New Skills For Consideration

Its been some time since I heard anything from a certain source, and I decided to go ahead and post the suggestion Our gaming clan forwarded to ArenaNet on a few new skills for existing classes... Just for the additional Feedback from here... As I know he is looking ATM. lol

anyways. Isaiah this is mostly directed for you as I know your tweaking balance again for each class for Chapter 2.

The following were from HazTeam Beta testers over a period of time prior to Chapter Two Testing... But may still be viable balance skills to be considered.
Anyways a few of the skills above were to find new skills to use with under developed Attributes, and others were just interesting Ideas we put together... So Feedback is welcome as this is truly the place for such debate.

Ingram of Haz.

These are some really quality ideas. I would only say that that last one, Ultimate Sacrifice, would have to have some sort of casting time attached to it or it would be abused... or maybe it would need to be an elite.

Also, "Tears of the Phoenix" needs to have a variable or else it cannot be based in an attribute... if there is no variable then it would be "No Attribute".

My guildmates and I were also tossing ideas back and forth the other night regarding new skills. The two that stand out in my mind were these (I hope you don't mind me adding these onto your thread :P):

Name: <Didn't think of one. :P>
Class: Necromancer
Attribute: Soul Reaping
Type: Elite Enchantment

Description:
For (x) seconds, you recieve only half your due ammount of Soul Reaping. During this time, target other ally gains Soul Reaping equal to half the ammount you normally would recieve.

Name: Sneak
Class: Assassin
Attribute: <Um... no idea. >
Type: Skill (Stance maybe)

Description:
For (x) seconds, your agro circle is halved. If you take damage, Sneak ends.


Again, no intention of thread jacking here.

There is no "agro circle" in PvP. Skills must be usable in PvP, as the balance is designed around PvP. Not gonna happen (nor should it).

Name: Illusion of Power
Class: Mesmer
Attribute: Domination Magic
Type: Elite Hex Spell

For 10 seconds, spells cast by target foe do not cost any energy. When Illusion of Power ends, target foe loses 1...10 energy and is exhausted for each skill used during the duration of the Hex.

Is that a hex or an enhacement? I'd find more use for it as enhancement than a hex (cast on ally, ally casts multiple high energy cost (or just one 10+ energy cost spell)), atleast with those stats.

As a hex... If the enemy has spammable skills, they easily use more than 10 energy within 10 seconds, or simply cast one 10+ energy cost spell. I'd like enemies casting that on me

Bleh. Dunno about the exhaust part, that might hurt sure, then again. Would have to play with it ingame. Swapping high energy weapons after it ends, or something. Nevermind

Name: Shield of Reversal
Class: Monk
Attribute: Protection Prayers
Type: Elite Enchantment

For 5 seconds all hexs cast on target other ally is redirected
to Nearest foe u lose (10-2) energy for each hex redirected

I want it to be both but there isnt a spell in GW you can put on both enemies and allies (Enchantments for allies, Hexes for foes). Its use depends on the situation but its very effective against Rangers and Assassins since it only makes spells cost no energy. Skills will still cost the same amount of energy and have the negative effect as well.

Cool ideas, but there's a problem with two of your skills.

First of all, Rapid Casting is, well, insane. Heck, for the instant cast, I'd take it on my elementalist primary!

Flare-Fireball-Immolate-Flare-Flare-Flare etc. until you run out of energy.

Granted, you have three seconds, but the after-cast is pretty short, and an Elementalist could prep beforehand with Arcane Echo or something and get a lot of nuking spells off in those three seconds.

With upwards of ten seconds into FC, well, those Rapid-cast Flareway/Stoneway builds don't look like a joke anymore. They look unbalanced. Simply halving or reducing the casting time by two-thirds would be enough.

Also, Ultimate Sacrifice has less of a problem, except that theoretically you could have two saccers kill and revive with no death penalty.

Name: Ether Manipulation
Class: Mesmer
Attribute: Inspiration Magic
Type: Elite Skill
25en/2cast/60recharge
For (5..10) seconds the next non maintained other skill cast on target other is also considered to be cast on all nearby allies to target other, and also considered to be cast by target onto the caster of the skill. Should this happen you gain exhaustion.

In case you can't understand my rather unclear description, this is designed to make any skill AoE. If a skill is used on someone with this on them all of their allies near them also have the skill cast on them. For example: you cast it on your monk, monk casts Word of Healing on himself, all of your allies near the monk get Word of Healing cast on them as well, and the monk has it cast on him twice. Or you cast it on an enemy IWAY team and follow it with SS, giving it to most of the enemies. Non maintained is to stop it granting lots of casts of a maintained enchantment (Life Bond/Life Barrier/Aura of Displacement especially) for one pip of degen and one cast.

