Guild Wars 2

My Engineer has really 1 choice for elite: Supply Drop. It’s a great idea…drop some turrets, some medpaks…suddenly you’ve got help and heals.

But the only way to build around it is to go full turret, which we all know isn’t as effective as we wished.

In open world, I usually run with one of my Asura racial golems.

I forget to use my elites most of the time simply because they are so situational and have such long cooldowns.

I have mixed feelings on Elites. I like that they’re (in theory) more powerful skills and have an appropriately long cooldown (again, in theory). But I’m also primarily an open-world PvEer and am rarely challenged to the point where I need to use my Elite skill, meaning it rarely gets used. I like having a “oh crap!” skill ready to use, but I don’t like using just 90% of my skill bar 99% of the time.

But either way, I HATE that so many elite skills don’t work underwater. Thieves and elementalists can use just one of their three elites while underwater, and in the case of thieves it’s an Elite skill that looks to me to be worthless outside of PvP.

Elites are terrible in gw2, none of them have much synergy with builds. Were as with gw1, your build revolved around your elite.

And it seems to me, that Anet had a fetish with transforms. Two of guardian elites are transforms, warrior has one, ele has one, engi has one, I think all of necros are transform elites (lol), mesmer elite transforms the enemy.

Elites should of been much better versions of skill types the class already has, like for guardian they should have: A elite meditation, a elite shout, a elite spirit weapon, a elite signet, a elite symbol and a elite consecration and virtue. The same type of pattern should apply to the other classes.

And the cooldowns should be as long as normal skills, 3min cooldowns do not fit with such a fast paced game. I don’t think there were no 3min cds in gw1. I think the max I remember seeing was 1min.

What elite skills i find most useful.
1. Time warp: Mesmer
2. Dagger storm: Theif
3. Entangle: Ranger
4. Mass Invisibility: Mesmer
5. Thieves Guild: Thief
6. Battle Standard: Warrior
7. Lich Form: Necromancer
8 Glyph of Elementals: Elementalist
9. Supply Crate: Engineer
10. Rampage As One: Ranger

Guardian should get a new elite: Reflect Stance. 60 seconds. While you are in this stance you defy all projectiles and reflect them to enemey.

The invuln skill is OKish and I do run it but it still is meh. I use it more for the 2xblock then i do the actual invuln

So I guess I’m the only person who uses my elite skills regularly, huh?

Guardian- Renewed Focus (90s recharge)
Warrior- Signet of Rage (60s recharge)
Mesmer- Time Warp (210s recharge)
Thief- Stonetouch Vemon (36s recharge)

Classes I don’t use as often:
Engineer- Supply Crate
Elementalist- Fiery Greatsword or Glyph of Elementals
Necromancer- Flesh Golem
Ranger- Rampage as One

Time Warp is very situational, but the rest I use quite liberally in PvE, especially Stonetouch Venom, Flesh Golem, Signet of Rage, and Renewed Focus.

In WvW, I am a bit more stingy.

I do think we need more utility and elite skills, but if you choose not to use your elite, that’s on you.

Aza.2105:

Elites are terrible in gw2, none of them have much synergy with builds. Were as with gw1, your build revolved around your elite.

And it seems to me, that Anet had a fetish with transforms. Two of guardian elites are transforms, warrior has one, ele has one, engi has one, I think all of necros are transform elites (lol), mesmer elite transforms the enemy.

Elites should of been much better versions of skill types the class already has, like for guardian they should have: A elite meditation, a elite shout, a elite spirit weapon, a elite signet, a elite symbol and a elite consecration and virtue. The same type of pattern should apply to the other classes.

And the cooldowns should be as long as normal skills, 3min cooldowns do not fit with such a fast paced game. I don’t think there were no 3min cds in gw1. I think the max I remember seeing was 1min.

^This

Elites should have synergy with the rest of your bar.
I play 5 classes and in all my builds I would trade the elite for an additional utility skill that actually fits in.

Shape shifting elites are the biggest problem. For one thing they take away your utility and heals and rarely provide a damage increase (even if marginal).

There are a few exceptions where elites complement your build, like the flesh golem for minion master, and the supply crate for a turret engie, the FGS for a conjure ele. But the options are extremely limited.

Summon elites are borderline useful, and racial elites are often a bad joke.

For example, on my ele I would swap any time my elite summon with the non-elite summon which has 100% upkeep. On the other hand I would love to see an elite ‘cantrip’ or ‘arcane’ or ‘signet’.

