Guild Wars 2

What are some guardian utility skills you don’t find yourself ever using and why?

I mostly do WvW and some PvE so the skills I like are with respect to those environments.

Generally speaking,
Meditations/shouts are great for solo or small group play.
Shouts/consecrations are great for group play.

Playing since release I haven’t found reasons to keep signets, except the healing one, or spirit weapons on my skill bar.  Both in a way seem selfish.  Spirit weapons are pretty squishy, and their special skills aren’t so great for the CD.

I’ve never been a fight and afterwards thought that the tides would have turned in my favor if I had been using a spirit weapon or signet.

Shouts and Meditations I use all the time. SYG is hands down one of the best utilities in the game. If you’re using hammer you nearly have to take JI to make up for the severe lack of mobility. Smite condition works well since we really don’t have that much condi cleanse unless we go decently deep into defense/support builds, plus it heals well with Monk’s focus.

You are never in one place for long enough to take advantage of consecrations, plus the CDs on them are way to high.

Spirit weapons are nearly useless except for pve I hear, but in pve I usually run shouts because…ya know…yolo.

Don’t really use signets either since the only tree that you can buff them in, theres better things to take, and shelter for the way I play (front line assault) is a much better option.

I learned somewhere that the Signets are great for new players because you’re not entirely penalizing yourself by not activating your utility skills when you should – the passive effect is still active. I used a Signet build when leveling and felt it really helped me get used to the game. Think of a full Signet build as a training bicycle for GW2.

That doesn’t mean I still don’t use a few of them. Signet of Resolve and Signet of Judgment are good to use, and maybe Bane Signet if you can time the knockdown.

Honestly when in the Mad Realm I should have packed Signet of Mercy to help out the zerg. Truthfully I was carrying Consecrations and latter switched to Shouts. It’s all about how you want to play the Guardian and contribute to other players. AoE Might, Cleansing, and Shouts are all good and dandy. If I brought a Signet for an AoE Rez, no one would have complained and I’d have still kept the zerg going.

Once in awhile when roaming I’ll bring Spirit Sword to help with mobs. What I’m having a hard time justifying unlocking is the Bow, Hammer, and Shield. None seem worth the points when I’m working towards other skills that’d be of more use.

The shield is an absolute lifesaver in some dungeons and in higher level fractals. I use it purely for the missile absorb rather than the special ability (which I agree, is very weak). In fractals like the harpy/dredge/volcano or in dungeons like CM/SE it makes everything much smoother.

The signet that increases condition damage is one that I’ve never used though (ooh, an extra 40 points of damage per second on my burns!). I’ve never used signet of mercy either (most revive skills just take far too long to cast, except warrior’s banner and engi’s elixir).

If you are in mele range you need to have skills on shorter CD in pvp. PVE we don’t seem to have as many issues and have never felt weak. This is where consecrations fail. If your not supporting yourself with a skill every 5-10 seconds, you will die in mele range… possibly because our health is so low. And as a group of skills they don’t seem to help our low health much.

Our Signets are total fail as a group of skills. Their effects seem random at best, for the most part. I personally quite like Judgement but the cast times are all too long on the others. Again there seems to be a misunderstanding of what skills are useful to a mele character. Long cast times are not great for mele in pvp.

Thus we are left with shouts and meds. Both are pretty good. CD is not too bad. Durations could be improved. I’d love an extra Shout… something with the versatility of Hold the Line. Heck if I could slot it twice I would. And HTL is not all that powerful, a relatively weak regen and a protection bonus. But it compensates for our weakness, low health, nicely.

If they addressed the real problems with the unused skills… they might become useful.

The Devs have not addressed the problems with the other 2 types of skills.

Our ultimate skills are not that great. There is no offensive one. The books are clunky at best and when you try to use them you get hammered with CC. Renewed Focus is not as good as the Warriors Shield #5 or Endure Pain. Its hardly an ultimate skill.

The books should not remove access to our Utility skills when we use them. However I doubt that this will change. The only good thing about Renewed Focus is that we get our Virtues back. I use it to recharge them. After popping them. I always felt it was silly that our elite was worse then Endure Pain. But as we can all see how after this last patch Anet plays Warriors and everyone else can deal with it.

We pale in comparison to every class unless it’s group support. We rock at group support however not everyone wants to play group support so they are stuck with being lackluster unless they swap class which should not be the case at all.

I never ever use.

Any Spirit Weapons
Any Signets
Hallowed Ground, Shelter
Merciful Intervention.
Tome of Courage / Wrath
Healing Breeze

Our Spirit Weapons and Signets are utterly terrible compared to other professions.

Trying to make a Spirit Weapon build is hilarious. Need 30 in Zeal, our worst trait line. 10 in Virtues and 20 in Radiance to get the Spirit related bonuses.
Getting all of them moves the damage and duration from pitiful to o.k.
They still have little hp and die far too quickly.
You’re left with a whopping 10 trait points to spend in either Valour or Honour, our two best trait lines.
A Spirit Weapon build is just a joke.

I used to LOVE the glitch that caused ground targeted sanctuary to be near instant cast. It’s not as fun to use now. As by the time I’m trying to save a glass canon teammate from harm he’d already be dead…..

I tend to swap between most utility skills every now and then. Usually i dont use most of the signets ( I use Bane signet for the Knockdown in sPvP). I dont usally use any spirits weapons ( I will occasionally use the Bow for PVE as the active with high heal power heals a ton).

In pve I haven’t found a use for spirit hammer and spirit sword