Passive Skills

I would think it would be kinda cool if you have passive skills. You would equip it on your skill bar to activate it (needs to be on skill bar for it to work). You dont have to cast it like a spell and it doesn't have a duration. I would be like weak stance or enchantment that stays on forever (with a few ways to disable enemy passive skills). To show that you are using a passive skill, there can be a little up arrow like enchantments on your name. Maybe you can only use one passive skill at a time too. Of course it will need to be balanced out too.

Examples would be

Necromancer:
Feast of Souls: You gain an additional 1...3 energy from dying creatures. (Req Soul Reaping)

Monk:
Spirit of Healing: (-10 Energy) healing spells are increased by 12-30 hp healed (Req Healing Prayers)

Ranger:
Blinded Ranger: When you are blinded, you only have a 85-60% to miss attacks (instead of 90%) (Req Marksmanship)

Ritualist:
Power of Spirits (Elite): Spirits Skills you cast have a level increase of 1...3 (Spawning Power)

Assassin:
Haste (Elite): You move 5...10% faster (Req Shadow Arts)

Elemantalist:
Fire Power (elite): (-5 Energy) You do an additional 5-25 dmg with fire damage. (Req Fire Magic) Same skill for other 3 elements.

Mesmer:
Energy Boost: You have an additional 5...12 Energy (Inspiration Magic)

Warrior:
Tactical Warrior: You have a 5...10% chance of blocking attacks (Tactics)

So what do you guys think?

Well, they do need to be balanced, but I give my /sign of approval.

definetly add some spice to guild wars. autoskills they will be named....

Passive skills are one thing I've always loved about WC3/DOTA.

Maybe using a Passive skill will create an Aura around you, making it more noticable what you are using/when you are using it.



/Sign for sure, though... As long as they get balanced.

they could jsut make enchantments without the energy degen, would be a simple solution to creating somthing like this

enchants can be stripped/shattered/drained/defiled/whatever. If they are skills like endure pain or even like the new blessings it would be unremovable

/not signed

more ideas to remove the challenge from this game? casting and maintaining enchantments are part of the fun of managing your character. taking that out and replacing them with auras will make this game nothing more than DOTA 3D.

Like I'm saying to remove it there could be a mesmer skill that is like.

*Skill Name*
Cost 10 Energy. Spell. Target foes passive skills are disabled for 5...20 sec.

So after that duration is up the skill is active again. And some of the better skills would have penaties, like -10 energy and stuff like that (plz no - hp). But there will be ways to counter it and some sort of maintaining fee. Maybe all of them could have (-20% energy) for a penalty so you cant stack like 5 of them on you. And remember these would be weaker. So like if there would be a "autoskill" version of vital blessing, then it would probably only give 1/3 or 1/4 of what vital blessing gives.

/not signed

Permanent boosts like these wont work in GW

Seems to go against what guild wars is about.

/signed conditionally

Definitely needs balance. For example, the speed boost for assassins, this perma-run... ew. However, I think it would create a greater challenge and variety, not less. Do you go with a more restricted, but boosted, build.... or do you take 8 skills without a boost, but more able to counter things?

The proposed Necro, Rit, and Ranger autoskills are conditional enough, and of such small magnitude, that I think they would work well. I mean, don't necros ALREADY have something like this in Awaken the Blood? I think as long as the benefits of the autoskills (and the inherent penalties, like -energy) were balanced against the benefits a seventh and eighth skill would provide.... it would be really, really neat.

-_- and, let's be honest. Guild wars now has skills, stances, spells, enchantments, and hexes (conditions too, but they are caused by skills and spells). An overly-simplistic Rock-Paper-Scissors only works for so long. C'mon, let's not be afraid of a bit more complexity.

