Feedback:User/Tennessee Ernie Ford/Tomes for PvE Skills

Tomes for PvE Skills
User	Tennessee Ernie Ford
Categories	Skill feedback → Common Items → Consumables

Tomes for PvE Skills

Create a new type of skill tome, Eye of the North Skill Tome, that would allow characters to learn PvE-only skills without having to repeat the same Eye of the North quests. To avoid imbalancing the game (any further than PvE skills already might do), include additional requirements that parallel the effort currently required for learning these skills.

See also: Seventh Rider's similar suggestion.

Types of tomes

There are four types of PvE skill tomes, one each for Asuran, Dwarven, Ebon Vanguard, and Norn skills. None are needed for Kurzick or Luxon skills, because those can be easily obtained at Level 20. Similarly, Sunspear and Lightbringer skills should not need tomes because those abilities are tied directly into the Nightfall storyline.

Acquisition and cost

• From EotN consumable crafters.

  This limits the ability of new characters to use these skills too soon in their development.

  Asuran Skill tomes would be available only from the Asuran crafter, etc.

• Cost: 5, 1, 1, 250, 250, 5

  The skill point requirement mirrors the effort (but not the specifics) of learning skills through quests.

  Similarly, the material costs ensure that players will be cautious about which tomes to craft.

  • Vellum and Parchment are specifically included because of their association with books and because they are under-used rare materials.
  • Onyx and Diamond are chosen because of their association with dungeon reward chests.

Transferability

To maintain the comparable effort effect, PvE Title Skill Tomes would only be able to be used by the character getting them crafted. This forces players to have at least 3 ranks in the relevant title track, which also means that they are unlikely to be less than L20.

Pre-requisites

Some PvE skills have pre-requisites or come at the end of a series of quests. Perhaps these should be more difficult to obtain. Two mutually exclusive ways to handle this are:

1. Only offer up EotN skills in a certain order, e.g. Air of Superiority could only be learned after all other non-summoning Asuran skills.
2. Offer two sets of tomes, normal and advanced, with only 2-3 skills in each area requiring advanced tomes.

Background

The PvE skills from EotN are ubiquitously used across the game; players who are unable to bring Pain Inverter or Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support are often considered too unskilled to join certain PUGs. This means there is pressure on most players to get most of these skills, which means forcing them to repeat quests on each and every toon they develop. Forcing people to play the game a certain way is a reasonable definition of grind.

The two solutions are: remove the skills from the game (which has other benefits beyond the scope of this suggestion) or providing a comparably expensive way to obtain the titles. I'm probably wrong about the specific costs needed to balance crafting PvE skill tomes vs following the quests, so feel free to consider other requirements.

Return to the suggestion portal.