I just want to start by saying this is a work in progress. I really like the game and want to help it be more accessible to new players. I will be adding screenshots and various components to it as I learn more. If you have anything you think is valuable, I'd be happy to take your input and incorporate into the guide and credit you.

This is a pretty important decision and mostly everything can be figured out by looking at the available options and reading the descriptions.


Giantkin- Strong. Good front line fighters
Elves- high intelligence good casters.
Humans- Balanced
Faellen - Good faith, buffers, healers, smiters.
Dark Kelf- Agility- good rogues, archers
Dwarf - Constitution, good tanky shield guys
God-like being - OP stats-admin only.
Orc- Admin only - doesn't seem to work

Stats
Strength - Really easy to use, bash guys, use for parry
Constitution - Also really easy to use, can tank for days, use for blocking
Dexterity- Useful for ranged or dex based weaponry
Faith - good for healing and faith base magic, usually buffs and smiting
Intelligence- good for knowing languages, wizardry and sorcery, and elemental magic


Skills
This can be pretty important. You can respec these later for a minor annoyance once you know how the game works/find a training station. You can learn a total of 4 skills including a defensive skill. You can get more skills if you manage to achieve immortality.

Main Skill
There are a lot here so I won't list them all. You always want one of these. This should be the focus of your character.
Some of these are really cool and you can check them out here[www.darkdire.com]


Certain things like running, jumping are outside of these and are independent.

Defensive skill
You may not want this depending on what you are trying to do. But basically match whatever stat you intend to use. You may want to choose none if you want that skill for something else.
Parry - Strength
Evasion - Dex
Blocking - Constitution


Tips
Some things go well together, obviously matching a race stats with your main and defensive skills is great.

Wizardry and Sorcery are complex but extremely fun and rewarding long term.

It really helps to choose a weapon and defensive skill you intend to use end game. You can always back out of your decisions but locking in the right decision early makes it way easier to deal with. You also play your character in a consistent way and learn more as you play.

There are 2 starts.
One is a tutorial which is the intended start. You follow the guides and warp to swampstone and begin your real game from there. Doing quest and learning about various things and ultimately capturing your kingdom.

The other is a roguelike dungeon which locks you in a permadeath dungeon. You can actually escape by taking the boat north of the island or a portal in the dungeon but its not really worth taking this approach unless you really want to avoid the normal start as it locks you out of some quest.

When you start, there is a basic choice that while not limiting can change your initial direction in the game.

The game tells you to get a bow and fire it at a target and to take a portal to swampstone. This is perfectly viable and isn't bad at all.

The other option however, is to charge into danger and fight the pirates. This lets you see your home city and to experience all it has to offer. It always will house your own race and have specific things tied to your main skill generated in it. It often is a great place to explore for special marks for your character due to enemy spawn types and special buildings for casters for instance.

There also is a hidden portal to wasteland of titans which has a gem of returning as well as portals all over the world.

If you follow the tutorial this should be self explanatory but essentially you get xp for doing labor, killing bad guys, and solving quest.

You get money for donating building materials, selling enemy loot and solving quest.

With these 2 things combined, you can go to a trainer, and spend both resources to train up a skill that you already have.

If you don't have a skill the next thing you need is a skillbook. You can get these for free from a library or you could buy them from a vendor. The books go on rotation so you can always pick them up for free over a period of time. 3 random books show up each cycle and it is specific to the kingdom you are in. If you are willing to travel, you can aquire skills fairly quickly.

The dev has a good resource on crafting materials here.

Check out the skill guide to find out which skills do what here[www.darkdire.com].

You can raise crafting yourself but it takes from one of the few skills you have so measure the appeal. vs the gain. Crafting can yield huge benefits for you, your stats, and what equipment you will ultimately have.

You can also salvage equipment for material components.

Alternatively you can save those skills and find a crafting grandmaster but they mostly aren't as good as if you craft unless you find a grandmaster.

You can stand at a crafting station and perform the crafting service for someone else if you have the skill.

The priest class can bless equipment with a scroll of bless.

I highly recommend you pick up a satchel and a backpack from the store for inventory management and to gather crafting components and building materials.

