Level ups etc

OK I'm having some difficulty understanding the process for leveling up and what you do with talents and skill points.



The way I understand it is that on a level up you get...



1 skill point (2 if you're a human) and those points apply to secondary skills. Then you get 1 Talent. This doesn't seem right but if someone could explain that, or better yet write a guide about character advancement with formulas regarding hp gain, skill points, mana gain, ac, etc...



I just want to get some sort of idea of what a finished toon looks like.



Edit ok I was wrong you don't get 1 sp per level. Your skill points increase exponentially as you level. Jesus this stuff is confusing, its so wierd that no one seems to have written about it.


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http://www.angelfire.com/home/pearly/homer/homer_woo.jpg</p>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub147.ezboard.com/bmonklybusiness43508.showUserPublicProfile?gid=kar mhundredfists>Karmhundredfists</A>* http://home.comcast.net/~justanotherbody/Karm.JPG at: 4/10/04 12:37 am

karm you on aim by chance?


</p>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub147.ezboard.com/bmonklybusiness43508.showUserPublicProfile?gid=hob bs5>hobbs5</A> at: 4/10/04 5:55 am

I did a little bit of reading and found that skill point increases vary quite a bit per level. I thought it was a set rate but apparently it increases exponentially.



Races are still being balanced and only a few benefits have been implemented.



I am anxious to see what happens with other races (Undead have really cool benefits) but since humans have what appears to be a distinct advantage with regards to min-maxxing, I think that (as in D&D, ie. extra feat at level 1) I will be making a human main, so as not to be left behind.



Leonardo? Any comments on this? Just how important ARE skill points?



Edit: whoohoo! 1300 post count!


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rarely on aim in the form of ranornopenspace but I never use it because it slows down my bittorrent downloads (I think, they both use html).


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How much of a skill point advantage do humans get per level?


Xeal: 1/2/2000 - 3/1/2004 (Retired)

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[Lenardo]

talent points you get 10 from level 10 - like 13 a level then you get 15 pts per level then 20 pts per level those are used to take things you don't normally use a trainer for, stat increases, increases to resists etc...



skill points you get 1 per level and are used for tradeskills or for buying a skill you do not get normally,, like axe for shaman


Brother Lenardo Draconis

65th Transcendant of the Celestial Fists

The First Seal

The Nameless

Magelo ('http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=329805')</p>

So you mean that stuff like primary skills, ie. warrior's <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Battle Stance (Rank 1)

A balanced combat stance. Generates rage when hit and when you strike an opponent.



<hr></blockquote>

or rogue's <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Vanish (Rank 1)

Allows the rogue to vanish from sight, entering an improved stealth mode, but reducing speed to 60 % of normal for 30 sec.



<hr></blockquote>



don't actually cost skill points? These are primary skills and the info is from stractics (http://wow.stratics.com/content/statistics/gameinfo/skillsbrowser/)



Edit:

Thanks for the response


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[Lenardo]

no those cost money.



well battle stance is a quest now...







raising stamina

raising your specialization in sword

rasing resistances

defense

etc



cost talent points






Brother Lenardo Draconis

65th Transcendant of the Celestial Fists

The First Seal

The Nameless

Magelo ('http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=329805')</p>

Awesome! Can you give any comment as to how many people keep all of their skills maxxed as they level? Is it very difficult to get all that money/find those trainers?


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[Arlos]

You only need to go to the skill trainers to learn new abilities. I guess people are thinking of this as too EQ-like, and aren't understanding, so I'll try and explain.



First, every time you level, you gain 1 Skill Point. Humans get 1 bonus skill point every 5 levels. Skill points are ONLY used to buy either a) new weapon proficiencies, or 2) tradeskills.

Now, each tradeskill so far has 3 levels, Journeyman, Master, Expert. With Journeyman rating in a tradeskill, the max you can learn that skill to is 75. With Master, it's 150, and with Expert it's 225. Now, you can't just BUY master, you have to buy Journeyman in that skill, then go out and USE the skill, so that its skill level improves. Once you get to about 60 or so, you can now purchase Master ability. Your skill max jumps from 75 to 150 once you do. Resource gathering skills, like herbalism, mining and skinning cost 3/5/7 skill points, so to get Master Mining, you will have spent 15 skill points total, plus have had to mine a ton of nodes to get the skill up enough to be able to buy master mining. Resource-using skills, like leatherworking, tailoring, smithing, etc. cost 1/3/5.



Besides tradeskills, every character has a set of innate skills, that cost nothing. For example, as a Paladin, some of my skills are 1h Mace, Defense, Holy Magic, Undead Mastery, Shield Blocking, etc. Every time I use my mace, there's a chance for my skill to go up, every time something tries to hit me, my defense can go up, etc. There's a skill cap of level * 5 for all non-tradeskills, so at L30, my max skill with Maces is 150.



