Missing Skill Trainers in Pre-Searing Ascalon

In the Pre-Searing tutorial your character has the opportunity to learn several skills for their professions. Some, like Necromancers, will find a trainer for each and every line and walk away with a skill from each line they might be interested in. Others, like Warriors, are missing a trainer for a single line - Tactics in the Warriors case, although those lines are either of secondary importance as they're supporting lines or they'll be able to get some skills right out of the gates in Post-Searing to make up for it. Then there's the Mesmer who'll walk out of Pre-Searing with a grand total of 5 skills - Conjure Phantasm (Ill), Imagined Burden (Ill), Ether Feast (Ins), Backfire (Dom), and Shatter Delusions (Dom).

Now, what I'd really like to see is for each trainer, who now offers 2~3 pre-set skills, to instead offer your character 2~3 skill points and a selection of 5 skills to pick from. Or one preset skill and a skill point to spend on a selection. Something like that, anyway. Important, "vital" skills like Aura of Restoration or Healsig can be passed out through the starting quest to unlock the ability to gain skills at all. But otherwise you want to introduce people to the idea of picking out their own skills and spending skill points and all the rest.

However, that's pretty ambitious. What I'd settle for, though, would be to have a skill trainer in Pre-Searing for each line that a character can delve into. Excepting the priamry lines, of course, every sort of character you can make should be previewed in the Pre-Searing area. Mesmers need an Inspiration trainer. Warriors need a Tactics trainer. Elementalists need Water and Earth trainers. Everyone else is pretty set although I think the skills on the existing trainers could use some rethinking, too. For example, the Air Elementalist trainer passes out Blinding Flash which is a nice skill but not when you have no AP to spare for it. Spending 15 energy to make a single enemy miss a single attack is pretty worthless and it doesn't start to get good until you have enough points to get Air into the decent range.

Anyhow, here's what I'd do to put in some of these "missing" trainers:

Mesmer:

Inspiration Trainer- Teaches Energy Tap and Mantra of Flame. Located in Ashford Abbey or somewhere near Ashford. This trainer will give you a quest to battle some of those Bandit Firecallers using Energy Tap to keep them from casting and Mantra of Flame to protect yourself from their spells.

Warrior:

Tactics Trainer- Teaches Shield Stance and Watch Yourself! and gives you a starter shield. Located somewhere in Wizard's Folly. This trainer will give you a quest to defeat a large Golem of some sort, one that relies on physical attacks, and you'll be able to use your defensive skills to survive long enough to take it apart.

Elementalist:

Earth Magic Trainer - Teaches Stone Daggers and Armor of Earth. Located somewhere in Green Hills County. Gives you a quest to fight a bunch of melee centered Grawl, maybe to retrieve something or someone they've kidnapped, and you can use the defensive Earth skills to survive along with a damage dealing skill to finish them off.

Water Magic Trainer - Teaches Ice Spear and Conjure Frost. Located somewhere in Lakeside County. Gives you a quest to fight some Skale in the river, perhaps to kill that Drake that's sitting out there, and you can use your damage dealing spells to finish them off more quickly.

And, while I'm at it some tweaks to the existing trainers:

Monk: Banish and Healing Breeze need to be available from the other trainers, somehow. Having Mhenlo pass out Orsion, Banesig, and Breeze for his first quest and then Holy Wrath, Retribution, and Banish for his second would solve that neatly. Otherwise they're next to impossible to find. Same with Necromancer's and Vampiric Gaze, Ranger's and Power Shot, and Elementalists and Flare it's just Monks are the worst offenders because of how good Healing Breeze and Banish can be.

Mesmer: Vassar gives you Shatter Delusions which is just awful both in combination with anything else Mesmer you have then as well as during the quest he gives you, too. I'd like to see something like Diversion, instead, which works much better with Backfire but an interrupt like Power Spike would be nice, as well.

Elementalist: Ralena gives you Blinding Flash. I'd replace that with Enervating Charge which will both deal a bit of damage and impart a condition that will be a bit better at low levels.

What changes would everyone else like to see made to those skill trainers?

[Necromancer]
I find it odd Necromancers get both Vampiric Gaze (initial) and Vampiric Touch (blood magic trainer), considering how much they overlap. I'd suggest to go for either one initially, my personal preference going out to Vampiric Touch because I believe most players will drop Vampiric Touch in favour of Vampiric Gaze, making the skill somewhat redundant. The blood trainer could give one of the offensive sacrifice spells (dark pact or touch of agony) instead.

