Runes of Magic: Mystery Revealed – TP & XP Charms

See editorial note at end of article

One of the more unique aspects of Runes of Magic is the dual class system. Dual class specs have only been supported in three MMORPGs I’ve played – Asheron’s Call 2, Guild Wars and Runes of Magic.  I find the opportunity this system offers for customizing your character to suit your play style a huge advantage.

Like other games, class abilities can be tuned by investing Talent Points in the skills that are important for the way you play your class, and the role you prefer to play in groups.  The amount of Talent Points (TP) received is finite so you must spend them wisely.  ROM's twist to employing dual classes is that you must level each of the classes separately – they don’t share XP or TP.  In an earlier post, I described how I keep both of my classes nearly equal in level without having to quest on them separately.

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

If you’re like me, you don’t plan to play both of your class combinations.  You probably have one variant of the combination in mind as your main character.  For me, my main is Priest/Warrior.  The other combination, Warrior/Priest, is only played to gain XP and TP for the Warrior skills I use regularly.  Given that only a handful of the Warrior’s skills are exposed for use as Priest/Warrior, I will have a considerable amount of Warrior TP’s allocated to skills I don’t really need.  Conversely, on my Priest I don’t have nearly enough TPs to put into the damage skills I need for solo leveling, in addition to the heals and buff spells I’m expected to have as a group healer. 

Hmm, more TPs than I need on one side of the combo and not nearly enough on the other side.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could “rob Peter to pay Paul?”  Yes, it would be wonderful and I can, by using Talent Point Charms.    Talent and XP charms store TP and XP gained while questing with a class into a charm instead of adding them to the classes’ pool.

TP/XP charms are worn in a talisman slot.  Up to a total of 1K TP or XP can be accumulated in the charm.   Once the charm is full you right-click it to turn the captured points into an orb.  The resulting TP or XP orb is placed into your backpack.  To apply the captured TP or XP to your other class, change to that class and then right-click the orb.  Voila!  You've robbed TP/XP from one class and given it to the other.  The charm and orbs are bound to a character.  Therefore XP/TP can only be traded across a single character's two classes.

I do this on behalf of my Priest on a regular basis. After I’m POSITIVE that I have enough TP to max the skills needed on the Warrior, I harness the rest of them from that level into Talent Point Charms.  As of this writing, Talent Point and XP Charms are only available via the Item Shop. 

Making Use of Excess Talent Points

I only use 4 Warrior skills when I’m Priest/Warrior.  Three are combat skills and one is a passive buff.  While playing the Warrior/Priest on the odd occasion that I want to level that side explicitly, I only use an additional 4 skills.  Using only 7 skills out of a couple dozen leaves a large pool of potential TPs that I can pump into my Priest. 

The Warrior-side skills that are useless to me are those related to aggro generating and taunting.  I don't have the gear to tank for groups nor the inclination. You can't place more points into a skill that than the character's level which leaves my warrior with several thousand unnecessary TPs.  That growing pool of excess points is now put to good use on my Priest.  I find this a very unique and convenient option for players who don't really mean to play both classes on a character.

Editorial Note: Someone posted this on the Runes forum and there was a response that the charm is capturing bonus TP & XP at a rate of 50% of what you gained and not subtracting it from that class.  That's not what I've observed but am noting this until there's response from a ROM CM.  In either case, the charms are extremely valuable.  Even more so, if it's generating bonus XP/TP versus borrowing.  If that is how it works then capture the XP/TP any time but be sure to have the class you want to receive the TP/XP consume the orb.

Comments

[br3ntbr0]

I got one of these as a gift bag reward and equipped it w/o fully reading that once equipped, it can't be unequipped. So there I was, losing gained TP to the charm with no idea of why in the world I would ever want to store my TP for later use. Your explanation makes perfect sense and I feel really dense for not figuring that out sooner. Thanks for the explanation and the practical use case for these charms!

[Saylah]

You're welcome. The first time, I did the same thing you did. I had no idea what it was for and equipped it. The explanations of many of the in-game items is very poor considering the tactical choices involved. The game is like EQ2 - heavy on great features and very light on explaining them. :-)

[Saylah]

P.S. Now that I've gotten a free Talent Respec orb I should experiment to see if you retain those transferred TP after a reset. I'm sure they mean for you to do so but we don't know for sure if it's working. While I'm still leveling and can gain them back would be a good time to experiment vs. max level where the gain would be frozen and I couldn't gain them back if it's bugged.

[Heartless_]

Soooo many little hooks into the item store, the sneaky devils. So far, my basic play experience has not been affected by the item shop. However, it seems a lot of item shop items are skirting the line of convenience vs necessity.

This is one of them that I feel almost belongs in the standard game as a feature, because it seems necessary to get the expected performance level from your character.

These sort of item shop items are the only part of RoM that worry me (outside the PvP system), but again I have not gotten far enough to be affected by them.

[Tagga]

I thought these just give you extra TP or XP to use. I don't lose XP or TP with them equipped.

[Saylah]

That's not what I observed when using them but am noting until there is a response from a CM.

[Alysianah aka Saylah]

@Heartless & Tagga - If they work the way Tagga says and are all bonus XP/TP then they are overpowered and will offset game balance between RMT-players and non.

The way it seemed to work the first time I used one was what I explained and would be preferred since it's only accessible from the Item Shop. It provides a check-and-balance. You're offsetting one side of your character to improve another. If it really has no bounds other than how much you're willing to spend then ...

[Dave]

I was wondering if you could clear up some TP questions for me.

I was under the assumption that XP is NOT finite. There are so many ways to gain bonus TP, I assumed you continued gaining it after 50 from remaining quests and dailies.

Does TP gain stop at 50?

If so, then if I want the maximum possible character, I would buy TP furniture and every time I've used up my bonus TP, I would have to log out for a few days and make sure that I was always gaining +100% TP for every level. That doesn't seem right. I assumed it just got you more TP faster for a slight advantage.

[Dave]

In the previous post I meant I assume TP is NOT finite.

But as long as it is not possible to gain lvl 51 with XP bonuses, then XP is definitely finite. What is the point of bonus XP if that means you gain XP without the TP to go with it. You basically get to 50 with less talent than you should have if you didn't use the bonus.

[Dave]

To answer my own questions:

http://forum.us.runesofmagic.com/showthread.php?p=59139

You continue to gain TP after level 50.

As long as that is true TP/XP charms are effectively worthless. The best TP charm does 10,000 TP, and you can make much more than that doing one day of dailies at lvl 50.

I don't see how they can charge $12.30 for the Advanced Talent Charm if this is all true. It could give a slight TP bonus at the lowest of levels, but that is the only advantage.

[Alysianah aka Saylah]

I hadn't heard that you continue to gain TP. That seems rather odd. I wonder what the purpose is of them doing that?

Yes, I do know that the TP charm max is 10K which is a pittance at level 50. But that's a lot at levels 30 and below. I think they are biting their own hand with the infinite TP. To me all of the bonus items, TP, XP and crafting are all only meaningful while you're leveling up. At max crafting and XP, I'd bank them all. At max level I'd stop using charms too.