Editing Weapon Skills Update 2012/FAQ (section)

==What are the new skills?==

New Skills:

Although we are not close to finalizing new skill options, we wanted to give the players a taste of a few of the new skills we want to add to promote template diversity. The February patch would bring in new skills that would enhance different aspects of combat. Part of the goal is to give the height/power attack options more of an effect. To give a slight tease into what we are considering, here are some skills that might appear.

* A 2/2 Dual Wield skill may be on the table. This skill would allow you to wield a weapon in your off hand and use an alternate Dual Wield animation while attacking. Your attacks would alternate between the two weapons, and your weapon swings would be delivered faster than a single weapon. Attack modifiers for each weapon would only apply to attacks with that weapon, and you would use only the highest defense modifier from the two weapons.

* A 4/2 Sneak Attack skill based on Coordination/Quickness has been discussed. This skill would do extra damage from behind by making a check against your attack roll when you hit from behind. If the Sneak Attack also hits you'd do an extra 10 damage rating for trained and an extra 20 damage rating for specialized Sneak Attack hits. In addition, characters with high Deception skills would have a small (2-5%) chance to proc some of the extra damage with front hits, but the extra damage rating would be halved for Deception hits. 

* A 2/2 Dirty Fighting skill based on Coordination would have different effects based on the attack height of the swing. Your high swings would have a chance to debuff attack skills. Your low swings would have a chance to debuff melee defense and missile defense. Your mid swings would have a chance to cause a bleed effect on the target and to debuff healing effects as well. The bleed effect would scale with the value of the weapon; weapons from lower tiers would have a light bleed effect, weapons from mid tiers would have a medium bleed effect, and weapons from the highest tier would have a heavy bleed effect. The heaviest bleed effect would not be as good as any of the Nether damage over time spells.

The chance to activate the debuffs would be based on the skill level and could range as high as 25%. Characters with the skill specialized would use a better version of the debuff effects. The values of these debuffs are still being discussed.

* A 4/2 Recklessness skill based on Quickness and Strength would be activated only when you were swinging at nearly maximum speed. All hits that are *not* critical strikes would be boosted by up to 20 damage rating, and all incoming strikes against you that were *not* critical strikes would similarly be boosted by up to 20 damage rating while this skill was active. The actual damage modifier would be based on your Recklessness skill and how close it was to your attack skill. If Recklessness is equal to or greater than your attack skill then you get the full benefit of 20 damage rating on strikes that are not critical hits. The additional damage you take from non-critical hits is always equal to the damage you output so you could intentionally not raise the skill if you wanted an option to do 10 damage rating and take an additional 10 damage rating from hits that are not critical strikes.

* Shield Skill

At the same time as the consolidation skills we will be adding a 2/2 shield skill that uses Strength and Coordination.

* This skill will determine how much al/aegis effect you gain from equipping a shield. 
* Specializing in Shields and leveling your skill will provide the full benefit to top end shields. 
* Training in Shields and leveling your skill will provide a lesser benefit. 
* The idea is that Two Handed Combat, Weapon and Shield Combat, and eventually Two Weapon Combat will all have similar 8/8 total cost. These styles will be balanced against each other. 

The Shield skill will cap the armor level a shield will provide. The skill formula for Shield will be (Strength + Coordination) / 2. The formula for the maximum armor level your shield can provide will be total skill level for untrained or trained Shield skill, and double the total skill level for specialized Shield skill. This means a specialized Shield user can get full benefit for top end Shields even if they start at 10 for both Strength and Coordination. We plan to have a similar curve for Aegis benefit. If a Finesse Weapons fighter or even a mage are willing to specialize they will see full benefit for all the current shields,