-edit- I guess the reasoning for handing out the skills in the current fashion is that starting primary necromancers can use gaze as their heal, whereas aspiring secondary necromancers get touch as an optional heal relating to blood magic. The skill (be it touch or gaze) could just be given twice however - I don't see why such similar skills should be handed out when there's such a diversity of skills available.

I fully agree that Mesmers and Elementalists need more trainers, if only for the fact that the numbers are simply off.

[Elementalist]
Cynn in Ascalon City could be the trainer for one of the attributes - with the river drake as target, water magic would be perfect. Given Cynn's cynical nature, she could postpone actually awarding the water skills until after you kill the drake, as a sort of wager. This mostly because water skills wouldn't particularly help in killing the river drake anyway.

I like the idea of adding an elementalist trainer in the green hills area (since that has large fields of nothing but enemies, which is weird compared to the rest of the areas), although I'd suggest focussing on the large groups of boulder elementals there instead, since they'd make perfect melee-focused opponents. The hermit that gives Eruption post-searing could function as trainer.

[Mesmer]
The mesmer quests could use some refinement as well - as it is now you take five steps to Althea, then five steps to the Rogue Bull and you're done. For the second one you're told to take care of some river skales, and you're given skills that don't really come in handy for this task. Compared to other quests, these two are just a little bit sad, and don't convey the spirit of the Mesmer very well, something that works very nicely in all the other job quests.

I'd suggest the domination magic quest to involve taking down a rogue wizard (since we're in Wizard's Folly anyway).

The inspiration quest could give mantra of frost and tell you to combat some ice elementals.

The rogue bull could be galloping through the Lakeside Province (instead of staying in the pool), requiring you to use Imaginary Burden to slow him down and take him out with conjure phantasm (he'd need to be scripted to stop after imaginary burden was cast on him or after it ends though, since the recharge for that won't allow continual casting), and at the same time introduce some quest challenge and length by forcing you to search for him.

I played a N/W. I used both of those skills. Vampiric Touch worked great in melee range since it has a low casting time. I used Vampiric Gaze for distanced foes.

As far as the lack of specific trainers in pre-searing goes. I really do believe that you should be able to pick which skills that you want or have more available. I had a really hard time playing a N/W since I wanted to be a damage dealer and I wanted to use weapons along with spells. By the time I went through the academy I had so many unwanted skills that it wasn't even funny.

I played a N/W this weekend as well, so I know the usefulness of having them both, but I don't think an introductional area like pre-searing should pigeonhole people into playing a certain style of class, rather give them a sample of every aspect of a class that is available, as far as that is possible with 2 player max teams. Right now you get Life Siphon, Vampiric Touch and Vampiric Gaze, and there's definitely more to blood magic than simple life stealing.

I think the often-heard call to give elementalists a more diverse choice of elements besides fire and air at startup is a similar thing - not everyone wants to play a fire or air elementalist, but the introduction forces you to do this nonetheless. I'm not stating Touch/Gaze aren't good spells, nor that fire and air magic aren't useful for elementalists, I'm just suggesting the introduction could offer more diversity instead of giving skills that are quite similar in nature, so people get a better feel of what the class they're trying out can offer. I wouldn't have ever made a smiting monk if I hadn't received symbol of wrath in the tutorial, and I'm loving my smiting Mo/R to bits right now.

This is definately a must. Though I argued in a much earlier thread, before the Sanitarium was opened, that people would be curious enough to branch out once leaving the pre-searing era, it's beginning to look to me like I was wrong as far as elementalists are concerned, at the very least. Absolutely every newbie elementalist I've played with since the pre-searing area was introduced (quite a few, since I've been building my guild almost entirely out of people I've converted to the game) has stuck with fire simply because they're afraid to stray from what they know works. Plus, it just gets tiring seeing all the same skills being used no matter who I'm grouped with. Guild Wars has such a huge, diverse selection of skills. It really does need to be better represented in the starting area.

I would certainly find it more interesting if a variety of skills were offered, if not just a few more. The necomancer gets a third trainer which rounds him out fairly well.

