Guild Wars 2

I’ve been thinking of some new elite skills per profession for some time now (no one asked, I just enjoy brainstorming ^^). There have been numerous posts regarding replacing the elite skill with the option of another utility. There have also been numerous suggestions to either “just change some elites” or “nerf them” or in great detail of what they think should change about a certain elite skill. Well, feel free to post those things here but do so with a valid reason (so no because," It’s op"). (-W means unusable underwater, +W means usable underwater)

Warrior
Blood Rage stance: For the next 8 seconds, your attacks steal a small amount of life(not added dmg, portion of your damage is turned to healing)but you consume life each swing. Multi hit skills are half as effective. If you miss, you will lose health but hitting will grant much more health than consumed. This is meant to be a counter to the stance. Missing only consumes half the health cost per swing on multi hit skills. Cd 120 seconds. +W -Stance-

Guardian
Staff of Guidance: Summon an arcane staff to defend you. Command the staff to release a foe fire storm at your target’s location and release a fire torrent at it’s location. This destroy’s the staff. Attacks once every 5 seconds with an aoe foe fire ball that leaves behind a small fire field for 2 seconds. Causes burning for 2 seconds. +W

Ranger
Vine wrapped arrow: Your next arrow based attack will cause vulnerability, and immobilize. Cooldown 45 -W seconds.
Vulnerability (5) for 10 seconds
Immobiize for 2 seconds

Engineer
Experimental Jetpack: Dash forward, launching foes you come into contact with and granting you swiftness afterwards. Blowout 400 units. Swiftness duration 20 seconds. Dash distance 600 units. Cast time 1 second, 1.5 seconds to cover 600 units.Cooldown 150 seconds. +W

Thief
Art of Stealth: Throw down a large smoke bomb that grants stealth to allies for 10 seconds. Smoke bomb radius 450 units. Stealths up to 10 targets including yourself. Smoke field lasts 3 seconds. Cooldown 120 seconds. Combo Field: Smoke +W

Elementalist
Orb Of Energy: Turn into a targetable ball of energy replacing your health pool. If you survive for the next 5 seconds, erupt dealing heavy damage, blinding foes, and returning to your old life pool. Additionally recharge all weapon skills. No skills or actions can be taken inside in this form (you can only move around). Dieing with the orb active returns you to your old health pool and puts all weapon skills and attunements on a +2 second cooldown. Orb health is equal to your max health. Cooldown 240 seconds. Combo Finisher: Blast. -W

Mesmer
Signet of Despair:
(Passive) When you are affected by confusion, apply confusion on hit to foes. (1 stack for 5 seconds.)
(Active) Teleport onto your foe and gain an etheral aura. Cooldown 60 seconds. +W

Necromancer
Touch of the Dead: Grasp your foe and transfer conditions to them, and steal boons. Charge up for 1.75 seconds. Channel for 2 seconds. Transfer all conditions the first second, and rip all boons a second after (so can be interupted). Range 180 units. Cooldown 150 seconds. -W

(Side changes)
Mortar: Fix the trait that increases mortar range (Elite Supplies) to actually increase the range. Additionally reduce cd of mortar from 120 to 90 (reduce mortar duration so one cannot summon 2 mortars).

Signet of the Wild: reduce the cooldown to 60 seconds. Too much of a loss for using the active currently.

Artillery strike: Increase range to 900 units. Increase damage to scale off power more efficiently and deal double damage to structures.

Power Suit: Seperate life bar. Once killed, shoot out and become stunned for 2 seconds.

Avatar of Melandru: Increase duration to 30 seconds and grant increased healing power. If it can’t deal damage atleast let it heal a small amount.

Hounds of Balthazar: Leave behind a fire field for 3 seconds when killed.

Become the Bear/Wolf/Raven: Allow movement while attacking.

necro elite,

Life exchange: cooldown 180

exchange your remaining hp pool percentage to your opponent

eg. warrior has full hp of 30k, and he bashed you and you have 200/2000k hp left which is 1% left, after using this skill

the warrior has 300/30000k and yours will be full

I’ve always liked the idea of the Elementalist having a super-mode Fifth Attunement as an Elite.

OtakuDFifty.2965:

I’ve always liked the idea of the Elementalist having a super-mode Fifth Attunement as an Elite.

That would be sweet! I always thought the Cyclone elite could have been better if it incorporated all elements into it. It already has thunder and an earth like skill, be cool if it added a water skill that maybe randomly shot out healing bolts at allies / damaged enemies, and fire skill which does what fire does best and burns people

I’ve played 1,100 hours of warrior.
We need a Elite Stance and a Elite Shout.

I like the idea of life stealing, but the cost thing is sort of lame.. I’d say..
Cooldown; 240 (4minutes)
Effect;10% Chance to Steal health when you attack and 10% chance to lose a condition when you attack.
Duration; 10 seconds.

As for a shout.. “Knock Them Down!”
Cooldown: 120seconds
Effect Duration: 5seconds
Effect: Allies gain Stability and Quickness, and a 5% chance to cause a 1second knock down when attacking.
(aoe break stun)

NinjaEd.3946:

Elementalist
Orb Of Energy: Turn into a targetable ball of energy replacing your health pool. If you survive for the next 5 seconds, erupt dealing heavy damage, blinding foes, and returning to your old life pool. Additionally recharge all weapon skills. No skills or actions can be taken inside in this form (you can only move around). Dieing with the orb active returns you to your old health pool and puts all weapon skills and attunements on a +2 second cooldown. Orb health is equal to your max health. Cooldown 240 seconds. Combo Finisher: Blast. -W

Just remove all elites skills on eles i rather use one extra utility skill than an elite skill.

Anatolian Turk.4057:

NinjaEd.3946:

Elementalist
Orb Of Energy: Turn into a targetable ball of energy replacing your health pool. If you survive for the next 5 seconds, erupt dealing heavy damage, blinding foes, and returning to your old life pool. Additionally recharge all weapon skills. No skills or actions can be taken inside in this form (you can only move around). Dieing with the orb active returns you to your old health pool and puts all weapon skills and attunements on a +2 second cooldown. Orb health is equal to your max health. Cooldown 240 seconds. Combo Finisher: Blast. -W

Just remove all elites skills on eles i rather use one extra utility skill than an elite skill.

