As you know, I have here a lot of talent builds and I think even for every single commander multiple ones – but I wanted to make an in-depth review of the individual talent trees and their talents to give you a sense what talents are really worth getting and which ones are more a waste of talent points or only useful to get if something more valuable is behind them without attaching that to a certain commander.
If you’re looking for a ready talent build for your commander, you should look here – otherwise, enjoy my review of the talents and start building your own talent tree builds for your commanders.
About Talent Trees
Before we start and take a closer look at all the individual talents in the talent tree I want to point out that only talents on your primary commander are used in battle. if you use a commander as a secondary commander, only his/her skills will be used and the talents are deactivated.
Useful Talents & Useless Talents Guide
So, I will go through the different trees and give you some thoughts on the talents (not every node). It doesn’t make sense when I’m telling you that a small node will add march speed – it’s about the big nodes that have some serious improvement on your commander and there are some really interesting ones in there.
Again, this talent tree guide is meant to help you understand the talents better and help you to either build a talent tree yourself or help you to spend your talent points in the best order if you have found a strong build and want to know in which order you want to spend them.
Here are 15 different trees so I try to keep it as short as possible but include the important things.
Archer Tree
If you have the Archer Tree in your commander, you really want to use your talent points here if you use an all-archer army, otherwise only Razor Shar, Venomous Sting, Arrows Nocked and Rapid Fire will give their full buff. This can be the ones to spend some points when you have some leftover points.
If you use an all-archer army, you want to get Venomous Sting (3) first as it gives a huge buff to the skill damage of your commanders and you can pick up some nice march speed on the way.
Next Stop should be Phoenix Tail Arrow (6) as this will give your attacks the chance for extra damage which can add up with the 10% chance over a longer battle. Venemous Sting still is the better option first because it’s a flat buff for the skill damage so you will get exactly what you buffed and don’t get the squishy percentage.
Now that you can get Whistling Arrows (7) you should get this next. It’s actually strong if you have that full-archer army (and if not, do as recommended above and don’t get too deep into the Archery Tree).
Extra rage from Razor Sharp (8) is also nice and trumps Full Quiver (9) in my opinion but with archery commanders you really want to get the full tree and use them with all-archer armies.
Cavalry Tree
The Cavalry Tree is strong but you need to make a difference and look at what you’re doing with the commander. If you do want to hunt down other player’s armies in the open field, the extra march speed can be devestating and also the ultimate talent is helpful.
No matter what, I’d make my way over to Emblazoned Shield first when using this talent tree. It#s a flat reduction of the skill damage you take and this is useful in any situation. If you do go into the open field with the commander, Equestrian Excellence would be the next talent to get if you hunt on the open field, this is nice to prevent any army from fleeing and you don’t want to lose them due to march speed.
Dragon Saber (5) would be the next spot to go to, it’s a flat damage buff to all troops so no problems here and I’d get Undying Fury right after that for extra rage. Halberd is okayish in my opinion but you need it to get to Disarm and it can be useful running into the right kind of army (or Sunset Canyon as well).
The reason I wouldn’t rush the path to Rallying Cry and get Undying Fury and Equestrian Excellence first is that it’s only a 15% damage buff for the first 10 seconds (basically until you use your primary skill for the first time) and this is not that much to neglect the extra rage or the faster march speed when hunting an army in the open field.
Infantry Tree
There are only two kinds of commanders in Rise of Kingdoms that use the Infantry tree and that’s commanders with the garrison tree for defense and those with attack tree like Sun Tzu and Eulji that you can use as damage dealers in Sunset Canyon.
Having that in mind, here’s how you should use the Infantry Tree.
Call Of The Pack (1) and Double-Headed Axe (2) are the first choice here, especially if you use your commander as the garrison commander. They are nice and they make the fastest path towards Hold The Line that will make your army a lot more durable.
Undying Fury (4) should be a no-brainer from here for the extra rage. Iron Spear (5) and Snare of Thorns (6) aren’t that useful actually but you need them to get to Elite Soldiers (7) which gives a b pretty sweet permanent buff to all army unit stats.
Strong of Body (8) give some more health that is okayish and Fleet of Foot (9) is normally not that important because you will either defend your city where march speed doesn’t matter or in Sunset Canyon where march speed also doesn’t give any benefit. A solid talent tree but normally you won#t max it out completely, to be honest.
Integration Tree
You’ll have the Integration Tree along with commanders that use either Peacekeeping (farming barbarians) or gathering. This is the background you need to keep in mind when looking at the individual talents.
