Or how about cutting down on (possibly eliminating?) the negative effects of exhaustion? It seems like most fights you'll end up being able to use one of these stances once, tome or not, and that most of them are not currently used (could be wrong) due to exhaustion.
I think the attempt here was probably to make it so that the exhaustion stances were actually used for something other than mitigation. Given that, a direct reduction in penalties associated with this is psychologically better than a sideways one reducing duration.
Has anyone done a parse of, say, a rogue using an exhaustion style w/ this tome as opposed to using normal stamina draining styles instead? Does this tome already add some (possibly ridiculous?) amount of damage and everyone is just looking at this from a mitigation viewpoint rather than damage? It's been pointed out the codices of power are better for DPS than others, so why shouldn't this be fairly worthless for tanks?
Also, consider Zak's point that tomes are forever. Just...think about that. Its not a new item slot because it doesn't take up a slot. Its just there. Now. Also two years from now when people want new content.
Many times in this thread the idea of progressive, or stacking tomes has been mentioned. Maybe this is just a tome that looks really sucky right now but won't be when they expand tome options in the future. "Its something to do" may be a horrible reason for investing AAs in this tome, and indeed, if you had something else to do with them you might not. However, it seems fairly likely you'll be playing your character, and you might as well be using your AAs, right? Or if it sucks that much, just be grumpy when the sucky tome drops.
The balance of a tome has to be considered from the perspective not of "hey is this awesome today" but more of "omg wtf is this going to do 6 months down the line when we want to add more stuff." It's easy to say that you could just make future tomes that add to it overwrite it, or have it be smaller. But, logically, why should that be? Given risk vs. reward, wouldn't it actually make more sense for this to be the smaller one? And the next one may reduce the exhaustion period by 30% for a total of 50% (additive) or 56% (multiplicative)?
So, yeah. It could be better, and if its meant to be a stand alone tome (with no brothers, sisters or bastard children down the line) it should be improved. Alternately, they could add other tomes that affect exhaustion and two months from now you're going to be talking about how awesome this tome is.
Anyway. I've said my piece.
I think the attempt here was probably to make it so that the exhaustion stances were actually used for something other than mitigation. Given that, a direct reduction in penalties associated with this is psychologically better than a sideways one reducing duration.
Has anyone done a parse of, say, a rogue using an exhaustion style w/ this tome as opposed to using normal stamina draining styles instead? Does this tome already add some (possibly ridiculous?) amount of damage and everyone is just looking at this from a mitigation viewpoint rather than damage? It's been pointed out the codices of power are better for DPS than others, so why shouldn't this be fairly worthless for tanks?
Also, consider Zak's point that tomes are forever. Just...think about that. Its not a new item slot because it doesn't take up a slot. Its just there. Now. Also two years from now when people want new content.
Many times in this thread the idea of progressive, or stacking tomes has been mentioned. Maybe this is just a tome that looks really sucky right now but won't be when they expand tome options in the future. "Its something to do" may be a horrible reason for investing AAs in this tome, and indeed, if you had something else to do with them you might not. However, it seems fairly likely you'll be playing your character, and you might as well be using your AAs, right? Or if it sucks that much, just be grumpy when the sucky tome drops.
The balance of a tome has to be considered from the perspective not of "hey is this awesome today" but more of "omg wtf is this going to do 6 months down the line when we want to add more stuff." It's easy to say that you could just make future tomes that add to it overwrite it, or have it be smaller. But, logically, why should that be? Given risk vs. reward, wouldn't it actually make more sense for this to be the smaller one? And the next one may reduce the exhaustion period by 30% for a total of 50% (additive) or 56% (multiplicative)?
So, yeah. It could be better, and if its meant to be a stand alone tome (with no brothers, sisters or bastard children down the line) it should be improved. Alternately, they could add other tomes that affect exhaustion and two months from now you're going to be talking about how awesome this tome is.
Anyway. I've said my piece.