Picking a Build

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Full build guidance is coming. For now, head to Talents, read the seven archetypes, and pick the one that fits how you want to fight.

Crafting and gathering are free now

One thing you no longer have to budget for: neither crafting nor gathering spends skill points. The old craft and harvest skills are retired, and both run on Professions instead - five crafting trades (Blacksmithing, Tailoring, Carpentry, Artificery, Apothecary) plus three gathering trades (Mining, Lumberjacking, Skinning), each leveled 1 to 7 by profession XP earned by doing the work, entirely outside the 700 skill cap.

That changes the old build math. There is no "crafter template" or "gatherer template" that sacrifices fighting skills anymore, and no agonizing over whether a trade is worth a slot: every character can work every profession, and your seven skills go entirely to combat and utility. Pick the trades that fit how you want to play - a smith to keep your own armor coming, a miner to feed the forge, an Apothecary for potions and food - and level them on the side, at your own pace.

The one harvest pursuit still inside the skill system is Fishing: it has no material tier ladder, so it stays a real skill that costs cap room. Everything else you dig, chop, or skin is profession work, free for any build.