Guild Wars 2

One of my main points of frustration with this game is lame Elites, so much can be done with them to make them more interesting then a slightly better utility skill with a long cool down.

This is something I have been mulling over for awhile and in my head I have found I have been comparing them to the Two Hour Abilities from FF11 (I know if I compare this game to FF11 a bunch on here but they are 2 games cut from the same design cloth in many ways). For those who never played FF11 the Two Hour Ability was something each class had that had a huge effect on the battle when used. But using them came at a high cost of not having it when needed for the next 2 hours. Something you used at the perfect moment or to save you at your time of greatest need. It also really fit with your class, such as Monks getting 0 cool down on their Auto Attacks for a little bit, White Mage full healing their party (and then taking a crap load of agro and almost always dying for it), Summoner unlocking the greatest powers of their summon, Warrior making all their attacks Crits for awhile, etc.

Now I am not asking to just make Elites insanely powerful and just toss a 2 hour cool-down on them. I am just saying maybe tossing a longer cool-down on them and making them more interesting and effective might be a worthwhile thing.
My main is Eng and lets look at my Elites.

Supply Crate: 180 sec cool-down, drops some turrets that almost instently dies, some healing packs, does a burst combo/stun on landing.
Why not make it something like a 10 min cool down and have it drop a Crate that players can interact with and pull out things like Turrets they can drop, healing packs, or just random whatever environmental items that you can buy from the NPCs in the game. Drop it in a big group and people are running around with Flamethrowers, Grenade packs, Healing Kits, Turrets, Robot Launchers, or whatever random environmental item in the game. Makes a interesting skill that can really change the flow of a fight and is just all around fun.

Mortar: 2 min cool-down useable Mortar. I think a bunch of people underrate this skill but still has issues.
What if it was made into something like once used it places the Turret and makes the skill slot into a AoE targeted skill that calls in a strike from it. Having to take control of it takes you out of a fight and kind of removes the fun of it, so being able to call in shots while still fighting makes it more interesting and fun. Also still fits within that style of play the Turret builds have.

Elixir X: 2 min cool-down that uses another classes transformation Elite.
This is kind of a hard one, I think the main issue is the transformations them selves need to be reworked more then this skill does. Once those are improved then I think this skill is fine as long at it matches their cool-downs.

So what do people think? Also post some ideas of how to change your classes Elites into something better if you have any.

TL;DR: Lets make Elites have longer cool-downs and bigger more interesting effects to make them a more costly thing to use in place of just an extra utility skill.

I agree with this idea, as it stands now, the elites are garbage or boring as hell.

I’d rather have Elites more than less useful – meaning, i’d rather pick only slightly better than normal elite with short cooldown over a significantly stronger one with a long refresh.
I’s also want to see much bigger variation in elite skills (including underwater ones – some classes have only one underwater-usable elite).

Before the game was released, I read somewhere although I cannot remember where that:

[i]“The elites were going to be epic battle changing skills with long cool downs.” [/]i
(or words to that effect)

They are not. I anticipated the diversity of elites from gw1. Some that would have less of an effect but could be used more frequently and some with huge effects and benefits but could be used less frequently.
The skills themselves aren’t always awful, but they are not the standard that the word ‘elite’ suggests.

We have a total of five weapon skills and five slot skills available. That means that each skill is 10% of my total capabilities without even taking into account the relative power of each ability. The Elite skill slot is, argubly, your most powerful slot ability. It is already annoying enough to have to choose whether to use that ability now and not have it available for two to three minutes in a big fight. Giving up 10% of your total capabilities for 2 hours or so? Even if that ability were made more powerful, my vote is “No, it is not worth it.”

At least for the guardian, they have some pretty powerful elites, in many cases turning the battle 180. I think Engi’s need lots more love overall, period.

In the game, we’re the soldiers, not the heroes.

Trahearne gets to summon a whole army of baddies. The NPC in the dynamic event (sometimes) gets to be invincible.

It’s my mentor that can manage to hold off a whole army while I flee the island, not me.

It takes 5 people many minutes of doing our very best attacks to take out a single commander type.

A piece of scrap wood on the ground is more powerful than your exotic sword.

Look at wvw. We’re supposed to feel like the worker bees, not the queen.

Final Fantasy has an entirely different ethic. Elites that take us from zero to hero don’t fit the gritty world of Tyria.

Sotaudi.1265:

We have a total of five weapon skills and five slot skills available. That means that each skill is 10% of my total capabilities without even taking into account the relative power of each ability. The Elite skill slot is, argubly, your most powerful slot ability. It is already annoying enough to have to choose whether to use that ability now and not have it available for two to three minutes in a big fight. Giving up 10% of your total capabilities for 2 hours or so? Even if that ability were made more powerful, my vote is “No, it is not worth it.”

The way I see it is that Elites are that something extra. You can get your job done without them, you don’t need them for normal play. They are there to add that extra X factor to your class, that big shining moment, your “Oh kitten button”.
For most classes they are just a fire and forget slightly more powerful spell, nothing game changing and used at the start of almost all boss fights, hell I just use supply crate on cool-down as it has little to no effect on the fight outside of maybe a stun or a combo burst, the summons that come with it die within one hit and do almost no damage anyway.
What I am asking for is for them to become something you hit only in times of dire need or something you hit when you need that extra little edge for a fight. Having a the options in what you can pick allows players to use what style they want. So sure say you have 2 Elites that are passive Signet or short cooldown weaker effects but also give us the option of vary long cooldown huge effects for those of us who want them. The only one that is anything like that is Time Warp on the Mesmer, I want all classes to have at least one Elite that has that large of an effect on the battle at least.

munkiman.3068:

At least for the guardian, they have some pretty powerful elites, in many cases turning the battle 180. I think Engi’s need lots more love overall, period.

