[Haste]

As most of us probably still have our tooltip menu open, I see small red arrows underneath skills with some sort of status affect attached.

Not like stun, or silence.. But aggrivate, staggering?

I notice the same small icons appear under actual debuffs under the mob..

So my question is, what are those for? Are they a part of some sort of chain for abilities I might get at a higher level? Or just there for shits and giggles? As far as I can tell, they really have no affect on the mob.

[Jessup]

You're speaking of the Weakness system. If you have an ability that lists "Staggered" in the tooltip with a + and down-arrow beside it, that means you will add that weakness to a mob you hit with that skill.

If you have an ability that lists "Staggered" with just the down-arrow (no + sign), that means it will exploit that weakness when it is on the mob. In other words, increasing the power of any skill that exploits that weakness.

I haven't seen a full list of who can add which weakness and who can exploit them, but for the sake of example: Say the Warrior in a group is able to add "Armor Chink" weakness as part of one of his skills. The Rogue in the group may have a skill that exploits this "Armor Chink". The Warrior and Rogue could coordinate their attacks to ensure that "Armor Chink" is always on the mob so that the Rogue's skill that exploits that weakness is always doing the most potential damage it can.

On the Offensive Target window, the Weaknesses show up as a smaller icon below the debuffs/DoTs icons. It would definitely be beneficial to you and those you group with to learn who can add and exploit each weakness and learn to coordinate and look for them during combat.

[Varel]

It makes for a more complex skill system, if you know how to 'sploit it.

As of yet...i'm still working on it.

/peace