Guild Wars 2

I would like to have a survey of how many abilities are commonly known and possibly proven to not only have no place in current meta but also to be useless due to imbalance or bugs.

Here are some groundrules to make this simple:

• state the ability’s full name (no acronyms)
• state the class this ability belongs to (preferably)
• state the reason why it is considered worthless, make sure to clearly seperate whether it is due to balancing issues or bugs (if it is both, try to pick one please).
• if there are only issues in Pve or Pvp, add this information as well
• added: if a skill or trait cannot be fixed by numbertweaks but rather has it’s mechanic to be redone or replaced it shall recieve a “bad design” tag
• added: This is not meant to be a list of all balance issues

• entries that attract contrary opinions or even spark discussions will most likely not be counted (unless there are good reasons to do so) because I’m aiming for a lower bound here
• you should definetly feel encouraged to discuss entries if you have a reason.

I think the community as well as ArenaNet can benefit from being aware of how many and which abilties exactly without doubt need urgent attention.

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

[Guardian]

• Healing Breeze – Balance issues
• Kindled zeal [Trait] – Balance issues
• Bow of Truth – Balance issues
• Hammer of Wisdom – Balance issues
• Shield of the Avenger – 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
• Viper’s Nest – Balance issue
• Protect Me – Balance issue – WvW
• Search & Rescue – Balance issue – WvW
• Flame Trap – Balance issue
• 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
• Death into Life [trait] – Bad design
• Siphoned Power [trait] – Bad design
• reaper’s might [trait] – Bad design
• Spitefull Marks [trait] – Bad design
• Target the weak [trait] – Bad design
• Dark Armor [trait] – Bad design
• Necromatic corruption [trait] – Bad design
• vampiric [trait] – Bad design
• Blood is Power [trait] – Bad design
• Vampiric Precision – Bad design
• Transfusion [trait] – Balance issue
• Vampiric Master [trait] – Bad design
• Vampiric Rituals [trait] – Bad design
• Path of Midnight [trait] – Bad design
• Foot in the Grave [trait] – Bad design
• Dark Path – Balance issue

Tons of ele and some thief issues but I ran out of space

Fire Shield
Elementalist, Any class with Leap Combo Finisher on Fire Field

Worst aura by far. A defensive tool designed for offensive usage in a very underwhelming way. Envelop yourself in a shield of fire that burns foes (1 second) and grants might (1 stack 10 seconds) each time you are struck (cooldown of 1 second per attacker). Aura duration of 5 seconds and skill cooldown of 40 freakin seconds. -_- Not only should you be getting hit, you should be getting hit by quite a lot and quite frequently to see some results.

If the reason for the pathetic effects (1 Might stack and 1 second burn) is that fire fields are too common and comboing for fire aura can become OP, at least the skill on the ele’s weapon set should have waaaaay shorter cooldown than 40 seconds. I doubt that anyone will warrant it as OP even on 15 seconds CD. It’s just a worthless skill in the focus off-hand to have too long a cooldown.

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Fire Shield
Elementalist, Any class with Leap Combo Finisher on Fire Field

Worst aura by far. A defensive tool designed for offensive usage in a very underwhelming way. Envelop yourself in a shield of fire that burns foes (1 second) and grants might (1 stack 10 seconds) each time you are struck (cooldown of 1 second per attacker). Aura duration of 5 seconds and skill cooldown of 40 freakin seconds. -_- Not only should you be getting hit, you should be getting hit by quite a lot and quite frequently to see some results.

If the reason for the pathetic effects (1 Might stack and 1 second burn) is that fire fields are too common and comboing for fire aura can become OP, at least the skill on the ele’s weapon set should have waaaaay shorter cooldown than 40 seconds. I doubt that anyone will warrant it as OP even on 15 seconds CD. It’s just a worthless skill in the focus off-hand to have too long a cooldown.

Looks like a nice candidate. Wasn’t there a 1 second (?) cooldown to those might stacks to specifically prevent this ability from taking advantage of weak hitting attackvolleys? It would be nice to be relatively clear on how many average hits an ele can take even if maximazing def and whether the effect proccs while invulnerable or not.

