Guild Wars 2

I agree. As an Elementalist, I only use Fiery Greatsword to escape from or kite foes in PvP. I doubt that was intended.

There is that one decent one on my Guard…well…kinda.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

I agree. As an Elementalist, I only use Fiery Greatsword to escape from or kite foes in PvP. I doubt that was intended.

Are you kitten me? I use FGS for damage to mow down enemies. Hello! It’s one of very few AoE abilities that bypasses the AoE cap with it’s #3 (though #5 still is capped at 5 peeps). And, when using that #3 it does “evade, evade, evade, evade” the entire time so that you can work through static fields, damage pools, and direct hits while slicing enemy’s to the ground. The damage of the thing is not sub par, either. It hits huge, and I’ve got 2-3 guildmates who constantly fight over who picks up the spare I drop.

To the original poster: Build around your Elite. I do and it’s fun and amazing the numbers you use and the usefulness to your party you become. Enjoy the slaughtering of your foes.

Siphaed.9235:

Guns and Giblets.9308:

I agree. As an Elementalist, I only use Fiery Greatsword to escape from or kite foes in PvP. I doubt that was intended.

Are you kitten me? I use FGS for damage to mow down enemies. Hello! It’s one of very few AoE abilities that bypasses the AoE cap with it’s #3 (though #5 still is capped at 5 peeps). And, when using that #3 it does “evade, evade, evade, evade” the entire time so that you can work through static fields, damage pools, and direct hits while slicing enemy’s to the ground. The damage of the thing is not sub par, either. It hits huge, and I’ve got 2-3 guildmates who constantly fight over who picks up the spare I drop.

To the original poster: Build around your Elite. I do and it’s fun and amazing the numbers you use and the usefulness to your party you become. Enjoy the slaughtering of your foes.

I mean I guess that’s cool if you have an elite that does damage.

I’ve grown to like the Fiery Greatsword. It’s pretty fun, does fair amounts of damage, and looks friggin’ awesome. It has its uses here and there. But yeah, a lot of the Elite skills just don’t feel that great. As a Guardian I don’t have anything that makes me feel epic when using it. As a Thief I get Dagger Storm which is pretty kitten cool. Mesmers get Time Warp, which is useful in a group setting, but not that interesting solo. Moa form… meh.xD

My zerker warrior is built around making the signet of rage boons permanent. It’s the only character I’ve built around an elite skill.

I think you could build a venom thief around the on-elite-skill-use runes given that you can get the cooldown for basilisk venom very low. However, not sure what kind of overall build would make that worthwhile. The flip side is that underwater, thieves ONLY have basilisk venom as an elite skill choice.

Necro flesh golem might be useful except a) minions’ AI overall sucks, and b) flesh golem AI in particular is worse than the rest of the minions.

The biggest problem with most elite skills is that they are on such long cooldowns that you can’t use them as a regular part of your skill rotation, and the effects they bring don’t have anywhere near the power to justify those long cooldowns.

(then again, I think all utility skills are on way too long of cooldowns…I’m much more interested in skills and counterskills than I am in watching a clock)

Siphaed.9235:

Are you kitten me? I use FGS for damage to mow down enemies. Hello! It’s one of very few AoE abilities that bypasses the AoE cap with it’s #3 (though #5 still is capped at 5 peeps). And, when using that #3 it does “evade, evade, evade, evade” the entire time so that you can work through static fields, damage pools, and direct hits while slicing enemy’s to the ground. The damage of the thing is not sub par, either. It hits huge, and I’ve got 2-3 guildmates who constantly fight over who picks up the spare I drop.

Maybe I’m using it wrong. In fact, I’d love to be wrong and discover my disappointment with this and other elementalist elite skills is due to my incompetence (which is easily fixed) rather than fundamental design flaws (which only developers can fix).

If you’re talking about PvE, I don’t really PvE anymore (far too boring), so maybe I should have made that clear earlier.

