Guild Wars 2

Was thinking about rolling up a Sylvari, just wanted to know if the race ability’s were any good. Can anyone give me a quick review?

Take root elite is pretty good (arguably better then all the elementalist ones for instance). This is kind of an anomaly as the racial ones aren’t intended to be super powerful. The racial heal is nice but the super long cooldown and the propensity for mobs to instantly attack any healing turret it generally isn’t worth it.

Probably the biggest reason is if you want to glow in the dark.

Well, Take Root requires a land-based fight where it’s safe to stand still, which is kind of situational. Yeah, it’s still arguably better than the elementalist elites, but that’s more because the elementalist elites are weak compared to most classes than because Take Root is all that great.

Grasping vines can be useful for ranged builds that don’t otherwise have a good way to immobilize (e.g., rifle warriors.)

The turrets die too easily to be worth it.

Neither of the summons is all that great when compared to human or asura, but hey, they’re still summons. They can be useful in soloing if your class doesn’t offer any.

Glowing in the dark is the bomb, though.

take root immobilizes you for 3 seconds, during which you become invulnerable too.

The invuln shouldn’t be taken lightly. It is extremely useful (the turrets are more of a bonus and not the main feature).

If you play engineer grasping vines also give you a block skill in the toolbelt slot. With a shield and tool kit you can run around with 3 blocks if that’s your thing. Cooldown’s a bit long though and engi’s have more useful skills to put in the skillbar.

Nageth.5648:

The invuln shouldn’t be taken lightly. It is extremely useful (the turrets are more of a bonus and not the main feature).

Exactly, I use it in the instance where I can’t dodge that attack that will kill me al la lupis in Arah.

BabelFish.7234:

Nageth.5648:

The invuln shouldn’t be taken lightly. It is extremely useful (the turrets are more of a bonus and not the main feature).

Exactly, I use it in the instance where I can’t dodge that attack that will kill me al la lupis in Arah.

Yah that racial is really handy because of the 3 sec immobilised invulnerability. Just need to know when to use it. Arah boss fight mentioned above is perfect example. It’s a get out of jail free card if your getting hammered.

I guess I never considered using it just for the invulnerability. My sylvari is a guardian, and Renewed Focus gives the same duration on a shorter cooldown.

Urthona.3198:

I guess I never considered using it just for the invulnerability. My sylvari is a guardian, and Renewed Focus gives the same duration on a shorter cooldown.

The immobilize also effectively gives you stability (not as useful since you’re rooted but it does help if you are about to get shot off a cliff). I can see how the ability would be less useful for tanky guardian.

The “grasping vines” ability (I think that’s what it’s called anyways) is usually a game-ender for opponents in WvW. 7s of immobilize is not something to mess with. Also, if you’re being chased by one person, just use vines on them and continue running. They’ll never catch you.

The “take root” elite is amazing. It’s like a dedicated anti-thief skill. The invulnerability allows you to break thief combos while sending up turrets. They usually run off afterwards once they see how many turrets you send up.

Had an issue sometimes in wvwvw when grasping vines didn`t immobilize the enemy when he was running, instead they appeared behind (like the point the enemy was the moment I started casting), so for me it`s an unreliable skill.

Abigor.4952:

Had an issue sometimes in wvwvw when grasping vines didn`t immobilize the enemy when he was running, instead they appeared behind (like the point the enemy was the moment I started casting), so for me it`s an unreliable skill.

I think last patch they fixed this, there was something about it in there anyways.

From what I hear they have the best racial skills in the game. That being said, 99.9% of the time your profession skills are going to be superior to your racial skills, and so you may not get much of a chance to use them anyway.

Take Root is very useful, it’s the elite I run with the most in PvE. As well as giving you 3 seconds of invulnerability, the turrets act as decoys when fighting larger groups of mobs. In specific situations such as NPC defense (eg. kiting all those mobs in CoF path 2 to protect the NPC) this can come in very handy. I guess Grasping Vines could be pretty useful too, but my Sylvari is a ranger and the Entangle profession skill is a lot more powerful.