Dungeon Talents¶
Talents are progression you earn per region, not per character. Kill a monster inside a dungeon - or its attached wilderness or ocean zone - and its gold feeds a pool tied to that one place. Cross a threshold, earn a point. Spend points on the archetype trees to specialise. The catch: a point only does anything while you're standing in the dungeon that minted it.
Per-dungeon, not per-character
Points earned in The Pit do nothing in Despise. Points earned in the Wilderness do nothing on the Ocean. That's the whole idea - every dungeon is its own progression box. You build for the place, not for the character.
How you earn points¶
Land the killing blow on a creature inside a dungeon zone and its corpse-gold value drops into your GoldTowardsNextPoint bucket for that dungeon. Fill the bucket to the cost of the next point and it's yours - leftover gold carries into the next purchase.
Costs climb linearly with how many points you've already banked in that dungeon:
Cost curve
cost(n) = 200 + n × 200
where n is the number of points you've already earned in that dungeon. The first point is cheap; every point after costs 200 gold more than the last.
| Point # | Gold cost | Cumulative gold |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 200 | 200 |
| 2 | 400 | 600 |
| 3 | 600 | 1,200 |
| 5 | 1,000 | 3,000 |
| 10 | 2,000 | 11,000 |
| 20 | 4,000 | 42,000 |
| 30 | 6,000 | 93,000 |
| 50 | 10,000 | 255,000 |
A single boss can pop several points at once if its corpse-gold overflows multiple thresholds in a row.
When a point lands, a golden burst plays at your feet and the talent-level chime fires. Clear multiple thresholds on one kill and the bursts stack.
How you spend points¶
Points unlock nodes in the per-archetype trees. There are ten archetypes, each with its own tree:
| Tree | Theme | Page |
|---|---|---|
| Melee | All-weapon melee + defensive shell | (covered across the weapon pages + Defensive) |
| Archery | Bows, crossbows, throwing | Archery |
| Magic | Spell damage + abjuration | Magic |
| Swords | Sword-family offensive specialisation | Swords |
| Macing | Mace/maul/staff offensive specialisation | Macing |
| Fencing | Spear/kryss/dagger offensive specialisation | Fencing |
| Taming | Pets, summons, beastcraft | Pet / Taming |
| Healing | Bandage, spell-heal, and veterinary care | Healing |
| Ocean | Naval combat - cannons, hull, sails | Ocean |
| Utility | Detection and other non-combat senses | Utility |
The Stealth and Support trees are designed but not yet live - see Healing for what's planned.
Most trees run two main paths (Offensive and Defensive) plus a short Efficiency column:
T1 (5 ranks × 1pt) Entry scalar - no prereq
T2 (3-5 ranks × 1pt) Secondary scalar - prereq: T1 same path
T3 (1 rank × 2pt) Feature node - prereq: T2 same path
T4A (1 rank × 2pt) Fork choice A - prereq: T3 (locks T4B)
T4B (1 rank × 2pt) Fork choice B - prereq: T3 (locks T4A)
T5 (1 rank × 3pt) Capstone - prereq: EITHER T4 fork
The T4 fork is one or the other - pick a side and the other locks. None of it is permanent, though; refund and re-pick as often as you like.
30-point cap per dungeon
You can SPEND at most 30 points into any single dungeon's tree. Anything earned past that is still tracked, just locked out of allocation. Thirty points fills roughly two archetype paths - an Offensive lane plus a Defensive one - or one fully-specced archetype including its Efficiency column.
Active abilities vs. passives¶
Most T1/T2/T3 talents are passive scalars: they apply on their own while you're in the dungeon. T4 forks usually pair one passive with one active. T5 capstones are nearly always actives on long cooldowns. Actives bind to the in-game hotbar; passives just work, no setup.
Any active you've unlocked wears a big "+" badge in its top-right corner in the tree. The "+" means this can go on your hotbar - click it to start assigning, then click a hotbar slot to drop it in.
Hotbar pages - one row per build
The talent hotbar ([hotbar) holds multiple pages of slots - it starts with 5, so the ◄ N/M ► arrows sit right on the bar. Park a different build's actives on each row and flip between them. Your slot keybinds always fire the current page, so swapping pages swaps your whole ability set in one move. Set how many pages you want (up to 5) from the right-click bar options, alongside slot count and orientation. Each page keeps its own bindings, and your current page is remembered between sessions.
Assigning to a slot, and resizing the bar
Three ways to fill a slot. (1) Click the "+" badge on any unlocked active in the tree, then click a hotbar slot. (2) Left-click an empty slot (it shows a soft "+") to open a menu of the talents you've unlocked in your current zone, and pick one. (3) Right-click any slot for the same menu. When you send a talent to the bar, every slot lights up with a gold glow - click anywhere inside any glowing slot to drop it; you don't have to aim for a precise spot. To resize the whole bar, drag the small grip in its bottom-right corner: out to enlarge, in to shrink. The size sticks per character. You can still dial in an exact size, slot count, orientation, and page count from the right-click bar options.
Every active carries a fixed cooldown, listed right on its node. The cooldown is dungeon-wide - walking out and back in won't reset it.
Loadouts (3 saved specs per archetype)¶
Every (dungeon, archetype) pair gives you three save slots. Save your current Off/Def/Util spend into a slot, name it (12 characters), and one click later you're in a completely different build with nothing re-spent. Save slots survive server restarts.
Reset and refund¶
- Refund one rank: right-click a talent to push one point back to your pool. Drop a talent to rank 0 and anything above it in the chain that depended on it refunds automatically - you never end up holding a talent whose prerequisite is gone.
- Reset tree: wipes every rank in the current dungeon back to zero. EarnedPoints stays untouched - you lose the allocation, not the points.
Talent changes require you to be out of combat. Spending, refunding, resetting, and loading a saved build are all blocked while you're fighting - break off for a few seconds first.
Reset and refund never destroy earned points. Experiment freely.
The dungeon zones¶
| Zone | What it covers |
|---|---|
the-pit |
The Pit dungeon (~152x119 tiles) |
ocean |
Anywhere you're on a boat |
wilderness |
The default - every land tile that isn't a bounded dungeon and isn't on a boat |
Ocean is checked first, so a deck always wins; then The Pit's rect; then Wilderness as the catch-all. Each is its own pool, with gold and points tracked entirely separately.