EDIT: Added non maintained OTHER skill, as I noticed a potential exploit where you hit one char with this twice thanks to another mesmer and follow it up with any AoE spell (I was thinking Meteor Shower, but any would have worked, the larger the AoE the bigger the exploit) to cause a huge amount of damage to all characters in the group as they are hit once by the AoE skill for every character near them that had EM on them (redirect) and once per char near them that it hit (AoE) and once for themselves. I was pictureing someone in RA getting knockdown and 7 high numbers flashing above their head. Even more crazy in tombs or GvG

Rapid Casting seems quite overpowered :O

Deceptive Hex
Mesmer
Energy 5
Cast time 1 sec.
Reuse 20

For 20-39 seconds target foe and nearby foes are hexed with Deceptive Hex. Anyone who casts a hex removal spell on a creature hexed with Deceptive Hex loses 3-8 energy.

The purpose of this spell is simply to be the cover hex. Any good mesmer or necro knows what a cover hex is, and this fits the role perfectly. Those of you who don't know, it's a generic hex that you cast in order to prevent hex removal from removing your more vital hexes. I haven't decided which attribute it should be under. Deceptive Hex can still be removed, it just takes the remover's mana with it. The energy is lost at the point of successfully completing the removal spell.

Energy cost of the spell is cheap because it's supposed to be cast last, when you have the least amount of mana. Cast time is fast because enemies are often very quick to remove hexes, especially in PvE. Reuse is 20 to give the enemy a chance to remove the hexes anyway, so it doesn't completely protect your hexes. But it sure helps a lot.

Of course, you'll have to be careful when using Shatter Hex.

Name: Nuke
Class: Elementilist
Attribute: Fire Magic
Type: Elite Spell

Target foe and all foes in the area are hit for 10.... 74 dmg.
All people in the area are knocked down, set on fire for 1...3secs, and diseased for 4...14 secs.

Not only extremely powerful, but it's called by a name that doesn't really make sense in a fantasy setting. Even if this spell affects allies as well as enemies, I think it is too powerful.

so add exhaustion or something but the name describes exactly what it does

Any ways when i went back over the origional post I saw something interesting: Dousn't Battle Rage do the samething as addrenline rush but more efficiently?

Ummm, no.

Premature Ejaculation
Description: If target foe is casting a spell, the spell is instanly casted, but is weaken by 1...8 attirbute levels.
Energy Cost: 10
Casting Time: 1/4 seconds.
Recharge Time: 45 seconds.
Linked Attribute: Inspiration Magic

just a *little* bit too far.

if little was [-----------------------------------------------------------] that is...

I figured a few would need tweaking. It was mostly just a post for the feedback we are getting for the Devos to see what we are thinking... So all of this is great... The inspiration for a few of these was either a lack of skills in a certain attribute... Or lack of an elite in one... The key thing we have to think of now is balance on offsets to Ruturalists and assassins, cause at the time of original writing of the posted skills we had not played with the new characters yet... Now that we have we could see some things to add for that too. And we have a list. However I'm sure this is already being considered so we did not include those skills in this post... this was the original set from the proposal... I like your guys ideas as well... the trick is to see how they combine and counter... Typically you look at a new skill and need to have at least 2 ways to counter it... Or make it so its not a Invinci Build Skill... Yes they can be useful without being overpowered... In all cases the original skills all have a counter... so the same has to be for new skills too... That's the hard part of skill development... we want cool skills... but you got to balance it out... The Ultimate Sacrifice skill was bounced back and forth on DP for it.. and it was finally decided to do it that way as its a very risky prospect... When the others are rezed... they are extremely weak at that point... and the one that did the rez is Dead at that point so no help there... But I agree on the tweaking of it a little... Maybe to cripple on res for that sacrifice or something like that... Also note We didn't include casting times or recharge for these skills as yet... Obviously This skill would be something in the range of 25 energy and at least 8-10 to cast... Just like resurrect at least...

Finally the rapid casting... This was solely because of the lack of skills in this attribute... I fought hard for this one... I agree its overpowered as is... But this can be offset either by a large energy requirement... OR Exhaustion... Since its a Speed skill I was thinking more exhaustion... With an energy cost of 10. But was open to suggestions... So your feedback is welcome on those I'm sure...

Name: Disenchanting Swarm
Class: Necro
Attribute: Curses
Type: Elite Spell

25 energy
3 casting time
30 recharge

Disenchanting Swarm flies out and disorientates target foe and up to 3 foes in the area. When a foe is disorientated by Disenchanting Swarm, they lose 2-4 enchantments and take 20-66 dmg.

