Guild Wars 2

[…previous thread]

so after the list grew too long to fit into a single post within just 2 days I figured a couple of things:
a) We need a new thread
b) it’s time for phase 2

While you can still suggest new entries, I want you to focus on the wrong entries we might have. I don’t want to be bias here and if the list stays the way it is right now – fine. However, I expected it to be way shorter and there are quite a few abilities which I see frequently used despite them being on this list (or is this just me?)
You may notice that some of your previous suggestions didn’t make it here. This might be due to missing or non persuasive reasons but feel free to insist on and re-elaborate your point.

Guidelines:
[N E W]
Thanks to Vox Hollow I’ve decided to split the list into two lists:

• 1) Broken by default. There is absolutely no way this ability can help anyone.
  I am looking for the absolute bottom tier of abilities here, this is not meant to be a complete list of all bugs and balancing issues out there. Consider that competition among abilities is a huge factor, so utility spells and traits should end up easier on this list than weapon abilities. The reason is we only have very limited slots available to choose what kind of traits and utility we prefer. Therefor, a weaponskill that “comes for free” as part of an overall strong set of weaponskills shouldn’t show up here. Be picky. I know it’s tempting to point out each and every flaw that bothers you but that’s not our goal here. Single skills or even sets of skills that you consider to be badly designed or inappropriat for the general class design, but are still utilizied successfully should not be on our list.

• 2) Not worthless but still never used… and with good reason.
  Such skills and traits are often a product of way to much nerf or struggle with our meta by design. Quite a lot of them have been remaining in this state for a long time so I get why people want to see them mentioned so badly.

I will also make sure to note that underwater skills/ traits and minion AI are generally considered in a questionable place.

I hope this ends well, have a nice time pointing out fault everyone

List #1 – Worthless

[Mesmer]

• Phantasmal Mage – Balance issues
• Ether Bolt, Ether Blast, Ether Clone(scepter autoattack chain) – Balance issues
• Phantasmal Warden – Bug issue
• Phantasmal Haste[Trait] – Bug issue
  [new]
• Mimic

[Guardian]

• Healing Breeze – Balance issues
• Kindled zeal [Trait] – Balance issues
• Sword of Justice – Balance issues

[Engineer]

• Rocket
• Personal Battering Ram – Bad design
• Mortar – Bad design
• Flame Turret – Bugs
• Net Turret – Bugs
• Rifle Turret – Bugs
• Rocket Turret – Bugs
• Thumper Turret – Bugs
• Evasive Powder Keg – Bad design

[Ranger]

• Master’s Bond [trait] – Bad design
• Sharpening Stone – Balance issue
• Frost Spirit – Balance issue – WvW
• Stone Spirit – Balance issue – WvW
• Storm Spirit – Balance issue – WvW
• Sun Spirit – Balance issue – WvW
• Spike Trap – Balance issue
• Protect Me – Balance issue – WvW
• Search & Rescue – Balance issue – WvW
• Signet of Stone – Balance issue
• Signet of the Hunt – Balance issue
• Signet of the Wild – Balance issue
• Guard – Balance issue

[Necromancer]

• Reanimator – Bad design
• Protection of the Horde – Bad design
• Siphoned Power [trait] – Bad design
• Spitefull Marks [trait] – Bad design
• Dark Armor [trait] – Bad design
• vampiric [trait] – Bad design
• Blood is Power [trait] – Bad design
• Vampiric Rituals [trait] – Bad design
  [new]
• Corrosive Poison Cloud – Balance issue

[ Elementalist]
Staff

• Air – Chain Lightning – balance issue
• Air – Lightning Surge – balance issuetoo low

Scepter

• Fire – Flamestrike – balance issue
• Fire – Fire Shield – Bad design
• Water – Shatterstone – balance issue

Dagger

• Earth – Magnetic Leap – balance issue
• Earth – Churning Earth – balance issue (pvp)

Focus

Utility

• Arcane Power – balance issue
• Glyph of Elemental Power – balance issue
• Glyph of Lesser Elementals – balance issue
• Signet of Earth – balance issue: bad active effect
• Signet of Water – balance issue: bad active and passive effect

