Guild Wars 2

Can someone give me an overview of the elites? What are their strengths and weaknesses? In what situations are they useful in? Thank you for your answers.

Lich is basically super-damage mode. Useful for power builds, you jump into it, it gives you huge damage for the duration, and since it increases your base stats, anything that you have in the world that scales off those is increased, such as wells.

Weakness is no condition cleansing, and everyone in PvP will target you, in PvE very few weaknesses, besides no access to healing.

Flesh Golem is a general utility skill. He has fairly high damage, cripples on hit, and his active is a charge where he runs in a straight line, knocking down/around anyone he hits, and dealing damage. If he runs into something, he will continue charging and doing damage/CCing, but will not move, making him very strong against structures.

Weakness is that he can be killed and kited, his charge often bugs out and “catches” on things, making him not hit, and his AI sometimes bugs and he doesn’t attack.

Plague is a tanking/condition control skill. It increases your base survivability stats by a ton, applies poison AoE, and either bleeds, cripples/weakness, or blinds, in AoE every second. Almost always used for the blind, it can completely shut down the offense of everyone in the radius for the duration. Also synergizes with Chilling Darkness, applying lots of Chill.

No condition cleansing, or any healing on your own. It is also really easy to walk out unless you use the cripple or having chilling darkness.

Also both transforms kill all your minions, and don’t allow you access to your normal skills.

Plague is suited mainly for condi builds but also offers some mass cc in the form of constant blind (chill) or weakness.
Lich form is mainly for power heavy builds and provides some impressive numbers with a higher dps than a full dmg life blast on a 30/10/0/0/30 build.
Flesh golem is a pet (duh!) which provide a constant dps that is irelevant from your focus, (power or condi) with an active skill that has high damage and CC on the form of knockdown.

Although Plague and Lich form are a bit oriented , for dps, on condi / power that doeswn’t mean that you shouldn’t use them on builds focues on the other type of damage.E.G. Lich on condi build and plague on power builds to spice things up a bit.

Flesh Golem

Pros - Low cool down at only 60 seconds. Has an even lower secondary cool down of only 30 seconds when summoned. Secondary source of damage. Has a strong CC effect that can hit multiple targets if lined up properly. Will absolutely obliterate stationary targets (siege, supply barrels, weapon racks) that condition builds have difficulty in damaging.

Cons - Its a minion. Suffers from the same AI and pathing problems that all other minions suffer from. Easily killed even after the buff to its HP. Can become a liability if facing another condition build necromancer who is smart about using epidemic. Cannot be used under water.

Lich Form

Pros - Extremely high direct damage output. Increased all stats for 30 seconds. One of only two sources of long lasting stability.

Cons - You become a massive HIT ME sign when you transform. Using any of the other 4 abilities will actually lower your DPS output, however, ability 3 and 5 still has its uses and is worth using in those situations. Will kill all your minions if you have any out. You cannot generate Life Force while transformed. Long cool down at 3 minutes. Cannot be used under water.

Plague Form

Pros - Extremely durable, especially when using the blind form. With bleed duration, can stack up to 10 stacks of bleeds on multiple targets at once with the bleed plague if they remain near you quickly and easily. One of only two sources of long duration stability.

Cons - Without bleed duration, bleed plague is not worth using. Very low damage output. Will kill all your minions if you have any out. You cannot generate Life Force while transformed. Long cool down at 3 minutes. The number 3 ability is completely useless and over shadowed by the number 2 ability, as it is better to make your target miss completely than to reduce its damage by half.