I forgot about those Tomes that the Guardian can use, ya those are a big deal. Still not battle changing in anything other then WvW IMO but still a nice start.

mulch.2586:

In the game, we’re the soldiers, not the heroes.

Trahearne gets to summon a whole army of baddies. The NPC in the dynamic event (sometimes) gets to be invincible.

It’s my mentor that can manage to hold off a whole army while I flee the island, not me.

It takes 5 people many minutes of doing our very best attacks to take out a single commander type.

A piece of scrap wood on the ground is more powerful than your exotic sword.

Look at wvw. We’re supposed to feel like the worker bees, not the queen.

Final Fantasy has an entirely different ethic. Elites that take us from zero to hero don’t fit the gritty world of Tyria.

Even the lowest fighter can have a moment of greatness, Big Elites are that shining moment of greatness.

I especially dont like the lack of underwater skills myself. For the higher skill when fighting mobs at a much larger xyz axis than on ground, elites should have a greater impact.

Not sure of racials or profession specifics, but my asuran theif only has basilisk venom as an underwater elite. It lasts for like 1 second, or maybe 1.5. The problem i have with that is its supposed to somewhat mimick the basilisk’s attack. When they attack you it turns you to stone for at least 3 or so seconds. Maybe theyll increase the duration of stone condition later.

Still would be nice to make elites better or…:0 make us go hunt skills :p that we want which could also help with keeping every area populated more often than not.

HunterFox.2578:

I especially dont like the lack of underwater skills myself. For the higher skill when fighting mobs at a much larger xyz axis than on ground, elites should have a greater impact.

Not sure of racials or profession specifics, but my asuran theif only has basilisk venom as an underwater elite. It lasts for like 1 second, or maybe 1.5. The problem i have with that is its supposed to somewhat mimick the basilisk’s attack. When they attack you it turns you to stone for at least 3 or so seconds. Maybe theyll increase the duration of stone condition later.

Still would be nice to make elites better or…:0 make us go hunt skills :p that we want which could also help with keeping every area populated more often than not.

Yes underwater Elites need so much work, most classes only have one and it is bad almost across the board.

On the note of skill hunting. What I played in FF11 was a Blue Mage, a class that was somewhat like a GW2 class in the way you built your skill list from options but had the interesting aspect of having to go fight monsters and see them use their skill to learn it for their self. It made a vary open class that allowed for all kinds of builds but had a huge investment of time involved in mastering it. For more on it check out http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Blue_Mage. It was the most rewarding thing I have ever done in gaming, hours of monster hunting and working out ways to force them to use the spell you want, running all over the world looking for that one skill you wanted to help your build. If I had not been banned for some confusion with rebuying when it came for sale on Steam I’d still be doing it.
I’d love to see a class or some aspect of that added into GW2, if there was some kind of Blue Mage class I’d roll it today and never look back.

I’d agree with almost all this. I don’t want something so powerful that it has to be on cooldown for 2 hours but at the same time, as an elementalist, the elite skills are lacking. I only have 1 underwater elite that I don’t even use and the only land based elite I use is the elemental summoning one. And I think something like 80% of elementalists use that same elite skill because the others just aren’t as useful. Tornado maybe once in a while.

I play Engineer. I find Supply Crate is fine as an elite skill; cooldown is appropriate so that it’s always there when I need it, but so that I won’t bust it out unless I -do- need it. Effect is graphically impressive, conceptually impressive, and very useful mechanics-wise. I love it.

I haven’t got much use out of Mortar or Elixir X yet; I’d appreciate someone selling me on their merits.

But in principle I don’t think there’s anything in principle wrong with the current elites, other than that there’s not enough of them to choose from.

Elites are terrible but I think the trouble is they can’t be made powerful without being exploited.

For example if you made norn shapeshift forms do huge damage then people would want groups running with that to speed kill dungeon bosses.

So the real trouble with “elites” is as a concept it just doesn’t work. There’s nothing that can really be done to fix it. They just have to remain in kind of a false position of importance, to some degree or they’d mess up the game balance to kingdom come.

I remember a discussion like this a month ago or so. I suggested that we should be able to stick normal skills in the elite slots since I rarely used the elite.

People were against it, because “that is too powerful”.

That said it all to me.

TurtleofPower.5641:

Elites are terrible but I think the trouble is they can’t be made powerful without being exploited.

For example if you made norn shapeshift forms do huge damage then people would want groups running with that to speed kill dungeon bosses.

So the real trouble with “elites” is as a concept it just doesn’t work. There’s nothing that can really be done to fix it. They just have to remain in kind of a false position of importance, to some degree or they’d mess up the game balance to kingdom come.

As long as the CD on them levels off the usefulness then it’d be fine. Like a long CD means maybe once per run so that you can’t really plan your entire run around your Elites. You can plan ahead and be like “Let’s all use X Elite at the opening of Y boss to make it go faster” and that is fine.

Gehenna.3625:

I remember a discussion like this a month ago or so. I suggested that we should be able to stick normal skills in the elite slots since I rarely used the elite.

People were against it, because “that is too powerful”.

That said it all to me.

Ya as it is now I’d slot in a normal skill in place of my Elite in a heart beat.

I actually disagree.

I’d prefer they WERE just Utilities with slightly longer cooldowns like in GW1.

I really don’t like these long cooldown super skills.

If anything I’d prefer if they made it so you can put any utility skill in the elite slot and turn it into an elite version of that skill.

Good example would be Elementalist’s pet summon utility. Lesser summon in utility slot, greater summon in elite slot, same deal for every other utility.

I have four level 80’s and I’m happy with the Elites on each. The cooldown seems about right for the power of the Elites. This is one area I’d like to see remain an area of minor tweaking rather than revolutionary overhaul. It just doesn’t need it.