First things first, I’m not a huge fan of the Integration Tree. If you use your commander for gathering you normally don’t level them out that much to have these talents available because you only want Level 37 to get the Gathering Tree maxed (see below) and when you use the commander for barbarians you spend your points in Peacekeeping Tree and then try to get the extra rage in the 3rd tree. Also, most talents don’t really contribute directly to your main objective, gathering or barbarians, and more make the worst-case less worst (getting hit when gathering or hitting a too strong barbarian pack, what you probably not do frequently to justify the points).
The only real useful talents here are march speed and the higher troop load capacity for gathering.
Ares’ Blessing is, in my opinion, a bad max talent, I simply don’t like getting the severely wounded troops reduced directly after the battle and rather want to deal more damage, have more defense or anything else that prevents them to get severely wounded in the first place.
Leadership Tree
The Leadership Tree walks hand-in-hand with the Conquering Tree with some minor exceptions.
Hidden Wrath (1) should be your first stop here for the extra rage and because you need it to make your way to Strategic Prowess (3). Strategic Prowess is actually really strong when you establish a build with nice extra rage so this will be active a lot and decrease the damage you take a lot.
Close Formation (6) should be your next stop and is also really nice to get this extra attack, especially as many garrison builds will increase defense when they fall below 50% so you can counter that this way. Also, Fresh Recruits and Steely Soul are also helpful on the way there.
Next depends what commander you use and what role you play. If you are leading the rally you want to get Name Of The King. If not, there’s no use to get this talent and you rather want to get Armed To The Teeth and Armored To The Teeth.
Conquering Tree
The Conquering Tree is quite useful but the side talents are no smart invest of talent points as you can invest them a lot better in other trees.
Entrenched (3) is the talent you want to get unlcked here as quick as possible and with Buckler Shield (2) and Moment of Triumph (1) you will also get some sweet talents on your way.
Marionette (4) and Signal Fire (5) are solid but nothing special and Tear of Blessing (6) is needed for Meteor Shower. I don’t like Tear of Blessing that much with the flat reduction of severely wounded units and rather would like to get the same effect from more damage, defense or anything else but after all, it’s still okay.
Meteor Shower (7) is the last talent you should get here and can deal some nice extra damage as well when attacking.
The side talents, Thoroughbreds and Well Provisioned, are not worth the talent points and you should rather put them in the other trees instead for some more direct benefits.
Garrison Tree
If you use the garrison tree to defend your city, there are actually only 4 talents that are worth getting:
Impregnable (2) will be really great when reducing the skill damage, especially when your city gets swarmed and Nowhere To Turn (4) generates extra rage.
The other talents are, compared to what you can get in the other trees, not that stunning. Kings Guard is only giving a small damage increase and Know The Enemy only kicks in when getting swarmed (not happening that much actually).
City Guardian and Adamantine Walls only give a very small increase and Divine Favor shield is weak and 10% is a small chance to get it – I rather get more rage and get the primary garrison commander skills rolling faster as they will make a much bigger impact.
Gathering Tree
I mentioned it earlier that you should not take your Gathering Commander beyond Level 37 to get the most out of the Gathering Tree:
First step should be getting Gathering Mastery for the different resources, depending in what resource the gathering commander specialized.
After that, take it directly to The More The Better (2), this will give you a nice extra of resources once you’re done gathering just like that and very beneficial in the long run.
Armed Convoy (3) isn’t that nice but you need tit to make it to Superior Tools (4). Superior Tools is the ultimate talent you want to get as quick as possible for a huge boost in gathering speed.
From here you can get Modified Axle (5) for more load capacity and this is actually the point where you’re done with talents for gathering. You can get the extra march speed if you leveled a little bit higher but that’s it.
Peacekeeping Tree
The Peacekeeping Tree is all about talents that will help you hunt barbarians and there are two versions that you can use. One is getting the maxed talent and the other is only getting Thoroughbreds and put the extra points in Skill or Support Tree for march speed and extra rage.
The first thing you do is getting Insights (3) here to lower the amount of actions points it costs to hunt barbarians and then make your way to Trophy Hunter to get some Resource Packs each time you smash barbarians. This will add up in the long run so it’s the first thing you want to have.
After that, make your way to Thoroughbreds. At this point, this is what you always want on your commander if you’re doing barbarians with it. Now you can think about putting more points into the Skill or Support Tree or continue spending them here.
If you use a commander like Lohar the extra healing makes sense so youw ant to make your way to Chruing Chant because then you can actually hunt barbarians in chains without having to return each time after a battle (saves more action points).
Versatility Tree
The Versatility Tree is, hands down, the worst talent tree in Rise of Kingdoms and it doesn’t make any sense. Some talents are for defending your city as garrison commander, some are for conquering and none really are worth spending that many points. I suggest you focus on the other two trees of your commander and ignore the Versatility Tree completely, to be honest.