That wouldn’t happen and here’s why.

Elite skills are supposed to be “oh no, turn tide I must. Morph into giant beast I will”. The current balance, although not that great (lets be honest) is centered around everyone having 1 healing, 3 utilities, and 1 elite skill. If you suddenly allowed 1 healing 4 utility, think of how many builds could become ridiculously overpowered? They have it this way for the opportunity costs and to make players think of their build. Problem is, not many elites are useful and several elites serve no purpose at all but to look flashy and die shortly after.

That is why I made this thread. They may not be taken, or ever discussed on a table in ArenaNet’s Offices, but it sure beats trashing their system because of a few skills that come around once every 90+ seconds. Feels like the current elite skills need to be adjusted (as the thread is made for) and the room for some others to fulfill all builds profession X can make (also what the thread is for).

Ofc number values arn’t any part really, they can be adjusted at any time. Just throwing ideas at a wall of text to see what feels right. Truth be told I want ele to be deleted but it wouldn’t be right to ignore their need for better elite skills or elite skills that are more useful that the current ones.

Guardian

Empower Virtues: Recharge all virtues and in the next 6 seconds, you can cast each virtue up to 2 times (2nd cast becomes unavailible after 6 seconds. Cd 240 seconds.

Engineer

Guided Missle: Pull out a 1 time shot rocket shot. Upon contact with an enemy, a structure, or after its full distance traveled it explodes launching foes back and burning them.
Blowout- 450
Range- 1200
(Units covered): 1200 units in 1 second.
Burn- 3 seconds
Explosion Radius- 200 units
Cooldown 90 seconds.
Max targets- 5

Heh, i actually like the mental image of a engineer, in particular an asura, hefting a large pipe onto his shoulder and launching a missile. Especially if it comes with a cartoon sharks grin on the nose! I would gladly trade the mortar for something like that

I’m good with the Elites we have…for now.

However I do whole-heartedly agree there needs to be a way to reduce their cooldowns OR boost their duration/damage/effectiveness.

Ex. Norn Racial Elite – Wolf(ANY)Form…I love this skill. It looks cool, plays well, and can be beneficial. BUT it does not last long enough for the damage it does and the Forms take WAAAAAYYYY too long to recharge.

Ex. Warrior Elite – Rampage…wow…3 min cool down for one of the weakest Elites in the game? We gotta boost this duration to at least 60 seconds to make it worth it, and drop the CD time on skills 4 & 5 by a couple seconds at the very least. OR do the duration buff above and drop the CD on the Elite itself to 120. 60 Seconds of benefit + 60 seconds of CD. Seems fair.

Signet of Rage is one that I would say is close to right…30 seconds of benefit for a 60 second CD. I’m good there. 30 secs on, 30 secs off, rinse and repeat.

These are just 2 examples, I’m sure lots of us could come up with more…but come on guys, please make the Elites actually usable. I’m not gonna even start on the Golem Suit…lol

Please, lets see some love on the Elites to make them more playable/effective.

Thanks.

Elites are supposed to be (not all are, take a look at basilik venom or signet of rage) tide turners. You’re only supposed to use them in a desperate situation and something like rampage fills that criteria. I honestly don’t think rampage is at all weak, but I do agree the 3 minute cooldown is a bit much. 26 seconds is plenty, but atleast 150 cd would be a smart step. Rampage isn’t about killing the enemy through dd, its about surviving and crowd controlling large groups and/or taking a point/objective.

Racial elites are very different since they are more cosmetic than a bonus. Regardless, a 4 minute cooldown on something that ALSO deals just about nothing and requires you to stand still for each attack is very disatisfying (don’t even mention human elites). A mix of better improving the current elites along with adding new ones to fill the shoes of those who don’t see the current elite’s viable for their build would do some good. Even with buffs/adjustments, some elite skills simply don’t fit some builds (excluding racials since those can be on any profession).

P.S. I really, REALLY wish they brought back capturing of elite skills. I don’t care to get 10-30 levels or sp and simply purchase an elite skill. I miss the adventure gw1 elites brought where you had to find a unique boss (some had more than 1 source) to learn said elite. Too late for that however unless they add more ; ;

I want to second something in this thread: The Summon Power Suit. The other summons are at least useful for dps/burst, or else defense in a hard fight, but the summon power suit is little better than a bad joke. You will NEVER see an Asura use one, which indicates how absurdly bad it is.I agree with the poster: Give it a separate health pool. That way we can at least wade in with the suit and not feel bad as we are getting hosed in the process. This skill more than any I know of needs to be buffed out of the elites.

Freedan.1769:

I want to second something in this thread: The Summon Power Suit. The other summons are at least useful for dps/burst, or else defense in a hard fight, but the summon power suit is little better than a bad joke. You will NEVER see an Asura use one, which indicates how absurdly bad it is.I agree with the poster: Give it a separate health pool. That way we can at least wade in with the suit and not feel bad as we are getting hosed in the process. This skill more than any I know of needs to be buffed out of the elites.

Espeially since it is a “suit you wear” not a mophrh. I agree the idea behind making no racial elite be better than a profession elite but the asuran power suit is a downright nerf when using it than a buff.

Well, i did wrote about an elite (turret-based or kit) skill for engineers.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Engineer-elite-skill-force-field/1860145

It would be quite versatile in the kit form, just like the engineer should be. And we lack an elite kit anyway.

But yeah, they should rework quite a number of them. Many don’t feel “elite” at all, just mediocre skills with long cooldowns. Especially almost all the racial ones (and while i can understand why they wanted people to use the skills of the profession, making racial skills near useless just means no one will have a single reason to use those)

Cloaking signet(Thief)
Passive: Stealth skills last 2 seconds longer. Reveal lasts 1 second longer.
Active: Your next stealth skill grants you and any affected allies regeneration.

Regeneration duration 15 seconds.
Cooldown 1 minute.

Wind splitting Arrow(Ranger)

Fire a fast moving arrow that deals more damage the further it goes. Also you’re pets next attack causes vulnerability.

Charge for 1 second.
Cooldown 1 minute
Vulnerability duration 10 seconds; 3 stacks.
Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile
Range 1500.

Uppercut(Warrior)
Deliver a powerful uppercut to your foe launching them and causing weakness.

