Guild Wars 2

Before Guild Wars 2 was released, I was surprised when I learned Elite Skills form Guild Wars 1 like Barrage would be normal attack skills in Guild Wars 2. However, it was quickly explained that the new Elite Skills would be special skills meant to turn the tide of battle.

While some do give you that feeling of turning the tide in your team’s favour, I feel that most fall short of this objective. For instance, most racial Elite skills have much longer cooldowns than equivalent class skills or too much drawbacks. An example of this could be the Norn transformations skills: they have a very long cooldown, disable you utility and healing skills and give only a marginal boost in power. Using them exposes you to take more damage without having your usual skills to mitigate it and, since you cant use them that often, people don’t bother to make a build around them.

I’m not the only one who thinks some Elites aren’t worth it; there is at least 2 threads asking to use their Elite skill slot for an extra utility skill!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Elite-skill-slot-as-an-optional-Utility-slot
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Using-a-utility-skill-instead-of-an-elite

If all Elites were as good as they should be, no one would be asking for that.

Since all these skills compete for the same spot on our skill bar, they should all be equally tempting to use if they were balanced. I suggest we take a look at the Elite skills and see how we could make them into the “game changer” skills they ought to be.

Why do some work and others don’t?

Good skill: Time Warp (Mesmer)
In my opinion, Time Warp is an example of what a good Elite skill should be. It doesn’t matter what kind of Mesmer you are; it is always a boon to your team to bring Time Warp on your adventures.

Some might find it overpowered but, isn’t that what an Elite skill should be about? A burst of power that changes the situation in your favour?

I think that, if anything should change about this skill it’s to make it the Tier 2 Mesmer Elite instead of Mass Invisibility.

Poor skill: Glyph of Elementals (Elementalist)
On one hand, it’s one of the few Elites that can benefit from traits like Quick Glyphs and, even without it, it is relatively quick to recharge.

However, the summoned elemental being a slightly larger version of the Lesser Glyph of Elementals feels kind of underwhelming. They might be stronger but they don’t feel like it. And, when in a huge fight or against a boss, I look at the skill and think: “Meh, not worth it, it will get killed too fast.”

Now, if it did a burst of damage or healing on death depending on the summoned elemental and if you could command it to detonate like a guardian does with the spirit weapons, it would already be much better. The elemental dying too fast would not be as much of an issue.

But, if instead of being a larger version of the lesser elementals it was more like a smaller version of the elemental bosses (the Fire Elemental or the Frozen Maw comes to mind), now that would feel “Elite”. I would not mind it being stationary at all and would definitely fell like I’m making a difference when I use it.

Warrior banner elite skill compared to other banners is just pitiful and it rez only npc, the most useless elite warrior skill (even if other are not great either).

I disagree, that banner saves lives! Especially in spvp, when you think your ally is about be kicked out of the fight and blam, you get em up completely turning the tide. It’s cd is a bit ubsurb but that’s probably because it also gives stability.

As for OP, racial elites do need a slight buff either in mechanics or lower cd. However they are meant to be “weak”. They are a little added bonus but thats about it, Anet made them this weak so people would chose prof X with any race, so they would pick the profession first not the race (so to speak).

Norn and human racial elite skills are imo the worst, and I believe they need attention. Charr seems alright, I see many use them. Sylvari as well (plant turrets atleast, never see those spirits), asuran has 2 golems I see often but the powersuit is horrible.

The cd is the biggest problem with most elites. Some that truly turn the tide give em the necessary cd but if the elite is useless AND has a 3-4 minute cooldown why bother?

Titan.3472:

Warrior banner elite skill compared to other banners is just pitiful and it rez only npc, the most useless elite warrior skill (even if other are not great either).

That’s a “problem” with all resurection skills: for players, they only work if they are “Downed” but not if they are “dead”. Since NPCs have no “Downed” state, it works no matter how long they were dead for.

NinjaEd.3946:

As for OP, racial elites do need a slight buff either in mechanics or lower cd. However they are meant to be “weak”. They are a little added bonus but thats about it, Anet made them this weak so people would chose prof X with any race, so they would pick the profession first not the race (so to speak).

I agree with you there, Anet don’t want to break the game with too powerful racial skills; they even removed them completely from sPvP. However, if skill uses the Elite skill slot, it should be of similar power to the other elite skills. For racial skills, the difference needs to be to the point where people will think: “It’s not as strong as my class skills but, I’ll take it for the flavor.” If it’s too weak, players will never think that.

Same goes with the Mistfire Wolf; it’s a status symbol but nobody shows it off because it’s not good enough. You use it only until you have the points for a better Elite. Maybe if it was persistent like a Flesh Golem, we would see more of it?

If you want bad elites, look at guard.

Tome of Wrath:
Shouldn’t even have to explain, nothing about this elite feels like it “turns the tide of a battle”, the skills do the same damage as your auto attacks, besides judgement, it does the same damage as whirling wrath.

Renewed Focus:

3 seconds of invlun might turn the tide of a battle, if that battle was a 1v1, and if maybe you had a bomb that took 3 seconds to explode. Right now it’s just a minor annoyance to whoever you’re up against, and barley any use to the person using it.
Oh and Elixir S does exactly the same thing, besides virtues obviously, and can last longer than 3 seconds with traits, and you can stomp people while invuln, revive people while invuln, even pull out a kit and attack. What can you do with renewed focus? Move until it ends, woohoo. Remind me how this got classified as an elite again?

When you combine long cooldowns and elites being weak, it means people simply forget about them. I was doing the champion giant group event in diessa plateau and close to the end realized I hadn’t used my elite. I popped my glyph of elementals, it ran over to the giant and promptly died. My autoattacks did more damage than it. What’s the use of using an elite skill that isn’t elite.

Norn racials lackluster?
The transformations suck only if you don’t pick wolf, the raw self healing on it even if you don’t have a single +heal item is enough to take you from 5% hp left to full. Build a guard tank norn with wolf as your elite skill for hwen the crap hits the fan and you would be surprised how well it works. You don’t dodge things as a wolf transform, you simply heal while attacking right through anything that is thrown at you. THAT is more elite and epic than most every other skill in the game.

Human racials lackluster? Warrior running with avatar of grenth is impossible to run away from (you cannot cleanse the snare it puts out, meanign that person is forced to fight on your terms). Hounds suck in boss fights but when you pull large groups they are beautiful to take heat off of people.

I firmly agree that all 3 guardian elite skills SUCK. wrath is pointless waste as the skills do crap for damage (seriously the major attack should essentially slaughter anyone under 12-13k hp givent he wind up time and how easy it is to interupt). the healing tome is equally pointless as you can spec other ways to make healing others infinitly easier. and renewed focus is the lamest of all elite skills to exist in this game.