My character, the Wood-Elf thief/assassin/hunter (let’s just call him a “rogue”) Roland

Skyrim is a massive RPG that allows you to make pretty much any character you want. While this is an awesome feature, it can also be quite a lot for the average gamer. Since there are no classes to choose from, the player is forced to build their character  from scratch without any guidelines, and with so many skills and play choices to choose from the novice player can quickly become overwhelmed. That’s where this guide comes in: I knew what I wanted from my Skyrim character and through over sixty hours of character development (plus hundreds of hours of playtime logged into Oblivion) I believe I have the information you need to make an unstoppable rogue character. The rogue is also the build you will want if you have dreams of being a sneaky thief or deadly assassin as well.

Race: Of the eight races available in Skyrim I would recommend a few as being built for the rogue class. The following three races have initial skills or abilities that are beneficial to a rogue:

• Wood-Elf/Bosmer: The Wood-Elf receives a +10 to archery as well as +5 to alchemy, light armor, lockpicking, pickpocket and sneak. Wood-Elves also have a 50% resistance to poison and disease (meaning there’s a 50% chance you won’t catch a disease or be affected by poison). The Wood-Elf is my personal choice because this rogue build is heavy on archery and sneaking, and not having to worry about diseases is always a nice perk.
• Argonian: Another great rogue choice with a +10 to lockpicking and +5 to alteration, light armor, pickpocket, restoration and sneak. Argonians also have a 50% resistance to disease and also have waterbreathing, meaning you will be able to hide in a body of water to avoid enemies that are chasing you.
• Khajit: These felines receive a +10 to sneak as well as +5 to alchemy, archery, lockpicking, pickpocket and one-handed. The really neat thing about the Khajit is that they have night vision which allows them to see easily at night (which just so happens to be the best time to sneak.)

Experience/ XP: The next thing I want to explain is how XP works in Skyrim. This is not your traditional RPG where you receive XP for completing quests. Heck, it’s not even like Fallout (Bethesda’s other epic franchise) where you receive XP for killing enemies and finding new locations. There are technically two types of leveling in Skyrim. The first is leveling skills. As the level of a skill increases, be it sneak or light armor, your character’s general level will increase. For example, let’s say your character is at level four and your one-handed skill is at level eight. You are currently fighting a bandit and using a one-handed sword. Each hit you register on the bandit will increase the one-handed weapon skill (that’s right, you gain XP for each hit, not each kill), and after three more hits you max out the bar. The one-handed weapon skill will increase to level nine and your character’s current level bar will increase a little bit as well. Once you increase enough of these skill bars you will gain enough XP to increase your character’s overall level. There are several ways to increase these skills:

• Use: Pretty straightforward, just as I explained it right there. As you use a skill you will get better at it. The more hits you take increase your light armor, the more you sneak around undetected raises your sneak skill, and the more potions you make increase your alchemy.
• Skill Book: There are tons of books scattered around Skyrim, and reading one is as simple as walking up to it and picking it up. Some of these books are skill books and picking them up will actually raise the level of a particular skill. How do you tell the difference between a skill book and a crummy ol’ normal book? Look at the value; if a book has a value of 20gold or more, pick it up. It might be a skill book that will increase a stat (usually associated with the title) or it might be a map book that adds a new location to the map. Just remember, if it’s worth 20 or more it’s worth picking it up to see what it is.
• Training: You can also find NPCs throughout the game who will train you in a particular skill, though it will cost you some gold (10x the skill level up to skill level 50, and then 20x the skill level up to 90.)  A few things about trainers to remember:
• The max they can train a skill is to level 90.
• When you train in a skill, you don’t get XP to raise the skill, you simply gain just enough XP to level up the skill. Since this is the case it is better to train in a skill shortly after raising that skill manually, as you will be getting a bigger bang for your buck.
• It is harder to raise a skill manually at higher levels, so I would hold off on training with the best trainers (masters) until that skill level is somewhere between 80-85 (remember, they can’t train above 90, so 85 is probably the best time to go to them.)