I played a Me/N and really missed Vampiric Gaze. I wanted to compare it against Touch for usefulness. Short of starting a N/Me (which I do intend to have a look at to experiment with the Soul Reaping attribute) the next I can get it looks to be near the end of the missions.

I had not intended to use curses but being able to experiment a little thanks to that trainer made me more open to the idea. I have since stopped using curses again for the moment but it was a more informed decision and one I may revise.

The mesmer could certainly use with a few more skills, I definitely wouldn't complain. I felt a little cheated at the five skills given when Monks get so many. Primaries get six with 'Empathy', though.

Incidentally, I love the new swap option when you learn new skills from the trainers but aren't in a town at the time. A nice touch.

I wonder if release will mean a few more locations to gain skills especially earlier on. Skills as quest rewards is also good and, while not in the safer "tutorial" area, gives a no-consequence option to experiment with a larger range of skills.

One for the elementalist, near Ascalon City, for example, offers both a water and an earth skill as a reward, if memory serves.

Reasons to make the tutorial area more enjoyable are always good!

I never saw this thread the first time around; it was buried too quickly. Shame too, it's such an important topic.

Healing Breeze only available to Monk primaries is a HUGE argument in favor of making a Monk primary over say, an El/Mo. A perfect example of how early skill selection shapes the way opinions of the game are formed.

Elementalists need the crap spam skill of each line available, as well as something illustrative of what there the rest of the line offers.
Fire: Flare and AOE (Firestorm)
Water: Ice Spear and Snare (Ice Prison? Shard Storm?)
Air: Lightning Strike and...a condition. Enervating Charge is much better than Blinding Flash- 3s of blind is just a complete waste. They miss what, 1, maybe 2 attacks?
Earth: Stone Daggers and defense. (Armor of Earth is fine, excellent in the early game, mid game, and late game)

I don't have much to say about Necromancers...if you gave out Rend Enchantments as a starter skill I might never play one in PVE. So go ahead and make Rend a Starter skill, I'll be happy.
As for suggestions...I'd give out plauge touch or plague sending and have the necromancer fight something that gives a nasty condition like Poison. Posion at -4 pips will mess up a lowbie character in a hurry. Turn it around on the monster that uses it on you would be kind of fun.

Mesmers need a lot of love.
Too many people are in love with Conjure Phantasm after leaving presearing, and I can completely see why.
First of all, they need an interrupt. That's one of the cores of the mesmer profession. Anything- Leech signet will do.
A Mantra of some kind would be nice, because the profession just has so many.

Warriors:
Sprint would make exploring presearing SOO much nicer. Sprint is that good too, it would just get more converts to the Church of Sprint.
A defensive stance would be key- something to cancel out frenzy and go on the defensive. That's an important skill for warriors to learn- switching stances when they get focused.

Rangers:
Rangers have it pretty good, considering they wont get a usable level of expertise until level 15 or so.
Preps + Dual shot are the key early on, and Ignite Arrows is quite nice.
An interrupt of some kind wouldn't be unheard of either- it's one of the cores of being a ranger.
I would definitely add an Pet Attack Skill to the Beast Mastery Trainer. It will give people a chance to actually test their pet out and see if they want to pursue the line. I know personally it's the only way I'm going to try out any of the Pet Attacks, at least until I'm very bored in a month or so and I have nothing to do but play with pet skills.

Monks:
Monks have too many skills, if anything.
Reversal of Fortune is absolute crap in the early game, especially on secondary monks. Get rid of it as a starter skill, please. Guardian would be much better if you insist on a protection spam skill.
Monks are also swamped with too many smiting skills. Cut the chaff. I see a lot of people bragging about Bane Signet, because in the early game 25 damage is a TON. They don't see the long cast time and abysmal recharge, because it knocks a quarter or half the health off of most enemies, with a decent side benefit (knockdown) to boot. It looks like gold in presearing, but it isn't later on. Not sure if that means they should let people play with the toy when it's actually good or never give it out.
A maintained enchantment would give a good tutorial about pips and energy management, but Retribution? I say Live Vicariously.

If I see a quarter of these changes in retail, I'll be surprised. If I see half, I'll be ecstatic.

