Guild Wars 2

Skills that grant quickness normally come with a penalty, as if quickness were an uber-power that grants you god-like power. Certain traits that grant quickness without any penalty seem like they are worth it, but I have yet to find a utility skill that is worth it. Does anybody roll with a quickness skill?

On release, quickness provided a higher attack speed increase and raw power was the primary way of doing damage. This created one of the first dungeon metas with mesmers being “needed” because of the long duration group quickness and really fast damage. People were downing things way faster than the devs intended (nothing has really changed without it honestly).

In PvP it was a sort of CC power burst meta and there were complaints. So it was deemed that quickness was overpowered by the majority because people felt they could not react quick enough. (maybe a l2p moment as we were all really new at the beginning, so now I think the majority of the player base has the tools and skills to handle this now)

Thus they nerfed it so hard no one uses it anymore. The attack speed is not fast enough to warrant the loss of other utilities atm, unless someone finds a new way to integrate it into a build or group, or the devs re-evaluate the ability.

For PvE, the downsides are all incredibly tame. Warriors bring Frenzy if all banners are slotted and might stacking is taken care of, Rangers bring QZ since there really isn’t anything better to put in the spot, Thieves run Haste since there’s nothing else to go in the spot, and Mesmers bring Time Warp, because it’s essentially 5 seconds worth of damage from the party (and obviously better than Moa Morph).
For PvP, it’s very rarely worth bringing.

Not much else for Mesmers to take as an elite in PvE. Some Rangers use Quickening Zephyre. Warriors with sword/sword and the new GM trait that makes you attack faster is pretty funny with whatever that quickness stance is called.

Edit: Ah you beat me to it Da Sonic, you must’ve had Quickness

Some leeked notes hinted at a new elementalist trait that would grant quickness on attunements. Sadly, these notes were false…

Xillllix.3485:

Some leeked notes hinted at a new elementalist trait that would grant quickness on attunements. Sadly, these notes were false…

We got superspeed on attuning to air though.