• Sneak: This is your biggest skill to work on. Sneaking enables you to move about quietly and undetected, allowing you to strike your opponent quickly with devastating sneak attacks. Sneaking is also easy to level up, all you have to do is keep sneaking at all times. Sure, you will walk around a little slower, but it will result in quick leveling of the sneak skill that grant some pretty insane perks. I recommend that you max the sneak skill out all the way, so you will want to invest in all the perks along the way, but these are the really important ones:
• Stealth: The basic sneak skill, it simply increases the likelihood of you sneaking around undetected
• Muffled Movement: Your armor is less likely to make noise
• Backstab and Assassin’s Blade: These two are going to be a must-have for any rogue. Backstab increases the sneak attack damage with a blade by 3X, while Assassin’s Blade increases it by a whopping 15X! With a dagger or one-handed sword in hand you will be able to sneak up on virtually any enemy (including giants and trolls) and kill them with just one stab of your sword. Oh, and in case you didn’t know, to perform a sneak attack simply sneak up close enough behind an enemy and then hold down the attack button
• Deadly Aim: Your most important perk as a rogue as it deals 3X damage to arrow attacks while in sneak mode. This build focuses on archery as the main form of combat and you will be able to take out most enemies with just one arrow from a distance.
• Silence: Makes you virtually undetectable whether your walking or running

Spend your skill points on perks to make your character even stronger, or sneakier

• Archery: The rogue is based on moving about silently and unseen, so what better way to dispatch your enemies than with an arrow to the back? Archery will be the rogue’s best friend as you will eventually be able to kill enemies with just one arrow while never being seen. The biggest thing to worry about is that you always have plenty of arrows on you, though they don’t cost too much and they don’t contribute to your equipment weight, so feel free to carry as many as you want. Here are the perks that are really important to archery:
• Overdraw: For every point you put into this perk, your bows will do 20% more damage. Maxing this out with five points will give your bows 100% more damage to foes. You’ll definitely want to upgrade this perk as often as you can to get the best attack bonuses
• Eagle Eye: A pretty neat perk that allows you to zoom in on enemies from afar (much like using a scope)
• Steady Hand: When you zoom in with Eagle Eye, this perk will also slow down time, making it easier to hit moving targets
• Quick Shot: Let’s you draw back the bow 30% faster, allowing you to attack quicker
• Critical Shot: Increases the chances of scoring a critical hit
• Light Armor: As sneaky and stealthy as you may try to be, there will always be times when enemies get the close enough to you to start doing damage. You’ll want to use light armor simply because it’s quieter and let’s you move faster. Sure, heavy armor offers more protection but you won’t be able to sneak up on anyone while clanking around in metal armor. Here are some of the perks I recommend for light armor:
• Agile Defender: Each point you put into this perk increases your light armor defense by 20% (max of 100%). Since light armor doesn’t offer as much protection as heavy armor you will want to use this perk to increase the effectiveness of your armor
• Custom Fit: You will be granted an additional armor bonus if you’re covered in all light armor, which means a helmet, gloves, clothes and boots
• Matching Set: You receive another armor bonus for wearing a matched set of armor (you will be getting plenty of these through working with the Thieve’s Guild and Brotherhood of Darkness, which will be discussed further down)
• Wind Walker: With this perk your stamina regenerates 50% faster as long as you are wear all light armor. Stamina is quite important for the rogue, particularly when using the Eagle Eye perk, so this will help you fire off more zoomed-in shots
• Lockpicking: You will naturally improve this skill as you open locked chests and doors, but I wouldn’t recommend spending any skill points on improving it. The lockpicking mini game is fairly easy to get used to and you shouldn’t have too much trouble opening locks. Also, there are more than enough lockpicks available for purchase in Skyrim so you will soon find yourself having 400+ in your inventory
• Pickpocket: You will also be doing plenty of pickpocketing, whether it’s for a quest or just to feed your own greedy need. One thing I want to say about pickpocketing is that you will only get experience for doing one item at a time. So sneak behind someone, activate the pickpocket attempt, and select an item to steal. If it’s successful then leave the menu and immediately initiate a new pickpocket attempt. This way each successful attempt will count as one pickpocket and you will get a heck of a lot more experience. I also recommend doing a quick save before attempting to rob someone so that if it fails you can quickly reload to that point and try again.  Pickpocketing is a bit tougher than picking locks so I do recommend activating a few perks if you ever have spare skill points:
• Light Fingers: Each point you put into this perk increases the odds of a successful pickpocket attempt
• Night Thief: Increases the likelihood that you will pickpocket someone who is sleeping
• Extra Pockets: You can carry 100 pounds more of items and equipment

Quests: As a rogue you should really look into working your way through the Thieve’s Guild and Brotherhood of Darkness questlines. You can start the Thieve’s Guild quests in Riften (southeast corner of the map) and the Brotherhood of Darkness quests by heading to Windhelm (northeast of Whitetun). Here’s what you’ll get for working with them:

• Special items and armor: Completing quests for either faction will get you some pretty nice armor sets. Not only will these give you better armor protection than the generic light armor you will find, but they often give stat bonuses such as additional archery damage or better pickpocket chances