I would agree the fire shield is wholly impractical as a skill. That said, I would agree that it is absolutely practical as the combo field. The two are not worth comparing. leaps are offensive abilities that typically put you int he middle of danger, where you will be hit. That is the whole point of the combo. The cost of a leap combo is relatively low because 9/10 times, the fire field and the leap are both in-use for other reasons as well. The combo just rewards planned timing.

Alfador.7649:

I would agree the fire shield is wholly impractical as a skill. That said, I would agree that it is absolutely practical as the combo field. The two are not worth comparing. leaps are offensive abilities that typically put you int he middle of danger, where you will be hit. That is the whole point of the combo. The cost of a leap combo is relatively low because 9/10 times, the fire field and the leap are both in-use for other reasons as well. The combo just rewards planned timing.

I agree. So well if both combo generated fire aura and fire shield of the ele work in the same manner and Fire Shield [Ele skill] is not granted a rework, then only reasonable thing to change is its cooldown. It’s way too long as it stands now and practically gimps the whole Focus weapon set generally speaking.

Shatterstone seems pretty worthless

• tow line
• thief
• uses 4 initiative to pull yourself to enemy and stun yourself (yes yourself, not enemy) while only cripling the enemy -> makes 0 sense, not sure if it is a bug or intended, 0 response from anet up to date

• traps
• thief
• too long CD, too little effect, too high opportunity costs -> nobody uses them

Phantasmal Mage
This skill seems to hail from the days when Confusion was powerful. And not just pre-WvW-nerf powerful, pre-beta powerful. The cooldown is the longest of any phantasm, the effect’s chain is unreliable and even if all targets get hit + all targets capitalize on the Confusion/Retaliation, the damage just barely outdoes the other Phantasms – and ignores most of their traits.

Ideas:

• Make it work with traits. That’s the most important thing. The +damage traits should affect it.
• Increase direct damage of the initial attack?
• Make it a targetted AE. Targets enemy target, causing an explosion which causes Confusion/Retaliation?

Healing Breeze
Guardian – Healing skill.

A single blast finisher in a water field will provide nearly the same amount of healing to allies than the healing breeze does. Healing signet and shelter are both much better heals than the breeze, considering healing signet heals more, and is on the same cooldown/lower if traited and shelter is able to block attacks while you heal.

Shatterstone
Elementalist – Water Scepter 2.

A slow, extremely predictable attack that does pitiful damage and applies 4 stacks of vulnerability. Casting this skill does more harm to you than good, considering it also takes a whole second to cast.

Ether Bolt, Ether Blast, Ether Clone.
Mesmer, scepter autoattack chain.

Again, an extremely slow and predictable cast. Does horrid damage, especially considering scepter is an condition weapon and it applies no conditions. The clone can also be blocked and reflected to provide a clone for your opponent (Which is hilarious to be honest, seeing 50 guardian clones whacking their scepters) to provide them an advantage.

Suggested fixes.

Healing breeze – Rework the skill completely and make it work like Arcane Brilliance. Increase cooldown to 45 seconds. Base healing is now 6000 and scales 1.5:1 with healing power. Allied units within 180 range of the guardian will be healed for 1500*1:5. Maximum affected allies is 5. Cast time is 1.5 seconds.

Shatterstone.
Allow the elementalist to detonate it on command. Shatterstone will instantly detonate once the elementalist presses shatterstone again after being placed. Example:

Player A and Player B are fighting. Player A casts shatterstone. After 10 seconds, player B walks in the shatterstone range. Player A detonates shatterstone and player B gets hit.

Increase vulnerability to 6 stacks. Keep the current damage. Detonating the shatterstone does not interrupt your current action.

Ether Bolt, Ether Blast, Ether clone.
A simple fix would be to let the scepter apply conditions on autoattack. 1 bleed for ether bolt, 1 vuln for ether blast, and 1 burn for ether clone. This ties in nicely with the staff autoattack which in my opinion is balanced. to offset this and prevent power creep, increase the clone attack intervals by one second.

Thoughts?

Conditions on autoattacks are a bad idea in general IMO, and should be removed. Not added to. And mind you use the Scepter as my main weapon, and I agree the AA chain is really bad, but still I’d hate to see more spam-conditions.

Glyph of Renewal (Elementalist):
3.25 second cast, 165 second recharge.

