Guild Wars 2

Particularly the 30 trait point ones? For my norn guardian, one is always one of the transformations that any norn can get (Whats the point in choosing one of the spirits then?) and then tome of courage.

ToC is pretty nice, but I never imagined my Guardians ultimate skill would be running around with a book casting spells.

Tonight, will be cloudy, high humidity with a 100% chance of DAAAAAGGEER STOOOOOORRRRRRRRM!!!!

A powerful AoE heal and a full-party full heal? No, can’t say that I am, sorry.

I play a mesmer and I agree, it does feel a little lacking and limited… The first skill I got was the one to turn a foe into a Moa… used that in the level 30 dungeon and it didn’t really make a difference… Now I have all skills and I just use a couple elite ones.. mostly the hounds of balthazar..

Perhaps once these bugs / bots and other things are sorted they will add more content to keep us happy

Michael

I don’t like the Guardian options either, they seem to be disjointed from how the game plays. The tomes don’t really function within the trait builds well and other skills on most bars. The healing one is out of place because healing is marginalized to a blanket feature in this game. It seems that the most objectively useful utilities are the spirit weapons, so ive built around them. The options feel very shallow, so im pretty much stuck with the invulnerability elite. Even then, cool downs kill the usage of the skill. The class mechanics just create homogenous, passive effects that you really can’t SEE helping your teammates. I’d like a load more options for utilities and elites when they release the next expansion. I’d like an elite spirit staff that auto’d AoE flames.

DusK.3849:

A powerful AoE heal and a full-party full heal? No, can’t say that I am, sorry.

Full party heal is like a 10 second cast, they really try hard to gut healing from this game, but it’s still here in spirit. The whole combat and skill system just feels wonky and premature.

lothefallen.7081:

DusK.3849:

A powerful AoE heal and a full-party full heal? No, can’t say that I am, sorry.

Full party heal is like a 10 second cast, they really try hard to guy healing from this game, but it’s still here in spirit. The whole combat and skill system just feels wonky and premature.

To people that haven’t figured it out or broken away from their cookie-cutter MMO combat mindset, yeah.

The rest of us are having no prob, so I’m pretty sure the issue lies between your seat and your keyboard.

Level 80 Sylvari Mesmer here. I almost never use my Mesmer elite skills I think that they don’t benefit as greatly as they should. I always end up using the Sylvari ‘Take Root’ skill. Mass Invisibility just isn’t as helpful in PvE or PvP as I expected it to be. Because others are always using skills they instantly unstealth, making the skill useless. At least with Take Root I’m invulnerable for 3 seconds, plus when I use my sword #2 skill I’m distorted for another 2 seconds PLUS 3 clone f3 shatter I’m distorted for another 3 seconds.
I expected a Mesmer ultimate would be a mass zerg of illusions, that didn’t count towards your total illusion count, attacking your target. I do understand for PvP this would put a even greater advantage on the Mesmer.

lothefallen.7081:

I don’t like the Guardian options either, they seem to be disjointed from how the game plays. The tomes don’t really function within the trait builds well and other skills on most bars. The healing one is out of place because healing is marginalized to a blanket feature in this game. It seems that the most objectively useful utilities are the spirit weapons, so ive built around them. The options feel very shallow, so im pretty much stuck with the invulnerability elite. Even then, cool downs kill the usage of the skill. The class mechanics just create homogenous, passive effects that you really can’t SEE helping your teammates. I’d like a load more options for utilities and elites when they release the next expansion. I’d like an elite spirit staff that auto’d AoE flames.

You’re a class with loads of buffs in the form of shouts, combo fields, etc. But you use spirit weapons for dps and complain that it doesn’t seem like you are helping your teammates?

You’ve gone for a the pure DPS spec and avoided just about all of the PBAoE / ground target buff skills!

Signet of Rage is nice (warrior), but every now and then you group with some moron who whines about you not using Battle Standard, so I finally bought it. It’s barely decent while it lasts, but it’s doesn’t last nearly long enough to justify the ridiculous cool-down. Then you’re stuck with an empty slot for the rest of the boss fight wishing you had put your SoR in there instead.

