Guild Wars 2

What use are the various teleport skills? (Elementalist Lightning Flash. Mesmer Blink. Necromancer Necrotic Traversal. Thief Shadowstep. etc.)

As utility skills, they wont allow you to teleport to anyplace that you can’t normally access on foot without jumping or swimming. So they are no good for assisting on Jumping Puzzles or otherwise getting to difficult spots. More often than not, I don’t move an inch and that skill slot is useless until the teleport recharges.

As combat skills, they do very little for getting you out of a bind that dodging doesn’t already do. My Guardian’s #2 sword skill teleports her to her foe (from a whopping aggro range of 600), but the only advantage I can see is that it blinds her enemy. Only in rare instances can she use it to avoid an AoE. More often, I’ll lose track of what direction I’m facing when the camera shifts, and on occasion I’ll get stuck inside a piece of scenery (I’ve learned to be very careful where I use it).

So I ask you: what are teleports good for? Does anyone use them to an advantage in some way? Why should I ever equip one of these skills? Teleporting sounds cool, but I have rarely found a use for it in this game due to the (usually) limited range and the (always) restrictive rules about where I can teleport.

They are extremely good for closing or creating gaps in PvP, and also a good escape mechanism in WvW.

I have never found a legitimate use for them in any situation.

There’s a corridor in CM. At the end of the corridor, there are three bandits. One of them is a saboteur. Two of them are snipers that do more damage to moving characters. On the side are open doors that have flame turrets. A lot of new groups wipe in that corridor.

I used a combination of feedback, blink and portal to get less experienced guildies past that corridor without fighting at all.

In the boulder section of CoF path 1, there are rolling rocks you have to time. Mesmers often use blink to get past them and then use portal to get the rest of the party past.

It’s a situational skill that’s not good in every situation. But there are places in the game where it is useful.

Nice. Cheers, love learning new things.

ummm… Teleporting is a massive aid in combat. Especially in PvP.

Mechanically, they can’t let you teleport anywhere you want —it would be too game breaking.

In fact, I believe that one of the strengths (pre-September patch) of the S/D Thief was that they had an escape teleport in almost every situation. Combine that with Steal (sadly, it seems to be bugged atm), Infiltrator’s Signet and Shadow step.

Mesmers also have teleports that help them massively. Phase retreat is on a short cooldown, if you know how to do the 180 turn quickly, it can turn into a mini forward blink (or you could select a target behind your character and it would also make them teleport forward.) Blink is almost always on my utility, which can also be traited.

Elementalists have lightning flash. It’s a good utility, but it’s on a longer cool down. It’s nice to have, and I usually have it on my utility bar almost all the time too.

It lets you re-position your character instantly, and also allows you to skip field effects like Ring/Line of Warding and Unsteady Ground (which would be unpassable unless you have stability).

A thief is chasing me. I run to the edge of a <insert structure> and Lightning Flash across the gap to the other side. The thief Heartseekers into the pit and loses me as he walks the long way around.

Wolfheart.1938:

They are extremely good for closing or creating gaps in PvP, and also a good escape mechanism in WvW.

Okay… I suppose I should have specified PvE, sorry. Any reason I should ever equip a teleport skill in PvE?

Hamfast.8719:

Wolfheart.1938:

They are extremely good for closing or creating gaps in PvP, and also a good escape mechanism in WvW.

Okay… I suppose I should have specified PvE, sorry. Any reason I should ever equip a teleport skill in PvE?

Honestly they are useful for anything including PvE if you know how to use it.

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Honestly they are useful for anything including PvE if you know how to use it.

Yeah, that’s what I’m asking. How can I use teleportation to good effect as either a combat or utility skill? Got a more concrete example than “anything”?

Hamfast.8719:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Honestly they are useful for anything including PvE if you know how to use it.

Yeah, that’s what I’m asking. How can I use teleportation to good effect as either a combat or utility skill? Got a more concrete example than “anything”?

What my post doesn’t count? lol

Scroll up.

Teleports can be used to get to places faster because most of the time you just don’t care about fighting. In open world, you can use teleports (by targeting far away foes) to avoid getting into combat whenever you aggro nearby foes (getting into combat = slower movement which you want to avoid).
Also, many of the skills you listed breaks stun.

Hamfast.8719:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Honestly they are useful for anything including PvE if you know how to use it.

Yeah, that’s what I’m asking. How can I use teleportation to good effect as either a combat or utility skill? Got a more concrete example than “anything”?