In PvP, I run your stereotypical bunker D/D (pow/pre/tough). I haven’t found situations where it’s useful to risk the cast time for the sword to just dish out some dps when the sword otherwise functions extremely well as a kite or escape measure. I’m also not sure if the dps is actually significantly greater than what I can do with dagger skills, and I find that I need the skills available on various attunements—for stuns, heals, condition damage or removal, etc.—over against raw dps.

At least, that’s where I’m coming from. I’d be interested to hear how this assessment is incorrect.

Necromancer elites are pretty terrible. Plague form and Lich form strip you of your utilities, so they actually hurt when I need to put down wells and junk. Flesh Golem just dies…

I use Take Root on my Sylvari Necro. Definitely fills that slot nicely (especially with the plants that apply bleeds)

Guns and Giblets.9308:

Siphaed.9235:

Are you kitten me? I use FGS for damage to mow down enemies. Hello! It’s one of very few AoE abilities that bypasses the AoE cap with it’s #3 (though #5 still is capped at 5 peeps). And, when using that #3 it does “evade, evade, evade, evade” the entire time so that you can work through static fields, damage pools, and direct hits while slicing enemy’s to the ground. The damage of the thing is not sub par, either. It hits huge, and I’ve got 2-3 guildmates who constantly fight over who picks up the spare I drop.

Maybe I’m using it wrong. In fact, I’d love to be wrong and discover my disappointment with this and other elementalist elite skills is due to my incompetence (which is easily fixed) rather than fundamental design flaws (which only developers can fix).

If you’re talking about PvE, I don’t really PvE anymore (far too boring), so maybe I should have made that clear earlier.

In PvP, I run your stereotypical bunker D/D (pow/pre/tough). I haven’t found situations where it’s useful to risk the cast time for the sword to just dish out some dps when the sword otherwise functions extremely well as a kite or escape measure. I’m also not sure if the dps is actually significantly greater than what I can do with dagger skills, and I find that I need the skills available on various attunements—for stuns, heals, condition damage or removal, etc.—over against raw dps.

At least, that’s where I’m coming from. I’d be interested to hear how this assessment is incorrect.

Makes sense. I thought we were talking about PvP anyway, why PvE at 80 is how I feel too hehe. Honestly I have never seen anyone use the FGS in WvW so I can’t tell you if it works as well or not.

Yeah, most of the Elites are pretty lame. Human Thief has “Thieves Guild” and “Dagger Storm”, “Basilisk Venom” is only useful because it’s the only Elite you can use underwater; none of the racial elites are worth a kitten.

Elites – and skills in general – need a big update in the first expansion.

Aeonblade.8709:

There is that one decent one on my Guard…well…kinda.

There is? My guardian wants to know which one. ^^ I use Renewed Focus because I tried the other 2 and they seemed to be overwhelmingly underwhelming. And then that long cooldown starts.

They should make the elite slot capable of holding utility skills. It would be more useful then.

Definitely lacklustre, however on my warrior with lacklustre healing abilities the asuran golems are worth it.

Astral Projections.7320:

Aeonblade.8709:

There is that one decent one on my Guard…well…kinda.

There is? My guardian wants to know which one. ^^ I use Renewed Focus because I tried the other 2 and they seemed to be overwhelmingly underwhelming. And then that long cooldown starts.

They should make the elite slot capable of holding utility skills. It would be more useful then.

Seconded. I often find myself wishing I could use a fourth utility instead of the elite.

other very useful elites:
Necro: both plague form and lych form
Ele: fire sword. Love it. If you have a build on an ele based on conjured weapons that sword is like candy.

I feel the devs went with traits as our variation instead of the skills themselves. But that still doesn’t solve the issue that there are only a handful of good skills to trait around. GW1 builds were based on the elite (and if no elite, a specific useful purpose). GW2 builds are based on…well…after 1200 hours I’m still working on it…

Alot of the Elites need to be made Elite

Warrior: Rampage, you lose your healing skill and damage using this. Needs to give triple or quadruple power, not double.