Fire: revive target and revive you if downed in 15 seconds
Water: revive target at full health
Air: revive target and teleport them to your location
Earth: revive 3 nearby targets.

Bug: poisoned targets are sometimes not revived.

Reasons why I never use it: you might well walk to the person and hit F. A 3.5 second cast time I think is longer than it takes to revive most people or at least on par, and is just not worth a 165 second cool down (it was when it brought back dead people but that was nerfed and cool down and casting remained).

You can argue the utility of reviving yourself 15 seconds later or reviving 3 targets at once in a zerg, but quite frankly those situations just will not make it useful enough to get on a skill bar (you would do better with Mist form for 3 seconds of invulnerability).

If the casting time was 1.25 seconds like illusion of life or 2 seconds like battle standard then it may actually find a place in my skill bar in very niche situations.

Engineer

Personal Battering Ram
This is a redundant skill for the engineer considering that many other skills have the same or better effects at lower cooldowns ( Skill 3 from Flamethrower, Skill 4 from Rifle, Throw Mine). Its rarely ever used for good reason (aside from some PVP builds or so ive read). A complete refurbishment or change to another skill would be in order since in its current state i cant imagine a good use for it in WvW or PvE.

Turrets & Mortar
The long list of bugs is known well enough so that i won’t need to elaborate on that topic. These skills are completely useless at the moment aside from leveling a new character. Aside from a buff in power/scaling with player they also need lower cooldowns to be equal to other summoned skills in the game which deal more damage, are mobile and much harder to kill. Aside from bugs the mortar also suffers from a plethora of downsides, such as immobility, good visibility due to siege icon, low range (its a kittening mortar, for kittens sake…) and no powerscaling or critchance. As an elite skill its subpar even to the charrzooka, which by design should be inferior.

Master’s Bond [trait] – Ranger – overall

This destroys the whole class mechanic, because the bonus attributes are gone when you swap the pets. You dont get benefits, when you let your pet alive.
suggestion:
- save the stacks for the dead pet or give them to the “new” pet. aslong as a pet dies, not is swapped.

Death magic traitline – Necromancer – overall

You are forced to take brain-dead minions with you, even if you only want the good well traits in this line.
suggestion:
- move all those minion related minor traits to the major ones and swap them with major traits.

Updated the list.

@whyme could you go more into detail about deathmagic traitline? Or is the whole traitline (3 minor + 12 major traits) useless? How is that even possible?

Guardian – Sanctuary (very long cooldown)

jihm.2315:

Guardian – Sanctuary (very long cooldown)

Sanctuary is a good skill, especially paired with master of consecrations. It’s most definetly not useless.

Guardian – Kindled zeal (Trait)

Almost nobody uses burning as a main damage source. This trait is unworthy of being grandmaster tier and needs a rework/buff to be viable.

Guardian – Spirit weapons. (Except for Shield Of The Avenger)

Spirit weapons are currently extremely weak and rarely used. To make them even remotely viable you need to trait heavily into the zeal line.

Suggested fix. Merge the Wrathful Spirits and Eternal spirit traits and turn it into a master trait. This also frees up a new grandmaster trait slot.

Fortifying Bond: Ranger
- Balancing Issue
- Pets cannot dodge, Vigor needs to be replaced with Stability
- Pve, Pvp, WvW

Escadin.9482:

Updated the list.

@whyme could you go more into detail about deathmagic traitline? Or is the whole traitline (3 minor + 12 major traits) useless? How is that even possible?

Its the first two minor traits, that force you to play a minion master, whether you want it or not.

“reanimator (5)”, you have to take it, because its a minor trait. It gives you “jagged horrors”which are completly useless, they deal no damage and attack every enemy that is nearby.
“Protection of the Horde (15)”, again a minior trait. But if you run a well build, you dont have any minions (except those jagged horrors). But 20 thoughness makes absolutly no sense.

I would also add the point against class mechanic, and not only balance or bugged to the list.

Elementalist

Staff

• Air – Chain Lightning – balance issue: dmg too low, too many projectilces on staff
• Air – Lightning Surge – balance issue: cast time too high, dmg too low, effectivity too low
• Air – Gust – balance issue: far too weak, far too easy to dodge, doesn’t chase the enemy
• Air – Static Field – balance issue PvE/sPvP: Without any use in pve, rather pointless in pvp except for a single possible stun (if there is no stability, teleport etc.) —> Suggestion: Elementalist receives some kind of buff when inside the static field (+30% crit dmg or +20% crit chance?)