Now, paladins have several different spell-related skills, Holy Magic and Undead Mastery being two of them. A number of spells are based on a given skill. For example, my heals & my cure spells are all based on Holy Magic, my buffs are all based on the Seals skill, etc. So, every time I heal someone, there's a chance my Holy Magic skill will go up. What you go buy when you level are new spells/abilities that use those skills you already have. Like when the cap goes up, when I hit L32, I will be able to buy a new version of my Heal spell. I won't have to spend skill points or talent points, I just have to spend money to get that new version of the spell.



The amount of talent points you get is variable by level, and goes up every 10 levels. So, L1-9 you get 10 per level, 10-19 you get 15, 20-29 you get 20, and L30 you get 25. Talents COST varying amount of talent points, depending on what level of a talent you're buying, and how powerful a talent it is. For example, permanently raising your Strength by 1 point for the first time is 10 points per level. Once you get 3-4 levels, the cost rises to 15 pts a level. The Immunity to Disease talent, for example, has only 1 level, and that one costs 25 pts.



Raising talents costs no money, and there's no skills involved, but you can only get talent points by leveling. Many of the talents have some kind of pre-requisite, whether based on other talents (ex: can't get the talent that gives + to shield blocking until you get 2-3 levels of the talent that improves your armor when using shields), or level (can't get Immunity to Disease until you are L30) or even class (Only paladins can learn Immunity to Disease).



Right now, you can reclaim skill points you spent on proficiencies or tradeskills, and re-allocate them at will. You lose any skill you had gained already, and if you later pick up that skill again, you'll start back at 0. Still, if you try out herbalism, decide it's not for you, you're not out those skill points forver. Talent points can NOT currently be re-assigned, but they've promised a re-working of the talent system, so what it looks like in the future is still up in the air.






-Arlos the Disciple (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=333621) (retired)
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http://www.legacyofsteel.net/images/sigs/arlos.jpg</p>

Thank you Arlos, that was a well thought out description of what my understanding of the skills system was. I think I get it now. But how often do you (you may be a bad example since you're a power gamer with [most likely] access to greater resources then the casual gamer) think that people will NOT be able to buy a primary skill (or find the trainers for all their skills) because of monitary restrictions?



Would you say its currently well implemented? Does there need to be more money making options? Do you not even NEED to try to get all of the primary skills available at each level?



Just trying to get a more hands on feel of the game that the community boards are not giving me. Maybe if I could post there... But then again so could every B.net player and I might not like that as much.


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The racial info is only out for humans, dwarves and undead so far... lemme dig it up



<blockquote>Quote:<hr>

Races:



Racial traits:



Dwarves: Natural Mining, Treasure Find, and Frost resist.



Humans: Extra Talent Points.



Gnomes: Frost Resist.



Night Elves: Shadowmeld, Find Herb, and Resist Nature Magic.



Tauren: Plains Running



Undead: Immune to Charm, Immune to Fear, and Underwater Breathing.

<hr></blockquote>



wow.warcry.com/content/ge...nt=summary (http://wow.warcry.com/content/gencon_2003_coverage/?content=summary)



I don't know where that site got its info but it seems that Blizzard has released a bit more info about races in WoW.



I can guarentee that the human undead and dwarf racial traits are accurate but the rest of them may be innaccurate considering that this site also has this listed



<blockquote>Quote:<hr>The maximum PC level has been reported at 60-70.



<hr></blockquote>


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to be updated as it becomes real</p>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub147.ezboard.com/bmonklybusiness43508.showUserPublicProfile?gid=kar mhundredfists>Karmhundredfists</A>* http://home.comcast.net/~justanotherbody/Karm.JPG at: 4/11/04 12:41 pm

So humans get 1 extra skill every 5 levels, but don't get any extra talents? Do you by chance know what all the other race bonus traits are? Last time I looked up the info, it was somewhat sketchy. Also, how much of an advantage is 1 extra skill every 5 levels? Looks like Arlos knows his WoW stuff. <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/pimp.gif ALT=":hat">


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[Arlos]

Finding class trainers is not a problem. Every large city has one. The only tricky one at all is Paladin, where there's no trainers on one continent, so everyone flies to Ironforge or Stormwind to buy new spells. Class skills that are tied to spells you get for free. For example, the first spells that use the skill Undead Mastery aren't available until somewhere in the 20s. (I forget exactly.) So, before that, I had no Undead Mastery skill. As soon as I bought the first spell that USES the Undead Mastery skill, it gave me the skill for free at (but at a skill level of 1). I had to pay money for the spell, but the skill was free.