You can paddle a raft with a staff when you discover one.

First you need to get a compass. Sometimes they drop, sometimes you get them from quest. Once you get one, you can use it from the inventory and see the local view.
Compass local view
[screenshot=2315186966;sizeOriginal,inline;https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/ugc/1645467212388809345/CBF7D2432A34F075D380352107434304EF42408C/][/screenshot][/screenshot] As you explore, this will fill out with

or you can see the overworld map view.
Overworld Map


As you explore, this will fill out with more information which makes exploring more enjoyable.

You can get a Pickaxe, Axe, or hoe and commit yourself to mining, chopping down trees, gathering plants, or digging up graves. These all have their perks and all generate a resource that you can donate to earn money. Resources entail things like building lumber, stacks of stone, these are not bags of gems or anything like that. Bags of gems are used for crafting which works differently than nation building.

If you have the relevant skill, you will also get xp from gathering.
Axe: Woodcutter
Two Handed Axe: Miner
Pole weapons: Treasure hunter/Grave digger
Two handed hammer: Farmer

Stores need a NPC Tradesman from the correct nation to work. They may also need to be owned by the ruling nation. They do take/pay funds from/to the kingdom. Or any tradesman, you can become a tradesman and stand one square above and to the left and make it work. You need to be in the same nation. Once you rule a kingdom you should be able to hire any type of NPC Class friendly to your nation with a hireling contact. You make them from the Ruling Kingdom Menu from your throne (Press F4) FYI: If you smash a enemy store with a siege hammer, you also can just pick up the stuff from the ground.

And NPC tradesmen like to disappear at night.

The End key is your basic attack. It has a cooldown depending on your various stats and the weapon type.

Double tapping WASD will make you jump around and dodge if you have the appropriate skill.

The home key will use your defensive skill if you have one to defend.

You can also set skills to hotkeys and press them in combat to use the various skills you have learned.

Villain
A player that reaches 10000 crime level.
Class Requirements: (10000 Crime)

Tradesman
Run shops or crafting stations
Female equivalent:Tradeswoman
Class Requirements: (Blacksmithing Skill or Tailoring Skill or Fletching Skill or Alchemy Skill or Gem Cutting Skill)

Knight
Once all knights followed the code of chivalry and served the Church of the All-Father. Still of noble blood, now most knights are just glorified mercenaries for hire that just serve there local land baron.
Class Requirements: (Sword Skill)(Heavy Armor Skill)(Blocking Skill)

Templar
All Templar are sworn to serve the temple with zeal and passion. They are willing to die for the temple without question. The Templar is feared by all. They are known to burn anyone to death that dares stand against them without a second thought.
Class Requirements: (Two-Handed Sword Skill)(Heavy Armor Skill)(Prior of The Temple Skill)

Samurai
The eastern nation of New Xianga with it's army of samurai has recently revealed itself the the world. Samurai have been seen travelling the lands searching for a ancient holy artifact stolen from their homeland.
Class Requirements: (Nation: New Xianga) (Race: Human)(Sword Skill or Two-Handed Sword Skill)(Weapon-Master Skill)(Swordmaster Skill)(Medium Armor Skill)

Soldier
Soldiers are peasants with some fighting skill who were recruited into their kingdom's army.
Class Requirements: (Sword Skill or Axe Skill or Hammer Skill or Two-Handed Sword Skill or Two-Handed Axe Skill or Two-Handed Hammer Skill or Pole Weapons Skill)

Swordsman
Devoting their lives to they study of the the art of the swordmaster, swordsmen/ladies often travel the lands seeking enemies to test out their skills against.
Female equivalent:Swordslady
Class Requirements: (Sword Skill or Two-Handed Sword Skill)(Swordmaster Skill)

Barbarian
Savage and wild, barbarians will rage in battle to protect their tribes from harm.
Class Requirements: (Axe Skill or Two-Handed Axe Skill)(Medium Armor Skill)

Giant-Slayer
The dwarves have developed secret skills and tactics that they use to defeat enemy giants.
Class Requirements: (Race: Dwarf)(Pole Weapons Skill)(Heavy Armor Skill)