Tl;DR:
- Some elites complement your build, most don’t fit and the selection is extremely limited.
- Shape-shifting elites are generally bad because they take away utility/heals.
- Racial elites are weaker across the board than class elites.

OP didn’t say all Elite skills are not worth using…he/she said that most are not worth using.

Which is completely true, based on a class and playstyle your decision is usually obvious…at most you decide between two of them.

Zosk.5609:

OP didn’t say all Elite skills are not worth using…he/she said that most are not worth using.

Which is completely true, based on a class and playstyle your decision is usually obvious…at most you decide between two of them.

Yup, we need more, but he also said he really doesn’t use them :/ I frequently use mine

have to agree with OP. There’s only a couple of elite skils that are viable. The hounds of balthazaar is one of them. When I am in troble on HP and need to spike to survive and survive a long battle = it helps a lot.

By and large, most of the skills are not worth the trouble. Plus I’ve found the useful ones have long CD’s.

Zosk.5609:

OP didn’t say all Elite skills are not worth using…he/she said that most are not worth using.

Which is completely true, based on a class and playstyle your decision is usually obvious…at most you decide between two of them.

You summed it up well.

Aza.2105:

Elites are terrible in gw2, none of them have much synergy with builds. Were as with gw1, your build revolved around your elite.

And it seems to me, that Anet had a fetish with transforms. Two of guardian elites are transforms, warrior has one, ele has one, engi has one, I think all of necros are transform elites (lol), mesmer elite transforms the enemy.

Elites should of been much better versions of skill types the class already has, like for guardian they should have: A elite meditation, a elite shout, a elite spirit weapon, a elite signet, a elite symbol and a elite consecration and virtue. The same type of pattern should apply to the other classes.

And the cooldowns should be as long as normal skills, 3min cooldowns do not fit with such a fast paced game. I don’t think there were no 3min cds in gw1. I think the max I remember seeing was 1min.

yeah i hate all the transform skills

panikos.8309:

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.

Err, the Reaper of Grenth elite is a human racial elite, not something related to the Necromancer profession. But honestly i wonder why they put a timer on the transformations. With the lack of a self heal, and with the NUKE ME! sign that is the large neon green reaper, i am unsure how much harm being in the form until killed or dropped would do (tho rampaging across the PVE maps as a reaper may be pushing it).

I think it depends on class.

Ill agree that ele elites are kinda cruddy.

Signet of Rage for warriors is great.

Same with timewarp for mesmers.

I feel the elites have the same problem as racial skills in WoW clones. If you make them too good, and/or off CD too often, they completely define the metagame. So then you give them really long CDs. Now, people save them for bosses, or if the boss has multiple phases, they save it for when the boss is most dangerous.

I think my solution would have been to have had four utilities, and the elite be the #3 on a single handed weapon and #5 on a 2hander. That way, you could have, say, 2 per weapon per profession. My rationale for this is that, since weapons define your build, elite + weapon could define it even further.

Elite skill? There’s only one, TW/

Best elite is “Alt+F4”.

Luthan.5236:

Best elite is “Alt+F4”.

op needs nerf

I think it also depends on the class. I’m pretty sure 99% of all high level Engineers run Supply Depot, because it is just plain better than the other options (barring racials).

I had that feeling too. Expand your mind and think outside of the box. Each Elite has a purpose and something it is extremely good with. The question is: Does it fit in your niche?

danbuter.2314:

I think it also depends on the class. I’m pretty sure 99% of all high level Engineers run Supply Depot, because it is just plain better than the other options (barring racials).

I was on the wiki checking out the skills, when I saw mortar and thought “sounds like fun”. Then I scrolled down and saw the amount of bugs tied to it, after that I thought “better stick with the original plan and get supply drop”.

Personally, I’m fine with the way elites work in this game. I wouldn’t want to base my entire build around a single skill, or even have that single skill be very important to said build

That said, I would’ve liked if, instead of a separate ‘elite’ tier, these elite skills would simply occupy tier four. In other words, that you’d be able to use that elite skill slot for another skill if you so wanted, but are still free to pick those (often quite a bit more powerful) elite skills if you like. No actual nerfing or buffing of skills required.

On the other hand, being able to fill all utility slots with elite skills may cause some OP GC problems, so I’m uncertain about whether it would be wise to allow these skills to go in any slot. That would be a question for the balancing team to answer if they’d choose to implement it, though.

I think the main problem is that there are NORMAL utility skills that I would find way more useful the ELITE skills I’ve been given. I would love to have an additional Necromancer Well in my skill list over any of the elites I’ve been given.

