Hey guys.

I have been playing Skelly exclusively since the Cloud update, and I tested all of the builds. Long-story-short, Pick Pocket is just not worth it.

The mail problem is: it Misses about 80% of the time.

From here multiple things spawn.

First, Skelly has a real problem with hit points, and must avoid damage. Spending a turn close to a monster to pickpocket means hitpoint loss. Guaranteed. Thus, even if you manage to somehow successfuly pickpocket, you will spend that money buying health potions. Further, Pick Pocket takes a turn to do, and even if the mob is asleep and you do not recieve damage for Misses (yes, it can Miss even if mob is asleep), you will spend FOOD. If you attempt to Pick Pocket a couple of mobs, you will spend so much time doing it that you will get Hungry and will have to spend that money buying food. So why bother at all.

You could now argue that maybe some good item will drop, but a skill that gives good results once in a 1000 is just not worth it.

Second, the skill cannot be used while the room is full. It is just not very smart to Pick Pocket one mob (spending a turn) while 5 others either walk closer to you or shoot you from the distance.

Overall, it is much more effective to take Critical as a first skill point than both Cloud or Pick Pocket. And once you take Crit, you must go into left "Combat" tree. If you take Crit as a first skill you will almost never miss on the first 3 levels, and with proper positioning (on the doors, etc) you will basically lose very very little HP overall, clearing the first stages with ease and getting to Leap Attack before Dugeon.

Increased gold drops from mobs, as well as huge gold drop from Genie means that you will have enough cash to buy an occasional item from shops.

My suggestion: make it hit at 75% of the time and NOT spend a turn doing it, but when it misses (25%) it spends a turn. Maybe make it so that it benefits from Accuracy items as well.

Then it will be a skill that could be used. As it is now, it is completely useless.

Oh, loot a corpse! Now there is an interesting idea. That I would go for =)

Sorry guys, but I think pp is 100% worth the skill point after all other points have been spent. You need evade anyway on lategame.

Already found a lot of food with pp. All the skellymen often drop enchant weapon or armor. So its really 100% worth it on lategame.

Bad is that knights and heads drop rings of strength or accuracy and those rings are broken and therefor useless :(

PS: As skellyman u dont have any health probs. With every backstab u get healed for about 5hp and most of the attacks miss anyway

Owain said:

Bad is that knights and heads drop rings of strength or accuracy and those rings are broken and therefor useless :(

They're only temporarily broken. If you exit the game and come back all the broken rings will have numbers in their description.

Further notes:

Not really viable at the moment. The principle is nice, but even with smoke bombs, you end up taking a lot more hits and spending a lot more food than is really good for you. As a result, you're eating more and drinking more potions so you're not really turning a profit as you'll just end up buying food and potions to make up for those lost.

Still, it's nice in the endgame when you're not liable to be stuck with poor gear anymore and the drops are better(ish). So sadly, unless someone can confirm otherwise, the pickpocket scoundrel is not viable (or even that much fun) at the moment.

I like the idea a lot, but trying to rob the same target for ages while you get repeatedly hit on the head and slowly starve regardless of smoke bombs or anything just kills it for me.