Guild Wars 2

I’ve tried making Bone Minions (not bone fiend- the immobilizing one that is useful in mm builds- the crappy slowcast “shatter” minions. The ones that you can’t control which of the two pops when commanded, and will blow up instantly where they are and not run to target like a mesmer shatter. Those) useful in any kind of sense for about an hour and a half of build shuffling and they are simply garbage compared to any other minion.

I’m pretty sure this is not the only skill in the game that is so slow, ineffective, and mechanically flawed that it’s rightfully never used. I’d love to see a rework that might make this a skill worth taking. The idea of necro shatter/blast finisher is interesting, but it’s just a dead weight for now.

ITT: suggestions for how to improve/rework neglected and underused skills. Especially those that fail at their intended function due to mechanical issues.

I agree, there are too many engineer utilities that arent used because they are pointless compared to a kit in the slot instead

Guardian Spirit weapons would like to join this party.

Ubik.8315:

Guardian Spirit weapons would like to join this party.

This was the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread.

There are many skills in this situation across all the professions. So yeah – it would be nice to see a change!

Ele- some glyphs
Necro-some coruption /spectral skills
Mesmer-some signets (others offer something good in various situations tho)
Thief-scorpion wire, shadow trap
Engie-some turrets, some gadgets
Ranger-some survival skills, some spirits and some traps
Guardian-spirit weapons
Warrior-physical skills
Revenant-well….you cant pick and chose your utility skills..but there are no racial skills!!

Well of Darkness (the skill none ever uses)

pulses Blind for 5s on a kitten Cooldown when Nightfall on Greatsword pulses Blind & Cripple + does tons of dmg on a 25s Cooldown.. try and find a more useless skill, I dare you !!!

eyestrain.3056:

I’ve tried making Bone Minions (not bone fiend- the immobilizing one that is useful in mm builds- the crappy slowcast “shatter” minions. The ones that you can’t control which of the two pops when commanded, and will blow up instantly where they are and not run to target like a mesmer shatter. Those) useful in any kind of sense for about an hour and a half of build shuffling and they are simply garbage compared to any other minion.

I tried using them as blast finishers. That lasted 10 minutes.

Don’t expect any existing content to get fixed tho. Anet prefer to make new stuff, it’s cheaper in development terms.

Svarty.8019:

eyestrain.3056:

I’ve tried making Bone Minions (not bone fiend- the immobilizing one that is useful in mm builds- the crappy slowcast “shatter” minions. The ones that you can’t control which of the two pops when commanded, and will blow up instantly where they are and not run to target like a mesmer shatter. Those) useful in any kind of sense for about an hour and a half of build shuffling and they are simply garbage compared to any other minion.

I tried using them as blast finishers. That lasted 10 minutes.

Don’t expect any existing content to get fixed tho. Anet prefer to make new stuff, it’s cheaper in development terms.

How can this possibly be true?

You forgot to list the entire pet mechanic of the ranger. Even the company has admitted that it won’t work right, but they still refuse to make the pet optional.

Also, death shroud on necro is fail. It’s very existence is why necromancers can’t have nice things.

Ubik.8315:

Guardian Spirit weapons would like to join this party.

Ranger spirits next to them.

funky fat thighs.1267:

I agree, there are too many engineer utilities that arent used because they are pointless compared to a kit in the slot instead

So true, I only maxed kits on my Engi, haha.

Offair.2563:

Ranger spirits next to them.

I find them fun in dungeons and group events. Just super annoying to cast for ~2 seconds if you want all of them deployed which makes them practically unusable in less static gameplay.

There are a few complaints I dont agree with (necro shroud/ranger pet for example, whether someone likes the idea of them or not, a handful of ranger pets are pretty overpowered and deathshroud is also unique and useful).
I’ll have to try running a glyph ele build since the only ones i’ve used are glyph of storms and elemental. I might try a burn spirit weapon guard also to see if they’re workable.

I’m certain in most cases there are skills that are way more useful and stronger, it’s the skills that are completely outmatched by other skills, and basically unusable that I feel are pretty much just taking up space. Even if someone likes the idea of them (scorpion wire is another one that comes to mind) they’re a handicap to have on the bar.

Well of darkness can help with stomps and I did once try making it a makeshift pulsing chill field but it’s pretty underwhelming too. Nightfall definitely outshadows it, but considering that’s an HoT spec skill I find it more in line with all HoT specs’ power creep. The bone minion, a vanilla skill, can’t even hold a shade to other vanilla minions. Rough stuff.

Ravezaar.4951:

Well of Darkness (the skill none ever uses)

pulses Blind for 5s on a kitten Cooldown when Nightfall on Greatsword pulses Blind & Cripple + does tons of dmg on a 25s Cooldown.. try and find a more useless skill, I dare you !!!

