Saving money and getting skills for PvE char?

Right now, I'm doing a lot of JQ/FA/AB to increase my alliance rank. I've been getting a lot of Balthazar points at the same time and planning to get most, if not all, of the skills for my Mesmer even if she doesn't use it. I'm a perfectionist and want my main char to get everything. Yeah, it's gonna take a while. I do know about about the Zaishen title but I want to hold that off until later. Getting those Balthazar points really isn't an issue for me. I absolutely love to PvP and seem to do it more than PvE.

My question is.... With all these Balthazar points, will it be more profitable to
A) Unlock the skills from Priest of Balthazar then buying the tomes
B) Buying Zaishen Keys and selling it for gold. Then use that gold and buy the skills directly so my PvE Mesmer get the skill AND unlock it at the same time.

Take into consideration that some tomes cost 200 and up to 800 each. Which method will actually save more money?

Someone told me that option B can actually get me a net profit of gold. I'm not really sure of this info.

Zkeys @ ~4.2k ea
So that will Allow you to buy 4 sills per key, and then 5 skills with your 5th key (assuming you've alrdy hit the 1k/skill cap)

5k balth faction will net you 5 skills unlocked, but then you will need to spend gold on tomes.

If you dont want to spend ANY money then option B is better.
However if you dont have all the outposts on your mes etc then A is better.

A mix would work well too, maybe every 10k balth faction you get 1 key and unlock 5 skills. This would mean for every 10k you unlock 4 skills and make 4k, allowing you to buy plenty of tomes to get them.

If you plan it out in advance, you can buy most or all of the skills you want before skills get up to 1k each. Unlocking skills with Balazar factions is a great option, especially if you want to make a PvP character. You don't necessarily have to buy the tomes either, as they can now be acquired with z-coins. So you could spend some time doing the z-missions/bounties or just make sure to take the z-combat quest for AB and RA whenever they come up (those are easy enough to finish... even multiple times). Balthazar faction also has the advantage that you can unlock elite skills, which normally you'd have to go an cap. Sometimes its far easier to unlock it and tome it than cap it (I'm looking at you FoC or just about anything found only in Mineral Springs ).

I would do option B, with A you can unlock 5 skills and spend anywhere from 150g-1k on the tome depending on prof, so with B you'll not only unlock it but also earn it for whichever charyou buy it on

Sin: 150
Warr 200-300
Para 400-500
Mes 300-500
Rit 700+
Monk 800+
Ele 500+
Necro 500+
Derv 600+
Ranger 400-500

Just count on it, if you buy a zkey for 5k factions and then sell it for 4k, one balthazar faction (bf) is worth 5/4gold = 1.25g per bf.

If you unlock one skill, it costs 1.25*1000 = 1250g

150<X<800
1250 + X (tome) = 1400-2050g per skill

1400<2050, but 1400>1000

The conclusion is that it is cheaper to buy a skill directly from a skilltrainer than go unlock+tome. But as it is more time consuming to run around to every skilltrainer than it is to use a tome, it might still be preffered. However, using tomes is way cheaper than unlock a skill and then buy it from a skilltrainer. To be exact 1000-X cheaper.

Hope it helps

you can use hero skill trainers in nf and eotn aswell, to get free skills.
you can make alternative chars to have their skills naturally unlocked and to be able to get more free skills from hero skill trainers.
and skills they buy and unlock will be cheaper at begining.
you will have alternative chars to play that arent just mules.