Your Skills: How did you choose?

Good Day to you!
If I placed this in the wrong forum, please move it. Thank You!

I was wondering, How do you choose your skills?
What determined:
What skills you take in your bar
What skills you decided to buy from the Skills Trainers
What skills you hunted for from the Bosses
If there were more than 1 boss and they all fit your professions, what made you choose that 1 Elite over the others?

I ask this because in talking with different people over the past year or so, people have different ways of choosing what skills they have. Some decided they absolutely needed every skill in the game (GUILTY )
Others tell me those skills they have are the one they were told to get by their Guilds (Leaders, Officers, Mates, whomever), by the people who introduced them to the game, by their Forums (Mods, Strategy Guide writers, etc), etc.
I've been told that people have watched what worked in PVP/PVE and went and got that skill/build.
There are those that got owned by those very skills and got them themselves.
Some skills we had to get because our favorites were "Enhanced", "Reduced", Changed (?).
Some skills are needed for a specific scenario/area/mission, Team Builds.

There are alot of skills that ANET provided us with. And yes, some are repeats of others down to the wording, energy cost, casting times, recharge rate and type. But, there are still alot of skills. And we don't use all of them.

I am not asking you what's in your skill bar now. Just, what made you decide to get those skills?
And no answering it as NO ONE MADE ME! I DECIDED ON MY OWN! doesn't count, becuase something had to influence you.

I UAS'd because every serious PvP player has no reason not to.

well, most of my characters have sincro (sp?) or sinergy skills that tend to complement each other, but not every skill has synergy and some builds require a "synergy contradiction".

if i wanted to explain it further, i would have to describe each of my characters skill bar

but in short, most of the skills in my skill bar are there because they can complement each other.

how to choose, thats a biggie.

well I will answer the other questions first.
All of my characters still have their original secondary class--have never changed from when I first decided. SO I did get all the skills for them for their primary and secondary whether they used them or not....and with factions I have tried to get them all, but my ritualist has ele as a secondary and that will take a bit of time. I have capped all the skills in both their primary and secondarys, why? after I finished the game and the extra quests it gave me something to do, and it was a sort of completion sound to it. I only pve.

how to choose, ok back to that question.
My first character was an ele, so fire was the thing at the time.....I started with what I was given thru quests, and found that some of the skills just didnt work....and since then some have been nerfed (firestorm anyone?).

I played around a lot to pick the skills that made a good set. my ele has a seconday monk, so I always bring orosen and a res skill (used to be resurect now I use res chant)....my hubbys w/mo brings rebirth since he can loose all his energy and not cry about it (my ele has 90 energy and rebirth makes you loose it all when casting, meh!)
My ele has changed to air spiking, and now is earth....those skills I choose in this way: first I need to big area damage dealers, then I took obisdian flame cause it does alot of damage for a very cheap price (and a little exhaustion), then two quick cheap rechargers (stone daggers and ash blast)....and earth attunement to get some energy back.
I have also looked up in the builds forums to see what other people are using, but I dont use them as is----I usually say, oh that is a good idea, and then change a bit around for my own taste.
My monk uses his own set for healing, and when he is smiting he uses his secondary alot (necro) --blood since you get health back.
My mesmer, she has changed skills every couple of days depending on what she is going up against....lots of eles? then interupts and backfire. Lots of tanks? then empathy and degen skills.....

My rit is sill trying out skills....has done the rit lord set, but was unimpressed with it, she hasnt tried out the chanelling skills yet...so thats where she is going next.

My necro is usually spiteful spirit/curses based, but has done minions as well depending, again, on the situation (some places you just dont get enough bodies for minions).

so it all depends....if you are searching try the builds forums first and see what other people are doing....then go out and try them out for yourself...My husband has spent hours picking skills for his ele and warrior (yep, whole weekends trying new builds <yawn>) and he skill hasnt found the perfect combos yet!!!

whatever, good luck and happy play testing to you!

Whatever I dream about the night bfore.

Literally. I've drempt of AWESOME builds.

I usually take an pre made build on GW wiki and mod it.

I buy and eventually cap every skill. Gives me something to do.

As for determining what I bring, depends on the class.
Ele - needs 3-4 damage dealing things with conditions/kd or a hex/snare, 1-2 energy management skills, self heal, res
War - heal, res, attack spead boost, 2-3 damage skills, 1 condition or interupt, defensive/tactical/evasion skill

I don't have time to go into all my other classes, but you get the idea. In PvE, it also depends on what I'm fighting.

