Skill details

A Skill is sufficiently described by a number of characteristics:


 * Description
 * Linked Attribute, if any
 * Energy costs, or Adrenaline costs, or other costs
 * Casting Time
 * Recharge Time
 * Skill Type
 * Upkeep, if any
 * Name and Icon

Description
A complete summary of all direct effects a Skill has. A Skill's effects resolve as soon as the Skill's Casting Time is over and the Skill resolves. At resolution, every Effect is checked individually whether or not the Target is valid for this effect.

All Linked Skills have one or more Effect Variables in their Description, which are colored green for easy recognition. In the game, each variable is of the form number1..number2, where number1 is the Variable's value at its Linked Attribute's level of 0, and number2 is the value at its Attribute's level of 12.

Linked Attribute
The Attribute that determines the value of all of this Skill's Effect Variables. Most Skills have a Linked Attribute. See Linked Attribute for details.

Skill cost
Skill costs have to be paid as soon as a Skill is activated. When a spell is canceled by the caster, is interrupted by a foreign effect, or fails for some other reason, during its Casting Time, the Skill will have no effect but the Skill Costs will not be refunded or reversed.

[[Image:Energy.png]] Energy Cost
This is the amount of Energy the skill will consume once you activate it. Energy costs and Adrenaline costs are currently mutually exclusive.

[[Image:Adrenaline.png]] Adrenaline Cost
See Adrenaline for details. Energy costs and Adrenaline costs are mutually exclusive. Many Warrior skills require the caster to build up adrenaline through dealing or sustaining Physical Damage in combat. The equipped Adrenaline Skills do not share a common Adrenaline pool, which means they gain and use Adrenaline independently from each other. Every Adrenaline Skill builds up Adrenaline individually until it is ready to be used; when the Skill is used, its Adrenaline pool is emptied. This means that, for an individual Skill, Adrenaline can not be stored in order to use that Skill more than once without building up new Adrenaline between two activations.

Other Cost
Currently, Exhaustion is the only Skill Cost that is not Energy or Adrenaline. Other costs combine with Energy or Adrenaline costs.

Note that it is a crucial property of Costs that they are due before the Casting Time starts, not when the Skill and its effects resolve. All other "costs" like, for example, sacrificing Health, are part of the Skill's effects and have to be seen as separate from the costs.

[[Image:Activation.png]] Casting Time
The time required from when the Skill is activated until it can resolve. Casting Time is measured in seconds and is also referred to as Activation time. For most Skills, the Casting Time lies anywhere between 3/4 and 2 seconds. Spells that take a short time to activate are often more useful than ones that take a long time to activate, because the latter are more easily interrupted or evaded; additionally, the caster can not perform - only queue - any other action while casting a spell, without cancelling the Skill he is activating.

During the Casting Time, a Player can queue one other action. This other action can, among others, be another Skill, a Physical Attack, or picking up an item. All of these actions can be safely queued even if the character has to walk in order to perform the action; however, a direct movement order, i.e. pressing a movement hotkey or clicking on the ground, will cancel the Skill being activated and clear the action queue. A player can any number of times switch its current Target while activating a Skill; this does not count as an action and will thus be performed immediately instead of being placed in the action queue.

[[Image:Recharge.png]] Recharge Time
Measured in seconds. Once a skill has either resolved or has been interrupted, that skill's icon will become shaded and starts charging up. The amount of time it takes to become usable again is the Recharge Time. The Recharge Time can be affected by some Skills, for example by Mantra of Recovery. Note that cancelling a Skill while activating it by moving does not count as it being interrupted; instead it will be ready for use immediately. The costs, however, are still lost.

Skill Type
Skills come in a number of types. Some Skills or game mechanics interact with only certain types of Skills. The Skill type is recorded in the Type label.

Currently there are 10 basic Skill Types and a number of Prefix types. Note: "Prefix Skill type" and "Type label" are not official keywords, "Basic Skill type", however, is.

Every Skill consists of at least one, but normally two basic skill types. Every Skill is always of type Skill and possibly of another one basic type. For example, Frenzy consists of the types Skill and Stance; however, Skill is dropped from the Type Label because it has a second basic type. Still, even then Frenzy retains the type Skill in addition to Stance.