Receiving equipment from factions will boost your skills even more

• Experience: While you don’t get XP for completing quests, you will be doing plenty of sneaking, lockpicking and pickpocketing during these missions which will help you level up those skills and your character
• Gold: Both the Thieve’s Guild and Brotherhood of Darkness will pay you well for succeeding in your missions. I will say that the Brotherhood will pay more for a successful assassination than the Thieve’s Guild will pay for a successful heist

Combat: The most important thing you can do as a rogue is stick to the shadows and remain undiscovered. You want to make sure that all your attacks are sneak attacks, since they will do more damage (done by holding down the attack button.) I highly recommend sticking with archery as with a great bow and some perks you will be able to take out enemies fairly quickly. Feel free to whip out a one-handed weapon like a dagger if you want to get up close and personal to your enemies.

You will also get some sweet weapons from completing faction quests

And don’t worry…this rogue build will be able to survive against tough enemies. Eventually you will be strong enough to fell a giant with two sneak attack arrows, and a dragon can be defeated with about eight arrows (but good luck sneaking up on one.) Just make sure you have plenty of potions handy in case things get hairy.

General Tips: Here are some general tips that will help you early on in the game

• Guardian Stones: After completing the prologue and you are able to venture off on your own, follow the man south. He will lead you to the Guardian Stones which contain the Warrior, Mage and Thief Stones. Activating one of these will net you 20% XP when performing a skill under that category. Naturally you will want to select the Thief Stone as it gives you 20% more XP to sneak, lockpicking, pickpocketing, speech (generally upgrades through buying and selling items), alchemy(making potions) and light armor. However, once you happen across the Lover Stone I would recommend activating that, since it gives you 15% more XP to all skills.
• Buy a House: The first main town you will run across is Whiterun and I highly recommend you save up 5,000 gold as quickly as possible to purchase a house there. Having a house gives you a safe place to store all your loot and the house in Whiterun also comes with a Alchemy Station so you will be able to make potions in the comfort of your own home. Just remember that you cannot store items in a container that doesn’t belong to you, so I would consider purchasing a house one of your top priorities.
• Leveling Up: You will not reach high levels by only leveling up the stealthy skills and archery. A great way to earn extra XP is to develop your crafting skills, which are enchanting, smithing and alchemy. Plus after you make weapons or potions (thus raising the appropriate skills) you can then sell those items, which in turn raises your speech skill.
• When your character levels up you can place a stat point into either magicka, health or stamina. Don’t waste any points on magicka as this rogue build completely ignores casting spells. Health raises your maximum HP, and this is important seeing how you will take more damage wearing light armor as opposed to heavy armor. Stamina is probably a bit more important. Stamina is used up when you use the Eagle Eye (zoom in) perk, and you will use it a lot as you track your target, waiting for the right moment to loose your arrow. Also, stamina determines how much loot you can carry, and you will be carrying quite a bit since the rogue tends to have sticky fingers.
• Potions: The biggest downside to the rogue build is vulnerability. Without the heavy armor of a warrior or the healing spells of a mage, the rogue needs to rely on health potions. I recommend buying them whenever you can and carrying at least forty at a time. Don’t feel proud about using them…sometimes you get caught sneaking and you will have to face off against four or more enemies at once.
• Explore: Skyrim is a massive world and there are seemingly countless things to do and see while exploring it. Don’t let this guide hold you back from experimenting here and there. If you want to go to the Bard’s College rather than the Brotherhood, do it! If you want to be a stealthy mage and ignore archery, go for it! There are so many things to do that I doubt you will see everything there is within one playthrough. Just take your time and enjoy the game.

So that’s my character build for a rogue character in Skyrim. I hope it helps guide you to creating a character that can hold their own in such an expansive world.

If you have any questions, comments or want to submit your own tip (or you think one of mine doesn’t make sense) leave a comment.

I’ve done a few character builds for Sacred 2, and I enjoyed sharing my thoughts on creating a strategic character who was well-built and used all of their skill points to the maximum advantage. While Dungeon Hunter: Alliance is nowhere near as complex as Sacred 2, there are still a lot of skills to choose from for each class. Granted, if you play to max out your character at level 75 you will have most of the skills by default, but this is a guide for someone who does not want to put as much time into their warrior, and won’t play past a single playthrough.

The Basics:

First off, some general info on the warrior. I think the warrior is best suited as a tank. Sure, he has some buff skills, but if you’re playing in co-op, it’s best to save the buffs for the mage, and let the warrior get down and dirty in the front lines. Unfortunately, it takes time for the warrior to become a “tank”, in that he can run to the front lines and hack up enemies while absorbing little damage. It took until about level 25, when I was getting decent armor stats on equipment, had a lot of attribute points in endurance, and had the Hardiness (increases your armor stat) skill maxed out. The good news is that it is ridiculously easy (and affordable) to reset your characters skills and attributes, so doing so every few levels, after some good skills have been unlocked, will be key.

