Guild Wars 2

It seems that there are a lot of utility skill lines that don’t see a lot of use. I feel like a lot of these need to be looked at. Sure, one or two of the skills might be occasionally slotted, but the rest just sit there.

i.e.:

Guardian – Signets, Spirit Weapons (not that I want to see another petting zoo, I’m just sayin’)
Warrior – Physical
Ranger – Shouts
Thief – Traps, Tricks, Venoms
Ele – Signets
Mesmer – Signets, every manipulation but blink

Can add Ranger spirits to the list as well. Has been awhile since they were used in PvP and they’ve never been functional in WvW.

All of the Elementalist elites are also meh. I’d wager every Ele in the game would prefer a 4th utility skill over their elite.

Do guardian signets get much play either?

Thieves usually do not use venoms because they only work with one build. You can add that but most of the tricks save Scorpion Wire are used.

Spirit weapons just have to many good skills to contend with if you ask me.

I see warrior physicals, particularly bulls rush and bolas, used all the time in WvW and solo q.

I see ranger shouts used all the time in WvW

Traps, eh, beats me, I have to totally agree with you.

I almost laughed a’loud, eles use signets all the time in my experience.

I see arcane thievery used ALOT. for the other 2 though, not so much. Illusion of life has sooooo much potential to me. I see signet of domination used very oten for the CC in WvW.

kaikalii.4198:

Mesmer – Signets, every manipulation but blink

You’re wrong about manipulations until ILL got bugged and Mimic got uber nerfed via entire redesign. Arcane Thievery is still used and is very potent. You wouldn’t taken untrained however.

Should add conjured weapons to the elementalist list. Frost Bow is the only utility conjure that gets used, and the greatsword only sees use because the only competition it has is… Tornado and the elemental elites.

the lack of viable builds/choices in this gam is IMO this game’s greatest weakness.

Of the class i regularly play, from a WVW roaming/zerging perspective, skills i basically never use or of very limited/situational use:

Ele: glyphs, signets, conjures, elites
Ranger: traps, shouts, spirits
Warrior: (no real complaints)
Thief: traps
Mesmer: (no real complaints)
Necro: minions, signets (except spite)

I think one problem is that between their own undertuning and the players constantly yelling at them that everything feels overpowered, the devs rarely dare to make genuinely strong abilities.

But… I thought the very premise of the slot system was to make all skills feel overpowered? And then limit you to only pick 3, but you’d want to pick 20-25?
That always seemed like the underlying idea of the whole thing.

In other words, what I’d do is buff the living daylight out of things. Seriously, make everything overpowered. Put the balance entirely into choice, being unable to do everything at the same time.

Carighan.6758:

I think one problem is that between their own undertuning and the players constantly yelling at them that everything feels overpowered, the devs rarely dare to make genuinely strong abilities.

But… I thought the very premise of the slot system was to make all skills feel overpowered? And then limit you to only pick 3, but you’d want to pick 20-25?
That always seemed like the underlying idea of the whole thing.

In other words, what I’d do is buff the living daylight out of things. Seriously, make everything overpowered. Put the balance entirely into choice, being unable to do everything at the same time.

Gotta be honest, I like the idea of running with a tripple conjure weapon Ele or Signet Necromancer…

… to be fair though, now that I think about it… Conjure Weapons, especially axe and hammer, do not feel underpowered at all – just suboptimal when compared to the cantrips…
When I was just toying around with builds, I ran lightning hammer for fun in some TeamQs as well, granted, not the best pick, but the results were fine – one of them is recorded by one of my guildies (the guy playing power Necromancer with his fine skillclicking abilities) – just for the sake of fun you could easily pick them…

I think, just for the sake of testing, if you tweak the numbers of damage a bit, they could easily become a lot more favourable, since they grant the ability for “bunkers” to deal steady damage (with a limit since conjures only got 15 attacks untraited)… On the other hand, with Celestial being the way it is now, maybe not such a good idea either :P

kaikalii.4198:

It seems that there are a lot of utility skill lines that don’t see a lot of use. I feel like a lot of these need to be looked at. Sure, one or two of the skills might be occasionally slotted, but the rest just sit there.

i.e.:

Guardian – Spirit Weapons (not that I want to see another petting zoo, I’m just sayin’)
Warrior – Physical
Ranger – Shouts
Thief – Traps, Tricks
Ele – Signets
Mesmer – Signets, every manipulation but blink

Spirit shield is alright, & the hammer is good for CC.

However the others are crap & all of them die far to easily.

If they had a trait that increased their health & made them do their command on death (similar to ranger spirits) then they would be good.

You also forgot guardian signets. People occasionally use signet of judgement or bane signets, however there is no reason to use more then one signet at a time. + signet of wrath & signet of mercy suck.

Ehecatl.9172:

Should add conjured weapons to the elementalist list. Frost Bow is the only utility conjure that gets used, and the greatsword only sees use because the only competition it has is… Tornado and the elemental elites.

I actually use the hammer conjure on my ele quite a bit.

The blind & blast from the AA chain happens very often which can help with damage avoidance for the group & stacking might.

Granted there is usually another ele when i run it.

Mesmer Phantasm utilities (the phantasmal defender and enchanter?) aren’t used much either.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Ehecatl.9172:

Should add conjured weapons to the elementalist list. Frost Bow is the only utility conjure that gets used, and the greatsword only sees use because the only competition it has is… Tornado and the elemental elites.

I actually use the hammer conjure on my ele quite a bit.

The blind & blast from the AA chain happens very often which can help with damage avoidance for the group & stacking might.

You’re also obviously talking about PVE, everything is relatively viable there, even no armour.