Guild Wars 2

Imagine that the tornado and FGS nerf are already in place – unintended functionality is gone.

If anet let you put a 4th utility skill in your elite slot, with a 150 second cooldown, would you consider it?

I think I might. I’m struggling to think of an elite skill I’d want to take to WvW once these changes hit, and the idea of having an additional utility seems very attractive.

Interested in what other people think. The fact that I’m considering this has really brought home to me how bad elementalist elite skills are – they’re meant to be powerful one shot skills, but in reality most of them are dead weight, I’d probably pick a crippled utility skill over most of them.

Ofc i would. Our Elites will be trash if FGS becomes as bad as fire staff skills.

Our elites are trash outside of using them for their so called “unintended functionality”. Elite skills should change the tide of battle, like Moa Morph for example. None of ours fit that. So yes, in a heartbeat, i’d slot another utility instead if we were allowed. Pretty sad that as trashy as most of our utilities are, I’d still rather use one of them than our elites. That just shows what a bad state alot of ele skils are in and how the dev team has no clue what they’re doing.

Yes. It should be a choice.

We need a short cooldown elite which is useful. Or a long timered one which is REALLY useful. All we have now is tornado (which is being nerfed), the elemental, which is terrible, and FGS, which is being nerfed, and only serves as a device to run away.

There are no really useful one which benefit your group or you directly in a winning a fight.

tbh, moa morph is grabage

i would call time warp the gamechanger if u even gonna think about taking one of these 2 as elite on mes

In some cases, I would

i would gladly fill my elite slot with another signet, because signets are more valuable to me than any of our elites. let that sink in for a minute.

Forgotten Legend.9281:

i would gladly fill my elite slot with another signet, because signets are more valuable to me than any of our elites. let that sink in for a minute.

^This.

Forgotten Legend.9281:

i would gladly fill my elite slot with another signet, because signets are more valuable to me than any of our elites. let that sink in for a minute.

How else am I going to get Signet of Air into my build?

In wvw/pve no way, the mobility is just too useful. Pvp I definately would, either a fourth cantrip or maybe a different conjure would be interesting

Even better would be if fgs was reworked to be good in a pvp setting, but thats unlikely. I always thought a conjured greatsword would be you know, a melee weapon, like a super saiyan version of a d/d build that people would actually be afraid of if they saw it

If fgs gets a noticeable nerf towards its mobility aspect… then yes for wvw.

if it gets nerf towards damage (including the wall rush dmg) then no for wvw but yes for pve.

if it gets nerf or buff in any way then yes for spvp

I’ve always wanted to run 4 Cantrips on my utility bar <3

Although our elites are mediocre and we have better utility skills that we could use in place of them, we still don’t know the functionality improvements/ buffs coming to FGS and tornado, so we can’t answer this question yet.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’d definitely use my elite for a utility. You could almost argue it would be overpowered, but I’d disagree (see Basi Venom).

They can do whatever they want to FGS. I made a norn ele for the stealth. I can almost always escape using my weapon skills and terrain anyways.

Duh

Heck, even now I’d put my speed signet in the elite.

if fgs gets nerferd hard enough then yes i would gladly take a 4th utility over any of our elites

i would swap any ele elite for a 4th utility in a heart beat.

our elites are so poor that I’d gladly swap to an utility anytime

Tbh I probably would use FGS even if it had only skill 3 and 4 and they did 0 damage. I need the mobility as a scepter/focus ele to avoid getting run over by zergs in WvW. Dueling or bunker mode I would of course use another utility that works with my build, i’d probably add cleansing fire into my bar or signet of water.

I’d have chosen another utility even with the current (pre-nerf) elites. Ele elites are terrible.

most definately.

Considering Eles are the most intelligent class, this should be an option.

I think it’d be cool if the slot the skill was placed in changed it’s cooldown/power, first slot being quicker/weaker and last slot having a big % extra cooldown/effect.

Then any skill could be elite ^^

emikochan.8504:

I think it’d be cool if the slot the skill was placed in changed it’s cooldown/power, first slot being quicker/weaker and last slot having a big % extra cooldown/effect.

Then any skill could be elite ^^

That’s actually a very unique idea. It’ll never be implemented but it could be so cool for game builds.

I’d like an Elite MS with smaller radius.

Almost every class would rather have a 4th utility than an elite. This isn’t just an ele thing but rather has to do with how meh an lackluster elites are in general

From day 1 ele has never had good elite skills but all of there utility skills are borderline elite level. That is the give and take of balancing for the ele class.

In answer to the OP, yes.

Would you swap your elite for a utility slot?
lots of professions in this game would. . .

Sadly, yeah. With a few exceptions, elites in this game just don’t feel elite. As a dungeon goer were lucky that we had a great option in FGS but it was only useful because it was broken. Hopefully FGS will receive buffs to make it the powerful offensive weapon that it should have been in the first place. It looks like FGS will be purely a mobility function now. I’ll probably end up using the glyph, even though I find it pretty boring.

