Guild Wars 2

Hey guys!

I decided to create another topic for the sake of interest and fun, with the theme being “The best and worst skills in the game”. Now, I know the usefulness of a skill can change drastically in various kinds of content, like PvE, WvW, or PvP, so this will be focused mainly in the context of PvE.

The idea is to list what you think is the best and worst skill (for PvE) in each major skill category and why, with the four main categories being weapon skills, healing skills, utility slot skills and elite skills (across all classes). I haven’t included any racial skills, because I think they’re mostly useless anyway, so I focused only on class skills.

As an example, I will list mine here:

Weapon skills

Best: Phoenix (Elementalist scepter skill 3).

Why? Not only does phoenix do quite good aoe burst damage, but it also gives the user 5 seconds of vigor, removes a condition AND acts as a blast finisher. I don’t think there’s any other single weapon skill in the game that brings to much usefulness to the table, and at a relatively low cooldown to boot.

Worst: Hornet’s sting (Ranger 1h-sword skill 2).

Why? There were actually a few skills that came to mind when it came to the topic of “worst weapon skill” but most of the alternatives I thought of, despite being weak, still worked to a degree. Hornet’s sting does work as far as the initial roll back and evade is concerned, but in my experience, the follow-up leap strike NEVER hits its target, even when used from point blank range, which renders this skill largely broken. A broken skill, to me, will always rank lower than any working but weak skill.

Healing Skills

Best: Hide In Shadows (Thief heal skill).

Why? I was actually really torn on this, because there are a few heal skills that are really great, like shelter, ether renewal, and consume conditions to name a few. But to me, Hide in Shadows’ combination of a good heal amount, the removal of some conditions and the bonus regeneration, combined with the fact that it stealths you, was enough to put it slightly ahead of its competitors.

Worst: Litany of Wrath (Guardian heal skill).

Why? The only way to make this healing skill even marginally useful, is to trait the living daylights out of it, and use it in the most absolutely ideal situations. Even then, it’s still outperformed by the guardian’s untraited and more useful alternatives, like shelter.

Utility slot skills

Best: Shadow Refuge (Thief Skill).

Why? Honestly, I think this is very debatable, because there are a lot of super useful slot skills across all classes that can completely change the difficulty of an encounter in PvE. So, I just went with the skill that seemed most universally useful in a variety of situations (as opposed to a more situational skill like wall of reflect, etc). Shadow Refuge can be used to skip mobs in dungeons or even just in world exploration, as a group heal or rescue skill, and as a handy skill to help you or your party revive downed or dead players without risk.

Worst: Spectral Grasp (Necromancer Skill).

Why? I’ll admit, I’m not very experienced with necromancers, but as far as I am aware, this skill was very easy to avoid (thanks to it’s long cast animation and slow projectile speed), or very easily hindered by obstacles. It didn’t seem to be very useful, especially in a PvE situation where other classes sport far superior group pulls.

Elite Skills

Best: Battle Standard (Warrior Skill).

Why? Time warp was also on the cards here, but battle standard just brings so much to the table. The obvious group dps increase and swiftness aside, it also acts as a fast resurrection skill that can resurrect multiple players at once within an area, and can easily save a party from wiping where conventional resurrection is either difficult or impossible (like during Tequatl, or Mai Trin cannon phase, etc).

(EDIT!)

Worst: Mortar (Engineer skill). Changed from Mass Invisibility.

Why? As some have pointed out in the comments, it’s completely useless. XD

Litany of wrath can be useful if you trait meditations to heal. Its really only for solo usee but can give increible healing when needed, giving up to double the healing plus the heal on hit

I would be more interested to see a list of skills that are useless in all game modes first. Some skills might be worthless in PVE but if they work in PVP then they aren’t very bad. However, finding the skills that are completely useless in ALL game types can give some info to the Devs on what to change FIRST.

I’m all for all skills being useful on all game types, but let’s first find skills that are completely useless on every game mode. Also, some skills might not be as useful in general, but they have some uses in other parts of the game, for example most Speed boost signets aren’t very useful in general gameplay, but they are great when you are running to some event in PVE, or when roaming in WvW.

Randulf.7614:

Litany of wrath can be useful if you trait meditations to heal. Its really only for solo usee but can give increible healing when needed, giving up to double the healing plus the heal on hit

Honestly, I have used Litany of Wrath with a pure meditation build, fully traited with monk’s focus and all, and even then, it’s still too situational to be considered a good heal. Shelter will always be the superior choice in just about any situation, and what makes it worse is that I’m comparing a fully traited skill to an untraited skill. O_o

maddoctor.2738:

I would be more interested to see a list of skills that are useless in all game modes first. Some skills might be worthless in PVE but if they work in PVP then they aren’t very bad. However, finding the skills that are completely useless in ALL game types can give some info to the Devs on what to change FIRST.

I’m all for all skills being useful on all game types, but let’s first find skills that are completely useless on every game mode. Also, some skills might not be as useful in general, but they have some uses in other parts of the game, for example most Speed boost signets aren’t very useful in general gameplay, but they are great when you are running to some event in PVE, or when roaming in WvW.

Yeah, I agree that it would be nice to fix completely useless or broken skills (and I’m sure I could come up with a reasonable list in that regard), but the focus of my post was more for interests sake and fun. There are already plenty of posts out there with players pointing out completely broken or useless skills, so there’s more than enough information being offered for devs to act on already (though whether they will or won’t act on them is another question).

