creating upgrades for a roguelike is NOT easy - Cat Survivors Devlog #3 

Fur coat! From time to time, releases an amount of fur on the floor that slow enemies down and can catch fire

finally a cat survivors devlog #3 can’t wait to play your game !!

To bro this game looks fire!! keep up the work, i know how hard this is because me and my friends are trying to make a game together

ooh, fire breath would be fun.

my favourite ability to have in this type of game is mines (or the magical/medieval equivalent). also, another fun ability is a arrow that flies around and randomly targets enemies to fly through. (might be a bit OP so maybe as an upgrade...)

Can't wait to okay the demo. Lots of the games I've played got items like grenates or explosion like effect. I think you could easily add something similar that does explosions in a random direction. And another one would be some kind of area of effect fire. Also don't forget some effects thatgo around the player could be cool tho. Just so you do tick damage when something gets close to you

I would use all three systems for upgrades, personally. It would be an easy way to add diversity between weapon classes. Do I want to roll the dice on this linear item that may not even get its upgrades? Or pick this conventional item where I'm almost guaranteed to get upgrades? Or split the difference on an item that has two branches?

shouldnt you capitalize more on the cat element? none of these skills made me think of kitty, so i dont know why this is cat survivors other than to be legally not vampire survivors

What engine are you using?

Your approach to this is wrong and that is why you're worried about needing to balance skills. I'm seeing this mistake more and more as devs move into rogue-likes because they don't understand the appeal of where this genre's roots. Have you played Nethack or Rouge to understand the driving force behind their appeal? If not you should but try to understand the simple fact that the players are hoping for a "Jackpot". You may wonder why I use that term. But the fact is that classic MUDs did not balance around skillsets but rather balanced around ratity. The same way a slotmachine or casino games are so popular despite their simplicity. Your skill tree approach is therefore not going to result in players being capable of achiving those seemingly gamebreaking power fantaies because there will be attainable metabuilds that are always available on each run. You need to purposely design these overpowered synergies and then balance around the odds of players getting all those parts just like a slotmachine needs all rows to allign to get that jackpot. Once that is done you then fill the game with a linear progression of progressively weaker synergese that feel satisfying as a minor "win" so that runs are satisfying even if they're not a jackpot.