5 video games with amazing skill tree usage (& 5 with disappointing skill trees)

Skill trees in video games are a popular trope, bringing a wide variety of stat and skill boosts to characters in many genres. They come in such a fascinating array of styles, from a huge grid of dots to talents that a player picks going down a simpler skill tree.

It is important to note that a skill tree being good or bad does not affect video games in any manner. A game can be genuinely fun and enjoyable while not having an intuitive or fun skill tree system.

Some of these trees are seen as perfect and fun to use, and others have made players so frustrated that they uninstalled the game after a tour around the tree. When it comes to lists like this, the usefulness of each skill tree will vary from player to player.

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5 video games that feature terrific skill trees

1) Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction

Diablo 2 has a pretty strong talent system. Each character has a unique skill tree with three paths to take, based on a variety of builds. Players can easily map out where they want to go and what they want to do in the game. There are builds in Diablo 2 that are more powerful than others, of course. That’s just how video games work.

In Lord of Destruction, however, synergies were added. This helped those lower-tier skills benefit other skills later in the game. So, for example, putting points in Fire Bolt will also increase the damage of her Fire Ball, making it worthwhile to build for synergies. The ability to increase the power of skills beyond the normal “Level 20” cap was incredible.

The skill trees were easy to navigate, and also provided a significant amount of power and playability for all the character classes.

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2) Yakuza 0

Several of the Yakuza video games have some kind of skill tree system, where Kiryu and his friends gain more power and stats. Yakuza 0’s didn’t use experience, stat points, spirits, or any such thing. Instead, to gain more skills and stats in Yakuza 0, players had to use money.

That’s right, Kiryu and Majima had to spend money to increase their overall stats. It made sense, since the 80s were a serious economical boom period for Japan, and the player would wind up with millions and billions of yen pretty easily.

Some of the skills are unlocked behind gameplay, which was pretty easy to figure out. Each of the characters’ skill trees had unique abilities, combos and moves, as well as Health and Attack upgrades that carried over, despite what stance the player used. Yakuza 0’s has an excellent skill tree.

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3) Final Fantasy X

No game has a skill tree as pronounced as Final Fantasy X. Each character has a tree they can go down, with quite a few ways to diverge. In fact, if a player wants, they can give every character every skill and ability, since it’s one massive, connected tree.

There are also easy ways to build tons of AP, to make filling the sphere grid more feasible. Making every character capable of doing anything is a great idea, while also giving them a unique identity of their own at the same time.

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4) Witcher 3

Witcher 3 has a pretty solid skill tree system that uses a more tried-and-true build system. There are three trees to choose from: Combat Skills, Signs, and Alchemy Skills. There’s also a “General Skills” tree to look into. There are important and powerful skills in each tree, and the way they are divided makes it pretty easy to create overpowered builds for Geralt.

It can be a bit difficult at times to figure out where to put points first, but there are pretty common, powerful builds that players tend to use that are easily searchable on the internet. It feels more like a traditional MMO or single-player RPG talent build system. It may not be the best system, but it’s a solid one worth putting time into.

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5) Skyrim

Skyrim is a game that is basically a meme right now. It is available on pretty much any console that can run games, and it is often quite divisive. Skyrim has a pretty deep skill tree system, resulting in some of the trees feeling pointless.

As far as video games go, it’s nice to have the option to do anything, and Skyrim essentially grants that. There are a wide assortment of playstyles to go with, from magic, stealth, archery, or even lockpicking.

If players want to build around simply breaking and entering into people’s homes safely, they can do so. It is not a ground-breaking skill tree, but it is still a solid one that is enjoyable and allows players a nice, deep assortment of gameplay builds to go with.

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5 disappointing skill trees in video games

1) World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

One of the major failings of World of Warcraft’s various skill trees is putting points into abilities that the player has zero use for. These points go to passives or abilities that are simply in the way.

Some builds simply have leftover points that will go into skills or abilities that do nothing. At this point in World of Warcraft, the talent trees were improving, but the first few expansions were wildly disappointing. On top of that, mathematically speaking, there will always be a “best” build, making so many other skills and abilities pointless to even consider.

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2) Path of Exile

Path of Exile almost made both the good and bad list. To be clear, Path of Exile is an excellent game, and it has possibly the largest skill tree in all video games. You can do literally anything and play any way you want. But that is also one of the problems with the skill tree.

It has such a tremendous amount of skills and stat buffs that it can be incredibly overwhelming to new players. More players than not use the internet to search a build and use it, making so much of the tree thrown to the wayside. It’s not a bad tree, but it may get too overwhelming for potential players.

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3) Rogue Legacy 2

Rogue Legacy 2 is an incredibly fun part of the roguelite genre in video games. Players play through the castle repeatedly with an assortment of characters. As players collect gold, they use it to increase the strength of their own castle. The skill tree is the castle itself. Players can’t keep the gold from run to run (other than a small portion), so they have to use it wisely.

However, each time a player purchases an upgrade, it increases the cost of all future upgrades. This can make useful, powerful upgrades nearly impossible to get, since the cost gets too great. The only option is to start a new file, since the tree cannot be reset.

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4) Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla could have learned from the lesson “less is more” in video games. There are so many skills and skill trees to get through. There are powerful skills to acquire in the trees, that’s for sure. For the most part, the Assassin’s Creed franchise has used this tedious method of skill tree design.

It feels as vast and unfortunate as the Path of Exile skill tree. There aren’t a ton of amazing skills either, and this leads to many players going with one or two viable builds since the other skills just don’t feel worth it.

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5) Borderlands 3

The Borderlands video games use a more MMO-style skill tree. The characters get a series of skill trees that fit a variety of play styles. The downside in Borderlands 3, is that the trees are incredibly boring. They tend to offer a bit of damage here and there, perhaps run faster or take a bit less damage.

The late-game trees will surely be fun, but it takes such a long time to get there, it hardly feels worth it. The skills are too focused on augmenting the player’s action skills, and the boosts to damage or movement are pretty mediocre at best. There’s nothing unique or interesting, which is a shame after all the Borderlands games that have come out by this point.

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Skill Trees do come in a wide variety of styles in video games, and that’s a good thing. Unfortunately, not all of them are great, and some fans may find joy in what others cannot stand. It’s great to have different builds, but when everything feels more or less the same, it can be a letdown. These video games can still be good or bad, even with a bad skill tree system.