Mesmer sword 3, it only works about 1/3 of the time in my experience, which sucks because its an awesome control option when it does work.

My personal favorite skill would be the Arcane heal from the elementalist. Blast finisher damaging heal is very interesting for a 6 option.

For Weapons; Thief’s Leaping Death Blossom is the worst. Body Shot comes close but at least there’s that one single moment it’s useful in wvw when you’re in a huge zerg and someones trying to run to the gate. With many classes even bad skills have use to throw out while things are on CD, but these are skills you always have on your bar and never ever touch. That is straight up awful.

Best weapon skill is Guardian’s Banish because it’s ****ing hilarious ever time I use it in PvP. Every time. Pistol Whip is also pretty amazing in PvE since you stun and evade mindless mobs.

For Healing; Healing Signet. Heal through tons of damage with no effort~ can’t really beat that.

Worst; Either Water Spirit or Blood Fiend. Heals no one uses~ I personally really hate Blood Fiend as it dies easily and offers no condi removal, I’ve always thought it needed some massive buffs.

For Utility; Best may be Smite Conditions on Guard. Drops conditions from you at a low CD, heals you and deals a lot of aoe damages. One of my fav utilities in game. Thief’s Shadowstep would be my favorite if the CD was lower, but it’s almost a must have if you don’t use stealth a lot.

Worst; All Thief Traps. They all need redesigned and their method of adding a rune set to buff them was unnecessary~ just turn those into traits so Thieves can actually be trappers without relying on runes. Even if you do use Trapper runes it’s an absolutely horrendous choice in PvE since enemies have to run over the tiny spot it places and doesn’t work well as aoe.

Elite Skills; Since this is PvE I guess I’d say the best is Fiery Greatsword since it does tons of damage from both you and 1 other player and is great for traveling. Which makes it an amazing PvP escape skill as well. Pretty much impossible to catch the ele once they pull it out.

Worst would be Mass Invisibility since it’s a pvp only skill.

Doggie.3184:

Thief’s Leaping Death Blossom is the worst. Body Shot comes close but at least there’s that one single moment it’s useful in wvw when you’re in a huge zerg and someones trying to run to the gate. With many classes even bad skills have use to throw out while things are on CD, but these are skills you always have on your bar and never ever touch. That is straight up awful.

Best skill is Guardian’s Banish because it’s ****ing hilarious ever time I use it in PvP. Every time.

Daily guardian today, I spent the whole game in mid banishing enemy players out of the fight. Twas beautiful =D
Edit: for best effect, hit the asura.

Sanctuary

The cooldown is far too long for the effect.

TexZero.7910:

Sanctuary

The cooldown is far too long for the effect.

I’ll admit, I actually overlooked sanctuary. It would be pretty high on the list of “worst slot skills”. XD

Best Utility: Mesmer portal, the only skill ive ever played in MMO that has unlimited utility.
Worst Utility: Mesmer Illusion o f life, lol who uses that?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/%22Search_and_Rescue%22

Yea.

Heal Skill
- Best: Healing Turret
- Worst: Well of Blood

Weapon
- Best: Temporal Curtain
- Worst: Fire Shield

Utility (not including Engineer kits)
- Best: Smoke Screen
- Worst: Viper’s Nest

Elite
- Best: Battle Standard
- Worst: Polymorph Moa

A special shout out to Ele’s Tornado. Fun to be a tornado, useless in practice.

Doggie.3184:

Worst; All Thief Traps. They all need redesigned and their method of adding a rune set to buff them was unnecessary~ just turn those into traits so Thieves can actually be trappers without relying on runes. Even if you do use Trapper runes it’s an absolutely horrendous choice in PvE since enemies have to run over the tiny spot it places and doesn’t work well as aoe.

Gah, Thief traps. :\ I don’t even know why they say they hit multiple targets. They’re gone in one tick.
Ranger traps. <3 Decent cooldown time and condition, and they pulse for a few seconds.

Can’t say I’m fond of Thief poisons, either. Longish cooldowns, the effects aren’t overly useful, and autoattack can just eat the charges on one target. I think a redesign so that they’re more like Mantra charges could make them more strategic.

Worst elite skill: Asura race [Power Suit]

Long cooldown, has no purpose, and the in-game description is “lel this is a joke skill”.

Dhemize.8649:

Worst elite skill: Asura race [Power Suit]

Long cooldown, has no purpose, and the in-game description is “lel this is a joke skill”.

Most of the elite transformations are pretty garbage, though. They could have amazekitten skills and still be garbage, because they don’t flow with GW2’s combat style. A fair number of the attacks require you to sit still or won’t move with you as you track a target.

Rauderi.8706:

Doggie.3184:

Worst; All Thief Traps. They all need redesigned and their method of adding a rune set to buff them was unnecessary~ just turn those into traits so Thieves can actually be trappers without relying on runes. Even if you do use Trapper runes it’s an absolutely horrendous choice in PvE since enemies have to run over the tiny spot it places and doesn’t work well as aoe.

Gah, Thief traps. :\ I don’t even know why they say they hit multiple targets. They’re gone in one tick.
Ranger traps. <3 Decent cooldown time and condition, and they pulse for a few seconds.