For a warrior/tank build, I would recommend sticking to axes and maces for your weapons. In the game, you need strength and dexterity in order to wield a sword, while strength is the only requirement for wielding a blunt weapon. Since you want to build up a good tank character, you need to put as many attribute points into endurance as possible, since that directly affects your armor and HP. Even though you’re a warrior, you don’t need to put too many attribute points into strength…as long as you can wield the most powerful blunt weapon you have, that’s all the strength you need.

The next question is whether to use a one-handed weapon with a shield or a two-handed weapon. If you wanted to be a crazy beserker class you would go for the two-handed weapon, but for a tank you want the one-handed with the shield for two reasons. First, the shield adds to your armor, your block percent, and can also add up to four different magical effects. When used in conjunction with a single-handed weapon, you can get up to eight magical effects active at once, as opposed to a max of four with a two-handed weapon. The other reason you want to go for the shield is because of the Heavy Lifter skill. Once you get this skill maxed out to level five, you will be able to wield a two-handed weapon in one hand while carrying a shield in the other. Then you will get that bigger attack value but still have the free hand for the shield.

Then there’s the fairies. Each fairy has their own attack and side-effect, and they are all very useful. The best fairy for a warrior/tank would be Sylph, the Air Fairy you obtain at the end of chapter three. Her attack not only damages opponents but the wind also knocks them back, and this knock back effect is the reason you want to use Sylph. Being a tank, you will be swarmed with enemies constantly. Nothing is more satisfying than activating the Wind Fairy and sending everyone flying across the screen. It will also give you some breathing room and you can head to one section of enemies and finish them off before the rest of the monsters regroup and converge on you.

Active Skills:

The awesome thing about Sacred 2 was that you could have up to twelve skills (called combat arts in the world of Sacred) mapped to the controller at once, meaning you could really have a lot of choices available. Unfortunately, one of the biggest drawbacks to Dungeon Hunter: Alliance is that you can only have up to three skills mapped to the controller. There are quite a few active skills to choose from, but the three I recommend are Crushing Blow, Crippling Strike, and Charge. Crushing Blow has two uses, and you will find yourself using it the most of the skills. First off, it is an area-attack, meaning it affects multiple enemies that are nearby you. Secondly, not only does it do damage, but it also gives a chance to stun enemies…up to an 80% chance once it’s fully upgraded. It’s a very useful skill to have when on the front lines and you want to stun some enemies for a little bit while you take on the ones who are not stunned.

Crippling Strike is another important skill for the warrior. Sure, it costs MP as well as up to 5% of your health, but that’s nothing once your HP regeneration is rolling. This skill provides three heavy attacks in a row, and is a must-have for taking on bosses and sub-bosses. Initially I thought it would only target one enemy per attack, but if you use it against weaker enemies and kill one, other enemies will be immediately targeted for the remaining attacks. The best part is that you don’t even need to have it maxed out to make it worthwhile. I completed the game on the default difficulty only having Crippling Strike raised to level two and did just fine.

The third skill I chose to use was Charge. It isn’t necessarily powerful, but it acts as a dash attack of sorts. The warrior will charge forward and knock back enemies. It’s useful in several instances. For example, if you’re being swarmed and want to get away to catch your breath, using Charge will allow you to breach through the enemies. Also, Charge is great for targeting a particular enemy who may be a little bit off. This works great for archers, who tend to run away from you quite often, making them difficult to attack. Also, the powerful mage enemies can pose quite a threat to the warrior, so you will want to Charge into them as soon as you can in order to take them out quickly and minimize the damage you will receive from them. Remember, while you will be resilient to physical damage, magical attacks will take a toll on your health if you’re not careful.

Passive Skills:

While you can only have up to three active skills mapped to the controller, you can have an unlimited number of passive skills going at all times. When I first started playing the game, I was intent at getting my active skills maxed out so that they would be dealing out the most damage possible. But as I got further into the game, I realized that the passive skills were far more valuable, so I ended up resetting my warrior’s skills several times to make the most out of the passive skills I had available. The one thing to remember is that there are “tiers” for the skills, and different skills unlock at different levels. The biggest issue I came across is when I hit tier five at level sixteen, as two important passive skills became available: Hardiness and Heavy Lifter. What I ended up doing was I put a skill point towards Hardiness until I reached level twenty, and then I reset my skills to max out both Hardiness and Heavy Lifter. That being said, here are the important passive skills to concentrate on as soon as possible:

Hardiness is one of the most important skills for the warrior. Since you will be on the front lines, you want to have as much defensive power as possible, and Hardiness helps you do that. Each upgrade adds twenty points to your armor value, up to one hundred armor after it’s maxed out. Early in the game your warrior will be taking a lot of damage and will be swigging potions constantly, but by the time you max out Hardiness when you hit level twenty, you will find that things get much easier and you will be using a lot less potions.