Blowout 450 units.
Weakness duration 7.25 seconds.
Cooldown 1 minute.
Physical

Enter The light(Guardian)
Create an aura that affects you and up to 4 allies. In the next 20 seconds, if anyone is downed, they gain regeneration for 10 seconds. If they die, they release a bursting light that heals up to 5 allies nearby.

Aura radius 300 units
Defeated healing radius 180 units.
Defeated healing amount minor.
Cooldown 120 seconds

Corpse Bomb(Necromancer)
Channel an unforgiving spell that implodes up to 10 dead bodies damaging foes and granting you life force for each corpse.

Life force per corpse 2%
Range 600 units.
Explosion damage moderate
Cooldown 90 seconds.

I like the guardian, necro and ele ones from original post, the rest are meh and wouldn’t use them.

NinjaEd.3946:

Anatolian Turk.4057:

NinjaEd.3946:

Elementalist
Orb Of Energy: Turn into a targetable ball of energy replacing your health pool. If you survive for the next 5 seconds, erupt dealing heavy damage, blinding foes, and returning to your old life pool. Additionally recharge all weapon skills. No skills or actions can be taken inside in this form (you can only move around). Dieing with the orb active returns you to your old health pool and puts all weapon skills and attunements on a +2 second cooldown. Orb health is equal to your max health. Cooldown 240 seconds. Combo Finisher: Blast. -W

Just remove all elites skills on eles i rather use one extra utility skill than an elite skill.

That wouldn’t happen and here’s why.

Elite skills are supposed to be “oh no, turn tide I must. Morph into giant beast I will”. The current balance, although not that great (lets be honest) is centered around everyone having 1 healing, 3 utilities, and 1 elite skill. If you suddenly allowed 1 healing 4 utility, think of how many builds could become ridiculously overpowered? They have it this way for the opportunity costs and to make players think of their build. Problem is, not many elites are useful and several elites serve no purpose at all but to look flashy and die shortly after.

That is why I made this thread. They may not be taken, or ever discussed on a table in ArenaNet’s Offices, but it sure beats trashing their system because of a few skills that come around once every 90+ seconds. Feels like the current elite skills need to be adjusted (as the thread is made for) and the room for some others to fulfill all builds profession X can make (also what the thread is for).

Ofc number values arn’t any part really, they can be adjusted at any time. Just throwing ideas at a wall of text to see what feels right. Truth be told I want ele to be deleted but it wouldn’t be right to ignore their need for better elite skills or elite skills that are more useful that the current ones.

They aren’t tide turners. Have you ever, or will you ever be possible to ‘turn the tide’ with engineers mortar elite? Will you ever ‘turn the tide’ with elamentalists tornado?→ No.

I guess about 1 elite from efery class might be a tide turner, but that’s just … why?
Elite skills shouldn’t be situational skills. They should be skill builds resolve around. Gw1 did an excellent job at that point! Check gw1s, PvX build wiki, all great examples of builds resolving around an elite.
Guild wars 2 takes away alooot of complexcity by creating douchbag elites, making it easy for people what elite to pick and what build to get, but I’d rather see a more complex system with orbit elites!

Well like I said, elites are there for a purpose but not all elites fill a build. I did play gw1, and I enjoyed their elite skill system a lot more. But no one ran without an elite (from what I saw) because many of them were extremely useful. Tranlsated over here, we are still “always using an elite” but the usefullness of many of them are minimal which is the problem. Adjustments to current elite skils (can be suggested here) or the idea of new elite skills to fill other builds on those professions (also can be suggested here) has been needed for awhile now.

On my warrior, I love rampage. Especially in wvw, it literally turns the tide in my advantage when I pop it (especially near cliffs). The cooldown and duration however arn’t at its best and thats why many warriors run signet of rage for the constant fury as well as swiftness. Power thieves usually run BV because landing constant hits from behind is a lot easier when the target isn’t moving, thieves guild although strong doesn’t provide smart AI and the cd is really long (and it is literally an upgraded ambush.. not very creative). Ranger has 2 good choices but the spirit is easily killed and also a very long cd (although understandable, since it rallies but the health should be much higher on it).

Bottom line, some builds have a viable elite, others don’t.

Asuran

Power Cube: Drop a device that grants allies 1 random boon every 5 seconds.
-Boon duration 6 seconds.
-Cube duration 30 seconds.
-Affects up to 5 allies.
-Cooldown 180 seconds.

Sylvari

Shelter tree: Plant a seed in the ground. If the seed lives for 4 seconds, it grows shielding allies from projectile attacks while curing conditions from allies initially.
-Intial condition removel 2
-Field radius: 240 units
-Field duration 15 seconds.
-Seed health: about as much as a seed turret.
-Cooldown 150 seconds.

Charr

Sniper Turret: Call upon a drop of a sniper turret. When it arrives, you must assemble it.
-Cast range 600 units.
-Cast time 2.25 seconds.
-Sniper range 1500 units
-Assembly time 4 seconds. Damage doesn’t interupt channel.
-Cooldown 200 seconds.
-Only attack is a long range powerful shot. Deals more damage the further the enemy is.
-Health of turret is as much as a engineer turret.
-Attack speed: each shot has a 2 second cooldown.

Norn

Doylak Guidance: Gain stability and swiftness
-Duration 10 seconds.
-Cast time .5 seconds.
-Cooldown 120 seconds.

Human

Muster courage: Remove all conditions and gain protection.
-Protection duration 10 seconds.
-Cooldown 90 seconds.
-Cast time 1 second.

Not sure I like the Thief one. We can already use Shadow Refuge to gain 15 seconds of uninterrupted stealth(if we stayed in it).
I think a new trap would be nice, something that applied Daze and immobilize would be pretty fun. Could call it Sabotage. Would also like to see these traps have a triggered duration to affect more than the one or two targets who activated them.

For all transform skills, I’d like the countdown to start when you actually enter combat mode for the first time. If you don’t enter combat mode, then you stay transformed until you either zone, waypoint, or hit the “transform back to normal” button, whichever it is.

This would make them somewhat better to use in my opinion, and allow them to be used for RP if required by the RP community (they just need to remember to not attack any actual enemies with it).