I don't mind Conjure Phantasm but I am starting to fall out of love with it, yes, gasp. I may return to it but I'm looking at other skills (though the range up to Yak's Bend and probably even Lion's Arch is pretty limited). I notice a lot of repetition for most professions. In fact I don't think there was a difference at all between Ascalon and Yak's Bend for one class. Perhaps one different skill. Since we're on the topic of skills, it wouldn't hurt to look at that, either: We have completely unavailable skills (though no doubt that was only for BWE's) and really tricky to acquire skills then, we have a few that blind Fred can find: You simply can't go anywhere without tripping over them. Someone asks you to acquire a skill (though so common that's so unlikely) and the reply would be: "Well, yes, you can get that here, there, over there, oh, and so and so has it too. Not to mention you can use a signet of capture on x, y, z and what's-his-name."

Granted, having all skills (such as "powerful" and/or some elites) easily acquirable might take a goal from some people's lives since the hunt for skills might keep many going. Alternatively, a game that prides itself on the ability of the players over time played... no doubt you can see my point already. On the third hand, as I'm very special, if you're skillful enough perhaps you can make use of a very small selection of limited skills. I'm curious as to other people's opinions on that skill availablilty (particularly semi-early on) point.

It might be a bit late for changes in initial retail but, as we are never allowed to forget, there is streaming technology that can fix it up a bit later. Of course, the initial influx would have already gone through so anyone not making new characters would miss out on the changes. Good excuse to go back apart from the prettiness.

I think I can see why retribution (over live vicariously, at least), while not stellar, it is based on Smiting Prayers and given the number of smiting prayers budding monks get loaded with (and fair enough since they are mostly alone for the moment) that makes sense.

Live vicariously requires an ally. I've only had one once but I really want to fix that, especially given the Northern Lands out past the gate. With that in mind, Live Vicariously could indeed be very, very useful.

Probably one elite and a couple more in post-searing trainers. It would be good to have one elite tagged skill asap. The weaker and the more generic the better.

In my opinion, pre searing ascalon is also about learning the specificities of each attribute line. In addition to standard trainers, it might be good to have a 'trial' quest for which you're lended a small pack of skills (3/4) from one attribute. After the quest timeout (1/2h of game play) is over the skills disappear like necklaced skills used to. If you complete the quest, you get one skill from the attribute line and you can buy the rest normally.

Why? Sure HB is a must have, but you can capture it easily from an undead boss before you get to Lion's Arch.

Where do I sign? The early mesmer skills are really disappointing if you intend to use them for energy stealing or interrupt.

Which undead boss? You don't run into any undead until the Gates of Kryta mission, and by then you're practically in Lion's Arch already. And once you hit Lion's Arch, the entire world opens up to you very quickly.

Healing Breeze is a HOT (heal over time and hawt) skill, and in the early game- from Ascalon City until Lion's Arch- DOTs are some of the scariest spells you'll face. Healing Breeze really shines then, and as a secondary monk, you just wont have it. It's certainly worth remembering that the majority of your time will not be spent playing a level 8 character stuck in the Shiverpeaks, but at the same time, we're talking about how early skill selection influences players' perceptions of the game. Monks are already great healers, giving them a monopoly on Healing Breeze at the time it really shines just reinforces the idea that only monks should heal. Not only that, but Healing Breeze is one of the few Healing Spells that works really well on a monk secondary. Denying it to them is a double whammy.

I agree with you. Nothing beats a Primary Monk with Divine Favour for healing but handicapping a secondary even further like that is rather odd.

No love for Necro even from Scaphism.

Show me the right female necro and we'll see if we can change our thoughts on necro love.

Give them plague touch.
Give them some attack debuff (enfeeble, faintheartedless)
Aside from that Necros already get a lot of skills in presearing. There isn't really much more you can add. Frankly there aren't a whole lot of Necro skills I'd play in any situation- take a fraction of those and you have the presearing selection. If you give away all the necro tricks early on, necro players (and they do exist) will have nothing to work towards.

Unfortunately Minionators are a no-go in early PVE. You can't get Taste of Death or Death Nova, and your level 3 Bone Minions do crap damage and have awful hitpoints. Your team's W/Mo is going to do all the damage and take more damage than your pitiful minion will ever do- and he doesn't have to wait til something has died to start wreaking havoc. You can still play a death necro early on, but you're limited to Vile Touch (a decent spell), Deathly Swarm (crap, but what are you going to do?), and Soul Feast. Forget minions in the early game, Soul Feast instead. Oh, and good luck. You'll need it now that the key to target nearest corpse was removed. (Probably to make it harder for bots to auto-find loot.)


