Talent points & Talent trees: Best practice?

I hope that some more experienced players give me the one or other hint. If someone knows a good guide or another source (other than wiki which did not give me any sufficient answer) it would be great to just post it here.
First of all, how to collect talent point best?
Should I try to complete the PvE task already when I level up through R1 up to R11? I tried to do so but I’ve got the impression that the character will just level out off this level range without getting those tasks completed. One solution would be to retreat from every battle with monsters that are not related this tasks but this is a waste of bloodlust. On the other hand to get those task later on completed would be also a waste. This leads me to another question: Does players still get loot from monsters which have a much lower level?
Furthermore, how to spend the talents points best?
So far I have not really a picture of the end game part. Is it PvE, PvB or PvP? Are there standard templates to spend those points best? Does it make sense for building mix templates (so put points into scourge and duelist try or is it generally best to specialize? Are the end skill of those trees must haves or just nice to have?
I am looking forward for your answers. Thanks!

1) I mostly moved on from regions after completing the Talent Tree tasks. To make it easier to complete the PvE tasks for Common creatures that needed 100+ successful hunts, I switched to hunting with Blood Pearls to conserve Blood Rubies and to increase the odds of meeting common creatures.

2) Yes. You still get loot, XP, and credits when you defeat monsters of much lower level. However, the XP and credits go down. Not sure about chances for getting loot, but I still return to R1 and R2 to farm for scrolls or resources like corrupted wood regularly.

3) As to how to spend your talent tree points, I think that is completely up to your style of play. When I game, I've recently gone over to a strategy of specializing in one path, which I do in CoB. So most of my TT points are in the Champion or PvB path of the tree. It takes about 30-32 points to fill out a tree, depending what your criteria for "filled" and what powers you get, but in general, it takes 5 points in each tier of powers to unlock the next one. If you follow my strategy, that only leaves you enough points (currently, 41 points max available) to get powers in the first tier of the other two trees, or powers up to the second tier in one other tree.

4) I'm totally biased here, but if you want to specialize in other trees, putting a few points into invocation of the Old Ones is essectial, as it makes getting the PvB TT points easier to get; you can always free does points up later by using an oblivion potion: by crafting using Ghost Ink, or waiting to see if the devs hand them out to everyone around Christmas again!

5) No end game here, as I think the game is (and will) continue to be open-ended. As a PvB player though, I do find it very difficult to defeat vampiric creatures in PvE. That's a problem at higher levels, as some of the best loot is dropped by vampiric creatures (almost every region has a Legendary Vampiric Creature). That's a tradeoff you will have to consider, as it is only possible to get the really dangerous powers in 1 tree.

6) Try combos out by using the Talent Tree calculator. Its incredibly useful. For instance, I've discovered that although you need 5 points min per tier to open up the next tier of powers, it does not really matter where you put your points. For instance, if you prefer the powers in a lower tier over that in a higher tier (attunement in the Champion Tree for instance), all you need is 1 point in Tier 6 to access Tier 7, and you can spend the other 4 points that you have freed up in ANY of the lower tier powers, as long as they sum to 30.

7) That was not that clear ... okay, say you want to access Tier 3 powers, but really hate the Tier 2 powers, but love the Tier 1 powers. To access Tier 3, you just need 1 point in Tier 2, and you could potentially have up to 9 points in Tier 1.

Hope this helps!

Hi Gwen,

Thanks for your broad answers and they give me some more insights.

1) In fact I also had the experience that using blood rubies lead to more rare encounters which is not useful for common monsters.

3) I’ve gone through all three talent trees and they offer interesting talents which are not only useful for the specific focus of the talent tree in question. So far I will focus on the duelist talent tree with up to ten points into the champion tree. Unfortunately I don’t see any sense in putting points into defensive only talent threes as there is no general disadvantage of being attacked (besides the theft power).

5) No end game, alright this was totally new for me. For sure this lesson learnt.

Cheers
SB

Now that I have so much Ghost Ink, I've tried the various talent trees out also. The only power I find indispensable is Invocation of the Old Ones, from the "Champion Branch."

This power is very useful as:

1) At the lower levels, this will help you finish your talent tree as it will help you conserve your orbs, which are are not always easy to come by until you can Deathblow everything in sight.

2) I feel that Bosses--Epic, Portal, and Coven--have the best loot in the game, and getting good loot to drop is often a function of hitting a single boss as many times as you can. In other words, as items that you want are designed to drop eventually, being able to summon as many bosses as possible with the smallest number of orbs is a good thing!