Also please infuse Mistfire Wolf! Sure, it is beautiful skill, but not eficient enough to use it. Just make cooldown shorter to 180s and duration longer to 60s. Then it will be efficient as any other skills and it will be fun to use it again.

Kallist.5917:

Not sure I like the Thief one. We can already use Shadow Refuge to gain 15 seconds of uninterrupted stealth(if we stayed in it).
I think a new trap would be nice, something that applied Daze and immobilize would be pretty fun. Could call it Sabotage. Would also like to see these traps have a triggered duration to affect more than the one or two targets who activated them.

Oh for sure. Thief traps are quite weak. I’d love to see them improve in any way, even to fill a sort of support role. Thieves are really weak supports atm..

If you have an idea on the elite trap don’t be afraid to post it ^^

P.S we already have a trap the immobilizes and another trap that sorta dazes (tripwire).

NinjaEd.3946:

Oh for sure. Thief traps are quite weak. I’d love to see them improve in any way, even to fill a sort of support role. Thieves are really weak supports atm..

If you have an idea on the elite trap don’t be afraid to post it ^^

P.S we already have a trap the immobilizes and another trap that sorta dazes (tripwire).

Yea, I know we have them, I’m just trying to think of something that would be used as much as elites like Basilisk Venom and Dagger Storm, but not be so OP that everyone would complain about it. x_x

To bee honest, at this point any new guardian elites would be welcome. Pretty much every single one is lackluster in some way, and as rare as water combat is only having one elite useable in water combat is just dumb.

Toast.6459:

To bee honest, at this point any new guardian elites would be welcome. Pretty much every single one is lackluster in some way, and as rare as water combat is only having one elite useable in water combat is just dumb.

It seemed strange to me that some professions have access to 2 elites underwater while others only have 1. I can understand why some might not “feel right” underwater but at the same time it seems like an imbalance when you want all professions to have access to the same number of skills.

NinjaEd.3946:

Toast.6459:

To bee honest, at this point any new guardian elites would be welcome. Pretty much every single one is lackluster in some way, and as rare as water combat is only having one elite useable in water combat is just dumb.

It seemed strange to me that some professions have access to 2 elites underwater while others only have 1. I can understand why some might not “feel right” underwater but at the same time it seems like an imbalance when you want all professions to have access to the same number of skills.

Mmm, but I can’t even come up with a logical reason why you can’t use the tomes underwater. It’s a magical book, pretty sure it’s still gonna function the same when it’s wet, not that something like that even matters though. Balance reasons? Lol, yes, because the tomes are soooooo overpowered, dat 3 second cast ~1k damage judgement doe.

Engineer Elite Skills:

1) Remote control vehicle. Lunch and control a small tracked steam tank that has 5 abilities:

1: Shock – lunch a static discharge bold that bounces through enemies. 1000 range.
2: Steam – release hot steam damaging and blinding nearby enemies.
3: Glue – Spill glue behind, the enemies passing through will be slowed
4: Boost – Speed the tank knocking down the first enemy it hits.
5: Detonate – Self destructs the tank Dazing, burning and bleeding enemies in 450 range.

Oldgrimm.8521:

necro elite,

Life exchange: cooldown 180

exchange your remaining hp pool percentage to your opponent

eg. warrior has full hp of 30k, and he bashed you and you have 200/2000k hp left which is 1% left, after using this skill

the warrior has 300/30000k and yours will be full

That skill should be called Grenth’s Balance.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Grenth%27s_Balance

I would also suggest the following new necro elite:

Bone Shark (underwater ELITE)
Summons one bone shark minion, with a charge attack that stuns enemies. Replaces the Flesh Golem for underwater.

Oldgrimm.8521:

necro elite,

Life exchange: cooldown 180

exchange your remaining hp pool percentage to your opponent

eg. warrior has full hp of 30k, and he bashed you and you have 200/2000k hp left which is 1% left, after using this skill

the warrior has 300/30000k and yours will be full

No way… This is the most overpowered suggestion I ever seen on forum. I want Elite skill “I win button”

Toast.6459:

NinjaEd.3946:

Toast.6459:

To bee honest, at this point any new guardian elites would be welcome. Pretty much every single one is lackluster in some way, and as rare as water combat is only having one elite useable in water combat is just dumb.

It seemed strange to me that some professions have access to 2 elites underwater while others only have 1. I can understand why some might not “feel right” underwater but at the same time it seems like an imbalance when you want all professions to have access to the same number of skills.

Mmm, but I can’t even come up with a logical reason why you can’t use the tomes underwater. It’s a magical book, pretty sure it’s still gonna function the same when it’s wet, not that something like that even matters though. Balance reasons? Lol, yes, because the tomes are soooooo overpowered, dat 3 second cast ~1k damage judgement doe.

Not saying the tome is op (don’t have a guardian, don’t even know its effectivness) but not all professions get 2 underwater elite skills.

Mesmer: Gets all 3. What?
Warrior/engineer/ranger: Gets 2. Meh
Thief/Necromancer/guardian/elementalist: Gets 1.

So in terms of build variety, underwater (although not popular) the mesmer is #1. Thats not to say they have the best elite skills, but they got more options. Something every profession, including the mesmer, needs. There arn’t enough elites to suit various builds, some of them don’t even get used because it just hinders some whether it be loss of dps or survivability.

NinjaEd.3946:

Toast.6459:

NinjaEd.3946:

Toast.6459:

To bee honest, at this point any new guardian elites would be welcome. Pretty much every single one is lackluster in some way, and as rare as water combat is only having one elite useable in water combat is just dumb.

It seemed strange to me that some professions have access to 2 elites underwater while others only have 1. I can understand why some might not “feel right” underwater but at the same time it seems like an imbalance when you want all professions to have access to the same number of skills.

Mmm, but I can’t even come up with a logical reason why you can’t use the tomes underwater. It’s a magical book, pretty sure it’s still gonna function the same when it’s wet, not that something like that even matters though. Balance reasons? Lol, yes, because the tomes are soooooo overpowered, dat 3 second cast ~1k damage judgement doe.

Not saying the tome is op (don’t have a guardian, don’t even know its effectivness) but not all professions get 2 underwater elite skills.

Mesmer: Gets all 3. What?
Warrior/engineer/ranger: Gets 2. Meh
Thief/Necromancer/guardian/elementalist: Gets 1.