Sanctuary still exist and says hello. Its only competition is ele’s conjure fire axe in terms of sheer uselessness.

Engi Med kit, nuff said, delete please….

Ranger:
-Spirits, viper and frost trap, sharpening stone and muddy terrain, signets except signet of stone and pet skills
Thief: Tricks
Guardian: Spiritweapons, some consecretions (cd!)
Warrior: Physical
Rev: Ventari need some love and jalis bug fixes.
Elementalist: Glyphs and conjuring weapons except the elite.
Mesmer: Some Signets some Glamour
Necro: Minions

I’m curious – in what context is the ranger pet overpowered? They cannot hit moving targets, the F2 skill still takes an eternity to cast, and they constitute the only class mechanic that can be disabled by simply auto-attacking.

Add to that the fact that all ranger skill damage is reduced when compared to the other classes, to offset the theoretical damage done by the pet. Since pets don’t scale off of the player stats, the advent of ascended gear constituted a nerf to the entire ranger profession.

Peter Jones, who was the lead game designer (may still be, for all I know) posted in the forums, stating that not only did the Ranger pet constitute a serious handicap, but with the current setup, couldn’t be made to be workable. Literally, the mechanic is designed to fail.

Escadin.9482:

Offair.2563:

Ranger spirits next to them.

I find them fun in dungeons and group events. Just super annoying to cast for ~2 seconds if you want all of them deployed which makes them practically unusable in less static gameplay.

I miss the days when rangers had a trait that allowed spirits to follow them. However, I will say that I find the frost spirit slightly more useful now that the new destroyers are vulnerable to cold damage; summon and blast almost immediately.

Those bone minions are just for the cute factor. Look! They’re wee and funny and hop sort-of-like rabbits! Awww!

Any party must have eye candy, you know. It’s tradition!

Ranger Storm Spirit and Stone Spirit are useless but Frost Spirit (for power dps) and Sun Spirit (for condi dps) are used extensively in dungeons, raids and most other PVE content. Spirit of Nature has some limited use too.

Guardian spirit weapons are mostly uses except for the Shield of the Avenger, that’s very nice in projectile heavy encounters, which is where it should be used anyway.

lets just go with a lot of skills need fixed even the elites.

My dearest wish for the elite slot is being permitted to slot a utility skill instead.

stale.9785:

My dearest wish for the elite slot is being permitted to slot a utility skill instead.

Yea. But I do wanna say thats its bad design when an utility skill is better/stronger than an elite skill.

Well of Darkness is as important as two other wells when capping wvw camps. First well of darkness, then asap two others, then dagger 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 kiting around them – then if not yet done, f1 4 etc. Without well of darkness this fails. Vanilla full zerk necro.

Useless skills for mesmer:

• Arcane Thievery

• Illusion of Life

• MoP, just doesn’t deal nearly enough damage to be worth the channel time

• MoR, Phantasmal Disenchater is just better in all aspects with the recent changes made to the skill

Skills that need to be improved:

• Null Field

• SoD

• MoC

• Mirror

• All of the wells could be buffed some without being OP

Offair.2563:

Ubik.8315:

Guardian Spirit weapons would like to join this party.

Ranger spirits next to them.

Ranger spirits are actually quite useful and used in many meta builds. Sun Spirit and Frost Spirit always have a place in dungeons, fractals and raids and I can’t think of a single ranger who doesn’t use them in those situations.

What I would like though is for the spirits to be mobile. I wish they would follow the ranger around like necro minions. That would be nice.

Honestly I love mesmer’s Mirror heal. I’ve used it for years as a short cd condi clear and reflect (and it got a big buff today). I used to run arcane thievery and it is still an interesting and useful skill though unimpressive compared to the HoT specs and skills. Ele’s fire axe suggestion made me laugh because that one can stack might like crazy but it really doesn’t ever get used considering how many other ways there are to do what it does.

There have been several suggestions here that I think can be used, just not competitively.

Guard consecrations such as purging flames and wall of reflection are extremely useful, and sanctuary has gotten a number of cd reductions to make it a bit more reasonable.

@Ceridwen- the shambling horrors beat them by a mile even in cuteness. Tiny human skull bone minions just can’t compete with shambling horror’s cute rat heads.

@stale- exactly because the pet doesnt scale off of player stats, druid in 1v1s is an absolute pain in the kitten to fight if you aren’t able to keep up with the spammable kiting skills. A druid who runs extremely tanky and places the bristleback and smokescale pets appropriately can do huge damage to glass while being mostly invuln to cc, high mobility, long stealth and personal sustain. A druid running nomads can still do zerk-esque damage with pet alone.
In terms of pve damage yeah its not the same but for pvp it’s a bit nonsense.

stale.9785:

I’m curious – in what context is the ranger pet overpowered? They cannot hit moving targets, the F2 skill still takes an eternity to cast, and they constitute the only class mechanic that can be disabled by simply auto-attacking.