• Earth – Stoning – balance issue: dmg too low
• Earth – Eruption – balance issue (pvp): needs to cripple somehow, otherwise it’s too easy to dodge

Scepter

• Fire – Flamestrike – balance issue: just generally too weak…
• Water – Shatterstone – balance issue: casttime too high, building time too high
• Earth – Dust Devil – balance issue (pvp): too slow, counts as a projectile

Dagger

• Air – Ride the Lightning – balance issue: cooldown too high, too easy to dodge
• Earth – Magnetic Leap – balance issue: elementalist rather stuns himself for a couple of seconds instead of leaping to its foe…
• Earth – Churning Earth – balance issue (pvp): too easy to dodge/avoid

Focus

• Fire – Flame Wall – balance issue: entirely too weak
• Water – Frozen Gust – balance issue: entirely too weak
• Water – Comet – balance issue: entirely too weak
• Air – Gale – balance issue: entirely too weak

Underwater
Not going to mention underwater skills. Needs to be rebalanced completly. Water deals the most dmg.

Utility

• Ether Renewal – balance issue: cast time too long

• Arcane Brilliance – balance issue: cast time too long
• Arcane Blast – balance issue: senseless skill
• Arcane Power – balance issue: useless skill

• Armor of Earth – balance issue: cd too high
• Cleansing Fire – balance issue: doesn’t stunbreak anymore
• Mist Form – balance issue + bug issue: Movement speed too low, conditions keep ticking, no other skills avaible while in mist form, cooldown too high, can be used for invulnerable finishing and rezzing

• All Conjures – design issue: Don’t fit the elementalist’s design at all.

• Glyph of Elemental Power – balance issue: just absolutly weak
• Glyph of Lesser Elementals – balance issue: useless after lvl 80
• Glyph of Renewal – balance issue: cast time too high, cd too high
• Glyph of Storms – balance issue: low dmg, useless outside of earth, dmg of all storms is more or less the same

• 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: dmg too low, utility too low and elementalist too squishy
• Glyph of Elementals – balance issue: too weak
• Conjure Fiery Greatsword – balance issue + bug issue: conjures don’t fit the elementalist’s design, fiery greatsword can easily be exploited (3 against walls, 4)

Not going to mention traits. Already sad enough that so many of our skills are that horribly bad.

Escadin.9482:

[Engineer]

• Personal Battering Ram – Balance issues

Are you offering any information as to how you cam to the conclusion that something has bugs or balance issues?

On some of these topics you have one poster mention a skill and then you add it to the list. Doing this makes for a counter productive thread.

Personal Battering Ram for example has no issues. It does exactly what the tool tip says, and is used in multiple builds. Then, just because someone comes here to complain, you drop it into the OP do to one poster, whose personal opinion counters general consensus.

Warrior
Sword offhand number 5
“Riposte”
When traited with Missile Deflection (10 into Defense tree) it will reflect projectiles for the duration of the skills block. However if you activate the skill, then immediately stop using it, it will bug and allow the warrior to actively attack and use other utilities without the reflect aspect going away. This allows the warrior to benefit from the skills trait while being able to attack.

Warrior
Burst skill(f1)
Axe mainhand
“Eviscerate”
This skill bugs sometimes reducing the leap to half distance, 300 as base distance to 150.

Warrior
Mace offhand skill number 5
“Tremor”
This skill will, if the target is far enough left or right of the user, finish the animation, but not send out the projectile. This skill goes on full cooldown when thsi bug occurs.

Ranger:
Sharpening Stone (Utility)
Next 5 attacks cause bleeding (6s)

I don’t know any build that would use a vital utility slot for this piece of garbage.

whyme.3281:

Its the first two minor traits, that force you to play a minion master, whether you want it or not.

“reanimator (5)”, you have to take it, because its a minor trait. It gives you “jagged horrors”which are completly useless, they deal no damage and attack every enemy that is nearby.
“Protection of the Horde (15)”, again a minior trait. But if you run a well build, you dont have any minions (except those jagged horrors). But 20 thoughness makes absolutly no sense.

