Synergies.

[WarBlade]

Do people feel it would be better to leave all synergistically linked skills within the same tree (i.e. Fire skills boosting Fire skills for the Sorceress),

Well with some classes the single tree is a given. There are situations where some cross-tree pairing should be considered invalid before you even begin.

or to branch out across the trees (Offensive Auras boosting Defensive Auras on the Paladin)?

Oh man. :( You just informed me that when your email comes through I'm going to be doing some heavy duty explaining. In spite of my Paladin rant I'll say that Blizzard did a pretty good job of hammering out something almost logical in the Paladin synergies. Unfortunately the building block on which the Paladin synergy system is based has a nasty pitfall or two that messes up the potential of the Paladin synergies quite significantly.

It's getting late and I'll leave the lengthy explanation until tomorrow when I can focus better . . . Once I get you to see my point of view though, you'll come to realize that you have a much lower number of synergies to work out . . . or roughly the number you are thinking of and some possibly complicated little tweaks to all auras except, Sanctuary, Conviction, Holy Shock, Holy Fire, Holy Freeze and Redemption.

You can take the easy road or the hard road. The easy road will also keep the Barbarian and others simple, while the hard road might have you tearing your hair out over Shadow Warrior.

And, in either case, is it generally more advised to keep the synergies simpatico, or to force branching out?

Varies by character. Varies by skill effect. What you are really concerned about is keeping a comparable number of controlled damage curves (or similar) happening between the different classes while simultaneously avoiding the worst exponential damage ramps (as well as other odds and sods like the overdone Duration tinkering of the three duration-supportive Warcries).

I.e. would it make more sense to give Sacrifice a bonus from Fanaticism, or Prayer?

Oh jeez.

Oh man.

Y'breakin' ma balls Roland. (explanation extends)

Ack! There's also a high/low sympathy to consider in a case where an extreme low skill is concerned. Prayer won't work, because with Prayer reinforcing Sacrifice you have a 'synergized' skill from cLvl 3 (excluding the first quest reward skill point), not to mention a potentially steep damage scale very early, which ultimately hits critical mass at cLvl thirty something (excluding direct support Aura). That's way too soon and practically stomps all over one of the possible foundation rules of synergy implementation: Synergies exist to scale a skill's function deep into Hell Level. A synergy like that is a freaky jump start with questionable long term persistance.

Fanaticism reinforcing Sacrifice is nutty from an aesthetic standpoint, but there's actually a kind of weird logic to using that one from a location standpoint as a cLvl 30 skill provided that a second synergy emerges somewhere else (in this one particular case) . . . and whaddayaknow? 1.10 has that and even places the alternate skill as the dominant partner of two synergy skills. ;)

And dammit! Why'd my rum just dry out? :(

Make Valkyrie boosted by Critical Strike, or Dodge? Things like that. In other words, keeping synergies AWAY from the cookie-cutter styles, and instead generally pairing them with lesser-used skills, in order to strengthen the weak and promote diversity?

*breaths a sigh of relief* :unsure:

Keep in mind that the latter endeavor is not a sure-fire thing, as some restrictions (skill points, character plans, as well as actual ability to mod - which has yet to be determined, being that this is only a beta) prevent said lesser-used skills and/or weaker skills from ever being attractive and/or viable.

There is no spoon.