Ele: Fiery Greatsword has it’s uses but I’ve found Glyph to be the best. Tornado needs to suck stuff in instead of blow it out and then it might be useful

Guardian: Tome of Courage is very good. Not real familiar with Wrath. Renewed Focus doesn’t have much use from my experience

Engineer: Only Supply Crate is good. Mortar needs to do more damage. Elixir X will be good if Tornado and Rampage are buffed

Necromancer: Plague is good support and decent AoE damage. Lich Form hits really hard. Flesh Golem is in the boat of all summons/pets, and needs to take less damage from AoE

Thief: I think all of thief’s elites have a use

Ranger: Rampage As One is great. Entangle can be good. Spirit needs AoE damage reduction and it will be good

I’ve never played Mesmer but who cares as long as there’s Time Warp =)

Katai.6240:

Necromancer elites are pretty terrible. Plague form and Lich form strip you of your utilities, so they actually hurt when I need to put down wells and junk. Flesh Golem just dies…

You forget that as both lich and plague are transforms, they send all necro minions to cooldown on trigger. Never mind that the duration of lich is so short that you only get to use most of the skills once. Oh, and you are now a 3 meters tall, neon green reaper with no healing skill.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

Siphaed.9235:

Are you kitten me? I use FGS for damage to mow down enemies. Hello! It’s one of very few AoE abilities that bypasses the AoE cap with it’s #3 (though #5 still is capped at 5 peeps). And, when using that #3 it does "evade, evade, evade, evade" the entire time so that you can work through static fields, damage pools, and direct hits while slicing enemy’s to the ground. The damage of the thing is not sub par, either. It hits huge, and I’ve got 2-3 guildmates who constantly fight over who picks up the spare I drop.

Maybe I’m using it wrong. In fact, I’d love to be wrong and discover my disappointment with this and other elementalist elite skills is due to my incompetence (which is easily fixed) rather than fundamental design flaws (which only developers can fix).

If you’re talking about PvE, I don’t really PvE anymore (far too boring), so maybe I should have made that clear earlier.

In PvP, I run your stereotypical bunker D/D (pow/pre/tough). I haven’t found situations where it’s useful to risk the cast time for the sword to just dish out some dps when the sword otherwise functions extremely well as a kite or escape measure. I’m also not sure if the dps is actually significantly greater than what I can do with dagger skills, and I find that I need the skills available on various attunements--for stuns, heals, condition damage or removal, etc.--over against raw dps.

At least, that’s where I’m coming from. I’d be interested to hear how this assessment is incorrect.

I’m talking in WvWvW and sPvP. I seldom use it in PvE, because it throws me into more mobs than I want, or off a cliff.

My build is 30 fire, 30 earth, 10 arcane. With that I pick up the Greater Trait that increases charges for conjured weapons. But, the main thing I have built is Power for direct damage, and off-setting condition damage for things like burn (and churning earth:P) It’s very useful. Even with the #1 of the weapon, it does amazingly wide splash damage to allies. In WvWvW, everyone’s clustered so the more the merrier.

As for the other Elites for Elementalist: Tornado is mostly useless and very selective to ever use. Summon minion is great when you’re doing healing for your team, as you can summon the Ice Elemental, which heals well; the Fire Elemental is best for the damage; Lightning Elemental is good for CC because it randomly stuns it’s target for a sec or two.

Engineers have a great Elite, which is the crate that contains many turrets and health packs and whatever else.

I’m not familiar with other class’s Elites, so I cannot judge.

I pack daggerstorm on my thief. It synergizes really well with signet of malice when you’re surrounded and delivers more often than not a full heal.