Heavy Lifter is another important skill to upgrade. At first it may seem unimportant, as it only decreases the strength requirement for using weapons. Once the skill is maxed out, you will not only see a smaller strength requirement to wield weapons, but you will also be able to use a tw0-handed weapon in one hand. Prior to getting this skill, I stuck to just one-handed weapons and a shield. What Heavy Lifter does is allow you to equip a two-handed weapon in one hand, meaning that you will be able to use the stronger weapons along with the shield now. This skill is a must-have for the warrior, but I wouldn’t gradually upgrade it…just wait until you hit level twenty, then reset and apply all five skill points to it at once.

Weapon Specialist is also going to be an important skill to upgrade. Since you will be putting a lot of skill points towards your passive skills, your active skills will not be as powerful. You will find yourself using melee combat most often, and Weapon Specialist gives permanent damage modifiers to your swords, axes, and maces. So whether you are using a one-handed sword or a two-handed axe, this skill will make sure you dish out even more damage.

As I’ve mentioned already, the warrior will go through a lot of potions, particularly early in the game before the armor rating begins to become effective. Thus it only makes sense that you will want to upgrade the Large Pouch skill. Large Pouch just upgrades the max potions you can carry by three for each skill point you allocate to it. Remember that potions not only restore all your health but also your energy, so if you’re in a tight spot and need to spam one of the active skills a lot, there’s no shame in using a potion to restore your mana, even if your health is pretty high.

As a tank, you will be taking a lot of damage. The Fast Metabolism skill increases your HP regeneration rate, so you will be recovering more HP per second the more you upgrade this skill. When you combine Fast Metabolism with weapons and armors that also increase HP recovery, you will find yourself having a lot more health during battle.

Vengeful Aura isn’t a skill that is necessary for the warrior, but seeing how you will be receiving a lot of damage it can be nifty. Once you put the first skill point into Vengeful Aura, it creates a small chance that the damage dealt to you will be reflected back at the opponent. Mind you, the warrior still takes the full damage, but the attacker receives the same amount of damage as well. It’s great to see archers fall dead without you ever touching them as they slowly succumb to Vengeful Aura while you take on the melee enemies.

Blood Rage is another passive skill that isn’t totally necessary, but can come in handy when in battle. Once you kill an enemy, you will receive a slight increase to your attack and speed for four seconds. Every time you kill an enemy the timer will reset to four seconds. This comes in handy when you are fighting a large group of enemies (which happens often) as it ends up being a permanent boost to strength and speed for the remainder of the battle.

The last passive skill I put some points towards was Leadership. It grants you (and your co-op buddies) a very small increase in XP when you receive it. Secondly, it also grants you a small discount on goods from vendors. In the end, the fact that the increases are so small makes the skill not worth it too much, but it could help you level up a tiny bit faster than normal.

Speaking of co-op buddies, I would make one change to this build when playing online. Instead of putting points towards Charge, get either the active skill Invigorating Aura or Battle Standard. Invigorating Aura will give all plays a boost to speed and MP regeneration while Battle Standard will boost everyone’s attack, armor, and HP regeneration. When playing a single player game, the ability to use Charge to either get out of a nasty situation or reach a distant enemy is a huge benefit. However, when playing online it is safe to toss Charge in favor of a skill that will help out the entire team. It will be more beneficial for your partners to get stat boosts, as they will then be more helpful to you than the Charge skill.

Play Style Strategies:

• When choosing weapons and armor, don’t always look at just the offensive/defensive value. Take note of the magical effects each weapon has. A weapon that give +2 to all attributes will be much better than a weapon that does ten-twenty more damage per hit. Also, with the warrior try to choose weapons and armors that give the following boosts: endurance, strength, +x all attributes, knock back, stun, additional fire damage
• When leveling up, try to put as many attributes points into endurance as possible. Do not put anything into dexterity or energy. Only upgrade strength in order to wield the most powerful weapon you own.
• Don’t be afraid to reset your skills. As you level up you will unlock more powerful skills, and there’s no shame in removing points from the weaker skills to put those points into the new ones.
• They key to winning boss battles is to spam the Crippling Strike active skill. Just run up to the boss and keep hitting the button to activate the skill. Keep an eye on your health and whenever it gets low swig a potion and keep it up. You should be able to defeat most bosses with five or less potions using this strategy. It may not be the most fun in the world, but it gets the job done.
• Do not buy weapons or armors early in the game. You will need every gold coin you find to purchase more potions. Also, there’s no point in purchasing a new weapon or armor as you will likely find one of equal or greater value soon enough.

