There is no basic equipment available in Thymesia. You can’t equip a different sword, a shield, different armor — or anything else. You can upgrade your character stats, which increase damage and defense, but Corvus will always be wearing his trademark garb. In place of more traditional gear, you unlock Talents.
Talents are passive and active abilities and skills that augment how you play. These can be as simple as improving your dodging ability or increasing your damage to as complex as overhauling how you fight moment-to-moment. This Thymesia guide will list the five best Talents to unlock first, so you have the best possible first playthrough.
You earn 24 total Talent points no matter how much you level, as you’ll stop receiving them at Level 25. You would need about double that, or 48 points, to unlock every Talent in Thymesia, so the Talents you choose matter. You can respec your Talents at a Beacon respawn point for free, so if you don’t like how a build plays, you can try again. Here are the five most important ones we could find, in order of importance.
#1 Healing Execution
Healing is at a premium early in any Thymesia playthrough. Healing Execution provides 25, 35, or 45 health depending on the level of the enemy you kill.
- 25 HP: Trash mobs with basic knives and axes.
- 35 HP: Mid-tier mobs with shields and other defining features.
- 45 HP: Mini-bosses.
- If a boss has two phases, the first boss execution gives 55 health.
Healing Execution also awards Energy, the green bar below your Health that allows you to use Plague Weapons. Most enemies in Thymesia deal at least 45 damage with almost any attack — even the weakest ones — so getting at least half of it back when you kill them is a godsend.
#2 Sharp Weapons
There’s nothing fancy about this Talent or its upgraded version. Sharp Weapons provides a flat damage boost to your standard Saber attacks, which apply Wounds for you to drain. Even without the combo Talent, you’ll be dealing significantly more damage with Sharp Weapons than without it.
#3 Saber Attacks Level 2
This Talent increases your starting three-hit combo into a fast-hitting five-hit combo. A significant upgrade on its own, having Saber Attacks 2 unlocked also gives you access to either Dodge and Slash (our recommendation) or Dodge and Stab (also good). Both add additional attack patterns to your dash, which is great because of how much dodging you’ll do. Which you choose is up to your preference.
#4 Long Dodge
The choice between Long and Short Dodge is ultimately one of survivability. Short Dodge 2 grants the Offensive buff on completing your second dodge. That increases your damage for a brief period, but Long Dodge extends your dodge’s range and provides additional invincibility frames that will get you out of more binds than you’d imagine.
You can evade even the most aggressive enemies with Long Dodge, and level 2 grants the Defensive buff, decreasing damage taken for a short duration. Once you’re comfortable with the game, Short Dodge is probably fine, but the safety and utility of Long Dodge is almost too good to pass up.
#5 First Aid
One of the final Talents in the Strategies tree, First Aid uses one of your potions to revive you if you would otherwise die. The ability only works once but gives you a second chance at life. You’ll be dying a lot in Thymesia, but having a few extra moments to try and learn an enemy’s attack patterns, openings, etc., can be the difference between spending hours on them and taking them out in the next attempt.
And those are the best Talents in Thymesia. We’ve got a lot more Thymesia content over here on GameSkinny, including how to beat Odur and the game’s second boss, the Hanged Queen, how to level up quickly, how to upgrade potions, and a complete endings guide.