Some classes have better elites than others, and over all on a class by class basis there’s rarely a choice that’s meaningful. The only elite which I regularly swap is between supply drop and mortar on my engineer because they’re both pretty decent. Every other character, there’s usually only a single obvious option for a given build. I’d like to see some more GW1 styled elites that are elite because of a useful effect with a short CD in stead of a powerful effect with a long CD.

Heck, we should buff up the racial elites to be on par with class based ones, but add the ability to acquire them from other races with some quest/content to learn them if they’re not your native skills.

The long cooldowns are there so we will consider the situation before using them. This in complete reversal to GW1 where elites were build defining skills that everything else you selected revolved around.

While there’s definitely classes that have poor choices as far as elites go ( Engi ) the situation is not as bad as some posters seem to think. Plague Form useless? LOLWHAT

Wolfheart.1938:

While there’s definitely classes that have poor choices as far as elites go ( Engi ) the situation is not as bad as some posters seem to think. Plague Form useless? LOLWHAT

While not useless, plague is very situational. It is nice in PVE where the mobs are dumb enough to stay within range so you can keep them blinded and poisoned. But in PVP anyone with a bit of sense will immobilize you and get out of range.

digiowl.9620:

The long cooldowns are there so we will consider the situation before using them. This in complete reversal to GW1 where elites were build defining skills that everything else you selected revolved around.

And it was a point of contention among GW1 players when that idea was released while the game was under development.

Elites in GW2 were supposed to be like the nitrous in a drag race. Situation-altering abilities that were so powerful that you’d actually WANT to save them so that you have a chance to respond to the other guy. Pop it too soon and you waste your clutch ability.

The problem with the majority of elites as they exist in the live game is that they have over-long cooldowns for abilities that are more often than not ineffective or actively detrimental to your play.

If we’re going to get weak elites, given them short cooldowns. If we’re going to get long cooldowns, make them worth it. That’s all people really want. The fact that a lot of people are saying they’d rather have another utility than their elite choices is telling enough about how simply not useful most elites are.

Elites need a rethink. At the very least, we need more underwater ones. I can only use Plague Form underwater, while Mesmers still have Moa Morph(well, Bass Morph)? Why can’t I get a zombie shark or armorfish or something?

They also need that “disables your utilities” thing changed, because having all your zombies explode when you press Lich Form or Plague Form(your only underwater elite!) isn’t fun, and turning off Ranger pets with Racial elites isn’t so dandy either.

Also, tweaking up racial elites would be cool. Don’t see why nornforms shouldn’t be at least a damage increase when you use them.

While I don’t have nearly enough experience with elite skills to comment on whether they need an overhaul or not I do know my Guardian likes to use her ‘Take Root’ skill. Temporary invulnerability + multiple turrets has been very useful in my experience.

Sarrs.4831:

Also, tweaking up racial elites would be cool. Don’t see why nornforms shouldn’t be at least a damage increase when you use them.

I suspect that part comes out of race choices being pure cosmetics in SPVP, and ANet not wanting us to get too attached to our racial choice (or getting debates about the best race&profession combos). This because they cling to the idea that you should be able to jump between PVE and PVP with little disruption in build understanding. But if so they really need to beef up the AI smarts.

digiowl.9620:

I suspect that part comes out of race choices being pure cosmetics in SPVP, and ANet not wanting us to get too attached to our racial choice (or getting debates about the best race&profession combos). This because they cling to the idea that you should be able to jump between PVE and PVP with little disruption in build understanding. But if so they really need to beef up the AI smarts.

Fair enough, but there’s a difference between “this is more of a cosmetic choice, not quite as solid as the other elites” and “halves your damage for the duration with no appreciable benefit”.

digiowl.9620:

Wolfheart.1938:

While there’s definitely classes that have poor choices as far as elites go ( Engi ) the situation is not as bad as some posters seem to think. Plague Form useless? LOLWHAT

While not useless, plague is very situational. It is nice in PVE where the mobs are dumb enough to stay within range so you can keep them blinded and poisoned. But in PVP anyone with a bit of sense will immobilize you and get out of range.

