Guild Wars 2

There’s nothing worth complaining about here. The mine was and still is awesome.

It doesn’t take 2 GCDs to activate. Detonating is instant, you can even do it while stunned.

It’s decent damage, in an AOE, plus a knockback (still AOE) and a blast finisher, which it still is on a short cooldown for a utility skill, especially for one with so many uses.

The Toolbelt skill isn’t great, mainly because of how unpredictably the mines spread. The only change they made was to remove the blast finisher on the toolbelt skill, which is not a big deal, because it was hard to even take advantage of unless you were deliberately using it for planned combo stacking. It should be easy to see why an instant 5X combo finisher (blast finisher, too, which is arguably the best) could cause balance problems.

TL;DR Mine Kit is great, and you’re crazy for suggesting it isn’t.

Elixir U toolbelt is the one that upsets me the most. I want to like it. But I want to have one situation where I can reliable use it. I don’t mind having the combos generated be random and incidental. Two out of three of the effects block projectiles, which is useful. Wall of reflection reflects, smoke screen blocks and has a better combo effect. That’s a reasonable balance. But the veil that grants stealth has totally different uses. Not only can I not use it as protection from projectiles, in order for it do anything useful I have to run through it, which is very contrary to what I want to do in a scenario where I’m trying to protect myself from projectiles. The only time it’s consistently good to toss Elixir U is when I’m being chased by ranged enemies. The best possible use has a 1/3 chance of being something totally different.

If I could use it in a certain situation and be confident it would do something similar no matter what, I’d be happy.

I’ve been using a well build in sPvP and the siphon health trait is actually alright in crowded situations. You don’t use it for the damage, you don’t do it for the healing, you do it for the significantly more healing you get when you’re surrounded by lots of people. Also, I’m pretty sure it works on Thieve’s Guild, illusions, and pets, so it’s easy to get quite a nice stream of health. And it’s not as though there are many tempting alternative traits for a well build.