Name: Dirge
Class: Necromancer
Attribute: Soul Reaping
Type: Elite Spell

5e
2 casting time
45 recharge

For each dead ally or enemy, all party members gain 3...13 energy and 1% morale boost. 50% failure chance with Soul Reaping 4 or less.

I think its a little too powerful, but thats how I like my skills :P

Since many of these suggestions seem to be mostly for the Mesmer I thought I'd plug this other thread. Even though I don't really like his implimentation of the idea, he brings up a very good point.

Basically the Mesmer has all sort of skill thief spells (Arcane Mimicry, Inspired Hex, Inspired Enchantment, Arcane Thievery, possibly another one I'm forgetting), but this line of spells is just gimmicky and for the most part isn't used except for their secondary effects (i.e. removing a hex, locking out an enemy's skill, etc.). He's looking at ways to make them useful.

Just thought I'd throw that out there. If you want to discuss it I suggest you do so in the thread I linked rather than here, so we don't hijack this one. I just thought it was a good topic and relevant to this one.

IWAY has a new champion.

Herald of departing souls (Elite)
Nature Ritual. Create a level (Min: 1 - Max: 10) Spirit. For creatures within its range, whenever any creature dies, Herald of Departurting Souls deals (Min: 14 - Max: 50) damage to all nearby creatures. This Spirit dies after (Min: 30 - Max: 150) seconds

its Edge of Extinction to the Necros with Soul reaping, since some skills already is duplicated among other classes and Edge of Extinction seems more soul reaping than beast mastery
IWAY are going to love this... though

Reap Soul (fast casting time, 5 energy)
cast on corpse, gain energy (Min: 10 - Max: 22) Energy, the corpse is considered exploited.

Blessing of Grenth (fast casting time, 5 energy)
cast on corpse, the corpse is considered exploited and for a duration of Min: 30 - Max: 150 seconds the corpse cant be restored to life.

Then otyugh's cry shouldn't happend

yes there are skill balances toward PvP only. But there are many skills that never I repeat never find their way into PvP. In such cases they are often very useful in some way to PvE. Please guys. remember Guild wars is more then Just PvP or Just PvE. Its a combination of both. Chapter 2 WILL emphasize that as certain PvP will be integrated into PvE story, and Visa Versa...

This Elitist attitude Must stop that all there is is PvP... That's only 20% of the game... If Chapter 2 were only PvP it would have been done 3 months ago...

Let me put it this way... If you were to buy chapter 2 and all you were getting were the 2 extra characters, and 1 slot more for that character... And the battle Isles as is right now... would you pay $50 for that? Nope...

What you pay for is the continuation of the story and the new maps and quests. Guess what? That's PvE folks... That's the bread and butter... Yes PvP is a good portion of strategy building and Profiteering... And maybe even one of the most enjoyable portions of the game. But it certainly not the scope of the entire game. So making a claim that all skills are for PvP only is a little Naive.

Many mesmer And Ranger skills are good examples if PvE skills... For that matter Several Monk skills are PvP. No one brings certain monk skills to a PvP match.

I for one had 70% of the game unlocked , Skill, Rune, and Item wise before what we now know as faction ever existed. This was a bit of a downturn to PvP, as suddenly everyone had the best of everything... But the majority remained quite... Look what that brought us too. Arrogance beyond all huberous... If it were the old system at least the game play respect would be balanced, if nothing else.. Now that PvP Purists can cut PvE out of their lives they do so... And that is a real pity cause in reality there is a full and rich game out there to be played... that they will not take the time or effort to ever care about in any way. If they could purge it they would. Oh and Agro circles are important... This is why PvPers Su(c)k at the rest of the game. they have zero clue about how or why things work in the game as a whole. Can't pull, Can't draw, can't block, Basically they are worthless most of the time... unless its as a meat shield (tank) for the rest of the players since that's all they know how to do from PvP.

Now back to subject. All your ideas about skills are much appreciated.

Have fun using a skill backed by 0 attributes
Elementalist Primary/Fastcasting doesn't work.

Strength

Berserker’s Fury
Description: For the next 5…12 seconds, you attack 33% faster, and +1…16 attack power, but reduce your armor by 20 AL and suffer 2 hp degen in duration. This skill ends if you use any spells.
Energy Cost: 10.
Casting Time: None.
Recharge Time: 30 seconds.
Skill Type: Stance.

Head Butt
Description: Knock yourself and target foe down. You and target foe both suffer Daze for 8 seconds.
Energy Cost: 8 Strikes.
Casting Time: None.
Recharge Time: None.
Skill Type: Attack.