Remember, it's not that Necro starter skills are bad, proportionately it's a good representation.

Do we not already get Faintheartedness from the Curses trainer? I thought I remembered getting that along with Soul Barbs.

As for target nearest corpse, I was unaware there was a key for it. However, during the recent BWE casting corpse-related spells such as soul feast and summon bone horror seemed to affect the nearest corpse (or ALL of them in the case of soul feast, rather annoying) making corpses of anything other than players entirely untargettable so getting through the flame traps meant clicking the corpse and running over to it rather than selecting it... that didn't end well.

I'm not certain a necromancer is where my heart lies but I might just have a poor skill line-up (whether the selection available or through my own choices are to blame I shall not speculate).

I tend to avoid the death attribute linked skills, though. Perhaps more fool me later on...

Necromancer, to me, is probably the best represented profession, in terms of skill choices, in Pre-Searing. If you made Vamp. Gaze available somewhere for secondaries then they wouldn't have any skills that reward primaries and punish secondaries. At the same time, each of their skill lines is well represented. You can get something from each of them and you get enough to get a taste of several roles and avenues a Necromancer can explore. Some of those skills (I'm looking at you Blood Renewal) are trash but that's more a problem with those lines and Necromancer as a whole and not the trainers. Some things, like a Necromancer's enchantment removal role, are absent. But that's a rather specialized and suplimentary role. Sure, it would be nice to have Strip or Rend Enchantments available or the condition transfering stuff, but there really aren't many enemies or challenges that require those in the early missions. Later on they become important but in the early going they'd just be sitting there takin up space because they're important for the late game not the early game. I can live with that because the main thrust of being a Necromancer is presented - with those starting skills you can be a debuffer, a life tapper, a direct damage nuker, a minionator and more. It's up to people to explore and find all the niches and corners from there. The goal of Pre-Searing shouldn't be to reveal *everything* about a profession. Instead, it should be to give you enough of a taste that all the inherent posibilities are there for you to pick up as you move on.

I still say the trainers need to introduce skill points, though.

There are some elites available - Warriors can get Hundred Blades, Monks can get Healing Hands, for example, elites that were once normal but made elite - but it seems the developers see elite skills as too powerful and overpowering to be passed out to starting characters. Of course, that's probably because elite skills are too powerful and overpowering. But that's a flaw in the entire system and one we're stuck with. It'd be nice to have a few more options (not that there really are many. There are 15 elites per profession, that doesn't leave you a lot of choices if you only get to pick from 3 or 4 at a time), true, but it's likely that elites are going to be saved because they're "special". Heck, it used to be that the Signet of Capture was going to be the first elite skill you'd get and the lack of early elites probably is an artifact from those days.

Right, it's not that Healing Breeze is entirely unavailable to a secondary Monk. It's that it's not available until much much later. When it's one of the great skills for a secondary Monk to use. Your WaMo tank is going to want Healing Breeze, your RaMo, it helps anyone survive a lot longer and it's one of the reasons someone would want to go Monk in the first place. Not Banesig or Retribution. But, primary Monks get it from the start while secondaries have to wait a long time to get it. By that time impressions of a profession are being set and newer and better options are becoming available.

Skill rewards and skill trainers are an important aspect to look at, too. The simple fact is that you don't have all the skills available to you from the start. So there are going to be some gaps and skills that would be nice to have that you'll need to wait. And those skills will depend on your character and your knowledge about what skills are out there. But people who don't know will only encounter a small fraction of their total possibilities until later. I'd much rather have all the skills available at trainers and let the amount of skill points determine what you can have. But for whatever reason the devs have decided to build in some skill rarity into the system.

I haven't checked the starting quests since the March BWE. Primary Mesmer get Empathy for finishing the "Mesmer Test" now? Well, it's a change and Empathy's a solid skill. But, urgh, I don't like the idea of primary profession members getting skills that secondaries don't. They're still well under par, though. I'd think each profession needs to walk out of Pre-Searing with about 8~10 skills in total...

Indeed, a general guide to what they're capable of should be the goal of pre-searing and, for the necromancer and the Monk, I find that is generally the case. Mesmers, however, as has already been mentioned, are probably half-way there. We have some illusion with burden and phantasm and some domination and introduced to the concept of depriving of abilities (or punishment for using them, such as backfire) but inspiration is very close to non-existent and the general draining & tapping of energy is poorly demonstrated by ether feast and definitely the interrupt aspects are overlooked, though that might come under 'specialised and suplimentary roles'.

