Diablo II aged amazingly well in almost all of its aspects, one thing though that it suffers is the same old skills and skill system. Skills are probably the weakest part in vanilla Diablo 2 and the aspect that most mods suffer. They either following the overhaul path, or they copy/emulate systems of other famous games of thie genre.
One of the reasons that drove me to spent hundreds of hours, back to 2004 in EftA as a player, was the unique skill system and the new archetype classes it was introducing. But doing it without feeling overdone or alien to the game was the thing that kept me going. So, EftA introduces classes which are self efficient and with a multi-type damage output. New and reallocated vanilla skills (modified and enhanced) are morphing each build. For example Sorcerer is now called Heroine and is a melee fighter. With auras, shape shifting, wolf minions, resists, weapon masteries, fire damage, chances for crushing blow and all kind of abilities, makes a fun and exciting char to play with. The same principle follow all the classes and i will leave for you to discover all this by playing EftA.
Skill points distribution is another area where EftA shines. In each level you gain 3 skill points.The first level of a skill is free! With this little feature you can check without a cost how a skill functions and how it looks and feel, especially for the new skills of EftA this is really important. This mechanic is encouraging experimentation and improves greatly the diversity among builds. The second level for each skill costs 1 skill point and after that, every level of the skills costs 2 skill points. Some classes have a powerful passive skill called "Archetype", which is available at level 60, each level for this archetype skill, up to level three, costs 3 skill points, after that the cost rises to 4 skill points. Skills are now acquired at level 1,8,16,24,32,40,60 accordingly and dont have any prerequisites. A vast variety of skills comes also as -items only-, which means that you will find items that grants you skills, making you build even more distinguished.
Skill system in Escape from after Afterlife, encourages you to test multiply builds for each class, ranging from a trap Huntress (ex: Amazon, to a master of the elements Magi (ex: Necromancer). So hope you enjoyed the reading.
P.S: Everything that involves classes and skills in EftA, comes from the hard and fantastic work of the creator of the mod (mouse).
Cheers