One aspect the development team overlooked with plague is the fact that you become a cloud/mist form. In my opinion players should not be able to actively target a cloud/mist form. This does not make one impervious to damage as aoe and normal contact should do damage, but in my humble opinion this transformation should not be able to be targeted allowing the necro to actually infect people with the plague and move around a bit more freely. I do believe you gain additional HP in this form, but it drops fast while under a barrage of cc while people get out of your path or stack up to mitigate the effects.

As it is plague feels like the slowest moving cloud of death in the history of anything. Given the large size of the aoe cloud, plague still only will apply conditions on 5 people at max makes this skill a highly specialized elite.

Plague would have been so much better as a normal aoe skill given the design and parameters with which it is useful in WvW.

Running into static fields and puddles of confusion along with barriers makes plague seem like its the dark sheep of the utility family. You would not want to use it up front of your zerg either because that first burst of damage when big groups collide will eat you up like a finger food at fat camp.

Along with this lich form robs you of a healing skill. Now that you are the biggest target in the zerg and obviously about to lay down some serious damage you get focus fire like mad with this so called elite skill.

Lich form is a great deal of fun when your enemies are fleeing though. That slightly spamable #1 skill has pretty decent range and power. The little people just look like insects scurrying away all the while boom, boom, boom goes the reaper.

For the most part, I’m with those who’d prefer a 4th utility slot. There are some exceptions but many elite skills are failures.

Most elite skills are like normal utility skinns imo. Tho about Plague, it’s only good in WvW and can do some serious damage, unless im alone vs a zerg or for some reason I go herpy and run in alone then I never die with plague. It’s really deadly with the Chilling darkness trait, along with your guildmates behind you. I can hold at least 5 enemies constantly chilled, blinded, bleeding and poisoned – not only is it really annoying but also a perfect place where to land those AoE’s, hehe.

Elites are a bit like racial skills, some are fun to try but 99% are just useless and never get used on my bars..

As others said there is like one or two per class that are passable at best to use..

The only elites I use on my ranger are Rampage as One and very occasionally (really only in PvP/WvW from time to time) grasping roots.

All the other elites have just ridiculous cool downs and aren’t worth it. Hounds of Balth just die too quickly (Mistfire Wolf is in the same boat…) and just do not justify having to wait 240 seconds for an at most 30 second long skill. Spirit of Nature can be pretty useful for the revivals, but again it just feels like it dies to fast for it’s cool down to be justified.

Hounds of Balth and Mistfire, should at most have an 180 second cool down…

I only played a GW1 a bit, but they seemed to have down a much better job with that game than GW2. The elites actually felt great as they were role defining and were built around. Enemies seemed a lot smarter and it seemed to take more strategy to overcome obstacles than the AI wall bashing of GW2.

They have definitely made some decent changes in GW2 since launch though, as the fractals dungeon had a better flow to it than the original dungeons. The addition of not just mob grinding, but also jump puzzle-esque gauntlets were a nice feature. The boss mechanics definitely added a nice change of pace too, but overall it still feels a bit pale in comparison to GW1 in many areas of the game.

I will agree that a lot seem pretty bland and not very good. I guess its just an extra damage button in reality. Rather in GW1 where they literally made a build. The summons like Mistfire and stuff seem even more bland. They dont last long enough to account for the cooldown.

As far as Ele I kind of like the Elemental elite, its nice to have an on-call tank sometimes at least for my build. The greatsword is pretty awesome too, not really my thing, but it is good damage no doubt. The Tornado/Whirlwind is pretty bleh. But only way to get stability as an Ele for me and whirlwind is better then no elite underwater. But god its pretty much a death sentence underwater to be totally honest.

Roll an Asura and use the golem.

Astral Projections.7320:

Aeonblade.8709:

There is that one decent one on my Guard…well…kinda.

