Training Trait Nerf

ContraTempo

EDIT: My apologies for bringing this up. It turns out, once I understood that the NEW version of the training trait is ADDITIVE, it's a very good deal.

Weapons and Armor traits are changing, and while the guys with all VR16 Characters debate whether the Sharpened Buff beats the Nirnhoned Nerf, anyone who will ever need to level a weapon or armor skill tree needs to take a serious look at what's happening to the Training trait.

Currently adding the training trait to all your armor pieces means you can level that skill tree 42% faster. That's a huge bonus. And you get even more if your armor is green, blue, purple, or gold. Adding the training trait to all your weapons lets you level those skill trees a whopping 84% faster. But once DB hits that will change to less than 5% added to your general XP, not the skill line in particular. That is a huge nerf to anyone trying to level a skill tree.

In addition to helping your pre-vet characters, this will also be important if you ever decide to change to a different armor or weapon skill tree. For example, when you find out that Uppercut/Wrecking Blow no longer stuns or knocks down your opponent, you may decide 2-H is wrecked and switch to Dual Wield. But wait! You will have to level that skill tree without the advantages of the 84% bonus you can get now. Or if you realize that your mage's shields have been reduced from 20 seconds to 6 so you decide it's time to become a StamSorc and switch to medium armor, but leveling that armor must be done without the 42% bonus.

Does anyone else care about this? If not then maybe ZoS is right that they can make this big change and no one will notice.

Lysette

Well, I find that very disappointing, that it is that low and is added to XP and not to the skill for that particular item. I use it on bows mainly, because this skill levels rather slow compared to others and that training trait was quite useful on that weapon. I do not really have an interest to get my level up quickly, I rather care for my individual skills first and so I am with you in this regards. This is not a good change, you are right.

dday3six

So is this 5% at base or does that scale with item improvement. Then isn't it 5% or what per piece meaning that you could stack a minimum of 8 pieces (7 armor, 1 weapon). At 5% that 40% on top of any other exp bonus. I'm not really seeing the issue. The only time you could break into 84% minimum was with DW. Now it's across the board. That sounds better to me.

Lysette

dday3six wrote: »

So is this 5% at base or does that scale with item improvement. Then isn't it 5% or what per piece meaning that you could stack a minimum of 8 pieces (7 armor, 1 weapon). At 5% that 40% on top of any other exp bonus. I'm not really seeing the issue. The only time you could break into 84% minimum was with DW. Now it's across the board. That sounds better to me.

For a low level the issue is, that the level goes up, but the individual skill still sucks. As it was, the level gain could be delayed, while the item skills got better, so that at level up the ability for that weapon/item was more likely to be unlocked already. This is more effecting new players IMO - and not in a good way. Levels are not any good, if skills are not unlocked due to that the skill line of the armor/weapon is advancing slower, while level gain is faster.

dday3six

Lysette wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

So is this 5% at base or does that scale with item improvement. Then isn't it 5% or what per piece meaning that you could stack a minimum of 8 pieces (7 armor, 1 weapon). At 5% that 40% on top of any other exp bonus. I'm not really seeing the issue. The only time you could break into 84% minimum was with DW. Now it's across the board. That sounds better to me.

For a low level the issue is, that the level goes up, but the individual skill still sucks. As it was, the level gain could be delayed, while the item skills got better, so that at level up the ability for that weapon/item was more likely to be unlocked already. This is more effecting new players IMO - and not in a good way. Levels are not any good, if skills are not unlocked due to that the skill line of the armor/weapon is advancing slower, while level gain is faster.

With the previous training trait exp gains could only be increased for weapon or armor lines. Now class skill line can benefit as well. So I still view it as better to have it apply all around.

Yolokin_Swagonborn

I noticed this as well. Its going to be a lot more difficult to level characters to play on Blackwater Blade with this nerf. If you do play on BwB, experience is the LAST thing you want because it makes you level out quicker. Some of the other AvA changes also make it tougher to play on BWB.

