Curse

Loshi · Jul 10, 2006, 10:49 AM // 10:49

After seeing what new basic skills have been added to Factions for my beloved Warrior, I notice that there's almost nothing really... New. Sure, there's some gimmicks, like gaining some adrenaline, or conditional bleeding, but it all boils down to 'Hit for X damage'

Now, as much as I like hitting for X damage, I must wonder, what kind of skills will be appearing in Chapters 3+? Hit For X Damage, Knock Down, and cause bleeding? All for 12 Adren!

Looking at monk skills, I feel bad for monks. Healing monks specifically. 'Heal for X' is pretty much what all of those skills are. Wow, one with half range, that heals for more! Whats in store for Ch3? Twice the normal range for a spell, but heals for 10?

Upon being disappointed with many of the factions basic skills (Very impressed with the diversity of elites, btw. Auspicious Parry <3), I hope that the developers can keep the game fresh in upcoming chapters.

So, to make this a discussion, what classes do you think got shafted, as far as basic skills are concerned? And, further, which classes do you feel got some most excellent basic skills?

PS: I have no problem with copy skills, they have their place.

Arkantos · Jul 10, 2006, 10:57 AM // 10:57

Sever Gash - Target foe starts bleeding and suffers from a deep wound for x seconds.

Jamei's Healing Breeze - Heal target ally for x health and they gain x health regeneration for 10 seconds.

Sun and Hamstring Slash - Attack target foe twice. The first attack cannot be "blocked". The second causes crippling for x seconds.

The list goes on...

Snowman · Jul 10, 2006, 10:59 AM // 10:59

Yea I tend to agree.. there are some nice new skills but when you look closley at those skills very few are actually any good!.. of you would almost always decide to chose another skill.

but different skills find different levels of uses in different situations.

I will survive for example, in AvA is awesome.. so many conditions being thrown around and so many assasins that I will survive becomes the ultimate tank skill.

So, they could do some skill balancing to make less used skills more attractive, or they could introduce new situations where such skills become alot more usefull... which they could do in coming chapters.

I guess alot depends what type of player you are.

Nexus Icon · Jul 10, 2006, 11:08 AM // 11:08

Mesmers got some GREAT basic skills, such as Images of Remorse, Complicate and Power Return. Power Return in particular is nice, as I've always felt that Mesmers needed more primary attribute based skills.

And Unnatural Signet makes a welcome return. Definitely the most efficient way of pissing off spirit spammers.

Demesis · Jul 10, 2006, 01:15 PM // 13:15

Shiro's slash: - Hit target foe 10 times, 1st hit bleeding, 2nd hit deep wound, 3rd hit burning, 4th hit dazed, 5th hit blind, 6th hit poison, 7th hit disease, 8th hit weakness, 9th hit crippled and 10th hit +400 dmg. Shiro's slash cannot be blocked or evaded.

Now THAT's a skill...lol

Rathcail · Jul 10, 2006, 01:19 PM // 13:19

They should add Hamstorm in.

Rent · Jul 10, 2006, 01:21 PM // 13:21

This same thing occurred to me, recently. Honestly, there's only so many ways they can twist "strike target foe for +x damage" with various conditions, or "target foe and all nearby foes take x fire damage every second."

So how to fix this problem? Once again, draw inspiration from Magic: the Gathering. They have several thousand cards, yet there's an enormous variety among them--because in every new set, they come up with new ways to bend the rules, to let you do something that you previously could not do. Introduce new limiters, and then new skills that bend those limiters.

Erasculio · Jul 10, 2006, 01:36 PM // 13:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loshi

After seeing what new basic skills have been added to Factions for my beloved Warrior, I notice that there's almost nothing really... New. Sure, there's some gimmicks, like gaining some adrenaline, or conditional bleeding, but it all boils down to 'Hit for X damage'

Keep in mind that, looking at all the Factions skills, they appear to have some sort of theme. Notice that a lot of them deal with either knock down (they knock down, or do more damage if the target is knocked down, or do something else if the target is knocked down) or movement (if the enemy is moving/running away from you, something happens).

No idea if that's real or just something in my head, or if that was done on purpose, but if yes to both of those, I would expect to see different skills in Nightfall - it would have a different "theme", and so be different from what we got in Factions.

Erasculio

Paperfly · Jul 10, 2006, 02:17 PM // 14:17

Elementalists seem to have received the opposite end of the Warriors' stick: There's some new, fun and interesting spells in there - stuff like Burning Speed - but the backbone damage spells that should form the meat of the build are lacking!

Oh, and the elites pretty much all suck.

[Edit: Yeah, I noticed how horribly I mixed those metaphors. Backbone != meat!]

lyra_song · Jul 10, 2006, 03:31 PM // 15:31

I thought the warrior stuff got better on the hammer side of skills.

renewing smash is definitely interesting.

Ulivious The Reaper · Jul 10, 2006, 03:37 PM // 15:37

mesmers interested in shutting down Casters via the Theivery now have Larceny from factions and with ECHO and Arcane Echo they can shut down half the spells on a healing monk for 27 seconds

makes for some fun in Alliance battles, works especially well against necromancers, especially if you steal taste of death works for some easy raping on that necro :P

But yes, i personally love the new (and not so new) faction skills we got, they make for fun and unique builds (Eviscrate executioners strike penetrating chop&blow FTW

!!!)

twicky_kid · Jul 10, 2006, 05:02 PM // 17:02

Factions skills look much the same because the same game mechanics have not changed much.