Dragon-Slayer
The dwarves have developed secret skills and tactics that they use to defeat powerful dragons.
Class Requirements: (Race: Dwarf)(Pole Weapons Skill)(Heavy Armor Skill)

Thief
Hiding in the shadows, you will probably backstab and steal from your mother if you thought she had a single gold coin.
Class Requirements: (Dagger Skill)(Rogue Skill)

Ranger
A secret brotherhood developed by the elves to defend the hidden elven kingdoms.
Class Requirements: (Archery Skill)(Scouting Skill)(Druid of Mother Lemeter Skill)

Hunter
A class originally created to provide for a family. It is also proven very effective against enemies of the kingdom.
Class Requirements: (Archery Skill)(Trapping Skill)

Assassin
Your skill in poison is unmatched by any other. This skill is also for hire to the highest bidder.
Class Requirements: (Assassination Skill)

Bowman
The skill of archery is your passion. You now use it to defend your kingdom.
Female equivalent:Bowwoman
Class Requirements: (Archery Skill)

Swashbuckler
The skill of fencing is your passion. You now use it to defend your kingdom.
Class Requirements: (Sword Skill)(Rogue Skill)

Warrior
Your living is made with the skill in your very strong right weapon arm.
Class Requirements: (1st Skill Strength Based)

Rogue
Few people feel as if you can be trusted, but your dexterity gets your through life.
Class Requirements: (1st Skill Dexterity Based)

Cleric
You live your life to help others with the faith that this will be its own reward.
Class Requirements: (1st Skill Faith Based)

Magic-User
You are a student of all magics.
Class Requirements: (1st Skill Intelligence Based)

Wizard
You have devoted your life to the study of wizardry.
Class Requirements: (Wizardry Skill)

Sorcerer
You have devoted your life to the study of sorcery.
Class Requirements: (Sorcery Skill)

Necromancer
You have secretly devoted yourself to the study necromancy, a forbidden form of magic that deals with controlling death.
Class Requirements: (Necromancy Skill)

Elementalist
You have devoted your life in studying one of the four branches of elemental magic.
Class Requirements: (Earth Elementalist Skill or Fire Elementalist Skill or Cold Elementalist Skill or Lightning Elementalist Skill)

Warlock
You have been born with the gift/curse of the psion. You only wish that one day you learn to control it.
Class Requirements: (Race: Human)(Psion Skill)

ArchMage
You study the ways wizardry and sorcery can be combined into one form of magic. Many believe that is is too much for one person to master.
Class Requirements: (Wizardry Skill)(Sorcery Skill)

Healer
You have devoted your life to healing the sick and injured.
Class Requirements: (Healing Skill)

Priest
The priest spreads the teachings of the All-Father and the church.
Female equivalent:Priestess
Class Requirements: (Healing Skill)(Priest of All-Father Odin Skill)

Druid
The druid spreads the teachings of Mother Lemeter and her aelf spirits of nature.
Class Requirements: (Healing Skill)(Druid of Mother Lemeter Skill)

Paladin
The paladin is the follower of the Warrior Goddess Juno and the All-Father.
Class Requirements: (Heavy Armor Skill)(Healing Skill)(Blesser of Juno Skill)

Monk
The monk is the follower of Tyr the first monk and the All-Father.
Class Requirements: (Healing Skill)(Monk Skill)

Acolyte
The acolytes are enslaved to follow the evil Ares-Set and bring destruction to the world.
Class Requirements: (Healing Skill)(Slave of Ares-Set Skill)

Deacon
The deacon spreads the teachings of Taurus, the daughter of the first dragon, Taurmax the Dire.
Female equivalent:Deaconess
Class Requirements: (Healing Skill)(Dragon Worshipper Skill)

Reverend
The reverend is the religious leader for the undead.
Class Requirements: (Healing Skill)(Curses of Baal Skill)

Shaman
Shamans are found in tribal nations as their primary healer and religious leader.
Female equivalent:Shamaness
Class Requirements: (Healing Skill)(Shaman Skill)