Addendum: this is not a request for 394832904832 types of skills and elements and non-elementals and what have you. A little increase in complexity and diversity is good. Too much, and it starts to get stupid.

i don't see how this would hurt anything, since you are sacrificing a skill slot for it,
i know i would rather use an "active" skill than a stance like passive one, but as long as they don't become something you absolutely need whatever you are thinking of doing, i don't see a problem

Ya, I mean cmon, if skills like these get balanced out, and there are ways to counter them, then I don't see why you're against them so much. We pretty much have something like this already. W/Mo bring mending in 4v4. Cast it b4 the battle starts. He gets a penalty and I bet you 90% of the games they play it wont get removed. These skills are similar except the penalty is weaker, the positive affect is weaker, and it can be "disabled" just like maintanable enchants can be removed.

Also, other than maintainable enchantments, we already have passive skills/attributes. Every single pirmary attribute already has a passive affect. We also have runes and mods on weapons that give permenant affects too. So things like that already work.

And I'm not saying we have to use these skills, I'm just giving examples to show you what they would be like.

i don't know if it's the idea here but what if these skill take a slot on you skill bar and are always active? Not being a special prof bonus from nowhere.

better yet, make it like WoW...somewhat .... NOTE: the passives do NOT take up a skill slot

(based off ur Primary Profession)

Rangers: +10% range with all ranged weapons
Warriors: +5% attack speed with all melee weapons
Assassins: +5% running speed
Mesmer: +5% duration to hexes
Monks: +5% duration on Enchantments
Necromancers: -10% HP degen
Elementist: +5% energy
Ritualists: +5% duration on Spirits (or w/e)

idk, those are just crappy examples
but this could encourage more diverse builds...unlike all the W/Mo's ...

Nope, thanks for playing.

Innate bonuses are a bad, bad idea. They don't encourage diversity at all - quite the opposite. If there is one thing your class is best at, then there is really no reason to do something similar on another class. Alternatively, it leads to skills which actively rely on the innate abilities of their class - making them useless, or nearly so, on other classes. Any skills linked to a primary attribute are already like that; why add more?

There cannot be balance if there are no disadvantages to something. If you get a permanent, non-removable benefit to your character it needs a drawback.

/signed

Passive skills would need some tinkering to fit the guildwars style, but yeah this would cool to see.

the disadvantage is u dont get teh passives of the other classes...For instance, i would like to have a Necro with -10% HP degen, but i would also like Warrior +5% attack speed...which one do i choose?
ppl airnt ganna be like...o, if my primary isnt a monk, with the +5% enchant duration, then X/Mo is useless
cuz rite now...for Ex. and E/Mo can, dare i say it, monk for a team, better than Lina the Hench[wo]man. this way Mo/E would be a more effective healer than an E/Mo, but just a little...
i dont know, i didnt really understand ur point, besides that its a bad idea, lol. (shame on me)

The E/mo has energy storage to buff its energy to spam heals more often so comparing it to a solely prot hench makes no sense to me.

Actually, I could see this as a primary focus for a new class. Actually, I could see these as Bard skills. With a few slight differences such as the need to "activate" them and only being able to use 1 at a time. Maybe even make them group effects. Hmm...

Ranger:
Blinded Ranger: When you are blinded, you only have a 85-60% to miss attacks (instead of 90%) (Req Marksmanship)

I wouldn't take this over a condition removal skill

sacrificing a skill slot for boosts.

nice idea

but if a feature like this was added, it would make 90% of enchantments, spells and stances obsolete. Maybe if you sacrificed armor, energy, or something else for the boosts. Sort of a give and take kind of thing.

here are my ideas

Passive Skill 1
As long as this skill is equipped you gain (3..10) maximum energy and lose 1 energy regeneration.

Passive Skill 2
As long as this skill is equipped you lose (3..10) maximum energy and gain 1 energy regeneration.

they aren't that good but... at least i'm trying. =P

/signed, but they need to be more balanced. They would also only be for your primary class's attribute. For Warriors the passive would be Strength, Elementalists Energy storage, Rangers expertise, mesmers fast casting, so on and so forth.