[Thief ]

• Tow line – Bad design
• Needle Trap – Balance issues
• Tripwire Trap – Balance issues
• Caltrops Trap – Balance issues
• Last Refuge – Bad design
• Vital shot – Balance issues
• Hard to catch[Trait] – Bad design
• Back Fighting [Trait] – Balance issue

List #2 – Never used.
[Mesmer]

• Compounding Celerity [trait] -Balance issues

[Guardian]

• Shield of the Avenger – Balance issues

[Ranger]

• Viper’s Nest – Balance issue
• Flame Trap – Balance issue

[Necromancer]

• Death into Life [trait] – Bad design
• Target the weak [trait] – Bad design
• Necromatic corruption [trait] – Bad design
• Vampiric Precision – Bad design
• Transfusion [trait] – Balance issue
• Vampiric Master [trait] – Bad design
• Path of Midnight [trait] – Bad design
• Foot in the Grave [trait] – Bad design
  *Reaper’s Might [trait] – Bad design
  *Spiteful Marks [trait] – Bug issue

[Elementalist]

• Earth – Eruption – balance
• Earth – Dust Devil – balance issue (pvp)issue (pvp)
• Fire – Flame Wall – balance issue
• Water – Frozen Gust – balance issue
• Water – Comet – balance issue
• Air – Gale – balance issue
• Arcane Blast – balance issue
• Signet of Fire – balance issue: bad active effect

[Thief]

• Ice drake venom
• Improvisation [Trait] – design issue
• Ankle Shots – balance issue
• Potent Poison [Trait] – design issue
• Power Shots – design[Trait] issue
• Assassin’s Retreat[Trait] – design issue
• Quick Recovery[Trait] – balance issue
• Quick Pockets[Trait] – bad design
• Instinctual Response[Trait] – bad design
• Initial Strike[Trait] – bad design
• Spider Venom

coming from a necro background, i’d remove these traits from the list:

- Death into Life: its definetly not worthless. The healing power synergizes well with the general thought of health syphoning (only problem is that health siphoning, as it currently stands, sucks hard, but thats not the fault of this trait). it’s definitely a decent trait and far from worthless.
- Target the Weak: There have been a lot of discussions about this trait; its in the wrong trait line and comparably weak, but still, in an optimal scenario where your opponent has every condition (world bosses / decent group), it adds up to a decent amount of damage, and therefor does have a use in some situation
- Necromatic Corruption: It’s design is a little bit flawed in general, no doubt, but still, the general idea is decent, and ive seen quite a few mms actually use it. I don’t think its good and i do think it needs a few changes, but it does not belong on this list of “totally worthless” traits
- Vampiric, Vampiric Precision: Im not sure how these got here. Their values are too low to be good, but still, this thread was supposed to be a collection of entirely worthless traits and skills, worthless to the max, not kinda bad traits. I guess this “if its bad, ill mention it” mentality is what filled those lists so quickly
- Transfusion: Nice trait, nice idea, sucks that it doesnt heal you while you are in deathshroud (which is a deathshroud related problem that i hope gets fixed somewhen), but still, i can’t see how it landed here. Its not THAT bad
- Vampiric Master: Seem quite decent to me. Actually, Vampiric Master will be nerved in the next patch and scale with healing power. It just doesnt belong on this list at all
- Path of Midnight: 15% is not that much, thats true. But again, same argument: its a decent trait, its far from “totally worthless”, it doesnt belong here.
- Foot in Grave: Most necros are furstrated about the utter lack of stability in their class (good old ping-pong mancer), and most necros want to have foot in grave replaced by shade again. But as it stands now, its our only viable method to gain stability and used by many roamers, as its the only way apart from plague-stomp to actually stomp people. So, again, kinda bad, but doesnt belong on this list, as it is still much better than the REALLY useless traits

Also, i would like to add Corrosive Poison Cloud (utility spell) to the list. Basically, its like the Thiefs Choking Gas, with only 3 seconds of Poison, with a horrible 40 seconds recharge, ticking only every 3th second, and applying 6 seconds of weakness to yourself (and 3 seconds of weakness on your opponent). Its entirely worthless for condi builds as its simply weak as hell and doesn’t really do any damage, the weakness is literally over once the opponent leaves the field, and the self weakness is crippling power builds that might want to use it to reduce the incoming damage, and then there is still the extreme cooldown. I’ve never seen anyone use this skill. Ever.

