Feedback:User/Konig Des Todes/Duplicate Skills

Personally, I do not see why there are duplicate skills. They were made so that those who do not have Factions can have Prophecies skills, and vice versa. So what about Nightfall? Why do Core Skills exist? In my opinion, duplicate skills are completely redundant both in functionality and in purpose. All they really allow are builds using both skills of the same function in one build – and we know how that turns out with the touch ranger. So I propose the change of just one skill per duplication.

NOTE: The following skill change suggestions are just thoughts I had - the main purpose of this suggestion is just the general idea.

Warrior
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Change Drunken Blow: Melee Attack. Deals +. You and target foe are knocked down. (Attribute: Tactics)

Reason: When I see this skill, I think of a drunken bar fight – where people are tossed over tables and bottles are broken – usually, the first strike (or any strike for that matter) knocks the person getting hit over, and the person who punched the other is staggering so much he almost falls down. I thought – why not make this skill mimic that idea - since staggering isn't around it is either knock down self or an aftercast effect. I chose knock down. There is already Grapple for the dual knock down idea, but since I added damage, I figured it was different enough, and I also made a higher cost while the same recharge and no activation time to compensate for balance.

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Change Galrath Slash: Sword Attack. Deals +. Inflicts bleeding condition ( seconds). (Attribute: Swordsmanship)

Reason: There are three skills in Swordsmanship that causes bleeding – one doesn't do damage, one requires no stance, and the other is an elite. I thought why not have a damage and bleeding skill with no condition? For balance, I had the damage lower than Barbarous Slice, and the bleeding length shorter than sever artery – while having adrenaline in between and added a recharge time, but put an activation time to keep it from being too underpowered.

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Change Leviathan's Sweep: Melee Attack. Knocks down crippled targets. Deals if blocked and knocks down (Knockdown when block has 50% chance failure with 6 Strength or less). Lose all adrenaline. (Attribute: Strength)

Reason: Since the old version did damage, then knock down + damage if blocked, I thought, why not make it knock down, then knock down + damage if blocked. Have the two mirror image. Makes sense to me for which to choose since when I think Leviathan, I think something which can easily knockdown – while when I think of a Griffon sweeping with its claw, I think something that damages with the chance of knocking down. Since there was no damage, I decided to lower the recharge by 2 seconds.

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Change Penetrating Blow: Axe Attack. Deals + damage. Inflicts Bleeding condition ( seconds). (Attribute: Axe Mastery)

Reason: This one was a bit tricky – both names fit perfectly with the skill. So I thought, what happens when armor is penetrated? Usually, bleeding and a deep wound. So I decided to lower the damage a little bit, and added Bleeded – raising the adrenaline cost for balance. This is also creating the only non-conditional bleeding axe skill.

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Change Jaizhenju Strike: Sword Attack. Deals + damage. Misses unless in a stance. (Attribute: Swordsmanship)

Reason: When skills have a stance requirement, a majority, especially those dealing with swordsmanship, have “if not in a stance” for benefits. I figured, why not have a skill which benefits from having a stance? I increased the damage, and the recharge, then added the stance condition. The reason for the high damage is that a stance is needed.

Or: Sword Attack. Deals + damage. Unblockable if in a stance. (Attribute: Swordsmanship)

Reason: In this version, I only changed the condition from not in a stance to in a stance.

Ranger
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Change Bestial Pounce. Pet Attack. Interrupt target if foe is casting a spell. Knocks down target if foe is attacking. (Attribute: Beast Mastery)

Reason: Since the unconditional knockdown suggestion was disliked, I decided to change knockdown to a conditioned interruption, but that was a bit underpowered, so I removed the damage and added a conditioned knock down.

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Change Zojun's Haste. Stance. ( seconds).You move 33% faster and have + armor against physical damage. (Attribute: Wilderness Survival)

Reason: There are many running stances. They deal with blocking, or having some benefit from getting hit with elemental damage as well, but no armor against elemental damage. Thought it would be interesting to have a new kind of running skill.

