Remove Duplicate Skills

No one needs two copies of Tiger's Fury on one skillbar, why not just replace them with some of the unimplemented skills that have already been developed and have icons and whatnot.

A similar idea has been brought up on both GWO and Linsey's Talk page. The other idea is to change the functionality of the Factions skills. The only use for duplicate skills where another skill cannot easily be replaced with another is for farming builds (in PvE), joke builds, and gimmick builds (in PvP).

However, Linsey has stated that she doubts such a change would ever occur.

Sadly. -Yes, I am a stubborn person who dislikes gimmick builds. No, I do not use gimmick builds.-

The dupe skills are rarely used anymore. Get rid of them, although it wont happen.

Dupliate skills allows people who do not have all of the chapters enjoy some of the same skill sets. Nothing wrong with that.

So in other words they are core skills that arent available in NF... imo just make one of them core and change the effect of the other skill (make it available at the late game trainer in the other 2 campaigns, eg the dood in gate of torment and michiko).

I think you are thinking of Core skills. Nightfall and Eye of the North do not have these skills. If you believe this is the only purpose of them, then change the Prophecies skills into Core and change the functionality of the second set, as Luminarus said. As is, it downsides those with Nightfall only *or with NF/EN*, that is, with your argument.

the goal of these i think originally was so that players that had Bought factions and didn't buy prophecies, could run the same types of builds, in an effort to make the game more "balanced" it wasn't fair to make someone who had just bought factions buy prophecies

/notsigned, have penetrating attack and sundering attack on my bar is nice.

/notsigned

Touchers, turret rangers, dodge+zojun's, dual divine party healers... heck, even two crystal waves on my ele for farming... why take away the fun of having duplicate skills on your bar?

(But you are right that Tiger+Bestial is unneeded on any bar. But that's that.)

/notsigned...

There's absolutely nothing to be gained and (possibly) quite a lot to lose (cuz not everyone has all campaigns), so I say leave things be.

Won't someone please think of the Touch Rangers?!

/not signed

Although I'm all for Anet giving us the unreleased skills, especially of the Ritualist variety.

/notsigned

I like having duplicate skills on my bar, and on some of my other accounts I don't have all the chapters so it's nice that there is duplicates.

I don't understand why its a stupid suggestion, the duplicate skill idea is basically ANet's laziness showing through in factions and the only real use they have are for farming/gimmicky builds and if replaced with other un-released skills it would at least add something new to the game.

Just because you dont understand the use of duplicate skills doesnt make the developers lazy for implementing them.

Having both divine healing and heavens delight on a monk in PVE is a godsend in areas with heavy degen. Having both inspired + revealed hex is usefull for rapid and free hex removal, plus it synergises nicely with signet of illusions. Having both Dragons Stomp and Earthquake on a Geo elly is fun and usefull for chaining AoE KDs, and also taking both clumsiness and wandering eye is probably the most common build where two repeat skills are used (they are just slightly different).

I wish that there were more duplicate skills - another copy of power drain and cry of frustration would be epic good.

Also, just because other people like to play fun and unique builds once in a while, maybe using duplicate skills doesnt make them gimmick builds. A lot of people are completely fed up of using the same cookie cutter / wiki builds over and over, and like to create something unique and different every now and then. For example, I know that I enjoy AoE healing in PVE using Healing Burst / Divine healing / Heavens delight / release enchantments for example. It is just one of the many build possibilities that are available from using duplicate skills.

There is a higher chance of my me being attacked by aliens than Anet making new skills.
Also the unreleased skills weren't released for a reason - they were either too powerful of useless.

You mean like they have done several dozen times this year already by creating new skill functionality for old skills?
Yeah, that's unlikely to happen right?

I kinda agree. Duplicate skills might as well be changed. The ONLY build that actually uses them is the touch ranger, and this would be an interesting way to kill that gimmicky build.


Also, time to get some points across. Duplicate skills were originally designed to kind of be a half-way point between a core and non-core skill. The idea was probably to have some more duplicate skills in NF of different skills from both campaigns. So there would be some skills that where NF-Phoph only, some NF-Factions only, etc as WELL as some that were core and some that were campaign specific... However, once a.net saw the reaction to this from the community (it was pretty much the most controversial thing to happen to this game at that point until inscriptions) as well as the unanticipated consequences (touch rangers) the idea was abandoned.

/notsigned

fire eles need both heats to kill stuff

bah, no big deal having duped skills. even if they were replaced, it would more than likely be with skills that won't be used anyways

/signed if the duplicates get another playable functionality, like they did with the recent Elite skills update

/not signed if they remove the skills alltogether

So basically, some people want duplicate skills removed because they think in their personal opinion that the touch ranger is the ONLY build that makes use of duplicate skills.