Remove shield of the avenger. It’s a very good spirit weapon.

The other ones should stay though

I think you’ve got to be a bit more discerning with a list like this.
A think of a list of skills you’d never in any circumstance choose is better than a list of things people have general sort of grievances with in particular formats.

looks like we found ele player.
Every skill is good design because ANET team made it that way. Im paying for ANET to do their job, they do it. Keep your opinion on useless skills for yourself. Or go create a better game. You dont even say whats bad and how to improve ( as if that would be interesting, but still)

Midna.2195:

Ideal reply

Thank you Midna, that’s the kind of contribution I’d like to see. If you (or anyone else) wants to know how this list was created so far you should visit the previous thread and look for the related post.

Vox Hollow.2736:

I think you’ve got to be a bit more discerning with a list like this.
A think of a list of skills you’d never in any circumstance choose is better than a list of things people have general sort of grievances with in particular formats.

I not sure what your suggestion is…?

Introp.8465:

looks like we found ele player.
Every skill is good design because ANET team made it that way. Im paying for ANET to do their job, they do it. Keep your opinion on useless skills for yourself. Or go create a better game. You dont even say whats bad and how to improve ( as if that would be interesting, but still)

I don’t know why you’d visit the balance forum of a game that is 100% perfectly balanced. Anyway, no piece on this list was my own suggestion or represents my opinion. In fact, I’m looking for someone to clean ele’s list because I doubt the amount of entries myself as I clearly stated in the previous thread (linked in OP), so maybe you should keep your opinion on the current balance situation to yourself. It’s not like you want to contribute anything.

PS. Not sure how many you are but what has my level 26 ele to do with this list?

If anyone is interested in why something is considered bad or potential fixes, then feel adviced to visit the related subforum. I have no intention to compile the whole content of all profession balance subforums into a single thread ofc.

Introp.8465:

looks like we found ele player.
Every skill is good design because ANET team made it that way. Im paying for ANET to do their job, they do it. Keep your opinion on useless skills for yourself. Or go create a better game. You dont even say whats bad and how to improve ( as if that would be interesting, but still)

TC made a list for every class so I don’t think it’s good to automatically judge him like that. I think 99 out of 100 players, regardless if they play Elementalist or not, would point out at least 1 skill with a bad design from the class.

If you’re gonna judge him like that, then I guess it’s safe to assume that you’re probably a warrior who doesn’t want their #1 prey to get fixed?

TC posted a summary of most of the skills from all classes which has balance issue and most of the skills listed have been raised up by the playerbase before. But here you are bashing him while you made no contribution at all aside from paying for the game. I’m just reminding you that you’re not the only person who payed for this game so please keep your egoistic comments to yourself because you’re not helping at all.

A trick I’ve seen used before is asking players to make a Tier List.

God Tier: You feel forced to take it
Tier 1: Works great.
Tier 2: Still pretty good. But you know it’s not as useful as Tier 1 and not as hard to work with as Tier 3.
Tier 3: Can still use, but it’s difficult to feel effective.
Junk Tier: You never use this. Maybe once, begrudgingly.

The problem with straight-up asking people what they think is Worthless is that they’ll give you a list of what they Want Fixed. Things that are very bad off in all formats and have noteworthy showstopping bugs or deeper conceptual problems (ex; Master’s Bond), kind of end up getting put in the same standing as things that have issues only in particular formats and still function well (ex; Flame Trap).

I think you might have an easier time if you have people make a Tier List, because;

• They’re automatically thinking of choosing it as it relates to their other choices, and not about making things they’re already using more or less powerful in a vacuum.
• It’s quick and easy to fill out, as people don’t have to explain why they feel the way they do. They’re not trying to write up a convincing argument to you and Arenanet as a third party observer, they’re casting a vote. Something easy like that tends to have a higher volume of respondents.
• You don’t have to go off of one’s guy’s word. One guy might be mistaken, shortsighted, or inexperienced. Something goes on the Junk List when it appears time and time again across multiple people.