I'd really like an interrupt early on, even if only to see what it's like and practice on the way so I can do it properly when the time comes when it's really useful. As a bonus, it'd be really handy in the Ascalon Arena.

Empathy is a solid skill. I really like it. I am on your side regarding primaries being given things secondaries aren't, though. However, I can also see another poster's point of view on the topic, I tend to think it's still unfair and not a level field. Skill and ability going over time played, remember... Having skills easy for some and hard to acquire for others puts a slight kink in that.

If my memory serves me well, it's the first boss at the beginning of Gates of Kryta.

You have a point, without Healing Breeze secondary healers will be weaker than monks with high Divine Favor. By the time a new player gets to Gates of Kryta, he may have a bad perception of the game, or more accurately a slightly biased one, since monks are intrinsicly better at healing anyway. In my opinion, there are other long term healing enchantments which can make up for the lack of Healing Breeze.

Monks: I was unaware that you could even get Healing Breeze in pre-sear now (my monk was created one event before the last). But having that skill is a big plus, especially early on against Charr Mind Sparks, and I too would like to see this included for both primaries and secondaries. Give Monks an enchantment that's actually useable early on in the game (even Mending would do). Players should also be getting a taste in hex and condition removal, and I wouldn't bat an eyelash if they were to drop Retribution and Reversal of Fortune to do so.

Rangers: They have a pet, but no pet skills. Give them something basic like Feral Lunge so they can interact with their pets besides rezzing their dead corpse. Savage Shot, Disrupting Shot, Concussion Shot - any of these disruption skills will do, just let players know that Rangers aren't Warriors with bows. Finally, a run buff and a trap skill would also be useful to let players explore the 'rogue-ish' side of Rangers.

Warriors: Not much to say here, though I agree with Scaphism that stance switching is an interesting exercise players should learn.


Mesmers: I find it odd how interrupts and energy management aren't represented in pre-sear. If skills must be freed up in order to do so, then I highly recommend getting rid of Shatter Delusions, the only hex you'll ever seriously use is Conjure Phantasm, and you're already stretched for skill points for either Illusion or Domination.

Necromancers: Like Warriors there is not much to say, maybe you could include an attack-debuff.

Elementalists: Scaphism said it best about having each element represented in pre-searing. Fire is already immensely popular, there’s no need to reinforce it.

They could kill two undead with one stone if they arranged for either Primary and Secondary Monks to use a Signet of Capture on a Boss in the Catacombs in order to obtain Healing Breeze. In fact, most of the professions could use a quest of this sort, though you should only have to use the Signet once, just to learn what it is and how to use one. I know I've never seen one, since I haven't made it even to Piken Square yet. (*Blush!*) But it would be a good way to introduce us to the concept.

Urk. You mean Sig of Capture is a skill that remains in your set like any other?

(Long string of profanities) I thought they were single-use items that were purchased from Skill Trainers somewhere beyond Ascalon City!

Um . . . just where does Signet of Capture first show up?

BTW - If they wanted to introduce us to the possibility, they could still have us learn the skill temporarily in pre-Searing Ascalon in order to obtain a skill for a given quest . . .

That is a stellar idea, really, I've never used a signet of capture, myself, and would stumble through it when I need to. I intend to take a shot at it come preview event in Old Ascalon.

Having a guide to using them within pre-searing would be advantageous, I feel. It'd certainly make me feel more confident with them.

I've not made it to piken square either despite trying a few times. Looks like I might need some players to go with me, not just henchmen.


Hmm. That's a good question. I always assumed it was a one-off buy, you have it in your skill lineup and when you use it it is replaced with the skill you captured.

To capture another skill you need to buy a new signet of capture due to the original one being replaced with the captured skill, yes?

That was my understanding of it, anyway, but now you have me wanting to check.

Nice Suggestions I do think that there will be more trainers in pre Searing Ascalon at the very least another mesmer and Elementalist trainer.

I Think A primary Mesmer should get Phantom Pain, Ether Feast and Energy Tap from Sebedoh instead of having skills that overlap with althea. Keep Althea's Skills the same. Add Inspiration Mesmer Trainer or Give Althea another quest to give to Mesmers.

