Guild Wars 2

Based on the comments on the forums, most people suggest putting both skills in the same category (often debated between Consecrations or Spirit-Weapons)

My suggestion is to actually do both! Here’s how it goes:

Tome of Courage – Make it a CONSECRATION
Traited with Master of Consecrations, the 1-5 skills will last longer, and have a lower cooldown. The skills’ effects would be:

1. Heal Area could last 1s, or grant 20% more healing
2. Purifying Ribbon could have an additionnal bounce
3. Protective Spirit could have it’s cone last 20% longer OR have its boon grant 20% longer duration
4. Pacifism could daze for 20% longer
5. Light of Deliverance would stay as it is

Tome of Wrath – Make it a SPIRIT-WEAPON
Traited with Expeditious Spirit, the 1-5 skills will inflict 1 stack of burning (so Conflagrate will grant 2 stacks of burn since its initial affect is 1 burn) and the skills will have 20% lower cooldown. The skills effects would be:

1. Conflagrate would grant 2 stacks of burning instead of 1
2. Affliction the projectile would burn foes it hits
3. Smiter’s Boon the cone would burn everything it touches
4. Zealot’s Fervor could become a short-ranged AoE effect that burns foes
5. Judgment would burn knocked down foes

Of course the skill mechanics are different from typical consecrations and typical spirit-weapons, but hey, they’re elite skills, they could behave slightly differently! Perhaps the slot skills could be disabled during the use of any of those tomes for balancing issues as it does currently in the game.

I think that’d be best. There would be more variety in terms of skill types for elites that way, and each of those skill types also fit within the functionality of those skills. Spirit Weapons and Consecrations are both long-ranged just like the tomes, and they are both skills which result in persistent effects that can be used while tomes are out.

Tome of Wrath could also fit consecrations, but I think either skill type is fine for ToW. Tome of Courage should just be a consecration though; no other skill type comes close to fitting it as much as consecrations do (thematically and functionally).
The extra duration from the consecration trait would likely effect Tome duration rather than boon duration (they are completely different things after all), if it was the latter it’d only affect Pacifism and Protective Spirit anyway.

Yeah the Consecration Trait could simply affect the Tome of Courage duration (…didn’t even think of that, woops!) Although with the current durations, the current/old Tome and Traits would change the 20s duration to 30s, maybe they should adjust durations. 25s base and 30s traited? Not such a big duration change though

OH right, with the trait, it could also affect the tome’s skills cooldown, so basically, the tome would go from 25s to 30s, BUT ALSO the skills themselves would cooldown faster, allowing you to use Tome of Courage skills more frequently

Tome of Wrath could have great synergy with spirit-weapon category as it’s more offensive oriented, so gaining a burning effect on hit would fit it greatly

They honestly should be mantras. They have a similarly long casting time and reading seems like a meditative action where you are contemplating what is being read.

Or how about instead of making the tomes themselves fit into a class they don’t for into, make the individual spells they result in each have their own classification.

Their skills are too varied for the each skill to fit into only one category.

So make reading the tome a mantra, then each of its individual skills be classified according to what its actual power is similar to.

Or better yet change the times mechanics. Have the tomes be mantras that take 10-15 seconds to charge. Then when activated each spell would have one charge instead of the whole thing being on a timer. Then by getting the grandmaster trait each spell would have 2 charges before they deplete.

Derenek.8931:

They honestly should be meditations. They have a similarly long casting time and reading seems like a meditative action where you are contemplating what is being read.

Meditations have a long casting time? XD
No offense, but tomes and meditations have nothing in common. Meditations are instant-cast, selfish abilities (except MI) that often close gaps. Tomes are transformations that have a long-ish cast time, they’re long-ranged, very supportive, and their most powerful abilities also have large cast times.

I’d prefer if they just merge both tomes into one and give us a new elite that actually fits.