Escadin.9482:

The list (to be edited a lot)

[Mesmer]

• Phantasmal Mage – Balance issues
• Ether Bolt, Ether Blast, Ether Clone(scepter autoattack chain) – Balance issues
• Phantasmal Warden – Bug issue
• Phantasmal Haste[Trait] – Bug issue
• Mantra of Concentration
• Mantra of Distraction
• Mantra of Pain
• Mantra of Recovery
• Mantra of Resolve

good list:
may i add
*mimic

i would love to have mantras reworked or replaced with some sort of aoe like hexes

Midna.2195:

coming from a necro background, i’d remove these traits from the list:

Hi, I think all the necro traits were added because of my post in the previous thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Survey-Worthless-abilities/first#post3571286

I have added all the Vampiric traits, because right now they are useless/too weak.
I its not a bad design in general, i called them worthless, because they are underpowered and right now it is not worth to make a vampire-necro. I would love to see them get buffed and I would definitely run such a build, but right now this wont work. (-> worthless) Imagine a D/D Necro, jumping into a fight healing himselve and dies only, if he gets stunned … well more or less. Unfortunately I would have to spend more then 30 Points into Blood Magic for such a build what is the next problem

I think for a lot of them the “bad design”-tag were wrong. Something like “underpowered” / “needs a buff” would probably be better here. “Bad design” is to general to explain those problems

E: Or for the vapiric traits, a “Bad Implementation” would fit perfectly I think

E2: The first Necro issues are traits too

Escadin.9482:

The list (to be edited a lot)

[ Elementalist]
Staff

• Air – Chain Lightning – balance issue
• Air – Lightning Surge – balance issuetoo low
• Air – Gust – balance issue
• Air – Static Field – balance issue PvE/sPvP
• Earth – Stoning – balance issue
• Earth – Eruption – balance issue (pvp)

Scepter

• Fire – Flamestrike – balance issue
• Fire – Fire Shield – Bad design
• Water – Shatterstone – balance issue
• Earth – Dust Devil – balance issue (pvp)

Dagger

• Air – Ride the Lightning – balance issue
• Earth – Magnetic Leap – balance issue
• Earth – Churning Earth – balance issue (pvp)

Focus

• Fire – Flame Wall – balance issue
• Water – Frozen Gust – balance issue
• Water – Comet – balance issue
• Air – Gale – balance issue

Utility

• Ether Renewal – balance issue
• Arcane Brilliance – balance issue
• Arcane Blast – balance issue
• Arcane Power – balance issue
• Armor of Earth – balance issue
• Cleansing Fire – balance issue
• Mist Form – balance issue + bug issue
• Glyph of Elemental Power – balance issue
• Glyph of Lesser Elementals – balance issue
• Glyph of Renewal – balance issue
• Glyph of Storms – balance issue
• Signet of Fire – balance issue: bad active effect
• Signet of Earth – balance issue: bad active effect
• Signet of Water – balance issue: bad active and passive effect

Elite

• Tornado – balance issue
• Glyph of Elementals – balance issue

The bolded abilities are most certainly not “worthless”. Do some of them need a buff? Maybe. Have some of them been nerfed way too much? Yes. But worthless???? Come on.

I only have thief knowledge to contribute. Don’t know enough about other classes.

Traits:
DA:
V: Potent Poison -No need for one condition increase, when we have plenty of access to it.

VII: Improvisation. 10% damage bonus on bundle/recharge random ultilty set. Bundle bonus is not appropriate for a thief. Perhaps 10% increased utility bonus (of whatever one is recharged)?

CS:
VII: Ankle Shot. Cripple on Crit, with pistol. If you have P/D, is useless and ‘X’ is a better option for Proc on Crit builds.