DPS is the only thing that matters in this game though. I’ve tried using the other skills, but anything besides the spirit weapons and the signets seem only marginally useful or situational. Most of the time, cool downs completely nullify their viability in continued play. Only time i’ve ever switched out the spirit weapons was when the projectile blocker or retreat was more feasible like in dungeons or WvW. Don’t blame me trying to play with the best possible options given my scenario. Doesn’t mean that their skill design is any more robust. Everyone in the zerg can toss buffs, i just pop my virtues and then use my elite to recharge them when people are in trouble. That’s about as deep as the combat ever gets. No need to ever run anything else besides spirit weapons in solo play because this game has number depth, not mechanical depth.

DusK.3849:

lothefallen.7081:

DusK.3849:

A powerful AoE heal and a full-party full heal? No, can’t say that I am, sorry.

Full party heal is like a 10 second cast, they really try hard to guy healing from this game, but it’s still here in spirit. The whole combat and skill system just feels wonky and premature.

To people that haven’t figured it out or broken away from their cookie-cutter MMO combat mindset, yeah.

The rest of us are having no prob, so I’m pretty sure the issue lies between your seat and your keyboard.

i like how a few people are just so ’’Enlightened’’ and see something the rest of us don’t when it comes to Gw2 get over yourself the game is good but it’s far from top tier.

Necro elite skills are almost useless the flesh golem is pretty decent tho.

The Ranger 30 point elites are pretty useless for PvP. The best one by far is the root & bleed skill, but that only costs 10 points.

Sometimes I think there really aren’t enough skills for slots 6-0. There’s really not a lot there, coming from GW1. This is especially true for elite skills. I’ve gotten three characters to level 30, and two of them are pretty much shelved now because the choice of elite skills and higher tier slot skills is just poor.

Disappointed engineer here
I think Anet had a serious lack of creativity when making the engineer elites
Elixir X: Copy another profession’s elite, literally
Supply crate: Some turrets and some bandages
Mortar: Siege weapon, does nothing in close range and is a pain to aim at long range

To be honest, I haven’t used them on my Ranger. The only one I use is Rampage as One.

Disappointed in mesmer elites. Aright, moa is useful in pvp and time warp increases your party’s damage a lot, but the 30 point elite is party invisibility for 5 seconds. I can’t imagine a scenario where I’d find that useful.

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

To be honest, I haven’t used them on my Ranger. The only one I use is Rampage as One.

Use the elite root skill. Hilarious fun and massive damage.

Disappointed with the Elementalist elites.
Tornado is nice and all, but the knockback won’t work on champions. Using it on a group is nice, but leaves you completely defenceless and you get chopped to pieces anyway. I guess it would work in situations when the aggro is on other people.
Fiery Greatsword looks friggin’ awesome, and is pretty nice damage. But once again, it lacks any sort of defence, so I’d rather be swapping between my attunements to keep myself alive. It’s a fun skill, but not useful at all.
Glyph of Elementals is the only elite skill I find somewhat useful. The Earth elemental can usually tank a boss for a while before going down. But other than that it doesn’t have much use, and the cooldown is so long I often just save it for “later” (whenever that may come). Besides it being somewhat useful sometimes, it’s not really a fun skill. Press the button and that’s it. Doesn’t make me feel like a badkitten, or more powerful.

If I had a suggestion for the Elementalist elite is to change the Fiery Greatsword to Elemental Greatsword, and have different skills on it for each element. That way I can continue playing as an Elementalist (with the whole element swapping) and still be effective.

I kind of agree. I like the idea of having skills from your race, but it’s kind of annoying that the elite I use most as a mesmer is not a mesmer skill, but the hounds of balthazar. Although the mesmer has some nice elites for group play or pvp (moa!), I still think that if there are only two tier2 elites, one of them shouldn’t be the same as everybody elses!

