Alternate way to add skills and elites without capping or paying 1k

First off, many people know about this, but also, many people don't. I spent a good amount of time over the weekend doing this for myself, so I thought I'd share my method.

Overview: unlock skills with hero points, then use tomes to put those skills on your character

1. Check this list
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Hero_sk...iner_locations
See any skills you might possibly want? Use all those hero points you were piling up across all your characters to unlock them. Personally I've been able to unlock over 150 skills this way. It's a bit misleading calling them hero points, as hero points unlock skills for your account.

2. Now use a regular skill tome for your character (of course, they have to be the same class), and you can use that skill for your toon. Didn't need skill points (these are totally meaningless anyways), but more importantly, didn't cost you 1k.

3. Want an elite without having to cap it? Well it's gonna cost you 3000 Balthazar faction and an elite tome. For PvE'ers like myself, this means either Random Arenas or Alliance Battles. Get that 3k Balth faction, and head to Great Temple of Balthazar. Unlock the skill like you would for PvP. Now use your elite tome, and it's yours to use.

Again, I know I'm not breaking earth-shattering news, but many people haven't figured this out on their own yet.

Bye!

What if you don't own the required tomb? You gotta spend 1-1.2k to buy 1 normal tomb and 5-15k to buy an elite tomb.

And what exactly did you pay for the tome? Nothing? Riiight...

While you do agree that this isn't earth-shattering, this is common sense and should be apparent to any player capable of playing Hard Mode.

Shouldnt this be in sardelac sanitarium and not in riverside since this is basically a suggestion?

I use all the tomes I get from farming, and I get a lot. I used to try trading normals for 1k and elites for whatever which harkens back to the 'wts' grind that we all hate. Now I can use them........this way.

So, I paid nothing for them. And I put in two disclaimers that many of us know this. This thread isn't for people who already knew.

edit: Yichi, I believe Sardelac is for suggestions of things that don't currently exist in-game. I'm not suggesting anything, I'm pointing something out. But if a mod wants to move this, then by all means.

Why do I get the feeling I'm getting flamed.......

I don't have anything to say about the elite skills (other than that it's even more costly and time-consuming than just go out there and cap it yourself).

But for the normal skills, I think you should've mentioned that when you use a character to unlock a skill from a Hero Skill Trainer, that character GETS THE SKILL he unlocks, too. No need for the tome (which....I don't know, farming for tomes or farming for money to buy a skill, which one is faster?).

Err.. I thought if you learn the skill through hero skill trainer, it's on your char.

Any skill unlocked via a Hero Skill trainer is available to the character who unlocked them (with the appropriate primary and secondary). No need to spend money on a skill tome.

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Hero_skill_trainer

I'd rather go cap an elite then spend ~10K to buy a tome (+3k faction). Still much easier to cap then go farm for one too...

But then people might have already known about unlocking the skill before using their new elite tome.

Well, it depends on the location of the elite you would like to have.

Yesterday, I used a ranger tome drop to teach my Canthan ranger Winter (unlocked with my w/r) which meant I didn't have to pay for it again.

Today, I bought an elite ranger tome, unlocked Greater Conflagration with Balth Faction gained randomly over the past year and put that elite on my Canthan Ranger, who has never been to Hell's Precipice and might never get there with a cap sig.

So, while my w/r is my main character and goes everywhere, switching 2nds as needed to cap whatever, I have other characters for which the unlock/tome system works very well.

And the OP is correct; not everyone on this forum knows you can unlock elites with Balth Faction for PvE. The reward NPC window states for PvP only.

Thank you VitisVinifera for posting the information.

Yeah I guess some of that late Tyrian elites are tricky to cap for those who aren't Tyrian (likewise for other continents). Even then skills like SOJ in Mineral nobody can be bothered capping for anymore with the introduction of tomes.

For those who didn't know to use Balt faction, thank the OP :P

No. It sort-of belongs in community works...

yeah i kinda misread it thinking he was suggesting an alternate way of aquiring skills. my mistake.

The OP is kinda misleading. As somebody else in this thread already pointed out, you ALREADY learn the skill by unlocking it with the hero skill trainers. Granted, with tomes you can have multiple characters learn it.

No.

When you unlock a skill on your character with hero skill points, your character also learns this skill.

You could always use the Tome on a 2nd pve character, but why would you even have one?

[edit] Looks like I've been beaten a lot.

I could be wrong, but what I think was meant that you could unlock the skill for your account with any one character for your account, then use a tome on another character to unlock it for that character.

For example, I have a character all the way through Nightfall with an assload of hero skill points. I also have a character from Cantha that hasn't even finished Consulate Docks because I just have absolutely no desire at this point. So I can unlock said skills with my first character for my account, then unlock it for my second character with the tome.

Again, that might not be what they meant, but that's what I logically inferred.

if i were u i would not use your tomes right now,
i would keep them when GW:EN is released so u can get all the new skills strait away
u can unlock elites form the places that u get to in the begin of the story line…

I didn't use hero skill points for the longest time because of the way everything was worded.

It sounded like your heroes had earned skill points, and that you could allow any of your heroes on your PvE character to use those, without your account having unlocked that skill.

So the idea sounded retarded. Why would I unlock the skill for my heroes when I could go buy the skill on another character and have the skill available to all my heroes on all my characters?

Then I looked up what they did on Guild Wiki and it suddenly made sense.

ANet has a poor way with words sometimes.

Elite tomes are being sold roughly from 3k to 15k now. Of course prices will drop, but it's still cheaper to buy signets and cap them yourself.

Thank you Vitis (and others in this thread), I totally disregarded hero skills and had no idea that when you unlocked them with your Hero, your character gained the skills also.

It's amazing how may people will poo-poo a helpful suggestion just because THEY think it's painfully obvious. It's not like someone posted, 'hey, if your warrior wields a sword you do more damage!' or anything. If you already knew the answer, thats fantastic - good on you! But do you have to rail against someone who is just trying to be helpful? At the very least you could be civil. 'Thats a bit of obvious information Vitis, but thanks for sharing anyway.'

Sheesh.