Tactics

“I will Last!”
Description: You gain 24…60 health.
Energy Cost: 7 Strikes.
Casting Time: None.
Recharge Time: None.
Skill Type: Shout.

Chaser
Description: For the next 3…8 seconds, you move 25% faster. This skill renewal itself each time you hit a moving foe.
Energy Cost: 5.
Casting Time: None.
Recharge Time: 20 seconds.
Skill Type: Skill.

Hammer Mastery

Defense Breaker
Description: If this attack hit, reduce the AL or target foe by 10…22 for the next 8 seconds.
Energy Cost: 7 Strikes
Casting Time: None.
Recharge Time: None.
Skill Type: Hammer Attack.

Axe Mastery

Axe Throw
Description: You attack target foe at range. If this attack hit, you strike for additional 5…16 damage. Your attacks and axe skills are disable for 2 seconds.
Energy Cost: 5.
Casting Time: 1/4 second.
Recharge Time: 5 seconds.
Skill Type: Axe Attack.

Sword Mastery

Double Strike
Description: You attack twice to a single foe.
Energy Cost: 6 Strikes.
Casting Time: None.
Recharge Time: None.
Skill Type: Sword Attack.

Sounds overpowered because of extra damage and only 20 less armor for a class that already is strong in that area. The 2hp degen is just mending food
Maybe causes a 50% decrease in attack speed and/or exhaustion after the stance ends?
Good skill, will help when you see someone setting a trap and you won't be able to get there in time

Monk enchantment - While you maintain this enchantment it prevents shatter enchantment or backfire - costs 25 energy 1/4 casting time 3/4 recharge lasts 9seconds

That's a pretty lame skill, it blocks specifically two skills and they are skills to keep a monk balanced

Thank you for your comments Ingram, they are quite accurate. The only thing I would add is that the AoE Nerf really could not have been just for those silly ghosts (now Zaishens) at the beginning of the ascent to the Hall. :P

hm...perhaps the mantra would make a mo/me runner possible...oh wait, no SB or Obsidian Flesh...nvm, doesnt work ^_^

Necro: Blood Bond {elite hex}
10en/1cast/5recharge/1hp + 1en upkeep/Blood (and soul for guaranteed casts)
Lose 25% max health. Target touched foe is hexed with death bond. When you die, all you are maintaining this hex on die. While hexed half the damage and healing you take is redirected to them, reduced by (50-0), and half the damage and healing they take is redirected to you, damage reduced by (0-25). No more than one foe may be hexed with this at any one time. This skill will fail with Soul Reaping 4 or less.

The no more than one foe is to stop a team having 3 necros with this running up to the enemy monks, hexing them and killing themselves. Gives primary necros a nice trick that lets them steal enemy healing, and halve the damage they take. The enemy also gets some nice boosts, to make this skill less overpowered. And of course you want a coordinated team to stop the team killing the necro.

Warrior
Furious Strike {elite sword attack}
9 Adren/Swords
Any stance you are using, beneficiant shout, or enchantment you are maintaining ends. Nearest other char is attacked with Furious Strike. If this hits it will result in a critical hit and +(1-10) damage being done to target, and all your adrenal skills being recharged except Furious Strike. If blinded, Furious Strike hits all nearby characters instead of one target. Furious Strike and all non-adrenal are disabled for 20 seconds. After 10 seconds, you suffer from weakness for (20-5) seconds.

Swords doesn't have enough elites, and this could make for some interesting combos, provided you get them all off in 10 secs. The idea is that you go into a blind rage for this move, building a huge amount of adrenaline and unleashing you fury on the nearest thing, be it a pet, foe or ally. If you're blinded you don't care, you just swind wildly round you, hitting everything near you. However, blind rage tends to interfere with concentration, so no more stances, maintaining enchantments or paying concentration to shouts.

Mesmer
Mantra of Duality {Elite Stance}
15/0/120/Insp
For (1-10) seconds, the next time you are casting a spell, you may cast another spell simultaneously. Should you do this, Mantra of Duality ends. Should this stance end while casting two spells, both spells cease and you suffer from exhaustion. Any interruption while casting two spells only interrupts the first spell to begin casting.

Yes, yet another Mesmer elite. Sure they're already powerfull, but they're also the cast that all the cool effects look like they should belong to.

Ranger
Spirit of Solidity {Elite Nature ritual}
10/3/60/WS
Create a level (1-10) spirit that dies after (30-90) seconds.
All elemental, physical, holy, chaos and dark damage in the area of effect of this spirit becomes blunt damage. Greater Conflagration takes precedence over this spirit.