Rypo Falem.8913:

Sadly, yeah. With a few exceptions, elites in this game just don’t feel elite. As a dungeon goer were lucky that we had a great option in FGS but it was only useful because it was broken. Hopefully FGS will receive buffs to make it the powerful offensive weapon that it should have been in the first place. It looks like FGS will be purely a mobility function now. I’ll probably end up using the glyph, even though I find it pretty boring.

The new trick with the glyph pet elite may make it one of the best elite in the game for pve and spvp sadly not for wvw unless its small numbers. I think its on a 15 sec cd for the pet to use a skill. There also a lot that the pet can do to earth i think is a stomp that cripples and give protection air is a stun water is a heal and a condition removal and fire is a big hit.

I can’t shake the feeling that while allowing a 4th utility will be nice for eles, it might be a bit too great for certain other professions.

i disagree, i mean.. it’s not like their free win buttons are going to turn into a free free win button    .__.    right?

Almost everyone would swap the elite for an utility since release in WWW, soon even in PvE

I would. I already addressed this issue at launch

A way for me to run Signet of Running Faster AND free up a utility slot? In a heartbeat. Our elites were useless at release, and they’re going back to being useless now.

Definitely. I’d gladly swap out any of our elites for Arcane Shield for an extra ohkitten utility in WvW.

According to these posts I would start worry if I were in Anet shoes… Most responders would switch elite to utility (me included), that obviously points out how useless and garbage our elites in fact are, lol.

I would so change my elite skill for an utility slot. Yeah i really don’t see the “point” in the elite. There like a far cry from being elite. Some skill might be nice to cast, or were “past tense” to cast – but now…meeh.
Not really worth it especially in some occasions. Especially the racial elite skills – super useless..apart from some exceptions.

^Pointing out the obvious that anet doesn’t gave a kitten about what the players think.

But yes, I would def use a utility as my elite after nado gets nerfed.

I would for some builds! But then I definitely would on almost all other classes too. :P

Amethyst Lure.5624:

I would for some builds! But then I definitely would on almost all other classes too. :P

Warrior – Banner
Necro – Plague, Lich Form
Mesmer – Time Warp, Mass Invis (depending on what you’re doing)
Guardian – All 3 are useful and commonly used in WvW
Thief – Dagger Storm, sometimes Thieves Guild if in smaller groups or roaming

Ranger I’m not familiar with, so I’m not sure how useful Entanglement or Rampage are in large-scale WvW. Not sure about engi’s elites either.

Other than these two, though, every other class has viable (and in every case except maybe Dagger Storm, highly asked for in zerg play) elites for WvW. If you think these are useless and not worth slotting like Tornado and FGS will be, you’re doing something wrong. You really can’t compare the lack of viability of what an elementalist’s elites will become to the viability of other class’ elites.

There literally will be no reason to take any elite for large-scale WvW after these nerfs.

Yes some of those are true, but even on mesmer, I can see some utilities that are better in some situations. Being able to add Veil, portal, signets or whatever on top of a different setup would be really awesome. Ranger has good elites, imo, and otherwise I agree with what you said.

I kinda agree that elementalist has a bit bland elites, except for pretty niche stuff, but I really think the FGS nerf is needed for the game to evolve to be honest. They need to look at the elites beyond this change, and improve them accordingly.

If I could run Signet of Air for the movement speed without dropping one of my ABSOLUTELY VITAL cantrips I’d do it in a heart beat. No elite has a consistent use to me.

I’d also definitely consider Mist Form to have a four cantrip build. Imagine the survivability!

Or Cleansing Fire for a little extra condi-cleansing when I’m dealing with necromancers since right now I have to run with fairly little condi-clear due to my offensive build. I was so sad when it stopped being a stun breaker because I need three stun breakers to stay alive.

Oh! Or Arcane Wave for an extra blast finisher!

It’d open up so many possibilities.

Indeed. Would be a very small change implementation-wise, for a huge gain in build depth.

mist + flash + arcane wave + signet of air, i would rule the world with that <3
(well probably cleansing fire instead of wave, beeing too greedy on dps is bad ^^)

I would swap my elite for a donut or a nice chesseburger

Kind of, yeah. I run a Cleric ele, and there are times I wish I could add Cleansing Flame, Signet of Air or Arcane Blast to my utility lineup, but Arcane Shield, Ice Bow, and Renewal Glyph are needed a lot more to me. I find myself using Ice Bow more than I use FGS, anyway >.>

I’ve been saying this for months now. I don’t care if they made a new elite skill for the Ele that literally let you map another Utility on for 1.5x the CD as well. Just give us something than the trash we have.