Buffing less than useful Elites

Many Elite Skills aren't used because they aren't useful.

Ideally, a good Elite will set the tone for a build and strongly compliment it without dominating it. If your elite is disabled, and your build is now useless, your build has failed, and the opposite is true. The best Elite skills are versatile, and are good by themselves, but great when complimented by skill and other skills. Elite skills shouldn't be the focus of a team-based same-skill spike. They must be definitively better than their closest non-elite equivalent, otherwise, it's just a waste.

With that in mind, I've compiled a list of Elites that should be buffed or changed to make them more useful, and fill in some thematic blank spaces in certain classes. These buffs have been introduced with PvP in mind. If you have any real issues with these buffs, I'll give some commentary on why they would help the class, or why they aren't especially overpowered, or I'll just change the buff completely.

Assassin:

Seeping Wound - Added unconditional -1..4 degen.
Mark of Insecurity - Changed duration reduction to 45..75%.
Shroud of Silence - Removes your stance. Lowered recharge to 15 seconds.
Wastrel's Collapse - Increased cost to 10. Increase recharge to 12. Changed to half-ranged spell. Change functionality: "If foe is not casting a spell or attacking, you knock down target foe and shadow step to their location."

Compare SoS to any 3-second knockdown. While spells can't be cast, they target could still kite or use non-spell skills. The new Wastrel's Collapse is easily triggered when the foe is moving, making it a strong snare, and the low recharge makes it a good opening move for a Falling off-hand.

Elementalist:

Invoke Lightning - Lower recharge to 8.
Thunderclap - Change functionality. "For 5..20 seconds, the next time target foe is hit by lightning damage, that foe and adjacent foes are knocked down, and Thunderclap ends." Lower recharge to 10 seconds.
Sandstorm - lower recharge to 25.
Energy Boon - Increased energy gain to 10..30
Master of Magic - Increased duration to 25.
Double Dragon - Lowered recharge to 15.
Mirror of Ice - Lower recharge to 5. Castable on allies. Lower Duration to 1..16.
Second Wind - Lower casting time to 1 second.

Dervish:

Avatar of Grenth - Attacks also do +5..15 damage to hexed foes.
Reaper's Sweep - Deep wound triggers when foe is below 75% health.
Onslaught - Cost and recharge reduction changed to 20..50%
Zealous Vow - Added: You move and attack 25% faster when your energy is above 50%.

A Dervish doesn't need much in the way of energy management due to Attacker's Insight and Lyssa's Assault, or Zealous Vow was changed to something more interesting.

Mesmer:

Power Flux - Lower cost to 5 and recharge to 8.
Visions of Regret - Triggers on Attack skills and non-attack adrenal Skills.
Enchanter's Conundrum - Changed functionality to: "Target foe takes 300% longer to cast enchantments (maximum 2 seconds), and takes 30..120 damage when casting non-enchantment spells". Lower recharge to 15.
Mantra of Recovery - Increase duration to 10..25.
Symbols of Inspiration - Increased duration to 5..35, reduce energy gain to 2..6.
Air of Disenchantment - Lower recharge to 10, New functionality: "For 5..25 seconds, whenever target foe uses a skill, that foe loses one enchantment."
Recurring Insecurity - Lower recharge to 10, increase degeneration to -1..6.
Tease - Remove touch range, change to half-ranged hex spell.
Shatter Storm - reduced recharge disable to +4 for each enchantment removed (maximum 15 seconds)

Monk:

Aura of Faith - Reduce Cost to 5, reduce casting time to 1/4, reduce recharge to 12, add healing of 30..140 heath.
Blessed Light - Reduce Cost to 5 energy. If a Hex is removed, you lose 5 energy.
Withdraw Hexes - Reduce cost to 10, removes 1..2 hexes from each party member. Change additional recharge to +3.
Healing Light - Change functionality: "Heal target ally for 40..100 health. If ally is under the effects of an enchantment, you heal for 20..50 more and you gain 5 energy."
Ray of Judgment - Lower cost and recharge to 10. Causes burning for 3 seconds. This skill does half damage to foes that are already burning.
Word of Censure - Lower cost to 5.