There is? My guardian wants to know which one. ^^ I use Renewed Focus because I tried the other 2 and they seemed to be overwhelmingly underwhelming. And then that long cooldown starts.

They should make the elite slot capable of holding utility skills. It would be more useful then.

With my guardian, i use Renewed Focus all the time. Using the Guardian of Lyssa Build: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/73978-guardian-of-lyssa-build-unkillable-self-healer-w-great-dps/

Basically runes of lyssa’s 6th bonus is loose all conditions and gain all buffs for 5 secs. So every 90 secs i can become invincible (3s), hit all my virtues as soon as i use RF (gaining an aegis, burning, and healing), along with all buffs and loosing all conditions. It’s instantly saved my kitten many times.

UrScrewed.6183:

Astral Projections.7320:

Aeonblade.8709:

There is that one decent one on my Guard…well…kinda.

There is? My guardian wants to know which one. ^^ I use Renewed Focus because I tried the other 2 and they seemed to be overwhelmingly underwhelming. And then that long cooldown starts.

They should make the elite slot capable of holding utility skills. It would be more useful then.

With my guardian, i use Renewed Focus all the time. Using the Guardian of Lyssa Build: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/73978-guardian-of-lyssa-build-unkillable-self-healer-w-great-dps/

Basically runes of lyssa’s 6th bonus is loose all conditions and gain all buffs for 5 secs. So every 90 secs i can become invincible (3s), hit all my virtues as soon as i use RF (gaining an aegis, burning, and healing), along with all buffs and loosing all conditions. It’s instantly saved my kitten many times.

Won’t the 3s of Lyssa’s buffs be wasted ? I thought you can’t do any actions when you used the invulnerable renewed focus.

The thing about the Ele elite summon fiery greatsword is.. I can’t use a greatsword.
More than that, I don’t want to use a greatsword. I’m an elementalist, not a meatbag kitten it!

So I use the Greater Elemental elite, which is just about the only useful one left I think. It’s neat having a tanky earth elemental around at times, with his little brother earth elemental also. Other than that I really have to agree; we need some inspiring elite skills! It would be massively fun if we had ye old’e Capture Signet and had to work/fight for them.

Under water though, I don’t think the whirlpool can be beat. Throw on an arcane shield and hit whirlpool grants you some pretty mass devastation.

I miss my Spiteful Spirit.

Nocturnal.5023:

Won’t the 3s of Lyssa’s buffs be wasted ? I thought you can’t do any actions when you used the invulnerable renewed focus.

Lyssa’s buffs are 5s, the invincibility is 3s, and nothing’s waisted. As soon as you hit renewing focus you become invincible 3s, and takes 2s to finish casting, but while casting it you CAN move, but CAN’T cast skills. However you can activate virtues, once the casting of RF is over, the virtues are reset, and you get Lyssa’s buffs. So basically hit 0, then f1, f2, f3.

Necromancer’s elites are either useless pets or transformations that disable all your skills including healing skills and give you some pretty useless ones instead which maybe 1 of them is useful. Only the grenth aura thingy doesnt transform you but it only lasts for 15secs or so and has a 3 min cd.. really Anet? I rarely use elites. Gw1 elites where game changing and actually important for your build.

I think most classes have 1 elite that can be used often and in a lot of cases and different environments and the other 2 are only good in specific situations.

Engineer is my main and I have supply crate most of the time. Good in PvE and in sPvP. Mortar I think is only nice in WvW(but then again you could just use “real” siege weapons there).

Guardian I liked the renewed focus because I’m soloing a lot(only tried PvE so far with my guardian). Helping recharching the virtues also helps a lot cause you can spam their active effects and then reset the cd to get the passive effect again or activate them again.

Tomes not of much use to me at least not when I’m soloing PvE.

Funny the 30 skill points skill most of the time is one that I’d only use in specific situations and the 10 skill points skills seem better most of the time. But it is okay.

