I'm a little bit surprised that a community this big didn't have a volunteer for so many months - if I'm wrong, correct me -, but here I am, with the job done to the best of my abilities. Here's a little sample of the stuff.
Galleries
Warrior
Ranger
Monk
Necromancer
Mesmer
Elementalist
Assassin
Ritualist
Paragon
Dervish
Packages
Assassin - Mesmer (~7 MB)
Monk - Paragon (~6 MB)
Ranger - Warrior (~7 MB)
(GSites doesn't allow files bigger than 10 MB)
Ancients, errors, and oddities
There were many issues I had to deal with while going through the grind. I will list them all, so that no will blame me for looking at a picture s/he didn't expect.
Wrong name
Some Eye of the North skills still had their preview weekend names. This had no impact on the end result, it was a simple renaming issue. However, if someone were to print out the skill sheets as it was envisioned, then it would become a problem.
- Aura of Stability is listed as Steadfast Aura
- Way of the Master is listed as Way of the Warrior
- Maiming Spear is listed as Nonsensical Spear
It was easy to match the in-game version with no loss in quality.
- Belly Smash
- Penetrating Attack
Some skills had the wrong picture. Some of these were, I think, intentional, putting the cool Factions art in place of the old Prophecies art for a few duplicate skills, while others were a mistake.
- Galrath Slash <- Silverwing Slash
- Pure Strike <- Jaizhenju Strike
- Bestial Pounce <- Savage Pounce
- Dodge <- Zojun's Haste
- Point Blank Shot <- Zojun's Shot
- Savage Pounce <- Bestial Mauling
- Tiger's Fury <- Bestial Fury
- Zojun's Haste <- Dodge
- Zojun's Shot <- Point Blank Shot
- Shield Guardian <- Stonesoul Strike
Alternative picture
The most curious issue I encountered was that some skills had a totally different art. Most of them look cooler than the original, even! However, for the sake of correctness, I provided the enlarged in-game icons (still very ugly) as the default art, and a link below the picture shows you the alternative. In the downloadable version, the "unseen" art is named "<skill name>_alt.jpg".
- Crude Swing
- Crushing Blow
- Deflect Arrows
- Riposte
- Rush
- Pestilence
- Power Flux
- Visions of Regret
- Maiming Spear
Vow of Silence has another, smaller issue. There is only a small difference between the two versions: the in-game dervish only raises one finger to her lips, while the skill sheet version shows her putting all of her fingers to seal her lips. The gallery and the package contain only the skill sheet version.
The Ancients, including the untrimmed ones
I suppose, though I can't tell for sure, that for some very old icons, no high-res art exists. Some icons were obviously enlarged from the in-game icons, and yes, they are ugly. As someone who went through this process multiple times, I know that one step is to trim the icon, it has a few pixels wide black border. Now, the person in charge of providing the pictures missed this step on many occassions, resulting in an even uglier picture.
I won't list all of the Ancients, that would be too long, but I will list the ones where the border was still present, and I had to do the trimming, even-more-enlarging myself. If you have a keen eye, you will notice that these pictures miss the about two pixel wide gray border which is present on the sheet originals.
- Feral Lunge
- Oath Shot
- Smite
- Crytal Wave
- Earthquake
- Flame Burst
- Ice Prison
- Searing Heat
- Whirlwind
- Windborne Speed
I will list the necessary info for cutting. Now, why would someone do this job again when it's already done? First, I'm hoping that some day, we will have an entirely correct version of the skill sheets, so cutting might be needed later. Second, the pictures I provided to you were compressed again into JPEGs to have reasonable sizes. I randomly checked them against the originals on the skill sheets, and I would say the the difference is noticeable to the trained eye in many cases, if not every time. So if you want the maximum you can get from the originals, you need to do the cutting for yourself, and save them as bitmaps or another lossless format.
The skill sheets have an array of 3x3 skills on them - the last one for each profession has a few blanks, of course.
1,1 - 62,145
1,2 - 912, 145
1,3 - 1762, 145
2,1 - 62, 1245
2,2 - 912, 1245
2,3 - 1762, 1245
3,1 - 62, 2345
3,2 - 912, 2345
3,3 - 1762, 2345
The size is 254x254, though in my image manipulation tool, I had to set the cutting size to 255x255 to get what I wanted.
Copyright notice
Even though ArenaNet provided the skill sheets as free downloads, I do not have the right to alter and re-distribute them. I most sincerely hope that the result of my "labour of love" - I spent about 25 hours on this project, all told - will not be considered a copyright infringement, and will be left alone for the viewing pleasure of the Guild Wars community.
Corrections, please? Pretty please, with cherry on top?
I know that the skills sheets and sealed play in general are just a little side project that has probably very low priority inside ArenaNet's working schedule (they are updated irregularly, that much I know). However, if someone who knows the right person to talk to were to see this message: please tell them correct the errors I listed in this message.
And if we could have the PvE skills listed in an eleventh package, that would be soooooo great. O.O As the sealed play page states, the rules are just guidelines, so why not provide the players with the PvE skills as well, they will know what to do with them.
Merry viewing, everyone! ^_^