Aura of Faith has been changed to a cheaper, elite infuse. The smiting skills have been changed to make them useful and strong skills, but not useful in a team spike build.

Necromancer:

Cultist's Fervor - Lower sacrifice to -15..5%
Life Transfer - Lower recharge to 15
Ravenous Gaze - Change Functionality: "If you have less health than target foe, you steal 10..25% of target foe's remaining health (maximum 120)."
Feast of Corruption - Lower cost and recharge to 10. Change functionality: "Deal 10..80 shadow damage to target foe and all nearby foes that are over 50% health. For each foe that is hexed, steal 10..80 health instead.".
Lingering Curse - Lower cost to 15.
Order of Apostasy - Change health loss to 15..5%.
Pain of Disenchantment - Increase damage to 10..85.
Signet of Suffering - Lower recharge to 5, Lower casting time to 1, lower maximum damage to 75.
Soul Bind - Also triggers on Enchantments.

Skills like Signet of Suffering and Feast of Corruption have been changed to make them useful as strong pressure and complementary damage skills, but less effective as team-spike skills, which is why they were so limited in the first place.

Paragon:

"The Power is Yours!" - Energy degeneration removed. Increased cost to 15. Change Skill Functionality: "For 15 seconds, all other allies in earshot have +0..2 energy regeneration. This skill ends after you use 1..3 skills."
Cautery Signet - Lower Recharge to 8. All nearby foes are also set on fire.

The Power is Yours has been changed to be more useful, but still self-limiting, like Song of Power.

Ranger:

Strike as One - Increase damage to +5..15.
Archer's Signet - Moved to Marksmanship. Reduce recharge to 30.
Expert's Dexterity - Lower additional cost to +50%.
Poison Arrow - Unblockable, does +5..15 damage.
Scavenger's Focus - Increased damage to +5..25.
Quick Shot - Deals double damage to moving foes.

Ritualist:

Clamor of Souls - For up to 3 spirits in the area, all foes nearby to ally spirits take 10..115 damage each.
Signet of Ghostly Might - Increase duration to 20 seconds.
Weapon of Quickening - Lower casting time to 1.
Xinrae's Weapon - Lower cost to 10 energy and 10% sacrifice. Lower recharge to 10.
Spirit Channeling - Lower recharge to 20.

Warrior:

Cleave - Increase damage to +10..40
Whirling Axe - Also causes critical hit.
Enraged Smash - Increase damage to +5..20.
Magehunter Strike - Increase damage to +10..40.
Primal Rage - Only non-attack skills are disabled. Add 25% IAS. Skill scales from 5..11 seconds. Lower recharge to 10.
Soldier's Stance - Add unconditional 10..25% speed boost
Hundred Blades - Add 1 adrenal gain per foe hit.
Skull Crack - Lower cost to 6 strikes.

I added a scaling unconditional speed boost to Soldier's Stance, but for this not to be overpowered, Symbiotic Bond and "Can't Touch This!" would have to have their durations reduced. Also note that Solder's Fury (Paragon 33% IAS) has a 10 second duration at 0 Leadership.

Keep the comments coming.

Wow. Most of your ideas on the skill modifications are very nice, and would open up a lot of possibilities for new builds. I can tell that you put quite a bit of thought into this, so well done. I hope something similar to these changes happens soon (:

Nice idea...though about 30 other people had that same idea and started threads before this...

Still maybe yet one more thread about buffing under used skills will get some attention...

Nice ideas, though from the other crapload of people that had this idea, I'm guessing it's going to be completely ignored.

these ideas all seem sensible, no big overpowered stuff in there imo

well, thunderclap ele bow build is mostly used by the kurz in the competitive mission fort aspenwood. I'm planning to use this build against the kurz in AB.

Nice, not too overpowered either..maybe anet will notice this

Yawn. So nice this would be. ><
/signed and /wishitgotattentionfromanet

Just wondering:

I agree with the increase in energy gain - but why such a drastic increase in healing power? (I'm assuming you're stopping at 12 here) - and also, heals for Healing Light start at 40, not 30, unless you intend on increasing the gap between ranks in Healing Prayers. Just wondering, really.