Passing over ground AoEs without touching them, creating a gap from melee mobs or players, bridging a gap to mobs or players if you’re using melee skills, creating a gap from ranged mobs or players, so that you can reach a place to line-of-sight them.

I think the reason Dreamy says “anything” is because the possibilities are highly situational (and thus, are kind of hard to tabulate). You aren’t necessarily going to find it in a regular rotation of abilities, but you can find some neat uses for it.

Vayne.8563:

Hamfast.8719:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Honestly they are useful for anything including PvE if you know how to use it.

Yeah, that’s what I’m asking. How can I use teleportation to good effect as either a combat or utility skill? Got a more concrete example than “anything”?

What my post doesn’t count? lol

Scroll up.

Yeah Vayne has some great suggestion on this.
However the best way to learn is through understanding basic combat mechanics and making builds.

Here’s my combat guide I recommend you check this out with all videos to learn how skills work in it’s best used. While it doesn’t address Teleport specifically, it generalizes the entire combat mechanics in catagorize so you could learn how to use them properly in combat situations:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/GW2-Combat-system-101-Guide/first

Labjax.2465:

Hamfast.8719:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Honestly they are useful for anything including PvE if you know how to use it.

Yeah, that’s what I’m asking. How can I use teleportation to good effect as either a combat or utility skill? Got a more concrete example than “anything”?

Passing over ground AoEs without touching them, creating a gap from melee mobs or players, bridging a gap to mobs or players if you’re using melee skills, creating a gap from ranged mobs or players, so that you can reach a place to line-of-sight them.

I think the reason Dreamy says “anything” is because the possibilities are highly situational (and thus, are kind of hard to tabulate). You aren’t necessarily going to find it in a regular rotation of abilities, but you can find some neat uses for it.

This is exactly what I mean!
Thank you!

Hamfast.8719:

Wolfheart.1938:

They are extremely good for closing or creating gaps in PvP, and also a good escape mechanism in WvW.

Okay… I suppose I should have specified PvE, sorry. Any reason I should ever equip a teleport skill in PvE?

In COF P1, there is a particular annoying corridor that can be made MUCH EASIER with a Mesmer blinking over and setting portals.

Lots of uses of Blink / Shadowsteps during CM to be able to traverse without harm.

Suppose you just used up the 2 dodges and boss just did another aoe on you?
Blink / Shadowstep gets you safely away just enough time for your dodges to regen.

Its the kind of skill that you don’t use often, but when you do need it, you’ll LOVE it.

Blink isn’t bad for getting out of Lupi’s green dome if you get caught in it either.

I click it every time it’s off cooldown while mapping, simply because it gets me where I am going, faster.

-Teleportation is indeed situational. That’s why one can change skills between fights. (e.g. the Cliffside fractal has many spots where you can skip some of the scaffolding through clever aiming.)
- As mentioned above, many teleport skills are stun breakers, which lets you break stun and get out of the way. Normal stun breakers would often require to dodge right away to avoid an enemy’s following attack.
- I always advice players learning a new class to carry one of those on an easy to reach panic button key. However, if you’re clicking your skills, then it’s mostly pointless since by the time you reach down, click your teleport skill, aim it and fire it, your face will probably already be smashed.
- In the case of the thief’s Shadowstep skill, it’s basically a double stun breaker and triple condition remover on a 50 second cooldown. That’s a pretty good deal when you don’t know what you’re getting into content-wise.

I’m strictly an Open World PvE player.
Other than the above-mentioned use for “mapping zones a little quicker” (I call these mappers “runners”, and I loathe encountering them for several reasons), I cannot think of any situations in OW-PvE where they were of any significant use.

Because of their not really having any usefulness that I’ve encountered, I rarely even activate them.

I imagine there are select areas within iPvE (instanced/dungeons) and the PvP modes (WvW & sPvP) where they can be of use. I do not play those areas, but some of the above-mentioned uses do seem reasonable to me.

theguildless.1386:

-However, if you’re clicking your skills, then it’s mostly pointless since by the time you reach down, click your teleport skill, aim it and fire it, your face will probably already be smashed.

I bind mine to the Mouse 5 side button on my mouse and disabling the option to see target reticle before activating skill. This means i can easily have a panic button to press whenever i needed it.