Necros look ok to me
Warriors ok though It would be nice if Devona had an warrior only quest.
Elementalist needs more trainers.
Monks Look ok maybe give out mending somewhere early so new players can experiment with it.
Ranger- Needs A ritual early on to introduce them better.


It was my impression that Healing breeze was added as a Monk starting skill only because Monks needed a self heal to survive better early on. I know it was an starting skill before pre-searing ascalon was added but in the Feb and March Betas Monks started with just Orison of Healing and Banish.

If secondary Monks got healing breeze in the long term there will be less primary monks. Most new players dont see Divine Favor as that great of a primary bonus its takes about 8-10 points before it makes a noticeable differnce in healing plus they dont SEE the divine favor Bonus unless they heal themselves. Heck sometimes i want to debate with myself that an Elementalist/energy Storage/heal other build is better than an Monk/Divine Favor/Healing Word Build.

I also beleive that if a secondary monk could get HB in pre-searing ascalon it will probably be massivly abused as a self heal. Though it would probabaly make the gates of Kyrta Mission way easier. I know self heals are noobish but necessary in a party of 4.

With a few points in healing prayers HB quickly eclipses any other self heal of any attribute line (ok maybe not soul feast). the only other Comprable early selfheal is Heal Area but that heals enemies too. For a True Healer The Heal other spell offer comprable healing power but lacks the over time "bonus", but still should be able to carry most secondary Healers till Lion's Arch. Ideally healing Breeze should be on Captain Greywind easy to get once you get to Lion's Arch but you still have to "earn" it by getting to him.

For an casual player it would probabaly take 2 weeks to Get to LA.

My two cents.

I've said this before and it's the perfect chance to say it again: the tutorial needs to teach how to use the signet of capture. You captured this point perfectly. The signet of capture has the chance to be a fun mechanic in the game for people who truly love to "collect" skills, but instead it has fallen completely by the wayside.

Most of the people I've played with since the WPE have never tried using a signet of capture, ever. That's 9 out of every 10.
I tried it once, at the end of a BWE, because I'd never tried it before and I just wanted to see how it worked. It's not very intuitive, but by introducing it EARLY, you acclimate people to the idea of using a capture signet later on. The first time they run into a boss monster the thought will flit across their mind: "I wonder what skills he has, and I wonder if I can capture any of them?" I've never had a group stop and say they wanted to capture a skill. It's something lacking in the game- they have the potential to make it an important part of the game but instead it sits, gathering dust.

Enough harping about the tutorial.
Yes. Signet of Capture is a skill, it takes up one of your 8 skill slots. You use it on a boss when you see him starting to use a skill, and it begins charging (the animation is like watching a spell with a long cast time charge up). You can cancel it by hitting escape or moving, just like you would cancel any normal spell.
That said, buying a signet of capture is slightly different than any other skill. Most skills cost 10x(# of skills bought) gold. Signet of capture gets it's own category, so the first time you buy it, it costs only 10 gold. You might have already bought 5 other skills, so learning a 6th will cost you 60 gold, but the first time you buy signet of capture, it costs 10 gold. You can then go out and learn 7 more skills, bringing your total to 12. Your second signet of capture will cost you 20 gold, even though your 13th skill will cost 130 gold. That's how it worked in the past, at least.

----
Finally, skill types that are lacking in presearing:
Rangers: Interrupts, pet attacks
Mesmers: Interrupts, energy drains (though they need something to spend their energy on besides conjure)
Warriors: Defensive stances- in PVE, warriors play like tanks. Teach them about tanking early.
Monks: Get rid of Reversal of Fortune. I like reversal, don't get me wrong. But only on my level 20 monk who has 10+ levels of divine favor. Reversal of Fortune is awful in the early game. It costs you 5 energy to reverse an attack that in all likelyhood will be doing 5 or 6 damage. That's HORRIBLE. Give me 25 healing from Orison any day of the week. Reversal makes protection look bad in the early game, and it's no surprise. I hate reversal on secondary monks because they have no divine favor, and the same principal applies to level 4 monks with 2 levels in Divine Favor.
Condition and Hex removal can wait for later.
Necromancers: They're ok for now, though I wouldn't mind plague touch. A well wouldn't be horrid either, but again, you have to save something for later.
Elementalists: Already stated. 2 spells from each line, + Aura of Restoration. Spam attack + something typical of the line. Get the spam attacks out of the way early, at least. Can't say I like it, since it encourages using horrible skills, but maybe they'll get the stigma of "starter/newbie skills" that they fully deserve.