In addition to its basic types, a Skill can have any number of "prefix types". These prefix types extend the Skill type and might make the Skill subject to more Skills' effects or special rules. Some properties of prefix types:
 * A prefix type never causes the Type label to contract. For example, an Elite Skill is also called "Elite Skill" in its label. Label contraction only happens when combining Skill with another basic type.
 * A prefix type does always extend, not limit, its basic type; for example, a "Bow Attack" is still an "Attack", but additionally it's also a "Bow Attack".
 * Every prefix type is considered linked to all basic and other prefix types. For example, an Elite Spell is both an Elite Skill and an Elite Spell
 * Most Prefix types are restricted to certain Basic types; for example, the Hex prefix type is restricted exclusively to the Spell basic type. For each prefix type, its linkable Basic types are listed.

Basic Skill Types

 * 1) Skill - As explained above, the most basic Skill type. Pure Skills are hard to counter, because their Casting Time is usually very low and their effects instantaneous, which makes them hard to prevent or cancel. Only few Skills can interrupt pure Skills directly.
 * 2) Attack - An enhanced attack on an enemy with any weapon. For Warriors, it often requires Adrenaline instead of Energy to activate.
 * 3) Glyph - A skill that affects the next spell you cast in some way. Only works with spells.
 * 4) Nature Ritual - Creates a Spirit creature that affects both allies and enemies in an area surrounding it. Nature Rituals give a 5% Death Penalty to the caster.
 * 5) Preparation - A skill that enhances your attacks for a certain time span. Different preparations are mutually exclusive, at most 1 at a time can be active.
 * 6) Shout - An untargeted Skill which instantly affects either nearby allys or nearby foes.
 * 7) Signet - A skill without Skill Costs. Generally, when compared to a different Skill with similar effects, a Signet will have a balancing disadvantage such as higher Recharge or Casting Time.
 * 8) Spell - Skills that mostly have instantaneous effects on either friend or foe, for example dealing damage, causing a Condition, or providing a healing effect. Most interrupting Skills are limited to Spells.
 * 9) Stance - Instantly activated Skills that affect only the caster. Like Preparations, Stances are mutually exclusive.
 * 10) Trap - A Ranger Skill that sets up a Trap for opponents. When an opponent walks through the trapped area, the Trap will be activated and its effects resolve.

Prefix Skill types

 * Axe
 * Bow
 * Hammer
 * Sword
 * Melee
 * The Prefix types mentioned above can be summarized as the Weapon Prefix types.
 * The Weapon Prefix types are restricted to Attack skills.
 * The Weapon Prefix types are mutually exclusive.
 * Melee effectively counts as a combination of the Axe, Hammer, and Sword prefix types.
 * If an Attack skill has one of the Weapon Prefix types, then it can only be activated with one of the respective Weapons equipped.
 * Elite - Every Basic Skill type can have this prefix. For Elite skills, some special rules apply.
 * Enchantment - A spell that puts a positive, duration-based effect on an ally, such as improving Armor level, Health regeneration or Movement speed. Only applicable to the Spell type.
 * Hex - A spell that puts a negative, duration-based effect on one or more enemies. Only applicable to the Spell type.

[[Image:Upkeep.png]] Upkeep
Upkeep is the maintenance cost for certain permanent Skill effects. Currently, the only Skills requiring an Upkeep are some Monk Enchantments, and the only kind of Upkeep is "-1 Energy Recovery". Effects that require Upkeep can at any time be canceled by the caster, which makes both the effect and the Upkeep end.

Note that there are other Enchantments and Hexes for most Professions, which incorporate a kind of Upkeep, like for example Malaise. However, those are not officially labeled as Upkeep and the respective Effects can by default not be canceled by the caster. Thus, strictly speaking, they are not Skills requiring Upkeep.

Name and Icon
A Skill's name is a unique identifier for each Skill, and an Icon has a purely aesthetic value. There are currently no game mechanics that depend on a Skill's name or Icon.