So in terms of build variety, underwater (although not popular) the mesmer is #1. Thats not to say they have the best elite skills, but they got more options. Something every profession, including the mesmer, needs. There arn’t enough elites to suit various builds, some of them don’t even get used because it just hinders some whether it be loss of dps or survivability.

I agree, the lack of elite skill variety is one of the worst things about underwater combat imo. It’s quite fun when you’re using a build that utilizes most of the same skills underwater but it becomes a chore when you can’t use half the skills your build is traited around while underwater.

Engineer

-Gatling Gun
Weapon kit Equip a kittening Gatling gun (recharge 0 seconds) replaced by Stow kit

And the skills you’d get from it…

1. Spray & Pray: Damage foes in a cone in front of you. Max targets: 5. Range :1200. (channels for two seconds, five pulses a second) Ammo consumption: 1.

2. Crippling Sweep: Cripple foes in a cone in front of you by shooting them in their knees. Max targets: 5. Range: 1200. Recharge: 8 seconds. Ammo consumption: 2.

3. Focused Fire: Keep shooting on a single target, applying vulnerability on each hit. Unblockable. Number of attacks: 10. Recharge: 30 seconds. Ammo consumption: 5.

4. Leaden Barrage: Shower an area with ammo. (ground targeted AoE skill, works like Ranger longbow barrage) Recharge: 40 seconds. Ammo consumption: 10.

5. Load: Fill your Gatling kit with ammunition. Upon stowing or dropping Gatling Kit, all Ammo is lost. Applies 25 stacks of ammo. Duration: 180 seconds. Recharge: 180 seconds.

In effect, the kit would play like a weapon kit version of the Fiery Greatsword. In addition to the skills, the kit would make the engineer run 50% slower while carrying it. Also, the effects of the trait Juggernaut should apply to Gatling Gun like it does to Flame Thrower.

NinjaEd.3946:

Toast.6459:

NinjaEd.3946:

Toast.6459:

To bee honest, at this point any new guardian elites would be welcome. Pretty much every single one is lackluster in some way, and as rare as water combat is only having one elite useable in water combat is just dumb.

It seemed strange to me that some professions have access to 2 elites underwater while others only have 1. I can understand why some might not “feel right” underwater but at the same time it seems like an imbalance when you want all professions to have access to the same number of skills.

Mmm, but I can’t even come up with a logical reason why you can’t use the tomes underwater. It’s a magical book, pretty sure it’s still gonna function the same when it’s wet, not that something like that even matters though. Balance reasons? Lol, yes, because the tomes are soooooo overpowered, dat 3 second cast ~1k damage judgement doe.

Not saying the tome is op (don’t have a guardian, don’t even know its effectivness) but not all professions get 2 underwater elite skills.

Mesmer: Gets all 3. What?
Warrior/engineer/ranger: Gets 2. Meh
Thief/Necromancer/guardian/elementalist: Gets 1.

So in terms of build variety, underwater (although not popular) the mesmer is #1. Thats not to say they have the best elite skills, but they got more options. Something every profession, including the mesmer, needs. There arn’t enough elites to suit various builds, some of them don’t even get used because it just hinders some whether it be loss of dps or survivability.

Oh yeah, I wasn’t saying it was either, more so making a mockery of how useless the tomes really are. For the long drawn out cast time of judgement and the high chance you’ll get interrupted you would think it might actually do something useful.

Lots of suggestions in here so far I don’t like, or some are by far too OP like Life Exchange.
Seriosly, this would be the most kitten Elite ever, if you could so easily turn totally a 100% Lose situation into a 100% Win Situation.
Every Class needs to have special land elites and special underwater elites.

Example for the Thief, which has absolutely no other choice, than using this bull**** elite of Basilisk Venom under water, as currently its the only one that works for them there:

1) Basilisk Venom
Gets replaced with a new Elite, ll Venoms should get integrated as the new Class Special Mechanic for F2 letting the Thief use 1 randomous Poison to enhance a several amount of next attacks with special poison effects.

1.1) New Elite for on Land:

“Shadow Doppelgangers”
An improved replacement for Thief Guild, that will summon 2 Shadow Doppelgangers from original Thief, which will perform on land as like under water exactly the same attacks like the Original does. Once summoned the Shadow Doppelganger-Elite Skill turns into “Shadow Returner” with that the Original can let the Doppelgangers explode into darkness, what dazes nearby enemies. Every exploded Shadow Doppelganger will heal also allies and put them into Stealth like Shadow Retreat for 3 seconds, if traited or instead their Attacks will heal passively like Signet of Malice the Original with their attacks, when traited with an other trait.
This will be the only Elite, which can be used on land as like under water!

2) Dagger Storm (on land only)
This Elite Skill needs a little buff, that Thiefs should receive while performing this Elite. A buff on their Defense Power and if enemies that get too near to them, they should get launched back so that this skill can be used to clear situations, when you are clearly absolutely outmanned. Only then can this Elite be truly a kind of tide turner.

3) Pilfering (on land only)
An Elite, which lets the thief steal with 1 attack multiple items at once, so that you get multiple stolen various items, for example 3 items instead of 1 and once you used 1 of the 3 items, F1 gets replaced with one of the next 2 to use items. For this one should get the F1 point for the items expanded, so that up to 3 stolen items should get shown there and will deal multiple different negative conditions per stolen item 1.
Lets say for example: Weakness, Vulnerability and Cripple. This Elite will work as Shadow Step that can break stun, but you need a target naturally for that.

4) Signet of Espionage (on land only)
An Elite, that will set the Thief under stealth passively, that deactivates all weapon skills. Only utility skills like traps are usable and it allows to infiltrate enemy territory in WvW. Once the signet gets activated, the Thief gains temporarely stability, increased movement speed, protection and cures conditions as long the signet is active every second 1 condition, but this ends the stealth and reactivates the weapon skills
———-

Underwater:

1) Robbery (water only)
A very quick and agile dash attack that gets stronger with every stolen item that the Thief has with that the thief wil lalso automatically steal something from the enemy, if the attack was critical or if the nemy was under 50% health.
While this attack gets performed, enemy attacks will get evaded.