Cultist
The cultist still believe that the titans will return to rule the middle lands again.
Class Requirements: (Healing Skill)(Follower of The Titans Skill)

Prior
The prior spreads the teachings of Lady Gabrielle and the temple through fire.
Class Requirements: (Healing Skill)(Prior of The Temple Skill)

Dark Monk
The dark monks have stolen the monks fighting skills and use it to protect the Dark Clan.
Class Requirements: (Nation: Dark Clan)(Unarmed Skill)(Swordmaster Skill)(Assassination Skill)(Monk Skill)

Exorcist
The exorcist was a skillset created by the church to rid the world of undead.
Class Requirements: (Exorcism Skill)

Inquisitor
The inquisitors were created by the Emperor Richard Dragonscale of the Great Empire to server has his personal bodyguard.
Class Requirements: (Nation: The Great Empire)(Heavy Armor Skill)(Scouting Skill)

Bard
The bard has learned to combined his skills in music and the arts with magic.
Class Requirements: (Rhyming Skill)

Ninja
The ninja is the primary foot soldier of the Dark Clan.
Class Requirements: (Nation: The Dark Clan)(Rogue Skill)

Farmer
The farmer can extract city food resources from farms.
Class Requirements: (Two-Handed Hammer Skill)

Woodcutter
The woodcutter can extract city lumber resources from trees.
Class Requirements: (Axe Skill)

Miner
Can mine rocks in city.
Class Requirements: (Two-Handed Hammer Skill)

Treasure Hunter
Can dig up graves in city.
Class Requirement (Pole weapons skill)

Peasant
No skill or specialty.

You can engrave on your equipment using a notary document, many letter stamps from your personal town and a stamp of engraving. You can then use the document to name a piece of equipment.

You can adopt an alias by using a notary document, many letter stamps from your personal town, and a stamp of the thieves guild. This makes it so when you put on a mask, you change allegiance temporarily to the thieves guild.

You can go to a tavern and look for a hiring board on the wall. There you can hire mercenaries to fight with you on your adventures.

A untraining station will remove all marks and skills. Reset your attributes stats. You will then need new marks/skills to replace the old ones.

You will need a cloak of forgetfulness to use the untraining station.

You will have to pay the cost to get everything back unless you own the city. If you own the city, this is free to do.

Magic is a fairly complex and hard to use mechanic that when mastered makes you extremely powerful able to fell armies solo. Kinda like a mage should be. It starts out weak and you can't do much of anything so if you want the easy path don't try this.

Wizardry and Sorcery
The basics are that sorcery and wizardry are linked. Casting spells in one school feeds the other school. As such a sorcery/wizard master can cast spells much more often.

Compound Spells
Combining 2 spell words into one word creates a new spell that you will have to experiment to truly appreciate.
XigXeg for instance does an AOE damage over time. or YufXig does an AOE float spell

My favorite combined spells are as follows:
XUGXEG - AOE cloud of DOT - it stacks with itself till they are getting multiple ticks a second even if they leave the cloud. Really whittles down the enemies health.
XUJXEG - Disease AOE cloud of DOT - its super super dangerous. It spreads disease like crazy and will probably kill everyone including yourself. Good for cleaning out a castle.
HEGXUG - Cloud of Resurrection, can be fun watching two forces fighting and murdering each other over and over and rising from the dead.


Magic Runes
Spells require magic which does not regen on its own but you have to step on runes on the ground to regen or use a spell called octagon ritual or hexagon ritual to regen. Early on this is terrible but as you level up it gets much easier to manage as your pool grows.

Scribing spells
You can scribe spells onto scrolls or onto weapons. Personally I find scribing magic words on weapons to be far superior as they have unlimited uses and have their own mana pool(charges) as you can build up a reserve of items all with their own charges and go truly crazy as a wizard. You can only recharge them on a magic circle or one of the 2 rituals. Scribing scrolls allows you to rapid cast them without typing in the words, this can greatly facilitate the casting of spells in battle.