This will make some skills (such as orders) vastly more powerful, greatly weaken others (Illusionary weapon, anyone?) and can be countered very easily with GC.

Elementalist
Overwhelm {elite spell}
25/2/30/ES
Lose all energy. For each point of energy lost, target foe is struck for (1-3) damage in each element. You gain double exhaustion.

By each element I mean earth, air, fire and water. This could be very powerful at high levels of energy storage, but makes you very useless for a long time, unless you have some better way of gaining energy.

Read the rest of my post :P

Show me three seconds of instant-casting any spell and I'll show you the power of a Fire Attunement nuker emptying his/her skillbar in those three seconds.

Blood Bond is a bit overpowered. The half-redirected healing won't stop anyone, since people regularly kill themselves off for no bigger reason than EoE or Minion Factory. Plus, used in a similar setting as EoE, you could just Bond, die, Light of Dwayna, rinse and repeat.

Furious Strike is interesting, but you have to change it to "Adjacent foe", since from the descriptor it sounds like you can accidentally attack allies, which, from the TA fiasco, is a bad idea. I'm also a bit leery of the big spike you can get off as soon as you use this skill, but sword skills could use the boost.

Mantra of Duality is one shot, so I'm not sure why the duration is so short (Or, indeed, why the recharge is so long). Also, I'm not sure what happens if you try to cast two spells of different length. Since the stance 'ends' when you cast two spells, and both spells are interrupted when it ends, does that mean that you'll have to time the spells perfectly?

Ovewhelm, hm. Might be too much of a boost, since it hits four times, managing to overcome RoF. With dual -1/+15 items, it could hit for, well, I don't know, around 960 damage (240 in each element, assuming 80e), easily killing anyone, with the exception of someone with Protective Spirit, on which you'll just do 40% max life to.

I don't mean to be overly critical, though. Some of these skills show some thought put into it. (Heck, I have a word document where I dump GW skill ideas into myself!)

Good skills, I like Blood Bond and Matral of Durality especially. However, the conditions you give to your skill are really LONG...

Name: Sharpened Dagger
Class: Assassin
Attribute: Deadly Arts
Type: Spell

Description:
Throw a Sharpened Dagger at target foe. If it hits, target foe takes 13...43 piercing damage and begins bleeding for 3-18 seconds. Foes struck by Sharpened Dagger are interrupted.

Energy Cost: 5
Casting Time: 1/2 second
Recharge Time: 15 seconds

Name: Locust Strike
Class: Assassin
Attribute: Critical Strikes
Type: Lead Attack

Description:
If this attack hits, you gain Adrenaline and your next Off-Hand Attack has an additional
1...44% chance of being a critical hit. (The amount of Adrenaline gained increases depending on your rank of Critical Strikes)

Energy Cost: 10
Recharge Time: 12 seconds

Name: Shadow Stab
Class: Assassin
Attribute: Shadow Arts
Type: Lead Attack

Description:
If this attack hits, you strike for 13...36 shadow damage and your next Off-Hand Attack cannot be "blocked" or "evaded".

Energy Cost: 10
Recharge Time: 15 seconds

Name: Vanish
Class: Assassin
Attribute: Shadow Arts
Type: Skill

Description:
For 4 seconds, you "evade" all attacks and magical projectiles used against you. All your skills are disabled for 8 seconds. (25% failure chance with Shadow Arts 9 or less)

Energy Cost: 10
Recharge Time: 20 seconds

I came up with a nice responce to the feed back I'd got on my skill suggestions. Then I previewed it. It was about 2 pages. It is now in the attached text document to allow people to read it if they really want to.

Alot of good skills posted. Hopefully the devs at Anet are reading this. I'm sure they would best know how to tweak these if they are unbalanced. Heck, maybe they should hire some of you guys!

Name:Lightfoot
Class: Assassin
Attribute: Shadow Arts
Description: Stance. For 4-16 seconds, you can't trigger any traps.
Energy Cost: 10
Recharge: 30 seconds

Name: Trigger Traps
Class: Assassin
Attribute: Shadow Arts
Description: Skill. You trigger all traps in a 60-100 degree radius
Energy Cost: 10
Recharge: 45 seconds

Name: Remedy
Class: Ritualist
Attribute: Restoration Magic
Description: Spell. Heal target ally's exhaustion. This spell causes Exhaustion.
Energy Cost: 10
Recharge: 20 seconds

Name: Disarm
Class: mesmer
Attribute: Domination
Description: Spell. Disable all target enemies attack skills and all your spells for 4-9 seconds
Energy Cost: 10
Recharge: 30 seconds