Can’t say I’m fond of Thief poisons, either. Longish cooldowns, the effects aren’t overly useful, and autoattack can just eat the charges on one target. I think a redesign so that they’re more like Mantra charges could make them more strategic.

Thief venoms are actually quite good, but mostly when traited for. I’d say their use is far more obvious in PvP than it is in PvE though. Sharing a venom with nearby allies, so that each of them can inflict long duration immobilize, torment, chill or petrify is actually incredibly useful, because you give other classes access to forms of control that they might not have actually had access to otherwise.

I think the main mistake that people make with venoms though, is assume they are strictly for condition builds, when in reality they don’t actually offer much in the way of condition damage. They’d work just as well for power builds really and more for the control, healing and might they bring than for any damage.

In PvE though, their use is quite limited.

“worst elite: Mass Invisibility”

You must’ve never heard of Mortar. Mass Invisibility has some use, Mortar is a personal debuff in damage, cannot be moved (enjoy eating aoe), has a deadzone close to the mortar that it cannot target (enjoy getting enemies within melee range), and it’s stupid arch of fire will often cause projectiles to not even reach targets (enjoy seeing your shells collide with tree branches, ceilings, etcetc)

It’s such a bad elite, racial elites are better. And I would take Mass Invisibility over Mortar any day of the week. I’d even come in extra on Saterday and Sunday just to pick Mass Invisibility over Mortar.

I’m surprised no one has talked about signet of vampirism.

Terrahero.9358:

“worst elite: Mass Invisibility”

You must’ve never heard of Mortar. Mass Invisibility has some use, Mortar is a personal debuff in damage, cannot be moved (enjoy eating aoe), has a deadzone close to the mortar that it cannot target (enjoy getting enemies within melee range), and it’s stupid arch of fire will often cause projectiles to not even reach targets (enjoy seeing your shells collide with tree branches, ceilings, etcetc)

It’s such a bad elite, racial elites are better. And I would take Mass Invisibility over Mortar any day of the week. I’d even come in extra on Saterday and Sunday just to pick Mass Invisibility over Mortar.

Actually, I’d blame my overlooking of mortar on the fact that I don’t play Engineer, and thus admittedly don’t know much about their skills. My list was based purely on my own experience and it’s only natural others would have different experiences and thus, different opinions from me. I was actually kinda hoping for that. XD

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Terrahero.9358:

“worst elite: Mass Invisibility”

You must’ve never heard of Mortar. Mass Invisibility has some use, Mortar is a personal debuff in damage, cannot be moved (enjoy eating aoe), has a deadzone close to the mortar that it cannot target (enjoy getting enemies within melee range), and it’s stupid arch of fire will often cause projectiles to not even reach targets (enjoy seeing your shells collide with tree branches, ceilings, etcetc)

It’s such a bad elite, racial elites are better. And I would take Mass Invisibility over Mortar any day of the week. I’d even come in extra on Saterday and Sunday just to pick Mass Invisibility over Mortar.

Actually, I’d blame my overlooking of mortar on the fact that I don’t play Engineer, and thus admittedly don’t know much about their skills. My list was based purely on my own experience and it’s only natural others would have different experiences and thus, different opinions from me. I was actually kinda hoping for that. XD

Mass Invis has lots of PVE uses for intelligent players. It has a shortish CD and lets you skip past lots of stuff. Think it was even mentioned in that rT guide for the profession.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Worst: Mass invisibility (Mesmer skill).

Why? When you consider the low stealth duration and long cooldown of this skill, it just really doesn’t seem that impressive to me.

My issue with MI is that it’s not mass invisibility. I wanted to cloak a zerg. Yes I understand that’s a balance concern but well, how awesome would that be?

Cbomb.4310:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Terrahero.9358:

“worst elite: Mass Invisibility”

You must’ve never heard of Mortar. Mass Invisibility has some use, Mortar is a personal debuff in damage, cannot be moved (enjoy eating aoe), has a deadzone close to the mortar that it cannot target (enjoy getting enemies within melee range), and it’s stupid arch of fire will often cause projectiles to not even reach targets (enjoy seeing your shells collide with tree branches, ceilings, etcetc)

It’s such a bad elite, racial elites are better. And I would take Mass Invisibility over Mortar any day of the week. I’d even come in extra on Saterday and Sunday just to pick Mass Invisibility over Mortar.

Actually, I’d blame my overlooking of mortar on the fact that I don’t play Engineer, and thus admittedly don’t know much about their skills. My list was based purely on my own experience and it’s only natural others would have different experiences and thus, different opinions from me. I was actually kinda hoping for that. XD

Mass Invis has lots of PVE uses for intelligent players. It has a shortish CD and lets you skip past lots of stuff. Think it was even mentioned in that rT guide for the profession.

So does shadow refuge. Only, shadow refuge lasts 3x as long, heals allies, and has half the cooldown of Mass Invisibility. And it’s not even an elite skill. O_o

Sticking with PVE, since thats what the OP is about:

Warrior: best: lots of good stuff but I find Tremor crazy fun to use.
Warrior: worst: Rifle skills and Rampage elite. Pretty awful in PVE and I dont see anyone use this stuff in PVP either.