Magic Spheres
When creating a wizard or sorcerer you will have a magic sphere trained to 30 at random. These spheres replicate the effects of another skills and give you percentage chance of successfully casting spells from them. These climb as you use them up to 100% success rate. In addition, if you take a skill in say healer, and then use those magic words, you will have a 100% success rate and still train up the sphere. You can then untrain the healer skill and maintain the link to the sphere. This can be quite powerful and can grant a wizard/sorcerer all magic functions in the game long term.

Magic words
There is already a guide on this so I'll be brief and stick to the contents of the starter magic book in game and general mechanics. You can see a full list here.

Basic magic words from an early book
Enchantment Spells
Yuf- Flying
Yir - Light
Yuh - Invisibility

Self Improvement Spells
Yua- run faster
Yub- jump higher

Curses
Vua- Run slower
Vub- Weaken jump
Vuq- sleep

Combat Spells
Xag- Magic Strike
Xeg- Long Lasting Magic Strike
Xig - Blast of magic
Xog - Targetable blast of magic
Yog - Offensive Magic Shield
Vag - Weakness to Magic
Yuc - Lesser damage immunity
Yud- Damage Immunity
Yue - greater damage immunity

Combat counter spells
Yag - Resist magic
Voa - weaken magic shields
Vuc - weaken damage immunity
Vud weaken flying spells

How to start with magic
If you choose a wizard or a sorcerer, in your first town after you beat the initial pirates, you can find a wizard training academy where you can go through a trial they teaches you about scribing scrolls and casting spells. A scribed scroll can be used to rapid cast spells which can make your life tolerable which is worth considering. It also has runes to regen magic as well as trainers with which to level up your wizardry skill to get the required spell for mana regen.

Taken straight from a dev post.
The magical spheres will allow your character in the long term (after building up the spheres to higher percentages) to cast spells with wizardry and sorcery that they normally wouldn't be able to cast . Example: Cast fire spells with no skills in fire.

Characters created with Dominion Blade will have a strong link to one of the magical spheres. This will be listed in the bottom of the character sheet. A new character will have 30 something % in this sphere. The rest of the spheres, the character will have around 3%. Characters created prior to Dominion Blade will be at 0% but can build them up. You will be able to view all your sphere levels if your character becomes immortal.

Lets say your character has a strong link to the Sphere of Fire at 34%. If that character tries to cast a magic word that deals fire damage and doesn't have any skills in fire, that character will have a 34% chance of casting that spell. Every time that is a successful cast the Sphere of Fire will get a bit stronger ever so slightly.

Lets says your characters doesn't have a strong link to the Sphere of Fire so its around 3% but he has the fire elemental skill. He will still be able to cast Fire Spells 100% of the time as long as he has that skill. Eventually his Sphere of Fire will get stronger if he is casting fire spells with magic words. He could eventually get the fire sphere level to 100% and then remove the fire elemental skill and trade it out for another skill to open up other magic words. Since his Sphere of Fire will still be at %100, he will still cast Fire Spells %100 of the time even without the fire skill.

So magic works the same way as before, but this just adds to character's magic abilities in the long term.

NOTE: What are Dominion Weapons? Dominion Weapons (Weapons imbued with Blood of a God) can steal/leach away other characters magic spheres. So if you have a Dominion Blade you can steal bit of someone else's sphere levels. NPCs will only rarely have any strength in the magical spheres so it is rare to gain from them but possible.

I sourced a lot of this information from a developer post.

There is a trainer hidden in swampstone to become a necromancer. Necromancers can animate skeletons for pets. You can use weapons with +Hack to remove body parts from defeated enemies to turn the skeletons into zombies. You can find secret texts to summon ghost or become a lich.

You will need to change the nation your character is loyal too. The race doesn't matter. You can change nations by wearing and using equipment from the nation you wish to join. For example, if you kill a lot of zombies and use the equipment they drop (most of it will be unusable but some of it will drop undamaged and make sure it has Dark Remnant in the item description) you will join the Dark Renmant nation. But your current nation will then see you as an enemy. Once you are wearing all equipment from another nation, the change will happen randomly, it doesn't happen all at once. You will get some warning in the text that you appear to be a traitor. You will need all clothing/armor/jewelry/weapons to be of the new nation..

Not many nations like necromancers, so Dark Remnant would be one of the few choices to join.