The Necro/Sylvari ones are less effective than my normal skills and have 10x the cooldown, I fail to see whats elite about them? I use ‘Take Root’ since there are 5 turrents and sometimes one escapes the enemy aoe, ulnlike the dopey druid spirit (useless waste of 30 skill points). In Lich form I always seem to die faster for some reason. Plague when I’m in the water, does it actually do anything other than make a sound every second and increase my hp, monsters take much longer to kill in plague mode giving me almost no reason to use it

Elite skills have the wrong name in this game, they should be called ‘Mediocre Skill Point Sink Skills’. When your normal skills outplay the elites in every way, something is surely wrong.

The only one I really liked for warrior was the 10 skill point war banner. My 30 skill point hounds would be awesome if they lasted more than 30 seconds. One problem I find with every skill in this game is short duration. Doesn’t balance well with the amount of HP everything has.

Also, that Avatar of Melandkittenll where you turn into a tree is also horrendously bad.

(edit: don’t know why name of skill is censored)

datus.4187:

The only one I really liked for warrior was the 10 skill point war banner. My 30 skill point hounds would be awesome if they lasted more than 30 seconds. One problem I find with every skill in this game is short duration. Doesn’t balance well with the amount of HP everything has.

Also, that Avatar of Melandkittenll where you turn into a tree is also horrendously bad.

(edit: don’t know why name of skill is censored)

I use it for walking through areas as you can’t be controlled, but in combat I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it ;-)

It seems the elite skills are balanced towards pvp with short usage and long cool downs. In pve, this is really bad since I could think of much more useful skills I could’ve replaced most elite skills with.

Reading a lot of comments here, I can’t help but feel most of the people who are unsatisfied with their elites happen to be more solo-oriented players.

I’m not trying to offend in anyway but a lot of the elites are invaluable in group settings. It’s true it feels not worth it to utilize some of these elites IF your group happens to be terrible, but the effectiveness of these elites become astronomical with a good group. The strongest elites takes a bit out of your personal performance but in return gives your WHOLE group benefits.

It’s nice to always be beast mode with Signet of Rage, but one warrior still cannot cover the DPS role for two people. No matter how skilled you are, mistakes happen and things will go bad. Battle Standard is one of the best clutch revives in the game. It grants boons to your group, not just you and can be picked up to move your group around WvW faster or even grant the most powerful boon in the game, stability. By extending the benefits of Might/Fury/Swiftness to not only yourself, you’re helping other Precision/Condition specs proc more Conditions, you’re also increasing DPS overall for your group which is a lot more than you can accomplish no matter how powerful your character is.

My first character since the game launched was a Necromancer, I’d argue Plague Form is our best elite in most circumstances. It’s not an I-WIN button that’s for sure, it definitely does not suddenly drop everyone’s HP bar as well. But the chain blinding you’re able to do is superb. You yourself may not be pumping out “MAD DEEPS” but your party also is taking squat when you’re utilizing it correctly in both dungeons and WvW. I use it to escort my Mesmer buddy who then can pop Feedback on the Siege weapons causing the most harm while being slightly out of reach.

Quickness is another buff that I’d argue is best in the game, this is why most skills that grant quickness also happen to carry a negative with it. Time Warp is the only form of it in the game that has NO DRAWBACKS AND extends in an AoE. If you can’t see the value in that, nothing can.

The Guardian’s most powerful elite is the Tome of Courage, it packs the only skill in the game that can fully heal people in a 1200 radius all the way back to full. It’s true the cast time is lengthy, but utilizing Sanctuary or “Stand Your Ground!” can ensure the cast. The AoE Daze is also remarkable telling all your foes to SHUT DA FUU UP! Are you going to kill everyone while popping this? But there’s no denying the tide turning potential one can pull off with this.

Again, some elites are more suited for soloing purposes, but these elites really do shine in a group setting even IF you take a personal setback in performance. In the end, one player is one player and being able to affect multiple is the greatest thing you can do. This is a MMORPG, play like a team and don’t always focus just on you. If you have someone watching your back, it’s always better than having to go through everything solo.