Buying spells CAN run to a bit of money, but I seldom found that I had a problem getting enough money to buy my new spells (you get them every 2 levels, for the most part). A brand new character might have to pick and chose some they will or won't buy when they level, or hold off paying coin for new gear so they can afford their spells, but by the time you got past L10 or so, (which takes very little time, if you do quests a lot) I never had a problem. The most I spent for spells, ever, was when I turned L30, and buying all my spells cost 4g. Was a significant fraction of my money, but less than half, and wasn't really a burden. I also was entirely un-twinked leveling up, so I experienced the same money/earning issues as any other character, I think.



Some of the spells I probably could've skipped buying, as I seldom use them, like the Seal that causes someone to get healed 15 hp every time a mob hits them. Reason it's not used is the duration is really short (like 30sec), and mobs I'm fighting hit for 40-60, so the mana spent on the seal would be far better spent on a heal. I am sure other classes have similar seldom/never used spells or abilities, that they could probably skip buying, if money was tight.



1 skill point every 5 levels is pretty nice, if you're interested in doing lots of tradeskills to high levels. If I was human, instead of dwarf, I'd have been able to get my Skinning up to Master, which'd let me get heavy leather for myself, instead of having to pay for it, since a lot of my high end smithing recipes need heavy leather, and my skinning tops out at creatures that give Medium leather. Or, it would've let me get Master Engineering, which could be pretty handy. I am not sure that the dwarven racial abilities are in yet, certainly I haven't noticed any sort of "treasure finding" capability in my abilities menu. My frost resist seems pretty normal too. I could be misunderstanding how they work, of course, but dunno, to be honest.



Hope this answers the questions. <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/smile.gif ALT=":)">



-Arlos


</p>

That was great Arlos, thanks for the help! Yes I read that Racial Traits (other then stats) have not yet been implemented, but I can't find the post. Sorry!


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[Lenardo]

arlos your tradeskill levels are wrong



apprentice takes you to 75

journyman to 150

master to whatever i thought it was 300 but it could be 225...



(so sayeth the journeyman herbalist(120/alchemist(125) rogue)










Brother Lenardo Draconis

65th Transcendant of the Celestial Fists

The First Seal

The Nameless

Magelo ('http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=329805')</p>

[Arlos]

Ah, but they're not wrong, Len. heh. I said that the first skill category takes you to 75, the 2nd to 150, and the last one to 225. (Trust me that the 3rd tier caps there, I have top-end mining, at skill 225, and it's capped.) I could have the level titles wrong though. You may be right on that, may well be Apprentice/Journeyman/Master, not what I listed. Assuming that's the case, then yes, definite 20 lashes with a wet noodle for me.



However, my point was that you don't have to get all the way to 75 in a skill before you can BUY the next level in it. You can BUY that 2nd tier ranking at about a skill 60, I think it is. Big diffence between max skill level a ranking will get you to, and the min skill level necessary to purchase the next ranking. Make more sense what I was saying now?



BTW, new recipes for tradeskills are purchased much like the spells/class-abilities you buy every 2 levels. Like, say, to be able to make a Moonsteel Broadsword, you need to have a minimum blacksmithing skill of 180. Once you get your skill that high, you go to the vendor, pay your money, and boom, you can now make Moonsteel Broadswords, assuming you have the materials.



There are some recipes for tradeskills that are NOT on the normal vendor, however. There are certain tradeskill vendors around that will only sell one special recipe. Some of them are kinda hidden, too. For example, one engineering recipe can only be found from this gnome trapped in a cage outside a Yeti cave in the middle of nowhere, in Alterac Mountains. Some other recipes only drop randomly off mobs. There's a fairly brisk trade in those mob-dropped recipes, especially higher skill ones. (golden scale armors for smithing, enchanter boots for tailoring, guardian armor for leatherworking, etc.)



-Arlos


</p>

Wow, they should add a feature to teach a recipe. That could be really cool like if for instance one high level smith had a great recipe allready learned, he could teach it to another smith by "casting" the teach "spell" which would require both of them to sit still for like a half an hour. That way people could pay for mentoring, or trade recipes without EVERYONE who gets to a high level tradeskill having every recipe.



That's a cool way of working things though, I like this game <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/smile.gif ALT=":)"> .


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I think one of Blizzards major objectives was to make any and every form of time sink fun, interactive and full of action. I doubt they would do something that requires you to stay still for 30 minutes. They want to minimize your time remaining idol.


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Thats a good point, I suppose that would be an annoying limitation. However, it would be cool if you could share tradeskills with people once you were high level. The problem with that is that (if there were no penalties for it) everyone would just flood the market with free recipes most likely, or if one person did then everyone would have them all. I dunno perhaps this is why they have the system the way that they do.


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