Another choice would be Trade Union Merchants.
If you do quests for Anda in Swampstone she eventually gives you a full gear set of trade union merchants you can wear for 15 minutes then be converted to them. You can then become a necromancer without being dark remnant or evil.(source: vitowns)

There are nature spirits called Aleya which you can capture using a spirit scarab. You can then use them to battle in the arena to earn money. You can find them in the world or by following the main quest line to recapture your home town.

This is straight from the dev's post on the matter.

Were-Monsters

Horrible rats will now spread rat lycanthropy.
Horrible bears will now spread bear lycanthropy.
Horrible wolves will continue to spread wolf lycanthropy.

Werewolf Humanoid Form:
-Does slashing damage.
-Has slash damage shield.
-Racial stamina bonus.
-Racial stamina recovery bonus.
-Racial attack bonus.
-Racial damage bonus.
-Strength buff.
-Health and stamina heal when taking form.

Wererat Humanoid Form:
-Does piercing damage
-Has pierce damage shield.
-Racial stamina bonus.
-Racial stamina recovery bonus.
-Racial defense bonus.
-Racial damage bonus.
-Dexterity buff.
-Health and stamina heal when taking form.

Werebear Humanoid Form:
-Does slashing damage.
-Has slash damage shield.
-Racial Health bonus.
-Racial Health Recovery bonus.
-Racial damage bonus.
-Racial physical resists bonus.
-Constitution buff.
-Health and stamina heal when taking form.

Vampires and Werewolves
VAMPIRES:
You may be infected with vampire blood if you get in combat with a vampire.

Advantages:
Vampires get additional damage with a vampire blood drain spell.
Vampires get health back by attacking others.
Vampires cannot die of old age.
Vampires respawn at full health.
Vampires can disguise themselves with a Vampire's Charm Necklace.
You can dig a charm necklace up in swampstone. It should be buried in the northwest side of the "City Park". Use a shovel and select Dig.
Vampire are more resist to poison and disease damage.
Vampire Charm Necklace easier to make and will give the character the class Count.
Vampire respawns with full stamina.

Disadvantages:
Vampires take fire damage when outside during daylight hours.
Vampires don't gain health back by resting.
Vampires take additional damage from fire and holy damage.
Healing spell damage you.

Removing the vampire curse:
Praying to a alter in a dungeon that turns out to be a alter of the All-Father.
Using a scroll of remove curse has a very small percent chance of breaking the curse.


WEREWOLVES:
You can be infected with lycanthropy if you get in combat with a "horrible wolf" or a werewolf. It will only spread at night.

Advantages:
Turns you into a wolf at night which is a member of the monster nation.
Can spread lycanthropy to your enemies in combat instantly turning your enemy into a wolf.
Regains full health at the moment you contract the disease.

Disadvantages:
Turns you into a wolf at night which is a member of the monster nation.

Removing the werewolf curse:
The werewolf curse can only be broken during the day.
A wizard or sorcerer with healing skill can cast the spell "HEO" on you to break the curse.
Using a scroll of remove curse has a very small percent chance of breaking the curse.

From the developers notes.
Becoming a Lich is currently available. A lich never dies for they have placed their soul in a bottle.

Psions (Human Only Skill) are considered immortal when they are in Ascended Human Form.

Elves can become Sprites and Moon-bloods with the right marking rune. They are immortal.

Administrators have access to a god race.

Characters That Gain Immortality will be able to learn extra skills:
Ascended Humans will get a total of 6 skills. (2 extra)
Liches will get a total of 5 skills. (1 extra)
Half-Gods will get a total of 6 skills. (2 extra)(you can achieve this by using mark of the gods)
God-Like-Beings (Admin Only) will get a total of 10 skills. (6 extra)

You can gather resources to build your world up. The easiest way starting out is grabbing unopened barrels, crates, bags and using them with the siege hammer equipped.

The general rule of thumb I have witnessed is barrels have terrain, crates have objects, and bags have decorations. Train tracks count as terrain for this purpose but the cars count as objects.

You can also tear down items in dungeons if you want to get your hands on some.

