Why are attributes forgotten?

Many attribute lines have only a niche use.

Blood Magic is useful vs Cyndr in PvE and with Spoil Victor vs bosses and other mobs, but is usually outclassed by Curses or Death.

People also debated and debate if Strength sucks, if Fast Casting sucks and whatever.

But we cannot see a line disconnected from the class and synergies with other classes, one of the problems GW balancing has.

E.g. someone already mentioned smiting - hard to make it powerful without making monks, already supreme farmers and healers, even better.

I don't think there are any useless attributes. Everything in this game is pretty situational. If you're creative about it, you can come up with some pretty useful builds from those lines...depending on the situation.

Deadly arts --> just got nerfed shortly before (Shadow Prison/Expose Defenses/Siphon speed/Deadly paradox/etc.)
Shadow arts --> not meant for damage really, it is the assassin's survival line (mostly defensive/healing)
Water magic --> not mainly meant for damage, has snaring capability that is unmatched by any other attribute (including elite Illusion magic "Shared Burden")
Command --> used to be abused with "Go for the eyes" and "stand your ground" but it still has its merits
Smiting Prayers --> if you make this strong, the monk becomes a tanking-healing 55 machine
Spawning --> used for spirit HP and not much else given the niche skills in the skill line

Spirit Channel is spawning right? and a pretty awesome Rit E-management elite.

Offering of Spirit is instant and doesn't require you to spec into an otherwise useless attribute.

Bone minions = triggers 2x

It may be dumb but I have been using [card]Caltrops[/card] and [card]Shadow Refuge[/card] on my ele in AB's lately. I cripple the enemy mob so they can't get out of my AoE's quickly. Refuge for my heal. Works pretty well actually and its fun.

I take my energy storage down a level or 2 and dump those points into Shadow Arts. Not really a big loss in my energy.

Ya ya water for snares yadda yadda....boring! Need to find an effective way to use [card]Winter's Embrace[/card]....

They did buff Spawning a while back so it gives a 2% duration boost to Weapons spells for every point in it.

Smiting, Command, Water Magic, and Deadly Arts are all fine. Smiting prayers powers the 55 monk, don't forget, and it has a lot of use in PvP as well. Command has many useful skills to buff the party, and water magic has some very nice armor spells and damage spikes if you actually form a build with it. Deadly Arts... there are entire builds based off of Deadly Arts/Shadow Arts, they're fine, they have many effective spells/attacks.


Spawning Power needs rebalancing, I agree there. It needs more use on the attribute line and in play in general.


But you're all forgetting Wind Prayers.... that needs work more than any of these except spawning power.

spawning may suck...but at least rits have channeling.

i use water magic quite often on my ele. aside from the ignorant (and ignored) requests to "omg n00bz use fire!!!1" i rarely hear any complaints.

Possibly, but that depends on what you are dealing with. Shroud won't help you much when dealing with Warriors or Paragons.

My comment was that Deadly Arts is used a LOT. How many people in PvP run Deadly Arts?

[skill]Deadly Paradox[/skill][skill]Entangling Asp[/skill][skill]Dancing Daggers[/skill][skill]Signet of Toxic Shock[/skill][skill]Disrupting Dagger[/skill][skill]Expose Defenses[/skill][skill]Siphon Speed[/skill][skill]Expunge Enchantments[/skill][skill]Iron Palm[/skill][skill]Mark of Death[/skill]

Nope, those skills never see use. Deadly Arts is a bad attribute that needs help. :O

Wow. Some of the attribute lines here I wouldn't have thought would have been mentioned.

Water - the fact that no ele runs it in pve is more than made up for the fact that so many run it in pvp.

Smiting - How many people playing the game have ever 55'ed or 600'ed and/or run dual smite? I suppose a better question might be how many people playing the game farm. Certainly not all farmers are monks, but the vast majority of them are.

I won't comment on the assassin skills as I've never run an assassin before except for a couple of skills on my ele.

Spawning... ok - are we talking skills here or inherent benefit. Either way - extra life for summoned creatures, increased duration on weapons spells, ritual lord, boon of creation, spirit's gift, explosive growth. These skills don't only benefit a Rt/N. Spirit's gift is particularly powerful on a spirit spammer in a high condition area. True there is LESS benefit from this line in pvp, but the same can be said for a lot of other attributes, and indeed classes, that seem to get left out of (certain types of) pvp play.

Those who complain that these lines have only niche capacity, think about pve carefully - it isn't about running one solid build. Each area (in hard mode) is best completed with builds that counter the enemies in that area. Sure you CAN run "solid" builds if you wish, but you can have greater fun running "niche" builds that centre on countering the areas conditions or foes - and it is done faster and more easily than a "solid" build. But maybe that is just me... Mixing things around never hurt anyone. There is a place for every skill line that I've tried - certainly fire and earth see more use that air or water in pve, but that doesn't diminish the capacity of the attribute lines either. Air in Cantha city area worked a charm.

Now if you were to talk about useless SKILLS - that would be another matter altogether.

you kidding me? i love water magic, snares anyone?

