Dancer Archive
Thread: Skill point cost too high
Now for what I think is a really big issue... Master Dancer costs WAAAYYYYY too many skill points for a skill that is of very limited benefit to the person that worked on the skill.. it mostly helps the people aroudn them. Yes it can get you some tips.. but this amount generally pales compared to how much you can earn running missions...
Also, mastering dancer doesn't lead into any skill trees, and has no synergy with anything else.. compare thisto a medic where being a master medic gives you a big benefit in that you can now wander out into the wild and be able to heal yourself for a LOT of damage. The medic ability is good for both healing people during down timeAND during combat.In a camp, or with adroid, a medic can practice the full potential of his craft healing both pools and wounds. All for 77 skill points.
And don't forget once you master medic you can go on to be a combat medic, doctor, or bio-eng.
Now look at the dancer. You can do nothing in the middle of a battle, for yourself or for others. You need a camp to do anything and even then you can NOT heal fatigue, so basically you can heal mental wounds and that is it. And it costs 106 points for this!! And yes I know you can still do some dancing by just taking the stuff inthe entertainer tree, but the dance selection is rather small and pathetic, and the healing you do is very very low.
106 points SEVERLY limits what else can be done with a cahracter. Compare this to most combat masteries which take only 92. Creature handling mastery costs 106 and it gives a VERY valuable addition to the group (tanks with 10 tmies he hit points of a player) makes a player formidable in both Player vs Environmentand Player vs. Player AND is a lot of fun to roleplay
Yes, that little +7 to melee/ranged is a nice little bonus on top, but it does not for a second justify the difficulty and skill cost of getting there. Compare this to spending an extra 48 points in brawler ( 14 * 3 + 6) which gets you +5 ranged/melee and an ADDITIONAL + 5 toughness as well as skill upgrades.
Master dancer is not viable for a secondary profession for people who are truly serious about their primary profession or PvP. And if chosen are a primary profession it SEVERLY limits what you can do with the rest of your character.
I've already talked to people who are saying they plan on giving up master dancer as they feel the push for more skill points. Please don't punish people for choosing to be dancers. It is a hard enough life as it is with the high level dances taking up an insane amount of action... which makes combat even harder for us because we have to make our stats lopsided toward action/quickness/stamina if we want to be able to dance exotic for more than 120 seconds
Much of what you say is true. Once I reached Master Dancer, what do I use it for? Where else can I go with it? What other skills can I pursue without needing to give up my dancing?
I am following the way of Teras Kasi at this point, but I will be a little weaker TK than some because I cannot afford the points needed to be a Master Brawler as well. I accept that. I have a dabbling of medical, survey, and significant scouting skills as well, but some of those will have to go as well once I reach TK Master. When all is said and done, reaching Unarmed/TK Mastery willstretch the limit on my skill points.
But by the same token, I love dancing. I'm still hoping I can find a regular venue in which to perform - preferably a busy private cantina. I'm also hoping that SOE will continue to flesh out (*cough*) the profession with new skills, new dances, new value to the game. The dancer of today, 2 months into release, is surely not going to be the same as the dancer of next year or the year after? If it is, look for many, many Dancers to surrender their titles.
It was also my choice not to pursue Master Entertainer. I considered it - but such pursuit would have meant abandoning all thought of having viable fighting skills. And to me, the fighting skills are a pre-requisite for engaging in the story line. (Even gimpy melee skills, which mean I'm at a PvP disadvantage). Playing music looked like fun but I'll never know.
Rather than lowering the skill cost for Master Dancer, what if SOE gave M.D.s a few bonus points of quickness or endurance due to our long hours of devotion to craft? Something that would make us stand out slightly from the non-dancing marksmen and brawlers? Wouldn't you think a trained dancer would have a leg up (*cough* again) in mastering martial arts?
But you don't HAVE to be a master dancer if you just want to dance in the campsite for your group and a desire to dance one in a blue moon doesn't seem to justify being master dancer. Yes spending all those skill points requires a dedication to the craft... Please don't mess with the only occupation that is really primarly about roleplaying.
What do you do when you reach master TKA? You run around and kill more things -- so why do people always ask what a master dancer is supposed to do?
Also, if youcould be happy with justexotic/exotic2 you could just get DK-IV and drop everything else. You wouldn't get exotic3/4 but you would get alot of skill points back.
It's a good thing that you can't master everything you want. Don't mess with dancing.
I disagree with you completely.
First, this is no different than any other Elite mastery. What do you 'do' with any of them once you've completed them? You continue to do the same things, you RP, or you work on secondary skills.
Second, entertainment is very much an RP and social based profession. If you aren't interested in doing it full time, then don't master it - there's no need to if it's not your primary career. What do you do when you've achieved master dance? Why you DANCE! I adore the fact that I can now dance whatever I want to, without ever worrying about experience - so if the song is fast, I can dance popular and not care.. if it's slow it doesn't matter if I choose formal over lyrical. I can work in more groups that use bandflourishes to synch, and let others take the lead more often, because there are no more concerns. I can focus more and more on the *entertainment* and less an less on the grind
That being said, I am unsure where you are having point issues.. I have 5 pts left right now, and that's with mastery of entertainment, mastery of Dance, novice artisan, novice brawler, novice medic (all with some skills trained in various brances) and Novice Musician with about halfway to master. Exactly how much would you like to be able to do??
Ultimately, any opinions aside regarding anything, Dance is an elite profession and costs no more to master than any other elite profession, so I wouldn't look to seeing a change soon.
Reachwind wrote:
Entertainment healing in the entertainer profession shouldn't be a requirement for dancer/musician. We already have two full trees of it to get master anyway. I think that it should still be an option (bonuses to healing) justnot a requirement.
I do agree with this. Just like Pistoleer etc doesn't require the Marksman support group, we shouldn't have to have the healing support group.... Just my opinion though.