I would also add the point against class mechanic, and not only balance or bugged to the list.

Yes. And also, Yes.

Just made a list of worthless Necro traits

[Necromancer]
Spite:
- Death into Life [trait] (15) – worthless
As long as there are no viable vampiric build/ life-siphon gets buffed and siphon scaled with healing power. But even then it feels wrong to be in the power trait line, because it “forces” you to use siphons.

- Siphoned Power [trait] (25) – worthless
Who the hell needs 1 stack of might, when he is nearly dead?
probably worth with 5 stacks or a defensive boon (protection), …

- reaper’s might [trait] (VI) – worthless
Life blast has a way to slow attackspeed (on land) to get a good benefit out of this trait.

- Spitefull Marks [trait] (VII) – worthless
Marks deal to less direct damage, because they are a support/control weapon. You wont see any difference because of those 10%

Curses:
- Target the weak [trait] (25) – Balancing Issue
Useless for condition builds, because of the bad direct damage they deal.
UP compared to a warrior, who gets 10% from a single bleed
probably good vs. bosses and in a power build, because you probably get more then 10%

Death Magic:
- in general:
There are only 2 boons in this trait line, which is a bit odd, because is grands boonduration.
The Traitline is to much Minion orientated, so it is not worth to pick traits, when you run another build

- Reanimator [trait] (5) – worthless
only good for minion builds, with death nova
should be merged with minion master (III) and replaced with something non-build-specific i.e. “+20 toughness for every condition on you”

- Protection of the Hord [trait] (15) – worthless
Same as reanimator.
merge with Flesh of the master (X) and replace with
“gain toughness based on DS level”

- Dark Armor [trait] (I) – worthless
400 Armor are equal to -14% damage while using one skill per weapon (necro has 6 channeling skills) for 2,5-3,5sec.
I would replace it with protection for 3sec, when using a channeling skill

- Necromatic corruption [trait] (XII) – worthless
interesting skill, but a) to weak compared to death nova and b) there is no grandmaster trait for non MM

Blood Magic:
- in general:
contains three “builds” (vampiric, dagger and well) that would probably synergies very well with each other, but unfortunately you can only spend 30 points here.
Siphon is currently to weak, bad scaling with healing power (0-0,5%). Increase this scaling and include a debuff, that reduces active heal by x% per siphon trait you use

vampiric [trait] (15) – worthless
bad healing power scaling (0,5% = max. +6 heal)
incease scaling and probably base heal, while reduce active heal (skill 6) by 5-10%

Blood is Power [trait] (25) – worthless
+120 power = <5% more damage, when health above 75%, to weak for a grandmaster trait. change to fixed 10%

Vampiric Prcision (V) – worthless
same as vampiric

Transfusion [trait] (VI) – balancing issue
should scale with healing power

Vampiric Master [trait] (VII) – unsure here
but i think it is the same as vampiric and Vampiric Prcision

Vampiric Rituals [trait] (XII) – worthless
same as vampiric

Soul Reaping:
- Path of Midnight [trait] (III) – balancing issue
Only 15%, while other traits reduce CD by 20%

- Foot in the Grave [trait] (III) – worthless
3s stability is a nice Stunbraker, but i think it is to weak for a grandmaster trait.
I think it was “get stability while in death shroud” back in the beta. Would be nice to see this again

Pve necromancer (Bone minion)

Save for the fact it helps to heal from vampiric master (only actual use) those pets deals terrible damage and even exploding them sustain next to no usefull effect. Death nova doesnt actualy make me want to blow them up any more then before as a poison aoe wont change anything to the poor damage this spell does.

whyme.3281:

I would also add the point against class mechanic, and not only balance or bugged to the list.

It depends whether you see designing an ability as part of the balancing progress or not. I’ve added another tag, though, for the cases that simply cannot be fixed by adjusting numbers and traits.
If that’s what makes these necro traits useless, I might as well add Evasive Powder Keg since it works similarly, but is even harmful in certain situations.