From my experience, most elite skills are too situational to be useful (or used) very often while the non-elite utilities for many professions seem to be much more useful due in part to their lower CD but also due to design.

On my thief I swap my elite from Dagger Storm to Basilisk Venom only during the dredge fractal, but aside from that Dagger Storm provides too much utility and use to NOT use it. Unfortunately for most professions, they don’t have such a good elite that’s useful in more than a small handful of rarely encountered situations, instead they have elites that either summon (lackluster) minions, transform then into a (lackluster) alternate version or provide some buff of some variety that lasts longer than a “normal” utility… the only difference are Mesmers, which have the best group support elite (even post nerf) and no elite from another profession even comes close in terms of group support or personal support/utility.

Essentially, most elites are so situational in use or don’t justify the cooldown with seemingly appropriate power that they just take up a slot that would (in many many cases) be better spent elsewhere.

Grok Krog.9581:

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

Avatar of Melandru doesn’t seem as useful as Rampage as One, which makes me ponder why. Entangle I found kind of useful using it in WvW sometimes, but it was never all that useful . . . as, say, diving with my 50% Fall Reduction trait off a wall

I was using the racial “Hounds of Balthazar” and still do for when I kick around solo. The Avatar of Grenth I’ve seen used also as a “Point-blank AoE” type melee effect.

mrauls.6519:

I had that feeling too. Expand your mind and think outside of the box. Each Elite has a purpose and something it is extremely good with. The question is: Does it fit in your niche?

Most elites don’t fit any niche I can think up, as they aren’t up often enough, whereas something like GW1 Aura of the Lich might typically last, in terms of continued and cascading effects, well until it was off cooldown again.

Seems people ignore the perfectly good elites that some people have listed out and only claim that they’re useless. Tell me people who complain about elites? What did you expect elites to be? A skill that would give you 1 hit ko ability? 10x your HP? something super imbalance which would make every class revolve around their elite abilities?

Lafiel.9372:

Seems people ignore the perfectly good elites that some people have listed out and only claim that they’re useless. Tell me people who complain about elites? What did you expect elites to be? A skill that would give you 1 hit ko ability? 10x your HP? something super imbalance which would make every class revolve around their elite abilities?

None of these are as OP as your hypotheticals

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Signet_of_spirits

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Assassin%27s_Promise

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Aura_of_the_lich

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Panic

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ineptitude

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Energy_Surge

Of particular note are the cooldowns on many of these. Even the longest aren’t as long as, say, Time Warp, which was considered so OP that it got the nerf bat.

Elites should be game changers in that they can potentially give a character that is going down a chance at staying up. Instead most elites are worse than standard utility skills with a long cooldown thrown on top.

I prefer elites to be stronger than utility skills, and many of them (not all!) aren’t. I personally liked the way gw1 did elites as well. Rather than being a “run away from him for x seconds” type skills, they either had cooldowns similar to other skills, so they’d either be used often or have an effect that could be kept up the majority of the time. This meant elites were much more significant to your play style/build and had an active presence, instead of only mattering for a few seconds.

As for the fiery greatsword mentioned earlier. It’s not really much of a damage buff if you’re already playing d/d, it just locks you on less skills so it’s not that great imo. I guess it could be ok as a way to switch to damage using staff in exchange for dropping your support abilities for a period. Imo, the best part about it is just giving it to someone else :p

edit: In the end though, I think the most basic way of deciding if an elite is good enough is asking yourself “Would you rather have another utility slot?”, if yes, then that elite probably needs tweaking.

Lafiel.9372:

Seems people ignore the perfectly good elites that some people have listed out and only claim that they’re useless. Tell me people who complain about elites? What did you expect elites to be? A skill that would give you 1 hit ko ability? 10x your HP? something super imbalance which would make every class revolve around their elite abilities?

I’ll tell you instead what I did not expect. I did not expect: pets that are marginally useful to useless in the open world and which are useless in dungeons or transform self skills that under-perform my regular build, sometimes in very significant ways. These are so far from game-changing that it’s laughable.

can’t say much about every elite skill, but the ranger one’s are all useful…in certain scenarios at least.