Attack Tree
The Attack Tree is a double-headed sword and can turn against you so here’s the talents that are worth getting (and even some of them should only be exceptions):
Burning Blood (1) with the extra rage is for sure worth getting first and making your way to Effortless (3) is almost always worth it because fights take long enough to get that full bonus in most cases.
From here, Armored Joints (4) and Unyielding (5) have a great damage reduction that’s also worth getting for the small amount of talent points that you have to spend.
This is normally the spot where you should turn into the other talent trees.
If you do have a commander (e.g. Scipio) who doesn’t deal direct damage with his primary skill, Martial Mastery (6) is still a great thing to get as you get the benefits and the downsides won’t be active on you. Fight To The Death is, in my opinion, only useful if you get swarmed.
Victory Charge has such a short period where you can get this buff that you won’t use it frequently so I don’t see a reason to spend the talent points to get there plus I really don’t like Last Stance. See, if you get that buff from Last Stance and you’re about to have enough rage to get your primary skill, it won’t block you from generating any additional rage for 2 seconds for a lousy 10% troop damage increase. Don’t do this.
Defense Tree
Hands down, the defense tree is really nice and all talents are useful here. The nice thing is, if you look at how few points you should spend in the garrison build, you can spend enough points here to make a real nice defense build for commanders that have these both trees.
It’s really hard to say where to start but I’d start with Burning Blood (1) as extra rage is always nice and I find Testudo Formation pretty nice from a defensive perspective.
Next make your way to Medicinal Suppplies (6) and also Spiked Armor and No Weakness are nice talents to get. Medicinal Supplies is just very handy with the extra healing you will get.
Desperate Elegy works hand in hand with that so you will not only get more rage from that talent when you get low (and when you defend it’s likely that you get to that point), it will use your skill more so Medicinal Supplies will also heal more.
Loose Formation (8) reduces the skill damage and is simply sweet to have and if you get swarmed it will even get more effective because you will get more skill damage reduction.
Some people say Balance (9) is not worth it but I like it because when you defend, the time is working in your favor and you’re not dealing the crazy damage there and rather bleed the attacker to death with the damage your watchtowers and garrison deals – so making your defense double better than your army damage is a fair trade-off, in my opinion. So get it.
Mobility Tree
The Mobility Tree is all about march speed and there are two cases where you want to use this tree with your commander – one would be to get some extra march speed and the other is getting a ton of march speed and benefits for hunting other players armies in the open field.
In case you want to only get some additional march speed, I’d recommend getting Lightning Charge and maybe Hasty Departure and that’s it.
If you, however, want to get out there and hunt other armies you want to get all-in on the Mobility Tree and get Lightning Charge (1) followed by Saving Cross (2). Then you can spend talent points on Vortex and Spiked Armor, both useful to reduce counterattack damage and helps making the attacked army stay close.
Hasty Departure will be the next pick, in my opinion, to get that nice boost when departing and Swiftness will give you that boost every time you get attacked by a skill and leave the other army no choice than stay close and fight the battle.
Alacrity is okayish against an army that uses slowing effects against you and Triumphant March is a waste of talent points because the timeframe is just so low. No matter, we need them to get Time Management so we need to get them anyway to make our way to Time Management and get a real fast build here.
Skill Tree
Hands down, this is by far the best talent tree in Rise of Kingdoms and all talents work hand-in-hand really nicely and you can get a rage machine rockin’ with this tree.
First pick should be Burning Blood for some extra rage and add All For One to make your way over to Rejuvenate as fast as possible. Rejuvenate will get you 60 rage whenever your commander or your secondary commander use their skill, that’s 120 rage cycling through every skill cycle and reduce the time needed to get the skill again. This is an amazing talent that you always want to have.
After that go to Heraldic Shield and Tactical Mastery and spend your talent points there (depending what suits your commander best gets unlocked first, of course). From here you need to unlock Clarity.
Clarity is not the strongest talent here, frankly spoken, but with the right commander pairing it can give you a nice boost.
Feral Nature will then be the go-to-talent to get even more extra rage for your commanders.
Latent Power and Naked Rage can be good if you use them with the right commander for the right purpose and they can also be a waste of talent points (e.g. your secondary doesn’t deal direct damage so you won’t benefit from extra damage)
Support Tree
The Support Tree has some really useful talents but I wouldn’t go through to the very end with it.
You have Burning Blood (1), Hasty Departure (2) and a strong Rejuvenate (3) here and those talents are a must-have for every commander that you have the Support Tree with. A ton of extra rage and speed boosts are always useful.
Loose Formation (4) can also be a useful pick if you want to reduce skill damage taken and have some points left from the other trees.
The additional healing might be useful on Lohar and the end talents are, in my opinion, not worth investing all the points.