@ Peter buch This is a very very long list, according to which like half of the abilities eles have are totally useless in all situations. I expected weapon skills to be a rarity on this list since you don’t have to “pay” for them unlike utility spells which are in very strong competition for the merely 3 slots we have.
Please, reconsider your list. In any way, I will have to wait for some other person to approve your suggested entries.

coglin.1867:

Are you offering any information as to how you cam to the conclusion that something has bugs or balance issues?

On some of these topics you have one poster mention a skill and then you add it to the list. Doing this makes for a counter productive thread.

Personal Battering Ram for example has no issues. It does exactly what the tool tip says, and is used in multiple builds. Then, just because someone comes here to complain, you drop it into the OP do to one poster, whose personal opinion counters general consensus.

As you have notice, I rely on post to in this thread in order to decide what is the major issue with a certain ability, because it would be too much effort to make an investigation for every singly suggetions in all related subforums.
I see your point, but the list is not set in stone. Entries will be erased just as easily if someone points out only one good reason or use for this ability. Still trying to find a balance here though, so constructive criticism is always welcomed.

If you can name what kind of informationoffer you would like to see or give an example where battering ram is indeed not useless, I’ll be glad to edit OP again.

Ranger – Frost Spirit: Requires 20pts in traits before being useful and dies to stray AE in WvW too quickly.

Ranger – Stone Spirit: Requires 20pts in traits before being useful and dies to stray AE in WvW too quickly.

Ranger – Storm Spirit: Requires 20pts in traits before being useful and dies to stray AE in WvW too quickly.

Ranger – Sun Spirit: Requires 20pts in traits before being useful and dies to stray AE in WvW too quickly.

Ranger – Spike Trap: Requires 30pts in traits before being useful. Does poor damage. Only triggers once. No field.

Ranger – Viper’s Nest: Requires 30pts in traits before being useful. Does poor damage. Currently hits only 3 targets. Only triggers once. Condi trap in the crit trait line. No field. (some of this is slated to change next patch).

Ranger – Protect Me: Pet is not reliable in WvW and is often dead before the shout can be used.

Ranger – Search & Rescue: Pet is not reliable in WvW. Often bugs out. Can only target players who are in downed state.

Ranger – Flame Trap: Does poor damage. Condi trap in a crit trait line. Requires 30 pts in traits before worth using.

Ranger – Signet of Stone: Activated portion of trinket requires 30pt in traits before the Ranger can use it.

Ranger – Signet of the Hunt: Activated portion requires 30pt trait before the Ranger can use it.

Ranger – Signet of the Wild: Activated portion requires 30pt trait before the Ranger can use it.

Ranger – Guard: Shout with a cast time? Provides nothing useful to the group or class without 30pt trait.

Trait: Last Refuge
Class: Thief
Why it’s “Worthless”:
Simply put, it’s designed to trigger at a certain % of Health. The issue is that Last Refuge is -and has been known for months to be- quite capable of planting an unwanted “Revealed” debuff on a Thief. Rather ridiculous for an ability that should, by rights, be your trump card against impending destruction.
The funniest part, is that it could be MADE to ignore Revealed status. Simply allow its triggered effect to function like Mesmer’s Decoy Utility. Why hasn’t this been done, yet?

Weapon Skill: Vital Shot
Class: Thief
Why it’s “Worthless”: As Einlanzer and many others in the Thief forums have said for what feels like ages, Vital Shot’s rate of fire and overall damage are so low, that it forces
a MH Pistol thief to spam their dual skill for any appreciable combat effect. This is especially noticeable in the case of P/P, where one HAS to spam Unload to keep up any kind of manageable DPS.

@ Peter buch This is a very very long list, according to which like half of the abilities eles have are totally useless in all situations. I expected weapon skills to be a rarity on this list since you don’t have to “pay” for them unlike utility spells which are in very strong competition for the merely 3 slots we have.

Sadly, you don’t seem to play the elementalist very often. That’s quite the point about elementalist: To compensate for having 20 weapon skills, he got 4 weak attunements, a bunch of terrible skills and needs many many traits to become effective – and yet a lot weaker than any other class. He needs to put in twice as much effort to gain less than any other profession, still having twice the downsides. Horribly bad design.
Not to forget the funniest thing about it: He still has to take bad skills because he just doesn’t have any other choice. He needs to take armor of earth to get stability on a 90 second cd, while guardians can give their entire group stability on a 24 second cd.