The Warrior is definitely the easiest character to use when playing single player. Once you have skills like Hardiness and Heavy Lifter fully upgraded, you will be doing a heck of a lot of damage…and look good doing it. Eventually enemies attacks will have little affect on you and your warrior will be able to take his time hacking up every last goblin or slime that comes his way without having to fear death.

If you have any questions about this build, or want to add any of your own warrior strategies, leave a comment down below.

Anyone who truly knows that my favorite genre of game is not FPS or wrestling or even RPGs…it’s the good ol’ genre of hack-and-slash dungeon crawlers! Nothing is better than sitting down, choosing a class, and then spending fifty or more hours grinding that character by killing endless streams of monsters over and over again while searching for more xp and loot. The PS2 had quite a few excellent games in this genre, but the PS3 has been relatively lacking…the best being Sacred 2. Then along came Dungeon Hunter: Alliance; a PSN-exclusive that really scratched my itch for a genre that has been severely under-represented in this generation of home consoles.

There is a basic story in the game. You play as a dead king who is resurrected by a fairy, who needs your help to stop your wife (the queen) from resurrecting a dark fairy who will destroy the world. There are three classes to choose from; warrior, rogue, and mage. As with most dungeon crawlers, each class depends on different stats (ex- warrior uses strength, rogue uses dexterity) and combat skills to take on the forces of evil. There are twelve acts, each one made up of a couple of different dungeons/maps that offer their own enemy type. While the lack of class choice is a tad disappointing (I compare most hack-and-slash dungeon crawlers to Champions of Norrath: Return to Arms), it works just fine for a $9 PSN title (the PS+ price, of course.)

The controls of the game are very basic and simple. The X button is your melee attack, and you can have weapons assigned to two different weapon sets (pressing R2 swaps between them). For example, my thief has weapon set 1 as dual-wielding daggers and weapon set 2 is a bow. L2 is used to summon some magical fairy assistance, and L1 can be used to quickly quaff a potion, which fully replenishes both your health and magic. Then you can assign your combat skills to the other three face buttons. Sadly, that is the maximum number of active skills you can have assigned at once, which is a huge disappointment seeing how each character has at least ten active skills available to learn. Luckily there is a vendor who will reset all your skill and attribute points (for a price) so if you later decide you no longer want to use one of the skills you learned earlier, you can have those points reassigned to another skill. Another disappointment is the lack of camera control, as you rotate the screen or zoom in/out.

The limited controls are not the only criticism this game deserves. The auto-targeting is not spot on, and you will usually have to make one wild attack before your character will directly target the nearest enemy. Ditto goes for attacking barrels to uncover loot…for whatever reason the character has a problem hitting a barrel even when standing directly in front of it and hitting it. Luckily, once you get that initial attack off the character will stay on target, so there is no need to worry about having this problem when facing a horde of oncoming foes. The online play is also not the greatest around, but I will cover that later on.

Let’s spend some time with the classes. The first class I checked out was the rogue, and I’ve been enjoying it. The rogue relies on dexterity and speed, so dual wield and archery come naturally to him. He also has some awesome skills, including a remote-detonated land mine, an arrow volley (fires up to seven arrows at once in a wide arc), and the ability to find extra gold and magical items. Despite his lack of all-out strength, his speed and ability to use the bow definitely make him a force to be reckoned with, whether he’s flying solo or questing in a group.

I also spent a little time with the warrior, and was surprised to find that he is not only a melee fighter but also a major support class. Spending attributes on strength and endurance turn the warrior into your typical tank, allowing him to plow into the front lines and just hack away. He also has some devastating active combat skills that do extra damage when used. The big surprise came when I saw some of his other skills, including one that increases the xp gained for the entire party and another one that increases the health, attack and defense of all players. The warrior does indeed seem to be an awesome addition to an online party, and I can really see the benefits of having two warriors in a four-player game.

I just checked out the mage for the sake of the review, just to see what he could do. I typically don’t like mage classes, and only use them when playing with friends online who prefer to be non-mages as well, since the mage class is typically weak when playing solo. This was most definitely the case, as I died several times within the first two acts. This is due to two reasons. First off, the mage is weaker than other characters, since his armor and weapon (staff) are not as powerful. Another downside to the mage is that for whatever reason, he actually carries LESS potions than the other two classes. Both the soldier and rogue class have a passive skill that increases the max potions they can carry by +3 for each level that skill is upgraded. The mage has a different passive skill called alchemy, and it only gives him +2 potions per level. Does that make any sense? Shouldn’t a mage with a skill called ALCHEMY be able to carry at least the same number of, if not more, potions than the other classes?