Caster builds will also usually need some sort of energy management.

I choose by what i am fighting and who i am fighting with...

I mostly solo so it is all about knowing the creatures in the area and adapting skills to mitgated dmg done to me and optimize dmg output... by far my favorite class and build is Rt/Me

when grouping it is all about what benefits my party... typically i like the role of mitigating dmg and providing mass healing to my party... on occation i will take the pure dmg spirit build

there is no one build fits all... most skills can compliment each other more so in certain circumstanced...

for example... vengfull was/vengfull weapon/ancestors visage/physical res vs melee'rs..

to me it all depends on what mobs monopolize each area and i prep for them when soloing... for groups it is typically the same cookie cutter build no mater what group... with the exception of a skill or two... if im in a group with no interupts ill take dissonence... if im in a group that has interupts or MM's ill take recuperation

What skills you take in your bar: Whatever is most efficient at the time + res.
What skills you decided to buy from the Skills Trainers: Lately, the ones to go with the 'effective' build I want to run, but in general, all primary prof. skills, and if I had the money, all others too
What skills you hunted for from the Bosses: All of them, starting with primary profession.
If there were more than 1 boss and they all fit your professions, what made you choose that 1 Elite over the others?: first in first serve.

1.) List all skills on a piece of paper
2.) Number said skills
3.) 100 side die...

I decide my skills by chosing one of my builds for the class I'm playing (I have a lot written down on microsoft word), and depending on what is needed by my group. I got those builds mostly by taking skills that seem they would be useful together and then just going and killing stuff. If the build sucks, I take all of those skills out of my skill bar, and start from scratch. If the build is at least ok, then I keep it and just change a skill or two.

I buy skills from skill trainers that seem like they would be useful. I would buy every skill for all my primaries, and maybe secondaries, but I just don't have that money....

I always get elites from bosses that are from my primary proffesion, no exeptions, because
1. It might seem useless now, but it might accually be needed for something in a later chapter, and
2. You can't buy them from skill trainers and I don't want to go and kill that boss.

If there are two bosses next to each other (one is my primary, and the other is secondary), then I will always get the elite from the boss that's my primary first. If I already have the elite from the primary boss, then I'll get the elite from the boss that is my secondary.

If there ever will be two bosses that are both my primary, and each has a different elite, then I will probably cap the one that seems more useful/better.

Also, when I'm trying to get a group for a mission, and people seem to only be accepting one build for my profession, and I don't have that build on my list, I check wiki and then get the needed skills for it.

I read forums and try diff builds.
I tweak them as I go for what works for me.
I eventualy try and get all skills.
If there is more than one boss, and I need both, I will bring two caps or go in twice.

My advice to you is too look at these things:

1. Compliments to you weapon (i.e. sword skills for sword users) try to base you build around your favorite or prefered weapon.

2. Skills to back up your weapon (i.e. sword users need adrenaline, so get adreneline getting skills)

3. Health and defensive skills (self explanatory)

4. Do you want to become a runner?

5. Do you want to farm

If you look up those five things you should be fine

i choose by reading and learning, i had all skills for necro (minus a few elites i didnt want) i had all skills mainly because i went from paying a newb build of blood/death like every new necro player does to playing blood spike to SS then to a curses/dom build i was trying

i played thru the game and got skills that way and bought any others that i wanted when i reached embar camp

on my war which was only used for running/soloing i only had the skills needed for those tasks

any more then that i cant do..blame it on limited time and attention span

I used whatever I figured was ok, found more skills, used whatever looked better.

At one point I started looking at what other people were doing. Due to my lack of faith in humanity I figured they all were doing it wrong by default anyway. So I tried the opposite.

Look at the wammos with:
sever artery, gash, heal breeze, mending, live vicariously, bonettis defense, frenzy and heal sig


Then do the opposite:
attack, attack, attack, attack, IAS, defense, defense, res

and you get dumb-can't-kill-stuff vs killing machine


I sometimes look at the skillslists and see what could work together or what could benefit myself solo or as a teamplayer.

If you have fully maxed out (level, attquests lots of elite skills, all primary skills) pve chars for each of the professions then things like this become easy x.x