2) Signet of Piracy (water only)
A signet that will let the Thief gain passively health regeneration, whenever the thief evades.
Activated will the next following 3 attacks heal the thief by draining health and stamina from the the enemy that gets hit by the attacks. The effect will increase, if the attacks hit multiple targets.

3) Marauder’s Sight (water only)
An Elite skill, which will let the Thief steal all positive buffs from enemies in the near.
For each stolen buff effect from an enemy, will the enemy be dazed for a second.
If the enemy had no buff effects, that could have been stolen, then this skill will cause for 3 seconds fear onto them.
——

Thats how for example I’d like the thief elites to get changed/improved/expanded so that the thief (and all other classes naturally too) would have 3 good elites for on land, 3 good ones for under water and 1, thats generally usable everywhere on land as like under water, so that you basically have 4 different elites for on land as like under water gameplay with 7 elites per class.

Especially Signet of Espionage is a MUST, to improve the thief’s role as infiltrator in WvW. The thief has basically no role so far in WvW. The class sucks in support, this class basically sucks so far under water.
The only thing so far the thief is good for in WvW is either stealthing groups through areas with Shadow Retreat, or stealth reviving people/ killing downed people.

I don’t think the Life Exchange idea is such a bad idea. But I would suggest balancing it in the same way that Grenth’s Balance in Guild wars 1 worked.

In GW1, Grenth’s Balance did the following:

“If target foe has more Health than you, you gain half the difference (up to your maximum Health), and that foe loses an equal amount. If this foe has less Health than you, you lose half the difference, and that foe gains an equal amount.”

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I don’t think the Life Exchange idea is such a bad idea. But I would suggest balancing it in the same way that Grenth’s Balance in Guild wars 1 worked.

In GW1, Grenth’s Balance did the following:

“If target foe has more Health than you, you gain half the difference (up to your maximum Health), and that foe loses an equal amount. If this foe has less Health than you, you lose half the difference, and that foe gains an equal amount.”

It’s da queen!

Grenth’s Balance was lolzy in GW1, made for some awesome troll builds. I miss the 300 skill freedom, even if it was overkill.

Toast.6459:

It’s da queen!

-Polite bow-

Hello darling. Yes, it’s me.

It would be nice to see a couple of classic GW1 skills make a return. I think some of them might not even have to be changed all that much to work in GW2.

Orpheal.8263:

4) Signet of Espionage (on land only)
An Elite, that will set the Thief under stealth passively, that deactivates all weapon skills. Only utility skills like traps are usable and it allows to infiltrate enemy territory in WvW. Once the signet gets activated, the Thief gains temporarely stability, increased movement speed, protection and cures conditions as long the signet is active every second 1 condition, but this ends the stealth and reactivates the weapon skills
———-

Especially Signet of Espionage is a MUST, to improve the thief’s role as infiltrator in WvW. The thief has basically no role so far in WvW. The class sucks in support, this class basically sucks so far under water.
The only thing so far the thief is good for in WvW is either stealthing groups through areas with Shadow Retreat, or stealth reviving people/ killing downed people.

Ehhh idk. Thieves can already get around really well as well as kill other roamers/scouts. The main issue I see with thief in wvw is, they are a selfsish profession at heart. Their party wide boons are non-existent, their aoe stealth is minor with limitations (can’t SR on the run. Not suggesting to change that however.). They just can’t run as well as the other professions in wvw. In spvp they also don’t do the best against high matchups. Yet people always Q.Q about how op they are… anyways.

I think thief needs some support role, and to first fill that role with the obvious, party wide stealth. They are the masters of stealth but they get outshined by a mesmer when it comes to group play. Never, have I once, played in a wvw group and heard,“wish we had a thief here”. For tapping on keeps/towers and scouting they are good, in group play, not soo much. Bottom line, they need more group play skills/traits that don’t completely take away their ability to perform any dps.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Toast.6459:

It’s da queen!

-Polite bow-

Hello darling. Yes, it’s me.

It would be nice to see a couple of classic GW1 skills make a return. I think some of them might not even have to be changed all that much to work in GW2.

Re-adding old skills aside, I’ve been incredibly curious from day one as to why they decided to do a massive cutback on skills. Sure, 300 was a lot of skills, but meta shifts and random out of the norm builds were what made the game fun. Now every player within each class uses close to some deviation of the same build, variety is pretty much non existent. If perfect balance was what they were going for then it might be kind of understandable, but I would hope that they know that isn’t possible.

Toast.6459:

Re-adding old skills aside, I’ve been incredibly curious from day one as to why they decided to do a massive cutback on skills. Sure, 300 was a lot of skills, but meta shifts and random out of the norm builds were what made the game fun. Now every player within each class uses close to some deviation of the same build, variety is pretty much non existent. If perfect balance was what they were going for then it might be kind of understandable, but I would hope that they know that isn’t possible.

While the designers might argue that the various traits offer more diversity than GW1 ever did, I’m going to have to agree with you. Truth be told, I don’t see much variation between one necromancer and the next either. It certainly doesn’t seem to make as much of a difference as it did in GW1. See, in GW1 if two necromancers fought one on one, and they had practically identical builds, the difference of one skill meant the difference between life and death. It could mean the difference between killing a boss solo, and taking a dirt nap early on in the fight.

I have not seen that kind of variation yet in GW2. GW2 seems to rely a lot more on your reflexes, timing and memorizing boss patterns, which is good, but less so on your build, which is a shame. The ability to construct outrageous builds was one of GW1’s strengths. You could do crazy stuff in GW1, due to the way that skills interacted with each other.

What also holds variety back a lot, is the fact that various mechanics are exclusive to a few professions. Take deflection for example. Many dungeon encounters rely very heavily on being able to deflect, so no wonder everyone wants to bring a guardian along. But what we need is more of those options for professions that don’t have that. I think every class should have access to deflection, blocking, stun breaking, running, teleporting, condition removal, and stability.

Because that’s how you achieve what the devs said they were going for: The idea that it doesn’t matter what class you bring, it’s the build that matters. If any class can run deflection, that means that it doesn’t matter any more what kind of classes your party is made of.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

What also holds variety back a lot, is the fact that various mechanics are exclusive to a few professions. Take deflection for example. Many dungeon encounters rely very heavily on being able to deflect, so no wonder everyone wants to bring a guardian along. But what we need is more of those options for professions that don’t have that. I think every class should have access to deflection, blocking, stun breaking, running, teleporting, condition removal, and stability.