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Change Sundering Attack. Bow Attack. Deals +. Inflicts Cracked Armor condition ( seconds) if target foe is casting a spell. (Attribute: Marksmanship)

Reason: For this change, I looked at. Thought, why not have similar skill names act in a similar fashion? The Ranger profession also only have skills which benefit from Cracked Armor, but no way to cause it without an EN PvE skill or using a secondary. I figured this would make a good combo for Sundering Attack/Body Shot or Piercing Trap.

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Change Zojun's Shot. Will Add Later

Reason: Will Add Later

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Change Tiger's Fury. Stance. ( seconds.) You attack 15% faster and have +% chance to hit a critical. (Attribute: Beasst Mastery)

Reason: If there is one thing Beast Masters lack, it is personal damage. Either they rely too much on the pet (thus do minimal damage), or they halve their power. So I thought that adding a skill that improves their chance to make a critical hit, without going into another attribute, would help with this, but yet keeping the numbers low would keep it from being over powered.

Monk
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Change Heaven's Delight. Spell. Resurrect 3 nearby allies with % health and % energy. If there are no dead allies, heal party members within earshot for. (Attribute: Divine Favor)

PvP Version: Spell. Resurrect 3 nearby party members with % health and % energy. If there are no dead allies, heal party members within earshot for. (Attribute: Divine Favor)

Reason: There are two reasons why I changed this the way I did. First, there are no resurrection skills in Divine Favor aside from an elite skill. Second, there are no resurrection skills that resurrect allies (just party members), but there are items that do. I thought it would be interesting to have a skill which resurrects nearby allies (which could prove useful in missions where side-NPCs could die or live). However, I wanted to make this even more interesting, so I added the secondary effect. For balance, I limited the number of allies in the AoE resurrection, so that I could keep the recharge, casting time, and energy cost relatively low (so that it doesn’t become an only-to-resurrect and the-secondary-is-pointless skill), and I had the healing high to compensate for the costs.

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Change Karei's Healing Circle. Spell. Heals target other and adjacent allies and foes for and removes  hexes. (Atrribute: Healing Prayers)

Reason: There are very few healing prayer skills that remove hexes, so I thought that this could help with that. For balance, I rose the recharge and lowered the healing. Also changed it to target other ally.

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Change Jamei's Gaze. Spell. Remove hexes from target other ally. Heals for if no hexes were removed. Cannot self-target. (Atrribute: Healing Prayers)

Reason: Like above, I wanted to add a hex removal skill. But unlike other hex removing skills, I wanted to give a benefit if there are no hexes, instead of when hexes are removed.

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Change Holy Strike. Touch Spell. Deals holy damage. Deals more damage if target is suffering from a condition or hex. (Attribute: Smiting Prayers)

Reason: Though the idea of a touch spell may be negative, I figured having a different requirement to the secondary effect would be good enough for a change.

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Change Symbol of Wrath. Will Add Later (Attribute: Smiting Prayers)

Reason: Will Add Later

Necromancer
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Change Defile Enchantments. Hex Spell. ( seconds). Deals damage the next time target foe is enchanted. (Attribute: Curses)

Reason: I decided to mirror the skill off of the other Defile skills, except for Defile Enchantments, they are all hexes. So I modeled this off of Defile Defenses.

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Change Lifebane Strike. Will Add Later (Attribute: Blood Magic)

Reason: Will Add Later

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Change Spinal Shivers. Will Add Later

Change Shivers of Dread. Will Add Later

Reason: Will Add Later

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Change Wallow’s Bite. Touch Skill. Deals Shadow Damage to target touched foe. % chance to knock down target foe. (Attribute: Blood Magic)

Reason: I decided to make the skill mimic the Wallows, who can knockdown on critical, so I added the knockdown effect as a secondary effect. I increased the casting time to 1 second and reduced the damage for balance.

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Change Vampiric Touch. Touch Skill. Steals Health. Inflict Poison Condition ( seconds) if target is below 50% Health. (Attribute: Blood Magic)

Change Vampiric Bite. Touch Skill. Steals Health. Inflict Bleeding Condition ( seconds) if target is above 50% Health. (Attribute: Blood Magic)

Reason: Touchers are an issue, I decided to do a similar idea as was done with Cry of Pain – reduce the damage and add degeneration. For Vampiric Touch, I put disease as the degeneration to limit the use of the skill, but restricted it to below 50% health so that it doesn’t always damage the user. For Vampiric Bite, I put bleeding – a lesser degen – and linked it to above 50% health so that the bonus is only given to beginning use of the skill. I put different amounts of damage to reflect the amount of degen from the chosen conditions. I reduced the energy to make it more viable to Necromancer Primaries - now we just need Expertise nerfed.