You asked for skills that

have no place in current meta but also [are] useless due to imbalance or bugs.

Half of all elementalist skills perfectly fulfills that definition. And as I said already, not even to mention traits… There it’s even more garbage.

I know turrets themselves have been mentioned but I’d like to throw in mention of one of the toolbelt skills.

Skill: Rocket The tool belt skill for Rocket Turret.
Class : Engie
Why is it worthless: The skill is ground targeted (ok), causes no conditions, creates no fields, and the projectile has such a ridiculous arc and pathetic speed that it takes anywhere from 3 to 8 seconds to touch down. With it’s peasley radius, anything that might have been hit has moved already.
This change was a ninja patch in NA. It used to be a longer recharge/ more damage version of Rifle Turret’s tool skill, which was just fine. As it is, I actively avoid using Rocket Turret because of this. And I play turrets in PvE DESPITE all the bugs.

Fire shield should make enemies want to stop attacking you and not just completely ignore it. So the stacking might when you are hit is not neccessary. It should either act like a defense and have no cooldown while adding 1.5s of burn to your target each time they attack you for the 5sec it is up. Or it should act like a buff and passively add might every sec it is up and each attack you are hit. Doing both make the defensive and buff aspects of it not worthwhile.

[Thief ]

• Hard to Catch [Trait] – Bad design.
• Back Fighting [Trait] – ? Ran out of ideas, didya?

Zero Day.2594:

[Thief ]

• Hard to Catch [Trait] – Bad design.
• Back Fighting [Trait] – ?

Could you possibly explain why Hard to Catch is bad design? And do you know what back fighting is? I assume that you don’t since you used a question mark for it’s explanation as to why it’s worthless.

bobomb.5209:

Zero Day.2594:

[Thief ]

• Hard to Catch [Trait] – Bad design.
• Back Fighting [Trait] – ?

Could you possibly explain why Hard to Catch is bad design? And do you know what back fighting is? I assume that you don’t since you used a question mark for it’s explanation as to why it’s worthless.

Hard to Catch can teleport you INTO enemies (effectively making it Easier to Catch, never mind the possible other bad placements). This one, a lot of people can argue that it’s bad.

Back Fighting, that’s just a personal thing, it’s like they couldn’t come up with anything else so they said “Hey let’s increase the damage when the thief is downed”. Plus I don’t think the trait competes with any other traits in terms of what of which to take and which is more useful. Arguably in a 1v1 scenario it might help… but how often is there a 1v1 scenario, or are there any 1v1 modes? Roaming (really?)? (Same can be said about Hard to Catch)
(http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Back_Fighting)

Ranger current pet stat: bad design

Dark Path – Never hits and too slow. It can be avoided by sidestepping or through swiftness. Compare to Flashing Blade, which has a shorter cooldown and has no activation requirement" (it has no minimum resource requirement to access the skill).

Escadin.9482:

As you have notice, I rely on post to in this thread in order to decide what is the major issue with a certain ability, because it would be too much effort to make an investigation for every singly suggetions in all related subforums.

I appreciate what your trying to do, but all this says to me is that you are aware the concept of this thread is flawed, and that because of the efort it would require to counter it, you will go ahead and support the spread of mis-information based on the random single angry and uneducated poster.

Not really abilities, but a worthless class mechanic: Ranger Pets.

Ranger Pet AI is worthless
Ranger Pet inability to hit moving targets is worthless
Ranger unresponsive/unreliable F2 is worthless

More mesmer problems:

- iWarden: Bug (not attacking).
- Phantasmal Haste (Trait): Not working with iWarden, iSwordman, iZerker and iMariner.
- Temporal Curtain: Bad design. Swiftness not stacking and pull has so much internal CD.
- Mantras: Even with the buffs, they are still meh. Too much cast time just for having them ready.
- Portal: Needs a timer and a range indicator. With 60s to put the exit and a range of about 2500 is quite difficult to know how much and how long you have to put it.

Escadin.9482:

• Thumper Turret – Bugs

What’s bugged about thumper turret? I don’t understand. I use it and I haven’t noticed any bugs. There needs to be a target nearby for the overcharge effect to go off if that’s what you mean, but that’s not a bug as far as I know.

bobomb.5209:

Zero Day.2594:

[Thief ]

• Hard to Catch [Trait] – Bad design.
• Back Fighting [Trait] – ?