Snowmoon.1758:

theguildless.1386:

-However, if you’re clicking your skills, then it’s mostly pointless since by the time you reach down, click your teleport skill, aim it and fire it, your face will probably already be smashed.

I bind mine to the Mouse 5 side button on my mouse and disabling the option to see target reticle before activating skill. This means i can easily have a panic button to press whenever i needed it.

Of course, this is what I mentioned in that first part you left out. We are just talking about different clicking here; skill clicking more often than not refers to interacting with your skill bar with your mouse pointer.

Binding extra mouse keys to such things is indeed a very good thing to do!

Apart from the mentioned CM and CoF:

• Blinking past lasers in CoE.
• Blinking out of Subject Alpha’s AoE if you team was bad at stacking and you’re out of dodges.
• Skipping in TA, especially Fw.
• Avoiding gravelings, recovering from knockbacks, and moving fast to graveling burrows in AC.
• Blinking half-way through the hot room in Thaumanova fractal and dropping a portal.
• Escaping from mobs when carrying hammer between the arm seals in Cliffside fractal.
• Skipping shockwaves, AoEs, closing gaps in Flame and Frost, Mai Trin, Maw fractals.
• Generic stun breaking.
• Keeping up with a group in champ trains, map exploration.

Possibilities are countless.

I have blink as I play PvE and exploring the world even… It is good stun break and you also get away from your enemy as I am fighting at range all the time.

I havent used Lightning flash that much but as you can use it while stunned it is a good way to get away. For a D/D ele I can imagine that it is a good skill to use to get away while in critical health or in a pich.

Shadow Step = Blink.

Necrotic Treversal is a good MM skill at first and it also breaks stun.

If you use melee and the enemy player is almost dead and running away, you can teleport to them to get back in melee range. With a 9 sec cool down to swap weapon back to ranged, it’s good way to finnish them before they heal.

Or the opposite is true also. If you are almost dead, you can get out of range and buy time to heal yourself.

It’s more useful in pvp or wvw.

Quite much what many have pointed out already.

Unfortunately, for PvE, most mobs are trash, so they don’t always create situations where teleporting has great effect, since the trash mobs are too simple and there to just die against the player without forcing player to atleast dodge once to avoid something very critical.

If you kill the mob too fast, combat cannot develop into the other possibilities.

As a Thief using D/P, Shadow Shot lets me jump from one critter to another, going from outside their aggro range to getting the first few attacks in. If things get intense, then I weapon swap to P/D (yes that’s one of my setups) and use Shadow Strike to stab and jump away and start shooting at range.

I would imagine they are good kiting tools and “oh kitten” buttons in pvp

Hamfast.8719:

Wolfheart.1938:

They are extremely good for closing or creating gaps in PvP, and also a good escape mechanism in WvW.

Okay… I suppose I should have specified PvE, sorry. Any reason I should ever equip a teleport skill in PvE?

It really depends on the encounter you are facing and the skill in question. Monsters don’t kite so their usefullness is greatly diminished as far as gap closing goes, and you generally don’t need to kite them either so you generally don’t want to create gaps. However, Guardian’s 2nd sword skill still remains pretty useful for the “spammable” blind, while the other teleports generally work nicely to escape an AoE circle or a mob when you can’t time a dodge or don’t have any left. The only one you should never use outside SPvP is Necrotic Transversal, imo.

Can’t give you any specific examples though, my memory sucks

Vayne.8563:

There’s a corridor in CM. At the end of the corridor, there are three bandits. One of them is a saboteur. Two of them are snipers that do more damage to moving characters. On the side are open doors that have flame turrets. A lot of new groups wipe in that corridor.

I used a combination of feedback, blink and portal to get less experienced guildies past that corridor without fighting at all.

In the boulder section of CoF path 1, there are rolling rocks you have to time. Mesmers often use blink to get past them and then use portal to get the rest of the party past.

It’s a situational skill that’s not good in every situation. But there are places in the game where it is useful.

or you could just run CM with a theif like normal ppl and dont have to run :P

Well… I guess for my play style (no WvW or PvP, and little in the way of Dungeon activity) I can see the occasional use as a way to get past trapped hallways. So I have learned a possible use for temporarily equipping a teleport, although I’ve gone 2 years getting past trapped hallways the old-fashioned way. I have very rarely had occasion in combat to wish I had another escape route (I guess I am good at not letting myself get into those situations very often). I guess I was hoping for more of a PvE use, or something that actually helped on Jumping Puzzles maybe.