DisgracefulMind

I'm really unhappy with the changes coming as well. I love playing Blackwater, and each time I level a new toon I intricately plan what needs to be leveled first to obtain skills/armor passives. With this nerf, that's going to be near impossible ): Really disappointed about it. It was one of the useful traits, no clue why it's being changed.

Lysette

Ok, other skills will benefit from it, but I fear that leveling my bow skill line will take an eternity with this change. Problem is, I can do like 1-3 shots with my bow before I will perform an execute with another skill - and that was it for that enemy. With the changes it will most likely cost me nearly double as many enemies to level my bow than before - or am I missing something?

BurritoESO

With the way grinding is now, grinding out level 1-50 in the light armor tree will be like 1/10000000 of the time it takes to level to v16 now. And for all the black water blade re-rollers, there's no more reason to do that anymore except have no competition and beat up on noobs

ContraTempo

I think improving the level in your skill line ALSO gave you some XP as a side effect. So I don't think we are getting any more XP than before, just less skill tree increase. Someone who knows the math better might correct me, but that is what I understand.

EDIT: I just crafted all of these myself to get the exact numbers. Full numbers are:
Color.........Weapon........Armor

---

White..........+2.5%..........+7%
Green..........+3%.............+8%
Blue.............+3.5%..........+9%
Purple..........+4%...........+10%
Gold.............+4.5%........+11%

The numbers on the armor are looking a lot better than the numbers on the weapons.
I am trying to find out if those are additive (2 gold weapons = 9%) or if they are averaged.
.

This does NOT increase with the level of the weapon, skill, skill tree or character. It is a fixed percentage.

ComboBreaker88

5% per peice... that's huge. 45% xp bonus for gear alone? That means the with xp potion, eso plus and ring of mara you get 115% more xp. Which is huge. Skill trees already lvl fast enough. Seriously I have a lvl 20 char with lvl 50 in everything. I don't have anywhere near the skill point to unlock them all. The current xp bonus to skill trees is awesome but it really is OP. The way they are changing it makes way more sense. There's no reason to complain. Your skill trees will level faster than you do anyway.

UltimaJoe777

You can usually max a Weapon Skill Line before hitting Lv50, and Armor even quicker. Making the trait useful after you've maxed every single line is not what I'd call a nerf.

Elder_III

It's plenty fast enough to level up a skill line without Training. I've never used it on any of my characters and don't see any need for it. Level up a little slower and then people might actually have a clue how to play their Class/character when they hit max level.

DRXHarbinger

dday3six wrote: »

So is this 5% at base or does that scale with item improvement. Then isn't it 5% or what per piece meaning that you could stack a minimum of 8 pieces (7 armor, 1 weapon). At 5% that 40% on top of any other exp bonus. I'm not really seeing the issue. The only time you could break into 84% minimum was with DW. Now it's across the board. That sounds better to me.

+1 40% boost combined with pots makes the grind to 50 a breeze.

ContraTempo

Ok, I see what I was missing. This new bonus is ADDITIVE. The old version of training was not.

I just crafted all of these myself to get the exact numbers. Full numbers are:
Color.........Weapon........Armor

---

White..........+2.5%..........+7%
Green..........+3%.............+8%
Blue.............+3.5%..........+9%
Purple..........+4%...........+10%
Gold.............+4.5%........+11%

So if you equip 2 purple weapons and 7 purple pieces of armor, all with the training trait, that would get you a +78% bonus to XP.

Sorry for stirring everyone up about this. It actually sounds like we could be doing a lot less grinding.

captainwolfos

Hell yeah this is pretty disappointing. With all my toons, I slap a weapon with the training trait on the second bar and level it up by switching before turning in quests, and have managed to get every skill to 50 on all my post-Gold characters (except one, but with her it didn't occur to me to do that at the time ^^; )

So yeah, I was kind of gutted when I saw that change on the patch notes.