Ele: best: arcane skills, especially Arcane Brilliance. I <3 how its offensive and a heal.
Ele: worst: since FGS nerf they dont really have any good PVE elites, they’re all meh now.

Ranger: best: I know they’re not technically meta, but I love Hunter’s Call and Call of the Wild
Ranger: worst: even though Spirit of Frost is great, I wish some of the others, especially Water Spirit were made to be better.

Necro: best: Blood is Power is my fav.
Necro: worst: lol um.. pretty much everything except for the handful of stuff even kinda good in PVE.

Guardian: best: Shield of Wrath is my fav. Its so good for so many things it just shames every other OH.
Guardian: worst: close call between some meds (Litany of Wrath) and tomes but.. I think Tome of Wrath and Tome of Courage are just too awful compared to Renewed Focus (or just autoattacking and having no elite)

Thief: best: Pistol Whip is my favorite.
Thief: worst: traps are pretty bad, but I think I hate poisons the most because they give the illusion to newer players that they’re actually helping.

Engineer: best: Jump Shot is pretty fun.
Engineer: worst: the elites. They’re all bad. One is a 50/50 chance at other bad elites, another is worse than those bad elites, and the last one is only used because of how bad everything else is.

Mesmer: best: well executed Temporal Curtain is pretty rewarding, even more-so when its traited.
Mesmer: worst: Illusion of Life, IE: troll rez

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Cbomb.4310:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Terrahero.9358:

“worst elite: Mass Invisibility”

You must’ve never heard of Mortar. Mass Invisibility has some use, Mortar is a personal debuff in damage, cannot be moved (enjoy eating aoe), has a deadzone close to the mortar that it cannot target (enjoy getting enemies within melee range), and it’s stupid arch of fire will often cause projectiles to not even reach targets (enjoy seeing your shells collide with tree branches, ceilings, etcetc)

It’s such a bad elite, racial elites are better. And I would take Mass Invisibility over Mortar any day of the week. I’d even come in extra on Saterday and Sunday just to pick Mass Invisibility over Mortar.

Actually, I’d blame my overlooking of mortar on the fact that I don’t play Engineer, and thus admittedly don’t know much about their skills. My list was based purely on my own experience and it’s only natural others would have different experiences and thus, different opinions from me. I was actually kinda hoping for that. XD

Mass Invis has lots of PVE uses for intelligent players. It has a shortish CD and lets you skip past lots of stuff. Think it was even mentioned in that rT guide for the profession.

So does shadow refuge. Only, shadow refuge lasts 3x as long, heals allies, and has half the cooldown of Mass Invisibility. And it’s not even an elite skill. O_o

If you’re trying to replace a thief on your mesmer you’re playing mesmer wrong.

If you’re going to compare elites to normal utilities I wont deny that one is obvs better, but I’d also add that most elites in this game are incredibly bad and I’d easily replace them with another utility slot.

Cbomb.4310:

Ranger: worst: even though Spirit of Frost is great, I wish some of the others, especially Water Spirit were made to be better.

Oy, spirits. The insufficient uptime on their skills kind of killed it for me. I’d feel better if they decreased the re-cast time by a few seconds, but the current benefits for everything other than frost being maybe once every 10 seconds just doesn’t work for me.

Cbomb.4310:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Cbomb.4310:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Terrahero.9358:

“worst elite: Mass Invisibility”

You must’ve never heard of Mortar. Mass Invisibility has some use, Mortar is a personal debuff in damage, cannot be moved (enjoy eating aoe), has a deadzone close to the mortar that it cannot target (enjoy getting enemies within melee range), and it’s stupid arch of fire will often cause projectiles to not even reach targets (enjoy seeing your shells collide with tree branches, ceilings, etcetc)

It’s such a bad elite, racial elites are better. And I would take Mass Invisibility over Mortar any day of the week. I’d even come in extra on Saterday and Sunday just to pick Mass Invisibility over Mortar.

Actually, I’d blame my overlooking of mortar on the fact that I don’t play Engineer, and thus admittedly don’t know much about their skills. My list was based purely on my own experience and it’s only natural others would have different experiences and thus, different opinions from me. I was actually kinda hoping for that. XD

Mass Invis has lots of PVE uses for intelligent players. It has a shortish CD and lets you skip past lots of stuff. Think it was even mentioned in that rT guide for the profession.

So does shadow refuge. Only, shadow refuge lasts 3x as long, heals allies, and has half the cooldown of Mass Invisibility. And it’s not even an elite skill. O_o

If you’re trying to replace a thief on your mesmer you’re playing mesmer wrong.

If you’re going to compare elites to normal utilities I wont deny that one is obvs better, but I’d also add that most elites in this game are incredibly bad and I’d easily replace them with another utility slot.

The point wasn’t to compare thief to mesmer, but rather to highlight how underwhelming MI is as an elite skill. The reason I personally felt it was bad was because it has such a long cooldown, despite having such a short duration and very little reliability as a utility. 5 seconds of stealth isn’t exactly a lot of time to skip mobs or res a downed or dead player. In a PvE contest, you’d be much better off using Time Warp.