You can now use bag, box, and crate workshops to duplicate opened items by spending resources from the kingdom treasury.

You can also put on a thieves guild mask and steal from your allies.

You can capture a city by killing its ruler and having a land title. A land title is obtained by doing enough quest.

After capturing a city you have a few options.





You can produce an heir if you have a spouse and spend 100,000 coins from your kingdom treasury for each. You have have up to 5 heirs. Each heir has to grow up and you can take and relinquish control of them and play as them. They can't really do much until they are adults though.







You can hire workers or defenders.











You can also build a railroad.
NPCs won't work for you without a railroad. A railroad requires water to power the steam train. So get some water towers and lay them around the track. You also need to set up a train with some cars. The only way to get work from your NPCs is by setting up a railroad. Set NPCS behind the loaders for specific task and they will magically provide resources over time. They will produce resources faster if they are closer to a donation box. You can look at any city to figure it out or you could also set your account to admin and go to the admin castle to get the best example I could find.

In towns, there is usually a bar with bottles on the tables. These bottles can be used to become drunken so you can brawl in the bar. When drunk, you can box other patrons and it is a lot of fun with little risk.

These are my skill rankings but depending on your desire to roleplay or enjoy various aspects of the game, by no means does it mean the skills are worthless on the lower tiers.
If you think I should put more details into why I have these rankings then let me know.

At least one of these skills are pretty much required depending on your character objectives.

STR
BERSERKER: 5/5
WEAPON-MASTER: 5/5

DEX
SWORD-MASTER:5/5
ROGUE:5/5

INT
WIZARDRY: 5/5
SORCERY: 5/5

FAITH
HEALING: 5/5
MONK OF TYR: 5/5

These skills are above average but not insane.

DEX
ARCHERY:4/5
TRAPPING: 4/5
ASSASSINATION:4/5


INT
NECROMANCY: 4/5
WARDING: 4/5
SUMMONING: 4/5
PSION: 4/5

FAITH
BLESSER OF JUNO:4/5
DRAGON WORSHIPPER:4/5
PRIOR OF THE TEMPLE: 4/5
RHYMING:4/5

All of these are pretty good, they have different focuses but nothing special.

STR
SWORD:3/5
HAMMER:3/5
AXE: 3/5
TWO-HANDED SWORD: 3/5
TWO-HANDED HAMMER: 3/5
TWO-HANDED AXE: 3/5
POLE WEAPONS: 3/5
PARRYING:3/5

DEX
DAGGER:3/5
EVASION: 3/5
STAFF: 3/5
SCOUTING:3/5

CON
BLOCKING:3/5

INT
EARTH ELEMENTALIST: 3/5
FIRE ELEMENTALIST: 3/5
COLD ELEMENTALIST: 3/5
LIGHTNING ELEMENTALIST: 3/5
BATTLE MAGIC: 3/5
ALCHEMY:3/5

FAITH
PRIEST OF THE ALL-FATHER ODIN: 3/5
SLAVE OF ARES-SET:3/5
SHAMAN OF FENRIR:3/5
FOLLOWER OF THE TITANS: 3/5

This can be good but are mostly not very useful.
STR
BLACKSMITHING: 2/5

DEX
UNARMED:2/5

INT
GEMCUTTING: 2/5

FAITH
EXORCISM: 2/5
DRUID OF MOTHER LEMETER: 2/5

These skills are mostly covered through other means in game but can be useful in the right circumstances.

STR
MEDIUM ARMOR:1/5

DEX
FLETCHING:1/5
TAILORING:1/5
LIGHT ARMOR: 1/5

CON
ATHLETICS:1/5
HEAVY ARMOR: 1/5

INT
CONJURING:1/5

FAITH
CURSER OF BAAL: 1/5

Here is a link to the darkdire website for skills in case you missed it earlier:
Darkdire skills list[www.darkdire.com]

So after extensive testing of the game I figured I'd provide some explanations about what I think makes a good build as well as a way to understand what makes it good.