For one these lines are forgotten by A-net

For players
lol monk farming? 55 is based off Prot spirit not smiting, and can survive without it easily. Dual smite is comparable, still most people forget about it.

Deadly arts almost completely fails as utility
3 skills used really
Siphon speed,Shadow Prison,Expose
Expose is dead and sees less use
Siphon okay 1 skill
SP okay 2 skills.
2 skills used = Wonderful, Players ever seen the rest of the line?

also the fact that generally none of those skills are seen outside of 1 build (signet spike) says something.

Shadow arts.
Says its defense, only a couple skills are actually used alot
Feigned,Shadow refuge,Return,Dark escape


Spawning....oh come on you know its bad
All lines have skills that used.
but that so little skills from these lines are used SAYS something.

Anyone else like Water Magic most? I don't use it...at all, but when I think of it I wish I had a Water-wielding elementalist. Maybe just a Conjure Frost tossed into a build. I don't know, I just don't have room anywhere...

Well, I'll throw in something to make this a worthwhile post... Deadly Arts? It's certainly used a lot, and efficiently in most cases. I used it myself once, but moved on to other builds. What I like to call "caster sins" use the attribute of Deadly Arts. So, yeah. I got that covered.

Shadow Arts is used enough in my opinion. Not a wide variety of these skills are used, as far as I know, but Shadow Refuge is used a lot. Healing is what I see this attribute used for, that's it.

Command... Yeah, I couldn't find anything useful in there. It's a rather pathetic attribute, in my opinion. For some builds, there's got to be something in there that's decent. I don't see it used much, and I know why.

I tried to use a Smiting monk, but I failed miserably. I used it in RA... The build worked pretty well on warriors who had too many adrenal skills (Signet of Rage), and was fairly efficient at shutting them down, but anything else killed me fast. Of course I see a few Smiting monks around, but not many. I doubt many people think they'd get groups.

Spawning... Not going to comment.

I always use Command on my Paragon..

Try Go For the Eyes!

You people are still forgetting Wind Prayers.

A weak heal and a speed booster are pretty much the only two useful things in that attribute. Right now it's pretty much comparable to a weak, weak, deadly arts for dervishes.

I thought about wind prayers but

Grenth's grasp
harriers hate
Feather foot grace
Whirling charge
mystic healing
natural healing
Dwayna's touch
Rending Aura
that other enchantment based skill.
Those skills are used last time I checked...
oh signet of mystic speed I believe is wind prayers

True a 55 tank can survive without smiting, but they cannot KILL. Maybe I'm just showing my age but 55 solo for griffon and minotaur farming used to be all the rage. Some still farm hydra. And it is still possible to solo UW on a similar build. Not as fast as dual smite or 55/SS farm but still possible.

As for spawning ritual lord/spirit spam is played a reasonable amount by ritualists, just because the craze is channelling atm doesn't mean that plenty of people don't use the spawning attribute.

If we were to talk about individual useless skills that would be another matter altogether.

Why are some attribute lines, along with their skills, forgetton? Because now there's way too much shit to handle.

None of those are really good enough, except if you're specifically running, to put attributes in the line. There are far better IAS skills, and many better healing skills all in the dervish line.

A few scattered small heals and enchantment removals, and a speed boost or two. I could argue that this line is far more in need of attention than any of the ones you listed, quite easily.

There are tons of abandoned and useless skills in the game. From way back, Verata's Sacrifice, to as recent as Energizing Winds. It's all about PvP balance, so whenever any skills in a build get latched onto by a bunch of players that start winning too much, say bye.

That is the reason though in answer to the op. Anet doesn't have a habit of going back and fixing skills for PvE. Once a skill is no longer a problem in PvP it's forgotten, and move on to the next nerf. There have been some skill buffs for classes that really needed them like Mesmers, but it was only because of the PvP game that it happens.

Don't forget the A/D Grenth's Grasp/Trampling build.
I agree that wind prayers might need some work. But still, some self heals and a lot of good perminant speed boasts (enchanted haste) for Dervishes means its not bad. Keep in mind that Dervishes and Paragons just have less skills overall then any of the other classes (so thus, their attributes look weaker just because they don't have as many awesome skills due to limited selection).

Edit: And Verata's Sacrifice (along with many others) isn't neccessaryily about PvP balance. The MM nerf to 10 minions along with Verta's nerf was done because 30+ minions with a constant 9 regen was way to overpowered in PvE. Its not like it was ever overwhelming in PvP. I mean, Minion Factories existed, but it was a weak build. Most IWAY teams rolled it at the time with EoE anyway.

the only reason wind prayers isnt used is because earth prayers just looks better to most people. Why use [skill]natural healing[/skill] when you can use [skill]mystic regeneration[/skill] with 6 other enchantments that also heal you. And thanks to the scythes wide damage range, dervs can still do damage.

I dunno about water magic.. it pwns pretty hard when used properly.. and now with glowing ice energy management is no problem!

[skill]Dwayna's Touch[/skill] ftw.

Natural healing fits well on my warr, allows the use of Harrier's haste also.
Wind prayers isn't that great but it isn't useless.

Umm.... my sins self heals come from shadow arts alone