Still, if I were to amend my choice, I’d probably replace MI with Mortar, as someone else pointed out just how bad it was. I still think MI is pretty high on the list of really bad elite skills though.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Cbomb.4310:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Cbomb.4310:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Terrahero.9358:

“worst elite: Mass Invisibility”

You must’ve never heard of Mortar. Mass Invisibility has some use, Mortar is a personal debuff in damage, cannot be moved (enjoy eating aoe), has a deadzone close to the mortar that it cannot target (enjoy getting enemies within melee range), and it’s stupid arch of fire will often cause projectiles to not even reach targets (enjoy seeing your shells collide with tree branches, ceilings, etcetc)

It’s such a bad elite, racial elites are better. And I would take Mass Invisibility over Mortar any day of the week. I’d even come in extra on Saterday and Sunday just to pick Mass Invisibility over Mortar.

Actually, I’d blame my overlooking of mortar on the fact that I don’t play Engineer, and thus admittedly don’t know much about their skills. My list was based purely on my own experience and it’s only natural others would have different experiences and thus, different opinions from me. I was actually kinda hoping for that. XD

Mass Invis has lots of PVE uses for intelligent players. It has a shortish CD and lets you skip past lots of stuff. Think it was even mentioned in that rT guide for the profession.

So does shadow refuge. Only, shadow refuge lasts 3x as long, heals allies, and has half the cooldown of Mass Invisibility. And it’s not even an elite skill. O_o

If you’re trying to replace a thief on your mesmer you’re playing mesmer wrong.

If you’re going to compare elites to normal utilities I wont deny that one is obvs better, but I’d also add that most elites in this game are incredibly bad and I’d easily replace them with another utility slot.

The point wasn’t to compare thief to mesmer, but rather to highlight how underwhelming MI is as an elite skill. The reason I personally felt it was bad was because it has such a long cooldown, despite having such a short duration and very little reliability as a utility. 5 seconds of stealth isn’t exactly a lot of time to skip mobs or res a downed or dead player. In a PvE contest, you’d be much better off using Time Warp.

Still, if I were to amend my choice, I’d probably replace MI with Mortar, as someone else pointed out just how bad it was. I still think MI is pretty high on the list of really bad elite skills though.

Its not a utility. Its an elite.
As I stated, comparing an elite to a utility is flawed in that most elites are pretty awful. MI actually has some uses for intelligent players you can use it leading to a fight, and still swap to TW before a major boss rather than just camp TW and not use an elite until said boss. Good mesmers swap skills pretty consistently :P

I want to submit the Engineer Elite Mortar as the worst.
At least Polymorph Moa can be an advantage when used as a CC (Granted it’s a horrible CC – but still is one!). Mortar quite literally gives every advantage to your enemies and almost none to you as a user!

Have you actually played with a scepter elementalist? If so, how on earth is Shatterstone not up there as the worst skill in the entire game?

It does literally nothing against anything but a completely stationary target, you can actually walk outside its AoE while CRIPPLED! And even against a stationary target it still lowers your DPS as compared to just spamming the crappy autoattack.

Cbomb.4310:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Cbomb.4310:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Cbomb.4310:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Terrahero.9358:

“worst elite: Mass Invisibility”

You must’ve never heard of Mortar. Mass Invisibility has some use, Mortar is a personal debuff in damage, cannot be moved (enjoy eating aoe), has a deadzone close to the mortar that it cannot target (enjoy getting enemies within melee range), and it’s stupid arch of fire will often cause projectiles to not even reach targets (enjoy seeing your shells collide with tree branches, ceilings, etcetc)

It’s such a bad elite, racial elites are better. And I would take Mass Invisibility over Mortar any day of the week. I’d even come in extra on Saterday and Sunday just to pick Mass Invisibility over Mortar.

Actually, I’d blame my overlooking of mortar on the fact that I don’t play Engineer, and thus admittedly don’t know much about their skills. My list was based purely on my own experience and it’s only natural others would have different experiences and thus, different opinions from me. I was actually kinda hoping for that. XD

Mass Invis has lots of PVE uses for intelligent players. It has a shortish CD and lets you skip past lots of stuff. Think it was even mentioned in that rT guide for the profession.

So does shadow refuge. Only, shadow refuge lasts 3x as long, heals allies, and has half the cooldown of Mass Invisibility. And it’s not even an elite skill. O_o

If you’re trying to replace a thief on your mesmer you’re playing mesmer wrong.

If you’re going to compare elites to normal utilities I wont deny that one is obvs better, but I’d also add that most elites in this game are incredibly bad and I’d easily replace them with another utility slot.

The point wasn’t to compare thief to mesmer, but rather to highlight how underwhelming MI is as an elite skill. The reason I personally felt it was bad was because it has such a long cooldown, despite having such a short duration and very little reliability as a utility. 5 seconds of stealth isn’t exactly a lot of time to skip mobs or res a downed or dead player. In a PvE contest, you’d be much better off using Time Warp.

Still, if I were to amend my choice, I’d probably replace MI with Mortar, as someone else pointed out just how bad it was. I still think MI is pretty high on the list of really bad elite skills though.

Its not a utility. Its an elite.
As I stated, comparing an elite to a utility is flawed in that most elites are pretty awful. MI actually has some uses for intelligent players you can use it leading to a fight, and still swap to TW before a major boss rather than just camp TW and not use an elite until said boss. Good mesmers swap skills pretty consistently :P

You’re kinda missing my point now. But okay.