SA:
VII Power Shots. Underwater trait is useless, but that’s irrelevant. The shortbow damage buff doesn’t help being in the stealth line. Better to just go into DA/CS

Acro:
I: Descent of Shadows. Can anyone tell me where Fall damage traits can be used? Besides Puzzle Jumping.

IV Assassin’s Retreat. 20s swiftness on kill. Does not help you run faster, and there’s no need to run away quickly after a fight. If you need the swiftness during a fight (more than 1 enemy), than 15 into Acro is better for swift on dodge.

IX. Quick Recovery. Nerfed without compensation. Needs another benefit, otherwise it’s a trait waster (use Infiltrator instead)

X: Hard to Catch. Already talked about

XII: Quick Pockets. How many Thief weapon swap builds are there? I know the dual P/D one, but that cannot use Acrobatics.

Trickery:

II Instinctual Response. Similar to Last Resort, but takes up a trait spot.

IX: Initial Strike. 7% chance to regain initiative using #1 skill. Haven’t heard of this being used. Can it be used well with x/25/x/x/25? for the initiative damage boosters?

Utilities:
All Traps. Have have some decent effects, but they’re way too cumbersome to be used normally/effectively.

Spider Venom: Already have much access to poison, adds nothing to a condition build. Give it another condition on top (e.g. Weakness like 15 in DA)

Weapons:
Spear: 4 – Tow Line. Stuns you next to an enemy. Does close to nothing to enemy.

Sword/Pistol – Pistol 4 becomes nigh useless. If devs are going to separate #3 into two parts, then it’s even more useless.

Here are things that I think should be removed from the list. Classes I don’t mention means I don’t play them enough to comment.

Elementalist:

Staff

• Air – Gust – balance issue
  -this is a strong CC skill, especially in combination with Static field (with good timing, you can get 2 stuns out of it) and/or Earth 4 and 5.
• Air – Static Field – balance issue PvE/sPvP
  -no comment on sPVP. In PVE, it’s strong, except against bosses, but that’s because of Defiant being broken and not this skill.
• Earth – Stoning – balance issue
  -PVE Being able to perma weakness any target is situationally useful.

Utility

• Arcane Brilliance – balance issue
  -this is extremely strong for a Staff user due to the blast finisher. it combines extremely well with Geyser
• Cleansing Fire – balance issue
  -just noting that a reduced cooldown is all this needs. At 45 secs, it’s certainly not going on my bar for what it is, but at 30/35 it would be situational
• Glyph of Renewal
  -PVE this is a strong sustain skill for long fights. situationally useful
• Glyph of Storms – balance issue
  -PVE Earth and Fire effects are just fine. Air and Water need work.

Elite

• Tornado – balance issue
  -PVE this is a very strong CC skill. It’s uselessness is more due to that CC beeing unnecessary in current game encounters.

[Ranger]

• Viper’s Nest – Balance issue
  -being updated in next patch. Also, it provides good DD for a trap.
• Flame Trap – Balance issue
  -the Fire Field is extremely useful for a melee build.

[Necromancer]

• reaper’s might [trait] – Bad design
  -this is a core skill to any Power DPS build. It’s closer to required then it is to useless.

All mantras, especially with Empowering Mantras, are actually part of the meta builds fo Mesmer dungeon running. It’s rare that I’m not running three mantras, in fact. They’re not useless by any means.

Arcane Brilliance is also part of every good Dungeon elementalist build. The blast is great!

Escadin’s list is very good and pretty close to what mine would be (not that the designation ‘worthless’ applies in most cases, but they’re things that need to be rebalanced). My two favorite classes are Thief and Ele, and the two most obvious problem areas on those classes to me are:

Ele Staff, particularly Air attunement, which is just weak.
Thief P/P, specifically Vital Shot, which causes problems with the whole set.

Additionally, Caltrops actually feel somewhat OP in PvE, to the point that they feel a little too essential for survivability, especially when solo. I feel like this masks other problems with the Thief.

I also think that, in general, there’s too much focus on Traits and not enough on skills themselves by the development team. Traits represent fine-tuning, the relative balance of skills is really more important and should be a higher priority than it seems to be.

