Syntax: counter 'skill name'

Through years of fighting warriors have learned to counter moves they anticipate correctly. The counter attacks are known to disarm, send the victim sprawling, or leave lasting wounds.


Don't be a one trick pony. Don't be predictable.

Could be pretty fun, actually. Maybe a level 51 skill for warriors.

Check out your legacy options, weapon options, and a few other
things and you will see that warriors can easily attain this.

Caveat: you actually have to work on it to achieve it which means
no ####ty RP, no crappy play, and heroing. Makes it a bit more
of an achievement.

Try an Elf polearm/dagger spec with certain legacies and you
will see what I mean.

Outta here,
UA

Basically makes you immune to too many things. Unless you put significant lag on it.

But only one thing at a time. Or a one choice only.

I can't help but think that if Iramath had this when I fought Gakken, I would have just spammed "counter flurry" and let my melee/concealed/swiftstrikes own him all day long.

Builds that rely heavily on single skills (like flurry in a giant sword spec) would have to change things up. I don't think that would necessarily be a bad thing, because you could still try to trip your foes up by tossing out an array of spec skills in the hopes that they will shift their countering efforts.

It would take "timing" to a new level, and I think that's pretty cool.

Plus, choose STSF this time.

Warriors are the most played class as it is. They don't really need any spucing up.

I spam counter flurry, and they won't be able to roast me in the time it takes me to charge up.

That's sort of my thought, even though I've considered a skill along these lines many times and you might still see some mutated form of it someday.

Even if you're not a one trick pony in general, in certain fights you might really really need one specific move.

...that players will not anticipate the move to counter correctly that often.

Perhaps the skill could be created for the Arena and we could see how OP counter is or how rarely a counter lands.

As a giant build I would own you with doublethrust.

If I was a dex build I would be enjoying the riposte of your daggers being parried because if you are an elf stsf, then you likely have daggers.

Always ways round it and noone says it has to be 100% successful.

-----Abernyte

...was flurry.

But, I was pretty good with what I was doing and had some great gear.

That may be. But in this hypothetical example, if you're using "counter flurry" instead of your other skills because you want to make sure you don't lose to flurry, your chances of losing to something else (like doublethrust) go way up.

From my non-implementationary perspective, I think that's what makes the counter idea such an interesting prospect - and also what would make it so difficult to implement properly and balance. To say that it would be a major shift in how combat mechanics and tactics work would be an epic understatement (for good or ill).

On a side note, the learning curve for using a directed counter skill would be pretty high for newer players.

It makes progged combat items even more powerful, because (let's use the flurry-giant versus dagger-elf again) if I sit there and spam "counter flurry," not only am I going to trump the #### out of his ripostes with my concealed strikes and swiftstrikes, I don't have *any* need to worry about my other spec skills because my prayer beads, heartseekers, rings of awesomeness (damn you Nep!), helm of brilliance, etc. are going to stomp your ass and all I have to do is let you lag yourself and then, when I know you are gonna run, trip you once or twice.