Conncept.7638:

Have you actually played with a scepter elementalist? If so, how on earth is Shatterstone not up there as the worst skill in the entire game? It does literally nothing against anything but a stationary target, and still doesn’t do enough against a stationary target to be worth using. In fact using it actually lowers your DPS as compared to just spamming the crappy autoattack.

Shatterstone at least applies long duration vulnurability to the target, which increase the dps of your group (still not sure if it’s worth the time to cast though and it’s not part of the typical scepter rotation). It’s weak, yes, but I still put it above completely broken skills. I chose hornet sting because the leap attack completely fails to hit its target every single time I use it (in my personal experience). It’s one thing for a skill to be weak, it’s another thing for it to be completely broken to the point where it does next to nothing relative to what it was intended to do. O_o

In any case, why do some people always get so antsy in these topics? Lol. I was just stating my opinion and welcome the opinions of others if they feel differently to me. I don’t see why people have to start adopting such a condescending tone. Do you see me asking others if they play their classes just because they chose different best and worst skills to me? XD

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

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Tenrai Senshi.2017:

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Tenrai Senshi.2017:

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Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Terrahero.9358:

“worst elite: Mass Invisibility”

You must’ve never heard of Mortar. Mass Invisibility has some use, Mortar is a personal debuff in damage, cannot be moved (enjoy eating aoe), has a deadzone close to the mortar that it cannot target (enjoy getting enemies within melee range), and it’s stupid arch of fire will often cause projectiles to not even reach targets (enjoy seeing your shells collide with tree branches, ceilings, etcetc)

It’s such a bad elite, racial elites are better. And I would take Mass Invisibility over Mortar any day of the week. I’d even come in extra on Saterday and Sunday just to pick Mass Invisibility over Mortar.

Actually, I’d blame my overlooking of mortar on the fact that I don’t play Engineer, and thus admittedly don’t know much about their skills. My list was based purely on my own experience and it’s only natural others would have different experiences and thus, different opinions from me. I was actually kinda hoping for that. XD

Mass Invis has lots of PVE uses for intelligent players. It has a shortish CD and lets you skip past lots of stuff. Think it was even mentioned in that rT guide for the profession.

So does shadow refuge. Only, shadow refuge lasts 3x as long, heals allies, and has half the cooldown of Mass Invisibility. And it’s not even an elite skill. O_o

If you’re trying to replace a thief on your mesmer you’re playing mesmer wrong.

If you’re going to compare elites to normal utilities I wont deny that one is obvs better, but I’d also add that most elites in this game are incredibly bad and I’d easily replace them with another utility slot.

The point wasn’t to compare thief to mesmer, but rather to highlight how underwhelming MI is as an elite skill. The reason I personally felt it was bad was because it has such a long cooldown, despite having such a short duration and very little reliability as a utility. 5 seconds of stealth isn’t exactly a lot of time to skip mobs or res a downed or dead player. In a PvE contest, you’d be much better off using Time Warp.

Still, if I were to amend my choice, I’d probably replace MI with Mortar, as someone else pointed out just how bad it was. I still think MI is pretty high on the list of really bad elite skills though.

Its not a utility. Its an elite.
As I stated, comparing an elite to a utility is flawed in that most elites are pretty awful. MI actually has some uses for intelligent players you can use it leading to a fight, and still swap to TW before a major boss rather than just camp TW and not use an elite until said boss. Good mesmers swap skills pretty consistently :P

You’re kinda missing my point now. But okay.

No I get your point. You’re saying 5 seconds of invis for a 1 and a half min cd is underwhelming. I agree, but my point is that comparing it to SR is silly because they’re not even in the same realm (utility vs elite). Rampage, Tornado, Plague, Lich, both Tomes, Bas Venom, Entangle, Mortar, Elixir X, to name a few other elites all range from underpowered to hindering in PVE. You’re calling it the most useless skill for mesmers in PVE and I’m saying that it actually has quite a few uses. I believe the only reason you think this is because of how well recieved TW is for most players.

Hornet’s Sting I mainly find useful as a “leap” skill for crossing gaps that normally wouldn’t be passable (e.g. if you’re trying to break out of the map’s intended playable area). It isn’t very easy to use for that purpose but does work.

For its intended purpose, um… unfortunately it’s not a great dodge since it’s very hard to time well – especially since it doesn’t cancel the combat animation for the sword’s 1-chain. If there’s something I really have to dodge I typically have to either use stamina or weapon swap to something else.

yanipheonu.5798:

A special shout out to Ele’s Tornado. Fun to be a tornado, useless in practice.

It is however great at sending annoying mordrem away from npcs at forts and also away from carriers.

Im told ppl use it in pvp a lot tho? I dont pvp so cant back up its usefulness there

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Conncept.7638:

Have you actually played with a scepter elementalist? If so, how on earth is Shatterstone not up there as the worst skill in the entire game? It does literally nothing against anything but a stationary target, and still doesn’t do enough against a stationary target to be worth using. In fact using it actually lowers your DPS as compared to just spamming the crappy autoattack.