Vox Hollow.2736:

A trick I’ve seen used before is asking players to make a Tier List.

That’s… actually a brilliant idea! The problem is I’ve already started the survey, but maybe I can come up with a way to use it anyway. Perhaps, to validate the list afterwards through a second survey. On the other hand it doesn’t feel necessary right now and I’m already happy with the frequency and qualitiy of replies to this thread, so let’s just see how this turns out. In any case, thanks for sharing your idea.

@unleashed
I moved them temporarily to the recently removed list so they’re off the list but not off the stove. That means they can just as easily get moved back as soon as I hear another option on them, but since we’re obviously 50 / 50 here I’d rather not have them on the main list. (Remember: absolute bottom tier).

ThunderCat.8395:

The bolded abilities are most certainly not “worthless”. Do some of them need a buff? Maybe. Have some of them been nerfed way too much? Yes. But worthless???? Come on.

I think that nails it. Those will be moved. I considered Rhyse points as well.

Einlanzer.1627:

:
Ele Staff, particularly Air attunement, which is just weak.

Agreed. Gust and SF (which I already discussed) are the only good things in it. It needs more damage and possibly a finisher of some kind.

Chain lightning: Just plain weak. Increase it to a full dps autoattack (like Fire 1) and change it from chain to pierce so it doesn’t have to be balanced around double tapping. This would help address the “rotation hell” of DPSing with staff, since you won’t get stuck in a low DPS attunement after doing your combos.

Lightning surge: needs to be instant cast. Even better, change it to a retreat+leap finisher to give staff access to Elemental Armor combos.

I wasn’t around for the last thread, but why is Dark Path there? Dark Path is fantastic. Sure, it got hurt a bit when it got its behavior “fixed” which functionally cut the range down to 600, but it’s still a fantastic skill. Good chill duration, a couple bleed stacks, puts you right in their face.

The list got re-arranged to make this a bit easier. (Ugh this is more work than I thought)

@Liquid Blade I’ll sort your input tomorrow unless you did it for me until then :P

If something got accidently lost forgive me please- I’ll fix it.

i’d like to point out that the thief trait last refuge is not just “balance issues”. it’s poorly designed. like, to the point it’s not uncommon for a thief to die because the trait triggered.

Escadin.9482:

List #2 – Never used.
[Mesmer]

• Mantra of Concentration
• Mantra of Distraction
• Mantra of Pain
• Mantra of Recovery
• Mantra of Resolve

My whole spvp, and pve build is made of mesmer mantras. They aren’t “never used”, just not in meta.

Also, shadow trap has its uses: for teleport at swamp fractal, for soloing orbs in arah, and on non moving big bosses, but 10 stacks of might for 5 seconds, not worth taking over one more signet.

NyuuNeeChan.2891:

Escadin.9482:

List #2 – Never used.
[Mesmer]

• Mantra of Concentration
• Mantra of Distraction
• Mantra of Pain
• Mantra of Recovery
• Mantra of Resolve

My whole spvp, and pve build is made of mesmer mantras. They aren’t “never used”, just not in meta.

Also, shadow trap has its uses: for teleport at swamp fractal, for soloing orbs in arah, and on non moving big bosses, but 10 stacks of might for 5 seconds, not worth taking over one more signet.

Mantras ~are~ the PVE meta. 12% extra damage to feedback? Yes please.

My list is as follows:

Necro:
- Death Magic V – Reanimator – useless due to wide plethora of reasons for any non-minion build. Yet it is a minor trait thus non-minion builds have to take it for other necessary traits.
- Death Magic XV – Protection of the Horde – useless for wide plethora of reasons for any non-minion build. Yet it is a minor trait thus non-minion builds have to take it for other necessary traits.
- Spite VII – Spiteful Marks – useless and un-noticable, possibly bugged or left undeveloped since it only affects the “frontload” the initial power hit of a staff mark instead of the total damage, yet unlike most weapons which get 20% dmg boost via traits, it gets only 10%, possibly due to the fact that it’s supposed to also boost the applied conditions but doesn’t ?

Guardian:
Anything that has to do with condition damage delt, as guardians do not have any viable condi builds, any trait that adds to condi dmg is pointless.