You must have serious brain fail if you think that.

If you dont want duplicate skills, there is a far simpler solution. Dont buy or unlock them, dont use them and simply ignore them. You dont get to decide that the skills arent usefull or enjoyable by the rest of the GW community just because you dont know how to use duplicate skills in any other way then a touch ranger.

What's with people insulting people's intelligence/mother's on this forum?

Turret Rangers were nerfed. Fire eles who stack two spells that cause the same burning condition are bad, and nobody needs duplicate stances.
Really... touch rangers ARE the only build that uses duplicate skills effectively. And even that is a gimmick abusing expertise.

People are just asking for more variation in builds and skills. No need to insult them for that.

And the specious reasoning in the "don't like it, don't use it" has already been beaten to death.


It isn't that the skills aren't "fun." We are not the fun police. We just want more new skills because those would also be fun.
Plenty of people came on this forum after Peace and Harmony and Strike As One were buffed. They were constantly complaining about how it "nerfed" their super fun build (even though those skills individually were buffed greatly). Well guess what, the couple dozen people who actually used those crappy skills had to be weighed against the hundreds who actually enjoyed the buff.

Nothing in this game can ever please everybody. I'm using a pure Utilitarian argument here. Saying "we shouldn't change X because it might step on a few people's toes" would mean we could never do anything in this game, because somebody would always complain.

[Teinai's Heat][Searing Heat] are both amazing in HA.

[Dodge][Zojun's Haste] are amazing for ranger runners.

[Stonesoul Strike][Holy Strike] are both used by goth spike which is yes a gimick but it is effective.

[Divine Healing][Heavens Delight] are great party heals.

[Sympathetic Visage][Ancestor's Visage] are great for some farming builds.

If you could elaborate a little more, I'm really curious as to why the touch ranger is the ONLY build that uses duplicate skills effectively.

They are also part of what is wrong with HA

Ranger runners have more speed stances than any other class, the loss of one wouldn't hurt a thing

Goth spike is a reason to get rid of duplicate skills

But no monk primary runs both copies effectively

Lets save the duplicates for a farming build. There certainly isn't a massively absurd number of farming builds that work the same areas to fall back on.

Originally I was going to say remving them wouldn't be worth the developer time, but your post has conviced me otherwise.

[Bestial Fury][Tiger's Fury]
[Bestial Pounce][Savage Pounce]
[Point Blank Shot][Zojun's Shot]
[Penetrating Attack][Sundering Attack]
[Dodge][Zojun's Haste]

and the strange thing is those duplicates are faction only xD

thats 5 additional skills for ranger lol ?

/notsigned

Most dupicated skills do have an use in certain builds, like the duplicated Elementalist skills or -god forbid- the touch ranger build.

Even though Linsey has stated that they will not change the functionality of duplicate skills, I really do hope the Live Team does, because as Sierra has *unintentionally* pointed out, all/most duplicate skills are either not good to have on the same build or are part of gimmick/farming builds which should be nerfed.

The only downside is for those who own Factions but not Prophecies. But that would be a good thing for Anet, as it would put a little more pressure into buying another campaign.

Nerf gimmick builds, farming builds, making non-gimmick build users/farmers happy and increasing the desire to own Prophecies *and Factions*. It's a win, win, win, win for Anet!

HA isn't going to be fixed anytime soon which still doesn't make them any less effective.

Escape, and Natural stride are the only other 33% stances for ranger.

That to me is like saying, anything that's a gimmick needs to be removed. Also, you can use both those skills on a Mo/A with SoJ. That's how I originally got through the Norn tournament, and when I'm feeling brave I play it in regular pve. Does that still make it a gimmick?

You're right, but most primary attribute skills can't be used efficiently on other professions either. Does that mean they should be removed/changed too?

The skills are effective for what they're meant to do in the build, regardless if it's a gimmick/farming or not, which originally why I posted again. I find it interesting that someone would even start to say that Touch ranger is THE ONLY build that uses duplicate skills effectively.

Actually most of the combos I posted are useful, and they're decent. I'd like to add too that they're not all in a gimmick/farming build either. Only two were, and one set doesn't even have to be a gimmick. :]

The entire game will never be perfectly balanced at all times, there will always be someone who will find some way to make something into a farming or gimmick build. I'm a non-gimmick player and I'm content with whoever wants to gimmick because it's generally free fame/free win for me.

Also, I've found from the people I've talked to, that their desire to buy Prophecies *and* Factions was because they like the game. I liked Factions for the storyline, and later it became necessary for me to have Factions for pvp, because I needed to be uax.

This isn't important. (thumbs down)