Could you possibly explain why Hard to Catch is bad design? And do you know what back fighting is? I assume that you don’t since you used a question mark for it’s explanation as to why it’s worthless.

Hard to Catch has a slew of design issues that need to be addressed.

For one, it is a random teleport. Odds are you’ll be teleported into more danger than you were in before. It can teleport you into AoE, out of Shadow Refuge, in the exact same spot you were before, etc. When you die in only a few hits you can’t afford this level of randomness.

Secondly, it triggers through Stability. Meaning even if you are not cced you still teleport randomly. This can cause you to miss stomps you would otherwise have pulled off and actually buffs enemy CC as it would not have affected you otherwise.

Third, it does nothing against the actual CC effect. If you’re hit by a 3 second stun you’ll still be stunned for 3 seconds, you’ll just move away to some random location where someone can still easily hit you. I’d rather bring an actual stun breaker that can remove the stun for me.

Fourth, it has no way to indicate it’s internal cooldown. If I have a trait that can control my positioning, I need to know exactly when it is up in order to use it to my advantage. If I need to guess if it’s going to work or not the split second before I get stunned I’m just going to bring a regular stun breaker.

Geff.1930:

Escadin.9482:

• Thumper Turret – Bugs

What’s bugged about thumper turret? I don’t understand. I use it and I haven’t noticed any bugs. There needs to be a target nearby for the overcharge effect to go off if that’s what you mean, but that’s not a bug as far as I know.

pick one

Thanks everyone for contributing. The list actually grew too long to fit into op, so in order to avoid a mess I’ve created a new thread and started a clean up phase.

@mods Do whatever good mannered thing is approriate to do with this thread. However you should consider that people might want to see where, why and by who entries were suggested.

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Fire Shield
Elementalist, Any class with Leap Combo Finisher on Fire Field

Worst aura by far. A defensive tool designed for offensive usage in a very underwhelming way. Envelop yourself in a shield of fire that burns foes (1 second) and grants might (1 stack 10 seconds) each time you are struck (cooldown of 1 second per attacker). Aura duration of 5 seconds and skill cooldown of 40 freakin seconds. -_- Not only should you be getting hit, you should be getting hit by quite a lot and quite frequently to see some results.

If the reason for the pathetic effects (1 Might stack and 1 second burn) is that fire fields are too common and comboing for fire aura can become OP, at least the skill on the ele’s weapon set should have waaaaay shorter cooldown than 40 seconds. I doubt that anyone will warrant it as OP even on 15 seconds CD. It’s just a worthless skill in the focus off-hand to have too long a cooldown.

What’s funny is that you can get Fire Aura on D/D on a lower CD than on focus, but it doesn’t proc aura share if you use that. It does proc Zephyr’s Boon and Elemental Shielding, though.

K U T M.4539:

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Fire Shield
Elementalist, Any class with Leap Combo Finisher on Fire Field

Worst aura by far. A defensive tool designed for offensive usage in a very underwhelming way. Envelop yourself in a shield of fire that burns foes (1 second) and grants might (1 stack 10 seconds) each time you are struck (cooldown of 1 second per attacker). Aura duration of 5 seconds and skill cooldown of 40 freakin seconds. -_- Not only should you be getting hit, you should be getting hit by quite a lot and quite frequently to see some results.

If the reason for the pathetic effects (1 Might stack and 1 second burn) is that fire fields are too common and comboing for fire aura can become OP, at least the skill on the ele’s weapon set should have waaaaay shorter cooldown than 40 seconds. I doubt that anyone will warrant it as OP even on 15 seconds CD. It’s just a worthless skill in the focus off-hand to have too long a cooldown.

What’s funny is that you can get Fire Aura on D/D on a lower CD than on focus, but it doesn’t proc aura share if you use that. It does proc Zephyr’s Boon and Elemental Shielding, though.

Combo Auras are pretty much screwed for eles since traits seem to not work for them and Signet Auras is just all Fire Auras and we know how horrible Fire Aura is.

Thief

-Last Refuge[Trait] – i’d rather not have any minor shadow arts trait than keep it as it is.