Did you read the whole thing? With the minus energy stuff and skills disabling enemy passive skills. This has a huge draw back. Unlike enchantments that you can just recast on yourself, you have to wait for the duration to be over for it to be active again. Also so its not too powerful, make it so you can only have one of these skills, or make them all elite. (just trying to throw out balancing suggestions)

Remus: Ummm no though we don't need it to be WoW heh.

"i don't know if it's the idea here but what if these skill take a slot on you skill bar and are always active? Not being a special prof bonus from nowhere." -- Yes that's the idea lol

and Bomb: I kinda like that idea

Sounds cool for a new class, and it would need to be balanced

I dont think we need to go outside the existing skill system for this. We already have things like Ritual Lord which have an enchantment-like effect but it is a simple "skill".

Then again, they added "weapon spells", so what the hell. Make passive skills have very convenient but weak effects - like "+1 health regen always" and stuff like that. Then you can use it to counter your vamp weapon brainlessly etc.

/singed

But for each advantage you get from the boost, you would also get some disadvantage other than just the loss of a skill slot. For instance:

Your maximum hp is increased by x, but suffer a constant -1 health regen.

Though it would make more sense for these to be in a new class instead of the current ones, mainly because factions didn't add any new skill types for the existing classes. In fact I don't think any class got any new skills of types they didn't also have in prophesis skills.

I was really only responding to the part about innate bonuses someone suggested. Something that takes a skill slot at the very least would be much, much easier to balance and actually not a bad idea. I guess I forgot to mention that... .

Charm Animal is basically a passive skill of this type already. Kind of a special case, though.

I sort of like the idea, but I'm not sure it could be balanced well. Skills like this can't be removed, interrupted, or anything... there's basically no counter to them. That means they can't have too much of an effect on the game if they're to be balanced. And if they're not going to affect the game significantly, who would take them?

I'm not saying it can't be done, but I'm dubious.

/signed x100 ;D

Its really a cool idea nd would be a great addition.

Just one question, how many of these skills would there be for each class?

Again, they can be countered by having skills to disable them.

pappayaponta: Probably not too many skills, maybe like 3-5 each class.

Try this for a skill:

Blade of Fury

Warrior-Strength
you attack 5-15%faster, but gain 5-15% less adrenaline.

And
No atrrib
Disrupt
Distrupts a passive stance being used by you foe.

how about instead of passives, have some maintainables for classes other than monk
i wont give any examples, but i think it has promise

I love the idea of passive skills, but not just as a minor boost or alteration to a character, I think it would be great as a requirement to use certain skills.

About the only skill that is passive so far is a pet, by having the pet equipted you have a pet, and you can only use pet attacks if you have a pet with you, likewise, they could add some small passive skills, IMO they should be unremovable, and with that skill equipted you can use special skills which you typically wouldn't be able to use without it.

For instance, Elementist "no attribute" skill called High Mage, having this skill equipted gives you a permenate increase in energy regeneration of 1, and with it you can cast some spells which hit wider areas of effect. 1 energy regeneration is alot less than elementist enchantments which restore vast amounts of energy or return large portions of energy, but if it is a permenant improvement than it isn't subject to counters. With High Mage equipped you can cast Maintainable DoT spells which cost energy plus 2 maintenance, or DoT skills which effect a much larger radius, the way a real Firestorm should, because your required to use another skill slot which only grants a small boost to execute these spells it helps balance out the power of the skill, simularly to the low amount of energy required to use Beast Mastery attacks because it requires a pet.