I play a ranger and was wondering what you meant by “constitute the only class mechanic that can be disabled by simply auto-attacking”? Does the pet stop attacking in certain situations? Since I do see that sometimes but it looks to me that is more of positioning bug.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Offair.2563:

Ubik.8315:

Guardian Spirit weapons would like to join this party.

Ranger spirits next to them.

Ranger spirits are actually quite useful and used in many meta builds. Sun Spirit and Frost Spirit always have a place in dungeons, fractals and raids and I can’t think of a single ranger who doesn’t use them in those situations.

What I would like though is for the spirits to be mobile. I wish they would follow the ranger around like necro minions. That would be nice.

The main issue with spirits is their mobility, technically it would be awesome if the spirit is “bound” to the ranger as a pbaoe and the spirit activation is also pbaoe (this would give ranger a unique buff method to compete with herald meta. And stone and storm spirit arent used much.
The pet skills if vanilla pets are not so OP as the HoT pets and the AA and other skills barely hit targets, especially porcine and devourer need some love and wycerns cant hit anything with AA.

Mobile spirits would make them worse in many situations. Usually you put the spirits away of harm, in places where they won’t get hit or draw attention but still buff the entire group. If they moved with you, they’be hit more often and die.

There was a trait that made spirits mobile until they removed it

Mostly just PvE related opinions of mine:

Soldier professions
Warrior: “On my mark!” (Itself has limited use…)

Guardian: Spirit weapons (Haven’t found good build to use these yet)

Revenant: Haven’t played with this character much…

Adventurer professions
Ranger: Sharpening stone (I only use it with Wilderness Knowledge to remove conditions and gain fury, rather than use Troll Unguent to just that) and Muddy Terrain (Feels abit lacking in effect, still viable as it is, perhaps it should remove boon every 1 second from foes affected by it?)

Engineer: Played alot and I think there isn’t really problems on the Engineer.

Thief: Daggerstorm (This elite still throws daggers according to the angle of the camera, atleast last time I checked it)

Scholar professions
Elementalist: Inscription trait (Kinda meh trait, would be better if it added extra boon different from the base boon and grants boons to nearby allies when using a glyph according to attunement)

Necromancer: Corrupt Boon (Problem for this is mainly the lack of mobs using boons, ones that do use, usually only have average boon duration of 3-5 seconds and utilize useless boons anyway)

Mesmer: Don’t really see problems in here, since mesmers have strong abilities if used correctly…

FrostSpectre.4198:

Warrior: “On my mark!” (Itself has limited use…)

On my mark is a .. decent skill. I sometimes run it if I’m in an area with healthsponges or a lot of veteran mobs. it does help. its just a lot of times I also have other skills I need which are just better.

If it’s anything, On My Mark now has an effect in pvp, wheras you cannot stealth while affected by it. May help hunting thieves and mesmers

eyestrain.3056:

Honestly I love mesmer’s Mirror heal. I’ve used it for years as a short cd condi clear and reflect (and it got a big buff today). I used to run arcane thievery and it is still an interesting and useful skill though unimpressive compared to the HoT specs and skills. Ele’s fire axe suggestion made me laugh because that one can stack might like crazy but it really doesn’t ever get used considering how many other ways there are to do what it does.

Mirror definitely got a big buff with the patch yesterday, and I haven’t tested it yet. But at least before the patch it did need some work (and luckily it did get some). I’ve never seen anyone use it over ether feast or WoR (if you want cleanse or AoE heal) however, and I certainly haven’t used it but I will be trying it out to see if it is worth it when traited.

@FrostSpectre – Mesmers do have strong utility skills, as do all other classes. But we still have a fair amount of skills that you don’t see people running anywhere. Just because some of our utility skills are strong does not mean that none of them need to be reworked/buffed

Escadin.9482:

Svarty.8019:

eyestrain.3056:

I’ve tried making Bone Minions (not bone fiend- the immobilizing one that is useful in mm builds- the crappy slowcast “shatter” minions. The ones that you can’t control which of the two pops when commanded, and will blow up instantly where they are and not run to target like a mesmer shatter. Those) useful in any kind of sense for about an hour and a half of build shuffling and they are simply garbage compared to any other minion.

I tried using them as blast finishers. That lasted 10 minutes.

Don’t expect any existing content to get fixed tho. Anet prefer to make new stuff, it’s cheaper in development terms.

How can this possibly be true?

[Bumping to answer question I didn’t spot at the time]

I believe it’s something to do with new code being written fresh, without having to review all the old code, understand the brain-workings of the person who wrote it and make correct modifications that don’t affect other code thereby generating bugs and hence more coding work.