But Dungeons are PvE. I think you meant open world uses, at which point I’d argue that damage is the only thing that matters 99% of the time because it’s easy.

As for the jumping puzzle help, I don’t play a thief so I don’t know for sure but doesn’t their 5th skill basically allow you to teleport from platform to platform?

as A thief who’s 95% PvE I use shadowstep all the time. It breaks enemy root skills

hero mcb.8165:

Vayne.8563:

There’s a corridor in CM. At the end of the corridor, there are three bandits. One of them is a saboteur. Two of them are snipers that do more damage to moving characters. On the side are open doors that have flame turrets. A lot of new groups wipe in that corridor.

I used a combination of feedback, blink and portal to get less experienced guildies past that corridor without fighting at all.

In the boulder section of CoF path 1, there are rolling rocks you have to time. Mesmers often use blink to get past them and then use portal to get the rest of the party past.

It’s a situational skill that’s not good in every situation. But there are places in the game where it is useful.

or you could just run CM with a theif like normal ppl and dont have to run :P

I run CM with my guild and if there’s a thief, great, but I don’t always go and say we need a thief or we’re not going. Because I can handle this on my mesmer, I don’t need a thief. And therefore the four people playing with me can bring any profession they want.

I’d call that a win for everyone.

Hamfast.8719:

Well… I guess I was hoping for more of a PvE use, or something that actually helped on Jumping Puzzles maybe.

What you are looking for is an exploit, and that is a no-no. JPs are not supposed to be easy; hence, the “puzzle”. If you want JPs on easy-mode your best bet is to hire yourself a mesmer and pay them to portal you. I have done every JP in the game, more than once on some, several times on others. Hell, I’ll lead ya through them all for the right amount of coin. (Rubs hands together in a maniacal Mr. Burns fashion)

I use the Blink in PvE for popping over to a downed player (in the blink of an eye) during boss fights, so that I can help them get up and back to fighting.

I have found the Jump shot Engineer skill useful in JP’s!

Hamfast.8719:

Wolfheart.1938:

They are extremely good for closing or creating gaps in PvP, and also a good escape mechanism in WvW.

Okay… I suppose I should have specified PvE, sorry. Any reason I should ever equip a teleport skill in PvE?

Dodging if you are out of stamina comes to mind.

They’re the most useful thing ever in Arah. sb thief is OP in mob skips, even without using stealth =)

I mostly use them for skips and swap them out before combat, but there are instances where teleports are useful while fighting:

• Most are stunbreakers, so you can use them to not only get back on your feet, but out of the way for a damaging attack.
• If you’re meleeing lupi and have to worry about getting domed, they’re lifesavers.
• Good for many other large AoE attacks. Using lupi again as an example, the AoE lifesteal and AoE boogerblasts are super helpful.
• Guardian sword 2 is useful in combat. Sword is excellent DPS so there’s good reason to have it equipped, and it’s a fantastic gap closer. A thief’s stealing ability is good for the same reasons.

But yeah, they’re only situationally useful for PvE combat. If you’re doing story instances or open world, you’ll never have a real compelling reason to use them, other than occasional mobility boosts while running really far.

you could use them to glitch under every single map in gw2

but that was fixed last patch too… worked fine for 2 years :/

apart from that:

VERY useful for pvp/wvw —> positioning (out of bursts / to areas where players without blink skills have to walk around a long way to reach you for example…)

not so useful in PvE
… most likely only in open world to move faster between events

Some jumping puzzles like this one http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Loreclaw_Expanse_ add routes for ele with lightning flash or thief with shadow step. I don’t know if there are others- I will leave reading through each one to you

It’s very good.

On my non-traveler rune guardian, when I swap for zerk, Flashing Blade is fantastic for mobility on either initiation or jumping to a new group or for cleaning up mobs that escaped the AoE carnage.

That’s one of a multitude of examples.

It’s a gap closer which equates to time saver…and it’s fun.

Silly question OP imho.

Hamfast.8719:

…
I guess I was hoping for more of a PvE use, or something that actually helped on Jumping Puzzles maybe.

Blink was very handy for the JP in Cubular Fells. Could be used to get past the spikes but also to get past one of the teleporting sparks to avoid the more difficult jumping section.

Also useful in Loreclaw JP when the rocks fall down on the stairs.

Really any JP with traps.

While there are many good uses for teleports, this video shows my favorite at 3:10-3:50.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-BNryIGVHw