Mesmer Elite Skill: Mass Chaos Armour
for 5 seconds all Allies in the area have Chaos Armour (same properties as normal chaos armour)
Recharge 210seconds

Make it so.
:)

As an engineer that elixir X poses a big isue: it’s yet another set of 1-5 skills… aside the fact it seem to lack in originality.
So for this once in a 2 minute skill, you need to get used to that new set of skills again, like all our other toolkits? Not to mention it’s rahter limited in it’s abilities and sort of stops you doing what you were used to doing…
Is it fun: yep, it’s funny. Is it practical? Hell no, seems not.

Not impressed by the mortar, can’t say I’ve seen a lot of them to even judge them to their true value.

So basically engineers have a crate that throws out just abut anything in the chaos and that works on it’s own while you do what you’re doing… Just remember to run over the bandages? That’s about it.
I haven’t seen an engineer build using anything different yet.

So yes: this could be called ‘disapointing’.

Nono, deploying the 3rd Flora Artillery Unit (Take Root: Sylvari Racial Elite) is never a bad option. Just wikittentayed a little longer than 4-5 volleys.

EDIT: Oh wow, forum filter. Just…wow. So I guess I should say ‘I hope it stayed’. Put two and 5 together folks.

Thief Elites are awesome.

Thieves guild is great for when you need a distraction when taking on a veteran or elite, or even a small group of mobs. Focus fire tagets faster while keeping your own aggro null.

Dagger storm is a great aoe bleed/cripple that can get you out of some sticky situations.

I am disappointed with the classes in general. Coming from GW1 I have no idea why classes are so insanely restrictive in GW2.

I’m satisfied as an Elementalist. I think tornado/whirlpool is cool but I use my Hounds of Balthazar mostly. Sometimes I switch to glyph of elementals if I need a pet to tank with but I love my hounds.

Very much so. On my norn warrior only 2 of the elites seem any good. (signet and banner) the rest are crappy forms. (at least hey seem to be whenever i tried them) I don’t even use my elites all that often, i tend to only really use the signet when i need a speed boost to get around faster or if i remember to use it when i use my atk speed boost skill (name escapes me) with my hundred blades to give myself an extra little dmg boost. And the banner i pretty much never use it except for rezzing people which i often completely forget i have it and it goes completely unused.

I really miss the skill variety in guild wars 1, specially the elite skill variety.

zityz.6089:

Mesmer Elite Skill: Mass Chaos Armour
for 5 seconds all Allies in the area have Chaos Armour (same properties as normal chaos armour)
Recharge 210seconds

Make it so.
:)

Isn’t something like that already possible with any Ethereal Field + Torch 4 (IIRC – my memory might be playing tricks on me)?

zityz.6089:

Mesmer Elite Skill: Mass Chaos Armour
for 5 seconds all Allies in the area have Chaos Armour (same properties as normal chaos armour)
Recharge 210seconds

Make it so.
:)

Chaos Storm→ Blast Finisher.

At the moment it does seem like the racial elites are better than some of the profession elites.

I agree with the poster who made the point about solo PvE – a lot of the elites do seem to cater more towards the PvP side of things.

Ranger: Wtf
Guardian: … atleast we have renewed focus
Mesmer: Don’t give me anything else, love these 3! O_o

I loooove my ranger elite Entangle for PvE because i go with a trap build…oh, it’s glorious. It’s an I-Win button for groups and for bosses, especially because they dont seem to prioritize getting rid of the roots for a really long time, and it even stacks some more bleeding. After i use it i throw down some traps(ranged, bigger and longer lasting bc of the traits) and they have to just sit in them and die from fire, poison, bleeding, while i just position myself behind for some extra bleeding from my shortbow. Couldn’t be happier with it!

As a Norn Ele i’m only disappointed that none of my elites work underwater.

i have to agree, the guardian ones are out of place and just not useful. A book that lasts 20s and has long casting spells for a build i would never run no thanks. The hounds are a nice distraction but really no point to them, they’re not dealing much damage or providing a useful effect like snare stun etc

I use all my Ranger’s elite skills i’ve unlocked so far. On offense, Rampage as One or Entangle is great. On defense, Entangle is great, but putting a Spirit of Nature right below the ramparts on your side of the wall is money… you can revive anyone knocked down on the wall instantly, including yourself. (if you anticipate it coming and precast revive) And it seems to last forever if not getting attacked.