First and foremost, you don't want to spread yourself too thin stat-wise. You can pretty easily max out 2 stats but the cost becomes exponential. Higher rank enemies give way more money and experience but your core build should only really use 2 primary stats. You can only have 6 marks so this ensures you can properly apply powerful marks to yourself and not be spread thin there either.

Second, you want your build to be balanced and able to survive harder areas and monsters as well as damage them. This means damage skills as well as defensive skills.

Third, You want to actually be able to fulfill your fantasy role as the class rather than some boring thing that has no versatility.

Fourth, the only armor related skill worth taking is battle magic imo due to low con of mage type characters. Evasion, Parrying, and Blocking are more effective and offer more synergy with builds. Intelligence doesn't have an equivalent

Fifth, you want something that will scale with your skill level for your primary stat. Direct damage abilities are a great part of this.

Lastly, I'm operating under the assumption that buffs are always better than debuffs. The reason for this is you often fight hordes of guys, debuffing one guy seems like a waste of resources when you can buff yourself for 30 minutes and kill countless enemies in that time period. As such, to me, most single weapon skills are not worth it.

Below are some mostly straightforward builds that I've tested that I very much enjoyed.

Sample build for faith based healing warrior type:
Healing
Blocking
Blesser of Juno
Monk of Tyr(can be replaced with Priest of All Father Odin for a holy caster instead of a warrior type)

The reason this is good is that you can buff your chance to hit, buff your damage, and buff your stats, buff your health regen, buff your stamina regen. You can buff and heal your friends and yourself and it only uses faith and constitution. You will be able to do everything combat and support related fairly well. The biggest downside is that this character doesn't have some of the crazy fun abilities of some of the other classes.

Sample build for a int based wizard
Wizardry(Can substitute for Sorcery for different casting implement or any elemental mage for a more limited damage dealing type)
Warding
Summoning(can substitute for necromancy for some debuffs and evil meatshields)
Battle magic

The reason this is good is that the wizardry adds tons of versatility to damage with magic words and enables magic word scribeing which can be used on weapons of friends as well as provides intelligence buffs and magic regen skiills. Wizardry with magic words starts off pretty weak but can overpower armies later on. Its absolutely necessary if you want a super versatile intelligence based class. Warding has very powerful stuns, knockbacks, snares and fear spells. These also open up the control domain for use with wizardry which allows you to pretty effectively disable large groups. Summoning allows really powerful summons that function as an expendable ally that can really turn the tide of battle. Battle magic allows you to buff your defenses to ensure you don't get one shot and can get your starter spells off to disable the enemies.

Sample dex rogue build
Rogue
Sword-Master(can swap with assassination for damage and poison as attack buffs aren't really needed)
Evasion
Trapping(can substitute for Scouting for extra speed)

The reason this is good is because your high dex means you will not miss often so all you really need is damage stance and swordmaster. Rogue is more for utility but the backstab ability can add tons of damage. Evasion is great for adding additional survivability as well as buffing your primary stat(dexterity). Trapping is good because as a rogue you really have a tremendous opportunity to set up encounters as it really takes a lot to discover a high level rogue so you can set up traps to make it a nightmare for enemies.

Lastly, I just want to say that if you are interested, you can bring crafting into your build pretty fluidly. Even though overall the skills are less useful for direct combat overall and can be harder to bring into a build, the fact that they have the benefit of giving you flexibility to craft for your and your allies can be huge for your overall strength.

Blacksmithing can buff strength so if your build is missing a strength buff then you can add the skill to it to increase your damage. It can also be paired with fire elementalist for a strength and intelligence build due to the fire expose.

Tailoring: can buff dex so if your build is missing a dex buff then you can add the skill to it to increase your damage. It can also be paired with cold elementalist for a dexterity and intelligence build due to the cold expose.

Fletching: can buff dex so if your build is missing a dex buff then you can add the skill to it to increase your damage. If I took this... I probably would skip archery though as some of the skills are redundant.

Alchemy is great for any of the elemental casters as it provides an intelligence buff as well as magic expose skills.

Gemcutting: Another one that can buff intelligence. It gives you some crushing expose which can be used with earth elemental magic to great effect. Could also be used to supplement a character using blunt weapons. Works particularly well with staff given its lack of crush expose.