Anyway, the mage had a decent selection of offensive and support magic. He has the typical fire, ice, and lightning attacks, but some do other things as well. First thing to note is that many of the mage’s active skills can become more powerful by holding down the button the spell is mapped to. For example, he has a sweet ice beam spell that damages and slows down enemies, and by holding the button down you can spin him around 360degrees and hit all the enemies on the screen with it. As for support magic, he has spells that heal the entire party and also replenish the magic for the entire party, which is a great buff to have going in a co-op game. Of course, the big problem is that you can only have three spells mapped to the controller at one time, so it’s difficult to be a mage that is both offensive and support…you pretty much have to choose between the two, which is based on what you decide to map. As for me, when I bring my mage online (once PSN is restored) I’ll probably be more support, so I’ll have the health spell and magic spell mapped, along with the ice beam. I think that is a good combination of spells to help your team stay alive and let them do most of the damage.

As I have been hinting at, one of the other great features of the game is the ability to play with up to three other players either online or locally. Of course, it would help if the PSN was up and running so I could actually play the game online, but sadly I purchased the game the day before PSN went offline, so I haven’t been able to get an online game going yet. Judging from what the folks over at co-optimus say this is what is to be expected from the game’s online features:

• Game appears to be lag-free online and the voice chat quality is superb.
• There is an issue joining a game. When you accept an invite, apparently you need to spam the x button because the game gives you very limited time to accept an invitation, select a character, and join a game. Hopefully this will be fixed with an update eventually.
• There is also an issue with an online save overwriting the save data of an offline save, so if you use the same character both online and off, you may lose progress.

So there appear to be a few minor bugs with the online, but nothing that truly breaks the game. I think that with a well-produced patch they can fix these few problems and make the online experience a whole lot better. Just a reminder, the above thoughts on the online play is what I have heard from a group of people that I play with online, so I do respect their opinions. This is not what I am saying I experienced from my own personal experiences. I will probably update this post and also make a separate post with my own opinions of the online experience once PSN is back in action.

Dungeon Hunter: Alliance is the closest game to Champions of Norrath on the PS3 today. It may lack depth and visual graphics, but the gameplay is a solid A++ in the category of hack-and-slash dungeon crawler. There is some limited class customization as you can choose to be more of an offensive or support character, and there are a ton of different gear to find and choose from. For the approximately $10 it costs PS+ users, it is probably going to prove to be one of the best PSN games out there as far as value goes. The fact that you get a hack-and-slash RPG that maxes classes out at level 75 for only $10 means you will be spending hours and hours and hours on the game, just as I plan to.

Once PSN is back, if you want to ever jump in for a couple of hours of questing, hit me up on PSN…BigBadBob113.

If anyone knows my gaming habits, they know I’m a sucker for the hack-and-slash/dungeon-crawler/RPG genre. Ever since getting the PS3 I’ve been itching for something that equaled the awesomeness of Champions of Norrath and Baldurs Gate on the PS2, but that has been a challenge. The closest game was Sacred 2, which is incredibly under-rated in my opinion, but I do acknowledge the limitations it had. There were a few other games that tried to squeeze into the genre, but just didn’t cut the mustard (Untold Legends didn’t have online voice chat and was otherwise mediocre, and the Marvel Ultimate Alliance series just didn’t have as much replay value as I would have liked.)

Then I started hearing about Dungeon Hunter: Alliance; a PSN-exclusive that enables up to four players to raid some dungeons. Being a PSN title, I was initially skeptical for the replay value, particularly in the number of maps and the max level. After reading co-optimus’ review on the game, my worries were tossed aside as there are over twelve levels and the character level cap is set to 75. So I jumped on the PSN and put my birthday money to good use, and had some time to check the game out.

A full-on review will definitely be up-coming, but I just wanted to give you the basics. You choose from three characters: a warrior, rouge, or mage. The X button is your main attack, and since this is a dungeon crawler, it’s a button masher for sure! Each character also has a ton of skills that you can use points to unlock or upgrade…I’d say there were at least thirty (I’m not exactly sure because I didn’t count exactly.) I played as a rogue, so I’ll use him as an example. Some skills were passive, such as running faster and being able to carry more potions (the default maximum is ten.) Then there are combat skills which can be assigned to a face button. My favorite so far was a “remote mine”, which is a rune that you throw on the floor, and then push the button again to detonate it. There were also some two-handed special attacks (like a dash and an area attack), the ability to turn invisible (and thus score a critical hit on your next attack) and also some special arrow/dart attacks.