Elementalist:
Anything to do with "Fire Shield*. Any traits or abilities generating it would be far better used generating something else in every situation.

Warrior:
Does not have anything useless. All skills / traits can be situationally usefull.

Thief:
- Traps in general – All traits / skills asosiated with them – severly underpowered
- Shared Venoms – severly underpowered and/or durations too low for practical purposses.

Mesmer:
- Scepter – Entire Scepter 1 (Auto Attack Chain) is useless for any build for wide plethora of reasons.
- Inspiration VI – Compounding Celerity – Useless due to the fact that Illusions are generated while in combat, however the movement increase is negligible, unnoticable, impractical due to limitations of combat movement speed. Needs to work out of combat or be entirely redesigned.

Update hurray
Can anbody confirm that:
“- Shared Venoms – severly underpowered and/or durations too low for practical purposses.” should be on this list?
Can you be more specific about the guardians skills? I’m pretty sure alot of his condi applying skills are still loved for their other purpose.

I would rather say venoms are really good with sharing trait, but are completely useless without it.

Also Infiltrator’s Signet ( thief) passive effect became quite worse after recent patch buffing our basic initative regen.

Improvisation – taken in speedclears if you are designated fgs user

Also my whole thread about useless thief traits: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Thief-Trait-edition

Guardian spirit weapon build in spvp isn’t dead.

Escadin.9482:

Update hurray
Can anbody confirm that:
“- Shared Venoms – severly underpowered and/or durations too low for practical purposses.” should be on this list?
Can you be more specific about the guardians skills? I’m pretty sure alot of his condi applying skills are still loved for their other purpose.

Hi

I will try to clear up some more things with regards to my post but it will require some narrative other then the specifics you asked for.

- Shared Venoms – Thief ability – balance issues – severly underpowered and/or durations too low and/or CDs too high.

My conclusion comes from playing with a lot of thieves using it in WvW and PvE, as well as having a thief alt, however I should point out I rarely play my thief. Frankly speaking, when playing on my characters other then thief and receiving their shared venoms, I would rather have any of the current meta classes providing what they provide best condi cleanses and stability in WvW and might stacks with fury etc in PvE. The shared theif venoms are simply negligible with what I receive from the otehr classes.

- Guardian Condi skills:
Guards condi dmg to be specific is useless. Completely. The condi duration is not entirely useless because I do see some guards that like to run a lot of blinds (though I am not one of them), so I suppose it is OK, but condi damage is based mainly on applying burn which is useless for close to 90%+ guardian builds. In addition, the hammer condi, chill, is applied once every 30 seconds for negligible duration making the whole trait useless, it needs to be something like 30% on crit on 5 secs CD if single target, 10 secs CD if AOE, in order to actually matter.

While guards do generate other condis, immobilize and few others, they can not generate enough of them fast enough in order for any actual condi build to be viable or even remotely balanced vs other classes in game with available condi builds.

As I play my guard / necro / mes about equally as mains and have extensive knowledge, it would require me to spend several hours writing up and documenting all the specifics, which unfortunately I just don’t want to do.

Therefore:

Signet of Wrath – passive bonus – useless
Valor VIII – Glacial Heart – useless – ineffective due to recast time / duration limits
Zeal XII – Kindled Zeal – useless – balance / design issues, guards do not have inherent ways to apply multiple damaging conditions and burn is constantly overriden by a multitude of otehr professions and abilities.
Radiance VIII – A Fire Inside – useless due to same reasons as above
Radiance III – Shimmering Defence – useless, design flaw, at 25% threshhold, 60 secs CD and all what is listed above on top of that. Extremely useless.

Escadin.9482:

Update hurray
Can anbody confirm that:
“- Shared Venoms – severly underpowered and/or durations too low for practical purposses.” should be on this list?
Can you be more specific about the guardians skills? I’m pretty sure alot of his condi applying skills are still loved for their other purpose.

I can’t comment too much on Shared Venoms specifically, but Venoms in general seem to be balanced around the assumption they will be shared, meaning that they tend to be very underpowered when solo or not using the Trait.

