New Condition

I was going to make a joke thread about how the "Rusty Axe" you sometimes find on Shing Jea island maybe the pan-ultimate anti-warrior weapon when I thought how it would actually work actually as a condition such as "Lockjaw."

It work similar to dazed except it would help prevent shouts; so shouts take double the time to be put in effect. The condition would be strengthened by the release of Nightfall and the Paragon class whose skill set is made up heavily of shout skills. Of course like dazed it wouldn't be imperative and strong against all classes, but would be strong against shouters-only.

A rusty modification on a weapon could increase the duration of Lockjaw. Also weapon enhancements by Ritualists could find a place as well as Paragon or Ritualists, although not likely since there's no new Ritualist skills. Something like...

Dull Weapon
For 3...8 seconds, target ally has a Dull Weapon. Target ally's next successful attack on target becomes lockjawed for 1...5 seconds.

But then again, shouts aren't that common and I don't know how much more they'll be scaled in the upcoming chapters making this idea as popular say as disabling another player's signets. Plus maybe calling it "Silence" would be better, but then that usually indicates anti-magic in most fantasy games...

sounds like an intresting concept, and pretty fair too

I think having two conditions would sum it up a lot better... Then "lockjaw"

Deaf - You cannot be effected by shouts.
Mute - You cannot shout.

Some skills I can think of...

Screeching Arrow - 5, 10 (Marksmanship)
Bow Attack. This arrow moves 3x faster, target foe and adjacent foes suffer from deafness for 3....14 seconds.

War Cry - 5, 30 (Strength)
Shout. All nearby foes suffer from deafness for 2....10 seconds.

Tied Tongue - 10, 1, 12 (Domination Magic)
Hex Spell. For 2.....14 seconds target foe suffers from 1...3 degen and is mute.

To Mtank325: The proposed condition as you describe it will have minimal effect if any. Shouts work instantly upon activating them so doubling the amount of time to use em would be pointless. A better alternative would be to add a 2 second delay from the time it's activated to the time it's actually used.

To Nevin: Deaf and Mute are also fine ways to limit shout useage.

These are nice ideas although I wouldn't be too thrilled about impeding the useage of shouts. Healing Signet, "I will avenge you" and "I will survive" are the only 3 ways a warrior can recover life without resorting to a secondary profession skill. I personally don't think being able to impede 2 of these 3 ways of healing is a good idea.

you're better off making skills that specifically target shouts, instead of creating a new condition altogether, that would be a better idea.

Yeah, I agree: Example: Target foe cannot shout for 5...10 seconds.

Pacifism disable warriors/assassins, I don't know why is not more popular.

WOW, its a great idea.

I like to do VIM trap groups in HA, something like this would totally destroy that build.

Sure its not the best build ever, but I get fame out of it.

Stopping shouts would shut down warriors and BM rangers for sure

/signed
i think it woulkd be a great idea to have deaf and dumb conditions int he game ... well we already have blind and its something that can counter act some of the skills that dont have any counter at this time

Oops i forgot about the instantanious thing

The Ritualist already has a spell called "Dulled Weapon." It makes it impossible for the target and all nearby foes to achieve critical hits.

Anyway, being able to do something about shouts would be awesome. It would certainly put IWAY down. I'm more worried about Beast Masters though. Using that on a BM completely shuts him down, unless he has some good alternative skills. Perhaps something like:

Studder
Mesmer - Domination
Energy 10
Cast time 2 sec.
Reuse 20

Target's shouts are disabled for 5...12 seconds.

Not too much that you can keep them silent all the time, but not too uesless either.

But then again, if it was a condition it can be easily removed. So I guess you do have some balance there. I would say Antidote Signet should be able to remove it.

Maybe to prevent BM from becoming completely useless from these conditions they could make pet shouts their own type of shout. Or maybe completely change pet shouts into a new type of skill like "synergy" skill.