost attached to that cat point, one can ask: You'd be tempted to increase Solipsism in expanse of what? Inscription slot? Nightmare? Discharge? Escort category? Or you'd pick Cornac in the first place losing a (potentially) very good racial tree?

Having higher mastery is better than having lower mastery but not necessarily better than the benefit you'd get from other uses of that cat.

[ZyZ]

As AM solipsist you should really put one point into dream hammer tree. You got 4 category points and only one locked tree that is worth unlocking, nightmare. 2 points go to infusions and you have one free point that should go to dream smith tree or solipsism.

Dream smith tree seems a better choice because talents boost each other (1st talent improves BASE hammer stats and all skills will benefit from it, 3rd talent improves weapon multiplier and all talents will benefit from it). Hammer + mindsear is all you need anyway.

[malboro_urchin]

I'd be tempted to increase Solipsism with those numbers.

I second this, especially as a Yeek Solipsist. The more damage to psi, the better, and it's not hard to crank mental save given the Yeek racial, a little from generics like Lucid Dreamer, and a dreamer's robe (I think that's the ego, mine gives me +24 mental save)

Because there is an opportunity cost attached to that cat point, one can ask: You'd be tempted to increase Solipsism in expanse of what? Inscription slot? Nightmare? Discharge? Escort category? Or you'd pick Cornac in the first place losing a (potentially) very good racial tree?

Having higher mastery is better than having lower mastery but not necessarily better than the benefit you'd get from other uses of that cat.

My char already has Nightmare unlocked, because Inner Demons is quite possibly my favorite skill in the game. I know what opportunity costs are, and I'm certain HousePet does as well.

As for my Nightmare (the tree, not the difficulty) Solipsist specifically, I don't need Discharge or an escort category, and I think the benefits of a stronger Solipsism tree are worth getting after an extra inscription slot, most likely filled by a movement infusion.

[cctobias]

On my SB nightmare winner I put a cat point into Light because it add a turn to both bathe in the light and providence.

But he was a cornac.

And I didn't feel I needed more inscriptions.

And he was already doing a lot of damage.

But in the end taking a 5th inscription as herosim and popping a heroism +15 stat inscription would have done more for any one tree than that cat point as far % increases. Furthermore it would do it for a large number of talents across many trees, and specifically on that build increasing magic stat is a large damage increase due to staves and arcane might.

So in the end a Heroism infusion would have been, I would say, pretty obviously more powerful, but I opted for the longer turn duration and that was fine too.

That situation is actually one of the more favorable cases for upping mastery with a cat point and its still fairly unfavorable, the only thing you can really say is doing what I did was reasonable for a certain playstyle.

Generally there are a few corner cases where something fairly special may go up: range, duration, extra summon, etc. In these case it might be an ok idea but only if you hit the exact price point and do not feel good about getting a mastery item. But even then a lot of those cases some inscription is as good or equal, but may not be needed that strongly so it may be a push.

You can basicaly always fill up infusions 2 heroism, 2 movemtns, 2 wilds is always useful for everyone. So 5 can always get filled.

I suppose in the case of undead maybe there is a better case since they are stuck with runes. If they don't need shields and are ok on conditions. Then maybe they are not getting 5 inscriptions. Certainly the tradeoff equation is not as favorable without Heroism or movement involved. Also a race like skeleton uses a lot of generics in their race tree and is less likely to unlock generic trees with cat points.

But again this is kind of a case of: when all the better options are not available for some reason. Either you can't use em or you are full already anyway.

[Mankeli]

As for my Nightmare (the tree, not the difficulty) Solipsist specifically, I don't need Discharge or an escort category, and I think the benefits of a stronger Solipsism tree are worth getting after an extra inscription slot, most likely filled by a movement infusion.

Yeah, I agree that Discharge is the weakest link here, if I were to increase mastery, that would be my choice of not unlocking as well.

[HousePet]

Well this was my Solipsist winner: http://te4.org/characters/21857/tome/91 ... fbc529c2f4
Old version before the numbers were more balanced, so I really didn't need more from the Solipsism category.
I'd unlocked Fungus and Discharge.
Apparently there are two inscription slots unlocked, not sure why it is only listing 4.
If I was a Cornac, what am I supposed to spend the extra category point in?
Nightmare wouldn't have been useful.
Mindstar Mastery would have been good, but that doesn't need a category point.

[donkatsu]

Nightmare wouldn't have been useful.

Inner Demons alone would have been worth the category point.

[HousePet]

Already had it via Neck slot.

[jenx]

As for my Nightmare (the tree, not the difficulty) Solipsist specifically, I don't need Discharge or an escort category, and I think the benefits of a stronger Solipsism tree are worth getting after an extra inscription slot, most likely filled by a movement infusion.

Yeah, I agree that Discharge is the weakest link here, if I were to increase mastery, that would be my choice of not unlocking as well.

lol, have you ever run up Discharge and Feedback etc to max? Unbelievable damage, and critting on the second discharge talent at high levels keeps your psi levels up for ages.

[Hommit]

Necromancer going lich on adventurer

[Doctornull]

Back when Absorption needed talent level 6 to give coverage of Mind / Arcane / Temporal, I'd put another point into Absorption as an Adventurer.