Mesmer
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Change Arcane Thievery. Will Add Later (Attribute: Domination Magic)

Reason: Will Add Later

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Change Kitah's Burden. Hex Spell. (15 seconds.) Gain energy. % longer casting time if target foe is casting a spell. (Attribute: Illusion Magic)

Reason: The first suggestion was too similar to Sum of All Fears, so I decided to make the energy gain immediate, then have the hex portion lengthen casting time

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Change Revealed Enchantment. Spell. This skill becomes a random enchantment on target. (20 seconds). (Attribute: Inspiration Magic)

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Change Revealed Hex. Spell. This skill becomes a random hex on target. (20 seconds). (Attribute: Inspiration Magic)

Reason: I thought that an enchantment and hex form of Arcane Mimicry would produce interesting results – however, I increased the energy cost, and allowed both enemies and allies to be the target. This change would allow more variations of builds.

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Change Ancestor's Visage. Enchantment Spell. (10 seconds.) You have + Energy Regeneration. Cannot have more than 8 pips of energy while enchanted with Ancestor's Visage. (Attribute: Inspiration Magic)

Reason: I wanted to make a non-elite skill that regenerated energy that didn't require an opponent. So I decided to mimic, but obviously with energy.

Elementalist
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Change Teinai's Crystals. Spell. Projectile: deals earth damage to target and adjacent foes. (Attribute: Earth Magic)

Reason: For this skill, I wanted to create a bit of an earth magic copy of Fireball – that is, a projectile which deals AoE damage.

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Change Earthquake. Hex Spell. Deals earth magic and hexes foes every 5 seconds. Hexed foes move 50% slower (10 seconds). Hits foes in the area to target's initial location. You are exausted (Attribute: Earth Magic)

Reason: Earth Magic only has 2 non-elite Area of Effect spells. I thought such a different kind of area of effect skill would be interesting to see how it acts. I made it a typical AoEDoT (with hexing), but widened the area and lengthened the interval. It makes it harder to escape, but the effects aren't as constant. But overall, the same amount of damage is done if you stood still.

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Change Ice Prison. Hex Spell. ( seconds.) Target foe moves 66% slower. Ends if target foe takes fire damage and target foe takes cold damage. (Attribute: Water Magic)

Reason: At first, I thought of making the skill also slow attacking speed, but I realized that is more for the Mesmer and Necromancer profession. Instead, I decided to add additional damage for when the hex is removed via fire damage. To balance, I increased the energy cost, decreased the duration, and decreased the snaring speed of the hex. Though that seemed a bit much, so I reduced the recharge – since 30 seemed a bit much for the duration.

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Change Searing Heat. Spell. Deals fire damage every 3 seconds (9 seconds). Hits foes nearby target's initial location. End effect: inflicts exhaustion. You are exhausted. (Attribute: Fire Magic)

Reason: Like with Teinai's Crystals, I thought that new ways to use area of effect skills would give new variants. So I decided to make the area to be nearby, I also wanted to change the end effect – when I think Searing Heat, I think desert, which leads me to being exhausted. This also makes this skill unique in that it would be one of five skills which causes exhaustion to others.

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Change Teinai's Wind. Spell. Deals cold damage and causes Daze (8 seconds) every 4 seconds (16 seconds). Hits foes nearby initial target's location. No damage if foe is knocked down. (Attribute: Air Magic)

Reason: Once more, another use of a new kind of area of effect. This time I had high damage (instead of for Searing Heat), moderate energy, recharge, and casting (for other skills of such power). To remove the need for exhaustion, I had a penalty of knocked down foes – no damage.

Other Potential Changes
However! There are two alternate changes that could be done on these skills.


 * Remove one of the two duplicates – this will allow fewer skills to balance (instead of changing one functionality) – and then turn the skills into core skills.
 * Make them mirror the Kurzick/Luxon skills – that is, only one of the skills can be used per duplicate.