(apologizing in advance for not knowing every english skill name)
the general “no bad choice” skill would be “Rampage as one”, fits in any situation and it’s stability buff will be excellent in higher level areas and some JP’s as well as other special situations, like fractals/cliffside.

in open world PvE, against champs, depending on the champ and his skills/size etc., either the seed-turret spam, the elite dog summoning or entangle.

if fighting quite a big number of mobs at the same time: entangle all the way

in dungeons, you can bring out your healing spirit, if playing a rather supportive role.

in WvW, i’ll go with seed turrets when defending and entangle when strafing alone.

i’ll now trying out to mainly use the summoning elite ability’s as my ranger in combination with a comsumable, which spawns one of six animals random at your side as a help for 5 minutes.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gortho,_Son_of_Malik

3 pets in total…i wonder if those extra 2 pets would benefit from beastmastery…but i guess not, right? :P

IndigoSundown.5419:

Lafiel.9372:

Seems people ignore the perfectly good elites that some people have listed out and only claim that they’re useless. Tell me people who complain about elites? What did you expect elites to be? A skill that would give you 1 hit ko ability? 10x your HP? something super imbalance which would make every class revolve around their elite abilities?

I’ll tell you instead what I did not expect. I did not expect: pets that are marginally useful to useless in the open world and which are useless in dungeons or transform self skills that under-perform my regular build, sometimes in very significant ways. These are so far from game-changing that it’s laughable.

Racial elites are not meant to be super powering to begin with. They’re more of a “for fun” elite skill. The truly useful ones are your class based elites.

I’ll try list some examples of great elites for each class:

Guardian: tome of wraith and courage are great elites for support but renew focus is so much better! with a relatively short cd and 3 second invulnerability, this baby has saved me more than a few hundred times!

Elementalist. I regularly use flame GS or summon greater ele. The flame GS provides good dps for your party members while the ele is situational. Sometimes I use the earth to help tank the boss a bit, ice ele for some extra heals, fire ele for plain dps, and air if I need a few stuns. For it’s CD and damage, it does it’s job. Tornado I only ever use for tagging, it has its purpose at times but I rarely find the need for it.

Ranger: Rampage as one usually, it’s a very good elite skill, 22 second stability along with might stacks and pet synergy, relatively short CD imo. I can use it at least once per fight. Entangle, excellent skill in certain situations, pvp wise or against certain bosses you need to root. The greater spirit thing I rarely use, tried it a couple of times.

Necromancer: Lich form, increase HP pool plus extra damage, I use it often, especially against boss. Plague is also a good one for maintaining conditions in big wvw fights, also increases hp pool. The summon flesh golem is pretty good when used and traited correctly, it has saved me a couple of times with the well placed kb.

Thief: Basilisk, excellent short cd elite, very useful especially in 1v1 situations. Thieves guild, very strong elite skill, does tonnes of damage.

Mesmer: Time warp, enough said, people know how good this skill is. Moa form, very good elite against for pvp/wvw 1v1s. Mass invis, again another must have skill for certain situations, i.e. dungeon skips etc.

Warrior: Battle standard.. super useful elite, gives fury and might + rallies allies when used. I’ve saved so many people with this banner. SIgnet of rage, another good signet for solo or dungeon situations.

Engineer: Sorry, I have one but am still learning to play it. But as far as i’ve seen, the turret elite is super good especially in pvp.

Racial elites: these skills are not meant to have a significant advantage other class elites since then there would be a racial preference when creating characters. I.M.O though, the golem skill from asura and human bathazar hounds is fairly good and fun

I think all elite skills are great and it’s really comes down to how you effectively use them

Ranger’s Rampage As One Elite Skill is the equivalent of some other classes util skill. Stability is a situational boon but a very useful one granted. For example if you are going up against Old Tom it would be useless.

I would like to say some racial elites (and utils for that matter) are very useful especially to certain classes in terms of synergy and in some situations which the class lacks access to a particular cleanse / debuff / buff / summon but I am afraid of the nerf bat, so I will just leave it at that

My guardian i only use the reset vitrues one, mainly for the invul. Its pretty meh.

My mes i use timewarp, though not so often now its been nerfed, but that was pretty powerful.

Engineer, i use supply crate, its ok, but hardly game changing.

I think elites lack punch to be honest, trying to think of any that really make a big difference. The thiefs guild one is pretty hard hitting and the warrior rally is useful.

Guardian’s renew focus is not as good underwater. You have to channel it and cant dps during those 3s. Again, not asking for the nerf bat, I wish some classes underwater elite is as good as others or are given more choices for underwater elite.

guardian renewed focus is incredibly important when using an AH gs build. It resets your virtues and is quite helpful as an 0hS41T button. I usually pop it after the intial wave of virtues to renew their passives and help keep the group up to max health for most of the fight.

^ The fact that many elite skills turn out to be “emergency buttons” can make them “not worth using”. Too valuable to waste can be the same as too much trouble to bother, if the end result is your 0 key getting neglected.