I may be the only one but I’m happy with my supply crate, and my boyfriend’s (thief) ninjas are really making quite a difference, too. Before attacking a champion or anything else that would be a challenge we wait for our skills to reset and it makes a big difference.

So I don’t know, maybe I don’t have the same expectations as some other people here, but I’m happy.

The cooldown rates on a lot of elite skills are way too high…

The cooldowns of any elite skill which are over 60 secs need to be looked at and potentially reduced…

Some are 240 secs, 4 minutes long that’s utterly stupid, 80% of battles anyone fights are over in 30 secs…one way or another…

Guns and Giblets.9308:

I agree. As an Elementalist, I only use Fiery Greatsword to escape from or kite foes in PvP. I doubt that was intended.

Actually it appears to me that it WAS designed around mobility… and what awesome mobility it provides! It has better mobility than even the ridiculously mobile D/D, and when using staff in WvW FGS is absolutely indispensable for escaping from enemy zergs (good luck running away with staff alone). If I can successfully summon it, I am essentially guaranteed survival as nearly no class is capable of keeping up, much less a whole zerg. In fact the only thing I find comparable to FGS is thief with shortbow.

But for sPvP Glyph of Elementals is actually an incredible elite that people (especially enemy players) tend to underestimate. Fire Elemental can do obscene amounts of damage when your enemy is least expecting it and turn the tide of a skirmish easily, and water elemental can likewise provide some insane healing (although I don’t like to rely on it). Air elemental stun is often priceless and enemy players tend to not notice it pew-pewing in the background until it is too late. Finally earth elemental is good for tanking lord and other npcs.

Whirlpool needs some help though…

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I may be the only one but I’m happy with my supply crate, and my boyfriend’s (thief) ninjas are really making quite a difference, too. Before attacking a champion or anything else that would be a challenge we wait for our skills to reset and it makes a big difference.

So I don’t know, maybe I don’t have the same expectations as some other people here, but I’m happy.

I am happy too, I love my elites, specifically my racial elites.

My ranger is a Sylvari and take root is awesome, 3 secs invulnerability and then some turrets?
I use Hounds Of Balthazar on my Mesmer because I find it more useful than time warp.

My Engi uses supply drop, awesome in itself.

I have lost count of how many times a well placed elite skill saved me from death, or given me time to res others to continue the battle.

Underwater elites need some work imo.

Dr Ritter.1327:

The elite skills in this game need a complete overhaul. In Guild Wars everyone would create their build around an elite skill (SoS, Discord etc). In this game there are very few elites that are even worth using. Mesmer is the only class that has an actual elite skill (timewarp) that really helps out your team. When i’m playing other classes I barley ever need to use the elite and i would rather have another utility skill tbh.

The cultural elites and summon mistfire aren’t even worth mentioning they are so useless.

Guardian renew focus, warrior battle standard and the signet, thief basilisk or thief guild, ranger rampage as one… these are just a few elites I can name that are EXTREMELYYYYY good. Racial elites are not meant to be hugely advantageous since that would give “racial” advantage. It’s more, for fun theme elites. Having said that, hounds of Balthazar are quite good

Agreed, if it wasn`t for the Mistfire wolf I doubt I`d ever of bothered keybinding the elites & chances are my ele may never of made it to 80.

I’m pretty satisfied with my main classes elites:
Mesmer:
-Time Warp – for obvious reasons;
-Moa Morph – Great for sPvP;
-Mass Invisibility – Great in WvW and in PvE

Necromancer
-Lich Form – Great damage and great AoE capability!
-Plague – IMO One of the best Elites in the game. Mainly for suicide forwards in WvW and tactical retreats. Care more about the damage it holds than the damage it gives.

Warrior
- Battle Standard – Just Excellent! Either in WvW as in PvE.
- Signet of Rage – Great Signet and worth of being an elite.

What did you expect of an elite? 1Hit KO? An flawless advantage?
They are fine as they are.

/Cheers