The game seems to be in every way a great dungeon crawler…different classes (each with many unique skills), large maps to explore, tons of goblins and other enemies to kill, lots of loot to collect, and the ability to play with up to three other friends. I haven’t checked out the co-op yet, but hope to soon, especially since many of my friends seem to have purchased the game as well. Like I said, I’ll have a full review eventually, but for right now I think it’s safe to say that if you’re a hack-and-slash/dungeon-crawling nut like me, you will not be disappointed.

Now that Ive put more time into it, Im really getting into it. I have finally figured out how to use abilities. As I mentioned, it is a complex process, and the instruction manual tells very little. However, after reading up on discussion boards and experimenting, I figured it out for the most part, at the most basic level.

Each character in the game is assigned three “aspects”. These aspects  are also called skill trees, as each one contains five individual combart arts (special moves/magic) that can be learned. Thus, each character can learn up to fifteen moves. So when you level up, you get the opportunity to assign points to the aspect  itself, which makes all corresponding combat arts stronger (more damage, shorter regen time, etc.)

I’ll use my Shadow Warrior (undead warrior) as an example. He has three aspects- Death Warrior, Malevolent Champion, and Astral Lord. Death Warrior combat arts are all about doing massive close-range combat damage. Malevolent Champion skills are close-range combat moves that are not as massive, but quick. The Astral Lord combat arts are all the cool undead skills such as summoning skeleton helpers and arrow-firing towers.

Each character can learn up to ten skills, which are additional “areas of proficiency.” The character’s three aspects can be in there, as well as stuff like “sword use”, ” bow use”, “mount riding”, and “blacksmithing.” All of these skills raise the characters ability to perform well in these activities. So when my character levels up, I can use my skill points to upgrade any of my three aspects, which in turn strengthens the five corresponding combat arts.

Now to learn each individual combat art requires you to find the rune of that skill during combat, and then use it. The good thing is that these runes are easy to come by, as once I figured all this out, I had at least two of each in my inventory. Enemies drop these runes like crazy. So you figure out what combat art you want to learn, then see if you have the rune. If you do, then you use it, and blam…you can now use that combat art.

Now heres the interesting thing. There is no sense of mana/magicka/mp in the game…each aspect has its own separate recharge rate. So if I was to use a combat art from Astral Lord, I would have to wait until Astral Lord was fully recharged to use another Astral Lord skill. In the meanwhile, I could still use combat arts from Death Warrior or Malevolent Champion, so long as they were recharged. In this respect, it is recommended that you dont waste runes and such leveling up all the skills, but stick to a base two or three in each set (I’ll explain another reason why later in the post).

Heres one of the coolest aspects of combat arts…not only do you level them up with more runes, but you can also modify them. Let me give you an example. Under Astral Lord, there is a combat art called Nether Allegiance. This combat art summons two skeletons to fight with you in battle until they are defeated or you send them back. There are three modification categories for each combat art, and each category has two abilities, and you choose one. So with Nether Allegiance, the first option was either “skeletons do more damage” or “summon one additional skeleton.” I chose the latter, so when I use that skill now, three skeletons show up instead of two. Then when I unlocked the second modification, the two options were “skeletons have better shields” or “summon yet another skeleton.” I thought three was enough, so I decided to make them tougher by giving them better shields. There are other examples also, as Ive seen that the fireball the Inquisitor (Wizard) casts can be modified to either be one huge fireball, or a series of smaller fireballs. This was a very interesting aspect of the game. So you assign points to aspects to make all the corresponding combat arts stronger, and use runes to learn and strengthen individual combat arts. Occasionally, you unlock the ability to modify these combat arts to really alter them and make them better. Also, there is a way to create “combos” in which you can make up to four combinations of different skills, but I havent delved into that yet.

Heres the thing with runes…not only do you find them, but you can also buy/trade them from a rune master. So all the unused runes you have, and you will have a lot, you can trade to him/her for runes for combat arts you actually use. So if you only use two combat arts from Astral Lord, you would be able to trade the three other runes to this guy for one of the two you actually use.

As I said, its a complex system, and Im sure I didnt fully explain everything, but I think I did a pretty close job of nailing it on the head. As I said previously, its difficult to master, but once you have some idea of whats going on, you feel a lot better. I was so relieved when I got my level 11 Shadow Warrior to finally use his first skill.

UPDATE:

I recently wrote a character build guide for the Shadow Warrior and High Elf . I will be creating more character build guides in the near future for the other characters.