Absolutely true. An achievement I made in the final BWE was to reach Lion's Arch (yes, yes, after three BWEs) and the undead boss at the end of Gates of Kryta mission had Death Nova. One of my party was begging us not to kill it, it actually got quite annoying, until he'd captured it. The capturing didn't take that long, I think, and I was worried not killing it just for skills would mean we'd die (since we were having enough trouble shortly after that point as it was) but we did ok. I can't say for certain (being the monk) whether anyone was actively not attacking it for the sake of our skill capturer or if they were just cleaning up the lessers first which just bonused as giving him the opportunity.

This was the only time - ever - I have heard the signet mentioned in game.

I have utterly no idea where one even gets it as I do intend to remedy my ignorance of its use as soon as I can play, availability permitting. Can you get it in post-searing Ascalon City from the get-go? From whom, when and where? I want to capture Empathy with my N/Me as soon as I can. Good excuse to try the signet.

One of the things to keep in mind is that a lot of specific skills being mentioned here are available as quest rewards just a little later on. Sprint and Mending can be acquired somewhere around Post-Searing Ascalon, last I checked, and that's good enough to ge them in people's hands quickly. What's important is that the trainers in Pre-Searing offer diversity, that they cover the bases. Trying to give them uber and good skills is a losing battle because as the game shifts and adapts so will the best skills for a given character. That's with set skills being handed out, if they offered a few choices for your character then it's another story. But with each trainer having a set list there are going to be some duds, it's just inevitable. But as long as they aren't duds for *everyone*, as long as they point out some of the paths you can take and don't convince you to slam the door, then they can skate by. It's not Mending that's important. It's letting players know about maintained enchantments that a Monk can use. It's not Shield Stance, it's letting Warriors know there are defensive stances to help them tank. It's letting Elementalists know that Water and Earth exist.

That's why I feel the Ranger is a bit underserved because they get a prep and an attack skill twice. Which is nice, the ones they get are fairly solid and good combos for the newbie lands (Well, not Point Blank Shot...) but haivng two trainers teach the same lesson is a bit counter-productive. I'd rather see something like traps or stances introduced by the Wilderness trainer and leave prepping up your attacks to the Marksmanship guy. It means that a bow Ranger has a bit fewer options walking into the Academy but that any Ranger has a few more.

Your theory is interesting but it falls apart a bit because every single secondary and primary gets some form of self-healing. Secondary Monks get Orison already. All Mesmers get Ether Feast. All Elementalist Aura of Restoration. All Rangers Troll Unguent. All Warrior Healing Signet. All Necromancers Life Siphon. You can't avoid them, they're on the first trainer you go to. That Healing Breeze is a good and powerful version of a self-heal isn't a reason to keep it in only a primary Monk's hands. If letting others use it means that there will be fewer Monks then there's something wrong with the Monk profession or will Healing Breeze. Not with secondary characters using it because they'll all eventually be able to, it's just a question of when.

Keeping it solely with Monks is degenerative. Allowing secondaries to pick it up earlier and easier allows for more flexibility and options for everyone. I'll take the later option even if it means primary Monks are outclassed. Because, as I said, if it's just Healing Breeze that makes people pick a Monk first there are bigger and more structural problems.

Like many others I've pretty much ignored the SoC for a while. It's a bloody stupid mechanic that requires you to disrupt your group and the flow of the game for the chance of capturing a spell from something you should be trying your hardest to defeat. Try capturing a stance or a shout sometimes and see how much fun that is. But also because the other ways of acquiring skills are far better and easier (Actually right now unlocking skills is a) find it as a reward and b) buy it if you can't then c) look for the boss with it) so I can't say for certain.

It's bounced around, though. I think the earliest you could find it was in the outpost at the beginning of the Shiverpeaks. Mountain Tablaeu or whatever it's called these days. But at other times it was first available in Lion's Arch or in an EA just outside of Lion's Arch. In other words, it's not introduced until well after the game's started.

At least it's not elite anymore but I agree that having to slot it and gimp your character is a pain.