I would recommend a buff to all Venoms so they are more usable regardless of traits, then possibly a redesign of the Venom Share to weaken them somewhat when shared (like maybe giving fewer stacks).

Einlanzer.1627:

I can’t comment too much on Shared Venoms specifically, but Venoms in general seem to be balanced around the assumption they will be shared, meaning that they tend to be very underpowered when solo or not using the Trait.

I would recommend a buff to all Venoms so they are more usable regardless of traits, then possibly a redesign of the Venom Share to weaken them somewhat when shared (like maybe giving fewer stacks).

This really depends on the venom in question. Basilisk Venom is always popular whether or not you’re able to share it. Devourer Venom is also solid, though I don’t know how favored it is at the moment.

Skale and Spider somewhat rely on having, at the very least, Leeching Venoms, and should more or less not be touched unless the wearer is running a condition build.

Skelk is really only worthwhile if you have everything up to and possibly including Venomshare.

Ice Drake Venom should not be touched with a 10ft pole.

Venomshare is overall in kind of a weird place because you just can’t contribute as much to fights as you’d really like without giving up buttons that you need to not die. As far as I can tell, it is very much a build that relies on the nuances of sPvP to survive, and it doesn’t even really thrive.

In PvE, there’s really no control or condi coverage meta, so lumping controlling conditions or conditions which won’t really hit hard from your allies doesn’t do much compared to what else you could be doing.

I dunno how it would do in WvW but you’d probably be better off straight up killing the other dude than playing around with poisons. Even if you want to help your team, you’re better off doing it by murdering someone.

Escadin.9482:

Update hurray
Can anbody confirm that:
“- Shared Venoms – severly underpowered and/or durations too low for practical purposses.” should be on this list?
Can you be more specific about the guardians skills? I’m pretty sure alot of his condi applying skills are still loved for their other purpose.

it’s not on the “useless” spot, and it’s actually a really fun build. it’s just… kind of meh. it’s a PvE-ish condi/support build, that should say a lot about how viable it is.

you can’t PvP with it without gimping it (dropping a venom or two in favor of a stun break and/or shadow refuge, the go-to thief skill that should never leave one’s utility bar) or without being really easy prey. and on PvE, well, it’s a condi/support hybrid. the venoms are also mostly situational (no one applies poison for damage, immob is best saved for focusing down one guy, chill is eh), and hardly functional without all the traits they’re balanced around.

in short, it’s in a pretty weak state.

Remove Hammer of Wisdom and Bow of Truth from this list or at least put them in the second category. Hammer is my go-to ability when 1v1’ing many professions and Bow of Truth just needs a buff along with reduced cool down and it’s absolutely viable.

EFWinters.5421:

Remove Hammer of Wisdom and Bow of Truth from this list or at least put them in the second category. Hammer is my go-to ability when 1v1’ing many professions and Bow of Truth just needs a buff along with reduced cool down and it’s absolutely viable.

spirit weapons are viable/almost viable?

…what game have you been playing?

I actually find evasive powder keg really good. The damage on it is relatively high, so if you manage it properly, it can do a lot of damage. Net turret is pretty strong, since the immobilize time is so long. Thumper turret has niche uses as two blast finishers, stunbreaker, and on-demand AoE launch. It just depends on your way of looking at it: they certainly aren’t skills that you can just lay down and forget about, like turrets in most games.

I think bigger issues lie in Reserve Mines and Flamethrower turret. Reserve mines is garbage and almost never hits anyone due to the tiny explosion radius, and because they come out at such a low health threshold, it’s typically not like they’re going to help you that much anyways even if they do hit something. Increase the health threshold, increase the trigger radius, or change the trait entirely.

Flamethrower turret doesn’t apply enough damage for a short-range turret but it’d be at least useful if you could overcharge it for the smoke field whenever you needed it. It currently won’t fire the smoke field unless there’s an enemy within range. That’d be like Healing Turret not firing Cleansing Field unless there was an enemy within range. Absolute garbage.

Guardian signet of wrath. It grants condition damage. ’Nuff said.