Shatterstone at least applies long duration vulnurability to the target, which increase the dps of your group (still not sure if it’s worth the time to cast though and it’s not part of the typical scepter rotation). It’s weak, yes, but I still put it above completely broken skills. I chose hornet sting because the leap attack completely fails to hit its target every single time I use it (in my personal experience). It’s one thing for a skill to be weak, it’s another thing for it to be completely broken to the point where it does next to nothing relative to what it was intended to do. O_o

In any case, why do some people always get so antsy in these topics? Lol. I was just stating my opinion and welcome the opinions of others if they feel differently to me. I don’t see why people have to start adopting such a condescending tone. Do you see me asking others if they play their classes just because they chose different best and worst skills to me? XD

Well it was rhetorical for one, and not meant to be offensive, I’m pretty sure you’ve played the Elementalist. :P But honestly this is a sore subject for those of us that like the game enough to want to see more than the 1-2 builds per class like we’ve been stuck with since launch. But that seems impossible with so many unusable skills and traits and most of the players not giving a flying crap about how broken the build system is so long as they have a DPS build to maximize their ‘loot’ gain with.

Also, I don’t understand how Shatterstone isn’t completely broken? You literally have to immobilize or chill a target for five seconds or more just for them to be inside the AoE when it goes off. While the maximum starting chill duration is three seconds and immobilize is two. So it takes 40-60% investment in condition duration and/or 2-3 skills before it, to make this one single work, and then its affect is completely pathetic compared to that setup. Furthermore, during that time, your DPS would be worth more than four vulnerability stacks. If it dropped a dozen or more stacks that’d be a different story, but for all that setup, it is just… well… like I said, the worst possibly designed skill I can imagine.

Weapon skills and utilites are too debaable, so I’m just going to jump to healing skills and elite skills.

Best Healing Skill (individual): Healing Signet.
This signet basically define Warrior itself. Without this Signet, Warrior wouldn’t be such a bunky threat. Zero requirement huge passive heal.

Best Healing Skill (group): Healing Turret hands down.
There’re so many usage and possibilities for this skills.
It’s an AOE heal that cleanse condition with only 15 seconds cool down if you pick it up right after healed. It can be used as blast finisher to heal even more, or help blasting other types of useful fields. The tool belt is another water field that you can blast.

Best Elite Skill (individual) : Signet of Rage.
One of the most useful selfish elites :P Useful in most game mode that’re not team oriented. The passive is actually very nice too. (Regen is really fast)

Best Elite Skill (group): Battle Standard.
Sorry I have to pick the same thing again. This skill is just too OP in group situation :P
It can changes the tide in WvW, PvE, AND PVP if used in correct moment. There’s almost never a situation of group fight where this Elite has no uses.

Worst Healing Skill: Water Spirit.
The healing amount is so meh, yet you need to traits just to make it functional, while the function is still minimal. The spirit is also very vulnerable to attacks, and you have to wait for addition CD once they died.

Worst Elite Skill: Mortar hands down.
This Elite is brokenly weak. Immobile, short distance, numerous design flaws.
Almost no-one ever uses this Elite, and it’s useless in all game modes.
Seriously Anet, fix it.

All Classes have Skills, which are either useless somewhere, or simply totally underwhelming, because they don’t seem to be worthy to be called an Elite Skill at all due to way too weak effects or too long Cool Downs.

Same with utility Skills, either too week or too long cool downs to be a worthy “utility” cause of the skill alwasys beign on CD when you would need it and when you don’t need it, then you coudl use it xD
I think Cool Downs are anyways overused as game mechanic
Anet should add an “Exhaustion” System, that should allow players to ignore Cool Downs for say of Utility and Elite Skills, but so more you ignore the CD and skip it by using Utility/Elite Skills, while their CD normally isn’t reachend, it would create Exhaustion for your Character, that could weaken for some time your Character Stats by a certain % value from all stats and disble for example also in that time effects from Buff Items.

That would make Combat in GW2 alot more interestign and quicker, because of players not being forced anymore to wait like a minute or longer, until certain skills can be used again.
Exhaustion could be then also a parameter, which could the game could be balanced around, like it gets done with currently Cool Down Time,s so that each skill exhausts you by a different amount to balance the Exhaustion if you ignore one skill’ Cool Down to use it, when you need it. The remaining CD at the moment, when you skip the CD could be also used as a balancing factor for Exhaustion.

However, I get offtopic, but I just wanted to share this brainstoming idea I had in my mind now just from reading the first few posts…
——

I will speak only for the Thief now, but the Thief has alot of underwhemling skills.

Especially the Underwater Skills need some buffs. Alot of their utility SKilsl are just too useless, if you don’t go the route of 100% traiting for just one specific build that makes full usage only of that one single utility skil ltype only >.> what is bad trait design if you ask me and is something, for that the upcoming Specialization System is much better for, than the simple and more unflexible Trait System, that forces you to use specific traits, just to have more or less usefull utility skills at all …

Alot of the Thief Utility SKilsl would be better, if Anet merged them with some of the Signet Utility, to merge the passive effects of the signets with the active effects of some other utility skills so thattheir signats have a much better and meaning ful impact in a combat, when you activate those signets, because most of the time the passive effects of the signets are much more useful for the thief, than to activate the signets at all … unless that one, that heals underwhemlingly just 1 single condition, where there should exist a trait, that should improve for example this signets ability to cure conditions by increasing it from 1 to 3 conditions for example, if you use the skill at 0 endurance, so that every refilled endurance bar cures 1 more condition then with such a trait, so that the skill rewards the player with a boost in effectiveness, when you use the skill at the most perfect time where it can unleash also its full potential of is 100% endurance refill effect.