Rits played off spirit spamming which already existed. Shadow step was the only true new concept.

The core proffessions mechanics are not going to change. They have their jobs to do and nothing else just like every other proffesion. New mechanics will be introduced with new proffessions. The problem here is they have to keep the new mechanics in balance which means they cannot be more powerful than what we already have. If it comes out stronger it will be nerfed.

Mtg didn't do that. The new mechanics were usually stronger than the previous editions. Mtg can do this because they have different formats of play that limits what cards you can use. For GW to survive the long haul its going to have to follow this. They need more formats of gameplay and tournements and ban perticular skills from being used in that format.

That's where player skill is going to come. Restrictoins on what you can use and play with what you have (even if it is a disadvantage). That to me is a better solution than nerfing a skill across all formats or gimping the skill because it would be too powerful in a different format.

AnnaCloud9 · Jul 10, 2006, 05:36 PM // 17:36

I'm leaning toward...the idea that the assassin was a great model for future uses of skills. Execute Skill A first to take full advantage (or full use for that matter) of Skill B that follows. Succession skills and such? No, not all that spiking stuff, but I'm not so good with explaining the video games and their mechanics, so these are just things that pop into my head ever so often :P

I think the Necromancy skills are excellent examples of this, if you want a Prophecies way of looking at it. However, the dependency on another necromancer for a few of these skills, or the coordination of other team members, puts these type of skills in the dumpster, simply because no one ever looks for a Dark Fury Necro these days :P So! My idea goes to using skills in another way to get the best effect, rather than trying to come up with new names for old skills every chapter. My two cents *waves*

sinican · Jul 10, 2006, 07:08 PM // 19:08

why not jsut introduce dual class skills

what i mean is sets of skilsl that have 2 att requirements that give beyond normal benefits...

or introduce CORE class skills that have min att ratings of 15/16 that have of corse hgher benefits...

so in short dual class specific skills
and CORE class specific skills

example...

Fatal Ripose
Swords/Deadly arts (W/A, A/W)
next attack is blocked, attacking foe takes XX DMG and is bleed or poison for xx seconds

Legends Strike
Swords (min 15) (Warrior max swords)
attack cannor be blocked or evade and strikes for xxx dmg

pretty much sorta limit breakers but have high requirements to meet

Erasculio · Jul 10, 2006, 07:25 PM // 19:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by sinican

why not jsut introduce dual class skills

what i mean is sets of skilsl that have 2 att requirements that give beyond normal benefits...

Those would be overpowered and imbalanced.

If you have a higher cost, people wouldn't use those unless they are better than the other skills. If they are better than the other skills, regadless of the cost, they are imbalanced. The requirements you mention aren't uncommon - everyone has 2 Professions, so the skills that require two classes would simply be overpowered at little cost. The same applies with skills that actually have a requirement - it's not uncommon for people to have a lot of attribute points invested in one direction, therefore said skills would be overpowered at little cost.

GW doesn't support "uber" stuff - be it skills or items. The only "uber" stuff that fits within the game is uber player skills, and that's something hard to find.

Erasculio

Sanji · Jul 10, 2006, 07:38 PM // 19:38

A lot of the faction core skills failed to satisfy.

This is something that is not likely to get better as more exapansions get released.

Pandora's box · Jul 10, 2006, 08:58 PM // 20:58

I mentioned this in another discussion this weekend:

I think its inevitable to adopt the MtG system of using skills for future expansions: Keep a set of core skills and ban all other skills older than 2 years (at least for PvP games). This allows the game to envolve, slowly introducing differend and stronger skills without destroying the games balance.

The one Casey Squid · Jul 10, 2006, 09:00 PM // 21:00

I think that who ever created the skills at anet was set with a deadline to make the skills and he had to make six really fast. here's part of the conversation

Anet dude 1 :Shit! Only five minutes to finish up these skills...Damn...ARGh.
Anet dude 2 :Hmm see that warrior hammer skill?
Anet dude 1 : Enraged smash?
Anet dude 2 : yeah...how about you just duplicate that six times?
Anet dude 1: GENIUS!
Anet dude 1. *writes down* engraged smash, enraged lunge, Doom...

It just some of the skills seem exactly the same to me.

Boofhead · Jul 10, 2006, 09:32 PM // 21:32

Some of them ARE exactly the same

Zio · Jul 10, 2006, 09:59 PM // 21:59

This is a downside of Anets chapter system. Normally expansions are not standalones, so they consist of entirely original content that's added on top of the existing game.

But Anet decided to make each chapter it's own standalone game, and therefore each one has to have a whole games worth of content.

They spent a year balancing hundreds of skills in Prophecies, the only feasable way to offer a whole new games worth of skills is to use work that's already been done. So of course you end up using all the old skills you already made an balanced, but you give them new names and icons and maybe tweak some stats here and there.

It's not their fault, it's what you have to do with the standalone chapter system.. But in all honesty, I see almost no benefit to the chapter system and would rather have normal expansion packs.