Because that’s how you achieve what the devs said they were going for: The idea that it doesn’t matter what class you bring, it’s the build that matters. If any class can run deflection, that means that it doesn’t matter any more what kind of classes your party is made of.

That may add variety in builds but that defeats the idea of each profession still being unique. Every profession has a way to handle incoming damage whether it be aegis, shield, numerous evades (adventurers) or sustaining really well with various regeneration effects, the enemy targeting the clone, or swapping life pools. They arn’t all the same but they still feel unique in some ways (eveyone has stun breakers btw). Almost all professions have a way to support their party (thief doesn’t have any strong defences for parties), and all professions have a way to deal damage although some are limited more than others.

I think adding anymore utility/healing/elite skills (total) at this point would start to be ineffective, because thats just a ton of work to balance around to make each skill worthwhile. We already have tons of skills that offer nothing in return and those should be worked on before adding new skill types with the exception of elite skills because some don’t fit certain builds at all.

I do agree we need more skills, but centered around what our profession lacks in and around their theme and not only because some other professions have it while profession x doesn’t. The ideas should be there but how their worked on about should remain different (sustain, dps, support, etc).

I find the problem lies in the way the skills are structured. In GW1, there were a lot of different terms and categories that the skills could refer to, such as skill types or the attributes they were linked to, or life loss types (damage, different types of damage, degeneration, life steal, life loss) and so on. For an example, Mystic Regeneration, a skill I centered my Dervish build around, gave (stacking) regeneration for each enchantment (a kind of buff) on me. So, having many enchantment spells on my skill bar and being kept up, I was regenerating health at max speed constantly. Then, having an elite skill that removed a dervish enchantment on me and applied bleeding and deep wound (a condition that reduces the max hp) on foes hit by the attack, I removed enchantments with effects that trigger when the enchantment ends (in the case of the enchantments I used, applying conditions to foes around me), followed by an attack that removed conditions from foes hit, dealing damage for each condition removed to all foes around me.

Now, this kind of depth I don’t find in GW2. Having just three utility skills with long cooldowns removes any real synergy between them, not to mention that they have generally very simple effects. When all they can apply in most cases is damage, healing, boons or conditions, the gimmicks are gone. And gimmicks are what make build making so much fun! Most of the possible gimmicks are now in traits, mostly grandmaster level, and very narrowly defined. This might be good for game balance, but it certainly is bad for interesting builds. Having five skills bound to weapon is the same, it’s a set of skills that’s easy to balance because there’s little interaction with other skills, but the lack of interaction makes it less interesting. It feels like I’m walking a path with high fences around it when making builds in GW2, which isn’t a good thing at all.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Toast.6459:

Re-adding old skills aside, I’ve been incredibly curious from day one as to why they decided to do a massive cutback on skills. Sure, 300 was a lot of skills, but meta shifts and random out of the norm builds were what made the game fun. Now every player within each class uses close to some deviation of the same build, variety is pretty much non existent. If perfect balance was what they were going for then it might be kind of understandable, but I would hope that they know that isn’t possible.

While the designers might argue that the various traits offer more diversity than GW1 ever did, I’m going to have to agree with you. Truth be told, I don’t see much variation between one necromancer and the next either. It certainly doesn’t seem to make as much of a difference as it did in GW1. See, in GW1 if two necromancers fought one on one, and they had practically identical builds, the difference of one skill meant the difference between life and death. It could mean the difference between killing a boss solo, and taking a dirt nap early on in the fight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLouxbk6QPY

I have not seen that kind of variation yet in GW2. GW2 seems to rely a lot more on your reflexes, timing and memorizing boss patterns, which is good, but less so on your build, which is a shame. The ability to construct outrageous builds was one of GW1’s strengths. You could do crazy stuff in GW1, due to the way that skills interacted with each other.

What also holds variety back a lot, is the fact that various mechanics are exclusive to a few professions. Take deflection for example. Many dungeon encounters rely very heavily on being able to deflect, so no wonder everyone wants to bring a guardian along. But what we need is more of those options for professions that don’t have that. I think every class should have access to deflection, blocking, stun breaking, running, teleporting, condition removal, and stability.

Because that’s how you achieve what the devs said they were going for: The idea that it doesn’t matter what class you bring, it’s the build that matters. If any class can run deflection, that means that it doesn’t matter any more what kind of classes your party is made of.

Not only that, but I remember the team saying they wanted to remove the cookie cutter trinity setup you find in almost every MMO, but in a way they just changed it. You lock down skills to specific classes and only offer a small amount, and you end up with a less obvious trinity.

Tuomir.1830:

I find the problem lies in the way the skills are structured. In GW1, there were a lot of different terms and categories that the skills could refer to, such as skill types or the attributes they were linked to, or life loss types (damage, different types of damage, degeneration, life steal, life loss) and so on. For an example, Mystic Regeneration, a skill I centered my Dervish build around, gave (stacking) regeneration for each enchantment (a kind of buff) on me. So, having many enchantment spells on my skill bar and being kept up, I was regenerating health at max speed constantly. Then, having an elite skill that removed a dervish enchantment on me and applied bleeding and deep wound (a condition that reduces the max hp) on foes hit by the attack, I removed enchantments with effects that trigger when the enchantment ends (in the case of the enchantments I used, applying conditions to foes around me), followed by an attack that removed conditions from foes hit, dealing damage for each condition removed to all foes around me.

Now, this kind of depth I don’t find in GW2. Having just three utility skills with long cooldowns removes any real synergy between them, not to mention that they have generally very simple effects. When all they can apply in most cases is damage, healing, boons or conditions, the gimmicks are gone. And gimmicks are what make build making so much fun! Most of the possible gimmicks are now in traits, mostly grandmaster level, and very narrowly defined. This might be good for game balance, but it certainly is bad for interesting builds. Having five skills bound to weapon is the same, it’s a set of skills that’s easy to balance because there’s little interaction with other skills, but the lack of interaction makes it less interesting. It feels like I’m walking a path with high fences around it when making builds in GW2, which isn’t a good thing at all.