Thiev Venoms and Traps imo belong removed from the roster of utility skills and completely exchanged with new utility skills. Venoms and Traps should be redesigned gameplay mechanics for upcoming Thief Specializations for F-Skills, because then would be Anet able to make usage alot better of the gameplay potential, that Venoms and Traps could offer for Thieves, but as utility Skilsl with a bad trait system, that forces you to skill totally only on one utility skill type to make that skill type useful at all, is just a bad build for a character, that makes you lose too much effectiveness in too many other aspects of the Thief Class as also limits only the build diversity too in regard with what weapons you should use best as a stay with this kind of super utility skill focused builds, instead of experimenting more with all kinds of weapon combinations around, what would be more possible, if traps and venoms wouldn’t be utility skills that need to be traited first to be effective.

As healing skills go I think Signet of Vampirsm and Water Spirit might need to be looked at as they make litany look tier 1

Warrior Hammer, Sword (Main Hand).

Lazaar.9123:

I’m surprised no one has talked about signet of vampirism.

And

Bran.7425:

As healing skills go I think Signet of Vampirsm and Water Spirit might need to be looked at as they make litany look tier 1

I wouldn’t mind if Anet made Signet of Vampirism better becouse that is my favorite and best healing skill on my Minion Master. It’s atleast way better than ‘Summon Blood Fiend’.

All venoms
All thief traps(shadow trap is ok for speeding up some sections of dungeons but doesn’t really matter in the long run, ambush is ok for killing harder mobs solo)
Caltrops
Scorpion wire
Also all useless in PVP besides basilisk venom.

I’m Rng.

Rapid Fire is beautiful.

I love you Rapid Fire.

Everything else is terribly useless except healing. I used the other skills when I was on my PvE trek up to level 80 but it felt kinda like I had to force myself to. Like look extra careful for an opportunity. But at level 80 there’s no longer any use for Hunter’s Shot, Point Blank Shot, or Barrage.

I mostly WvW these days. Just Rapid Fire and healz.

Shiyo.3578:

All venoms
All thief traps(shadow trap is ok for speeding up some sections of dungeons but doesn’t really matter in the long run, ambush is ok for killing harder mobs solo)
Caltrops
Scorpion wire
Also all useless in PVP besides basilisk venom.

I find devourer venom very useful in PvP actually. A potential 6 second immobilize that you can also share with allies (if traited) is pretty potent.

Scoprion wire is largely useless in PvE, I’d agree… but it’s really fun to pull players off walls in WvW with it. XD

Just a few comments on people’s responses.

Litany of Wrath isn’t all that bad on it’s own, the only reason it’s bad is that by comparison to the other options it simply isn’t enough to use over them. Shelter is just so good, and Signet heal has some niche uses as well. A fully traited Litany could be awesome if it weren’t for Shelter doing such a good job.

Sanctuary is a long reuse but it’s also very powerful. There are a few bosses in dungeons for example that can be dealt with quite wonderfully with the use of this ability.

Devourer Venom is great for immob on something like Tar in Arah, niche use yes, but I just can’t call something that even has 1 niche use objectively bad when there are skills that simply should never be used.

Scorpion Wire again has a lot of niche uses for positioning, likely going to fall into the bad category with the defiance changes though

Mass Invis is another that has a lot of uses when a thief isn’t around. I can think of quite a few dungeon/fractal situations where it’s nice to have a mesmer slot it when a thief isn’t around.

If I had to choose a worst skill it’d be something like Mortar, which simply doesn’t really help in any situaiton that I’ve found more than alternatives. My only thought on where it might be useful to me is soloing Arah p2, though I haven’t even tried because I can use a consumable to drop one where I’m thinking and then I get to use my Supply Crate. Then maybe Asura’s Power Suit which is incredibly clunky and performs terribly even if you do use it well.

There are many underwhelming and largly unused skills, but then there are skills that are just terrible and have no use, those are the skills I’d label as Worst.

Dont like the sword skill 1 on ranger..if it is set, no dodging can be made..also it tends to leap toward an enemy but sometimes it makes you jump of a cliff…very hurting to say the least XD

I really just wonder why there are still so many elites (read: ELITES) skills which are so horrible no one uses. I am not even talking about the absolute horrible racial elite skills out there which I wonder the devs wasted time on it.

No it is about the absolute abysmal skills like mortar, rampage, the two tomes etc. who no single serious player uses. Yeah there may be some very situational moments where maybe one oft the tomes is useful, but really. Why don’t they change this? What the hell is with this horrible Mortar?

There are skills no one uses ever – especially in PvE. Venoms, most traps, racials, etc. Why don’t they change this? Why don’t they split pve and pvp?

Ele’s Mist Form when downed. You get three seconds to move to different place, and the enemies you’re trying to get away from just follow you anyway. It’s useless.

Tachyon.5897:

Ele’s Mist Form when downed. You get three seconds to move to different place, and the enemies you’re trying to get away from just follow you anyway. It’s useless.

The idea is to get to an ally quicker for rezzing ather than to get our of ham’s way.

In reality…an ally goes to rez the ele and then the ele hits mist form and the rezzer facepalms

:D