A passive skill system like this can be used to add new skill types to many classes which would may not be balanced if they only required 1 skill. They can also allow things like a Warrior using 2 swords or axes, with a skill that gives the warrior a new attack speed and pattern, the warrior could put weapons in both hands and deal a slightly faster attack rate with alternating weapons. With some passive skills they could also include a trade off for more potent effects, if a passive skill cannot be removed than it needs to include it's own disadvantage. Lets say there is a Necromancer skill which reduces his minions degen by 2, but gives the necromancer a maintenance of 1, and perhaps degen of 1 as well. This is very simular to something like a vampiric weapon mod, which has a boost strong enough to require a drawback in order to balance with other mods.

Overall, I love the idea of passive skills, as well as skills which can only be used along with passive skills.

Charm Animal also has a noticable disadvantage: When the pet dies, you get an 8 second blackout.

wtf........ no one will use a slot for that shit if it has disadvantages. a slot is used for a slightley improvement. that's enough disadvantage!

I think these skills would add some interesting content to the game. You lose a skill slot for something useful, but you gain a pasive bonus. It is pretty much sacrifising a skill slot for a passive effect from an attribute. Perhaps have it so when a passive skill gets put into cooldown it is no longer active, something along the lines of MtG enchantments. I think having more then one up should be fine, because skills on a skill bar are always tight, and if people want to load up on passives they won't have any real bang or diversity. Also as any fun thing having skills that blackout passives would probably go in with passives to keep that Rock-Paper-Scissor feel going. Things that definitaly shouldn't happen are class-only passives. Having passives tied to an attribute line is fine, and even the primary attribute is fine, but everyone should be allowed to put them on their bar. Elite passives could exist as well, but once again you are giving up your elite for a passive bonus.

I'd say it all depends on the skill, whether it deserves a disadvantage or not. For an ele, bringing a passive skill that increase the radius of all AOE skills, for example, is a no-brainer; you always bring it unless you're going air. Thus perhaps a bit of a disadvantage would be in order there. For example, less energy or slightly reduced damage of those spells. An ele can easily spare the skill slot, so losing a slot is not a major disadvantage.

I'd like to suggest some others, just because it's fun to create spell ideas.

Mesmer:

• Your spells cast 25-15% slower, but recharge 15% faster.
• You take 20% less time to use your signets but they cost 2 energy.
• Your hexes last 30% longer but you lose 2 energy when you cast them.

Necro:

• When you sacrafice health, you sacrafice 10-50 less health.
• Any wand or staff you weild deals cold damage and your attack speed is increased by 25% but does half as much damage. (Might make Spinal Shivers a bit too powerful.)
• Any time you use a skill that steals life, you steal 10 less of it and gain 2 energy.

Monk:

• Any time you cast a spell while maintaining an enchantment, the person you are maintaining it on gains 4-17 health.
• Whenever you permenantly resurrect someone, they gain a 1% morale boost. (Does not work with Unyeilding Aura or Vengeance.)

Ele:

• All spells that have an area of effect have a 10-30% wider radius but do 10% less damage.
• Whenever you deal cold damage through a spell you gain 1 energy.
• Whenever you are interrupted, that spell recharges 20-40% faster.

In addition, I could see most of these, in some form, being some sort of area effect group buff bard song.

They need a little work to be balanced, but /sign

/signed, we shouldhave already had passive skills.
Here are some other suggestions/ideas.

Warrior, Spiked armor. Melee attackers who hit you take 3 damage per strike.

Monk, Enhanced Return. When you heal a party member that was below 50% health you gain 2 energy.

Ranger, Poison resistance. Poison attacks against you have 10% chance of failing.

Mesmer, Lyssa's Boon Your Hexes last 10% longer

Elementalist, Unfatigueable. spells that cause exhaustion have a 10% chance of not causing exhaustion.

Necromancer, Vile Aura Melee attackers have a 5% chance per strike of being diseased for 3 seconds.

Assassin. Silent Veil. When you teleport. anyone targeting you drops their target.

Ritualist. Spiritual Stability, Gain 10 max health for each allied spirit in the area.

(I am not sure of the numbers for these, if they are unbalanced please disreguard, but i think we could have balanced passive abilites much like these and others)