In gw1 you can put in any of the 10 skills, and then you had you’re basic attack. Here, your basic attack and 4 weapon skills are weapon bound which right there already limits what you can do. To an extent this is unfair but with the current selection of utility skills it just wouldn’t make sense to allow anymore than 3. Not saying the system is perfect, but the room to remove it isn’t present. Most builds revolve around sustain, a stun breaker, and some other utility skill. If you add anymore room for persay another stun breaker you’re basically fighting an immortal.

I enjoy the system, even though it was a drastic change from gw1. However, the main issue I see is either;
A. Some utility/elite skill selections aren’t effective and/or don’t offer a suitable slot for some builds

B. pretty much similar to a, not all builds have a viable elite skill and/or great selection to improvise a new build.

Thieves can’t build that well in team support, many professions can’t really burst (not saying to match a thief/warrior burst but just in general). In gw2, all professions should have some way to fill the same role as any other profession but that just isn’t happening atm. Since elite skills are bound to us, there should be a large variety of them to match the various builds that profession can use. Healing and utility skills do this to an extent but elite skills are waaay behind.

Take note, What you suggested:

“Engineer
Experimental Jetpack: Dash forward, launching foes you come into contact with and granting you swiftness afterwards. Blowout 400 units. Swiftness duration 20 seconds. Dash distance 600 units. Cast time 1 second, 1.5 seconds to cover 600 units.Cooldown 150 seconds. +W”

What we’ll actually get:

“Engineer
Experimental Jetpack: Dash forward smacking foes in the head with an extremely soft and maleable fuzzy glove, land on your face for 5 second unable to move, dodge or use defensive skills, lasts 1.5 seconds + the 5 seconds of self CC”

Sorry but that’s been their design plan for engineers the whole time, lots of whimsy exactly 0 usefulness.

tigirius.9014:

Take note, What you suggested:

“Engineer
Experimental Jetpack: Dash forward, launching foes you come into contact with and granting you swiftness afterwards. Blowout 400 units. Swiftness duration 20 seconds. Dash distance 600 units. Cast time 1 second, 1.5 seconds to cover 600 units.Cooldown 150 seconds. +W”

What we’ll actually get:

“Engineer
Experimental Jetpack: Dash forward smacking foes in the head with an extremely soft and maleable fuzzy glove, land on your face for 5 second unable to move, dodge or use defensive skills, lasts 1.5 seconds + the 5 seconds of self CC”

Sorry but that’s been their design plan for engineers the whole time, lots of whimsy exactly 0 usefulness.

Hey to even take the name I’d be satisfied, lol. But in all seriousness, engineer does need some elites. They really are constricted into using supply drop just because of how effective it is.

NinjaEd.3946:

tigirius.9014:

Take note, What you suggested:

“Engineer
Experimental Jetpack: Dash forward, launching foes you come into contact with and granting you swiftness afterwards. Blowout 400 units. Swiftness duration 20 seconds. Dash distance 600 units. Cast time 1 second, 1.5 seconds to cover 600 units.Cooldown 150 seconds. +W”

What we’ll actually get:

“Engineer
Experimental Jetpack: Dash forward smacking foes in the head with an extremely soft and maleable fuzzy glove, land on your face for 5 second unable to move, dodge or use defensive skills, lasts 1.5 seconds + the 5 seconds of self CC”

Sorry but that’s been their design plan for engineers the whole time, lots of whimsy exactly 0 usefulness.

Hey to even take the name I’d be satisfied, lol. But in all seriousness, engineer does need some elites. They really are constricted into using supply drop just because of how effective it is.

Least it’s more useful than every guardian elite. The big skills on both tomes are just interrupt fodder, the other 4 are practically useless, and strangely enough engineers have a skill that does the exact same thing (minus the virtue recharge) as renewed focus. Oh and the CD on the engineer one is shorter I’m pretty sure.

Yep, some super useful stuff we got there. Mhm.

NinjaEd.3946:

In gw2, all professions should have some way to fill the same role as any other profession but that just isn’t happening atm. Since elite skills are bound to us, there should be a large variety of them to match the various builds that profession can use. Healing and utility skills do this to an extent but elite skills are waaay behind.

I agree. I’m not saying all professions should be identical, they can still retain their identity. But I do think that any class should be able to fit any role. Currently they haven’t removed the trinity at all, they just did a good job at disguising it.

This becomes blatantly obvious, when you see people demanding guardians or mesmers for their runs. This is due to exclusive powers to those classes. Guardians DO make better tanks than say, an elementalist. And they are mostly wanted due to deflection being such a powerful weapon against almost any boss in the game. This makes it more outrageous that only a few classes have this ability. In GW1 this was not the case. An elementalist could be specced to be formidable tank. A necromancer and mesmer less so.

The same goes for stability. Some classes have much better access to stability than others. The necromancer for example, has to resort to traits or an elite skill, in order to receive stability. And try platforming in that harpy Fractal while in Lich Form, good luck with that!

Necro? Try thief, we have 1 stability skill which has some weird bug where you can be kicked out of it. Thieves are supposed to be tricky little kittens. With the recent sword/dagger dual skill change they can do that much better but overall, they don’t get much defences aside from stealth so they always have to utilize it in some way.

Warriors can get some constant fury and might stacks as well as a good source of swiftness but their sustain feels limited. By that I mean you either build a shout warrior or use a shield for the few seconds of defence. They have no protection, their endurance regen is weak (endurance on burst skill don’t work) and their best healing skill (healing surge) isn’t the best imo. I mean I’d much rather use a burst skill, then use my healing skill to switch to my other weapon and use that burst skill than waste that 3 bars of adrenaline gain from it, but thats just me. Thieves can at best apply regeneration on allies when they are stealthed, which isn’t from very reliable skills and isn’t long lasting. Some of the stealth traits should affect allies as well like:

Hidden killer: Applies to allies you stealth as well.

Hidden Assassin: Applies to allies you stealth as well.

Shadow’s Embrace: Since ally stealthing isn’t that long, I think this could be acceptable to affect allies you stealth as well.

Shadow protector: Either fix the bug or allow for 10 seconds of regeneration. Regeneration on a thief isn’t that good anyways, atleast not as good as shadow’s rejuvenation which cannot be stolen/removed while stealthed.

But I digress, some more elite skill ideas to cheer people up^^