Other than that? /signed, /signed, and /SIGNED.

/signed all the way

Something needs to be done about all these useless elites.

Also,

Double Dragon: make it target other ally, otherwise it's still useless
Flashing Blades: while attacking, all adjacent enemies are blinded for 1...3 seconds every time they attack
Word of Censure: energy cost lowered to 5, damage increased to 30...110 (not sure about the damage), add effect: If this spell kills target foe, it is disabled for 60 seconds
Ray of Judgement: recharge lowered to 20, energy cost lowered to 5, burning is unconditional

the smiting elites are really useless outside of Shards of Orr...

Hey ANET, God forbid that there were so many different alternatives to use eh??

Oops sorry, dont want to unbreak (yes, I know its fix, but fix just didnt sound right) things now do we ^.^

/signed

Also /SIGNED!!!

Avatar of Grenth is one of the most useless skills in the game, let alone elites.

I'd have to say the exact same thing. And like others, I hope ANet sees this and makes the changes like this.

A lot of these I agree with, although I think Archer's Signet would need a bigger buff than that to lose it's position of worst elite in the game.

/signed, as far as I can tell


The last thing Flashing Blades needs is a buff. It's basically a perma 75% block as is. We don't need to increase it to perma 90% block.

normally i would try and find something wrong and flame on that, but i like this idea.
nothing majorly overpowered, and would open up a lot more build possibilities.

Hmm, most of these ideas I actually liked. Some I'd question though.

Well, 30..140 just happens to be the same healing as Blessed Light, and a healing buff is all I was looking for. If it's kept as 40..100, there's no real reason it'll be favored over something like Word of Healing (in terms of healing clout) or even Signet of Rejuvenation (in terms of a free heal), and in that case, there isn't much of a point. The numbers could be whatever, in reason, as long as they are higher where it counts.

These types of changes are examples of what I'd like to avoid. Double Dragon would become Ancestor's Rage all over again, except without the packet damage. Flashing Blades is fine as it is. Ray of Judgment is currently 15/1/30 because of it's team spike power under Smiting, and just lowering those stats doesn't solve that problem why they are there in the first place. By preventing stackable damage, degenerative same-build spike teams become less viable, which is one of the goals here.

Flashing Blades in RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing terrible

Its basically a bad elite version of [critical defenses] that takes up a stance. It only works while attacking making it bad except for 1v1 or PvE tanking (moebius easily outplays it). It does need a Buff tbh but i would like it to be more like you attack 25% faster and have a 75% chance to block all incoming attacks while attacking. That would be nice.

Ah, my bad. I got Flashing Blades and Critical Defenses mixed up. I don't play sin, like, ever.

lol

tbh though i don't blame you

Most of these ideas sound great, i like the wastrels collapse idea especially. The only idea which i think would be grossly overpowered would be power flux. No mesmer interrupt should have a low recharge without a drawback e/g power return and PD. At 5 energy 5 recharge and the bonus energy loss a good mesmer could shutdown everything in sight with this elite only and even worse is that a bad mesmer could do a good job of it too by spamming and getting lucky with a recharge and energy cost as low as that.

Cleave owns already... if it was 10...40+ then it would be a spammable Executioner's Strike.

thats what its supposed to be... executioner's at a lower adrenaline cost. thats why its elite...

["The Power Is Yours!"] still would suck, the energy gain needs to be higher, and/or the recharge lowered. 7 energy every 20 seconds... wow. And don't say something stupid like it would be overpowered on an all-para team in HA or GvG... Using everyone's elite for an infinite [defensive anthem] or ["Incoming!"] is overpowered potentially, but what exactly does an all-paragon team need spammable energy for when they have no defenses?

Flashing Blades - every time a foe fails to hit you in melee, he and up to 2 enemies suffer 10...30 damage. Make block 50%. It's an Assassin variant of Gladiator's Defense.

Oh, and don't worry, wouldn't make shadow form more uber - both are elites.

i agree
guildwars has lost a lost of players in time
if you are playing long enough u would know
what do theydo about it ?
they keep making updates that ruine skills or making the game worse
this is a good start to make things right
i tottaly support your suggestion and hope Anet does something about it
grrtz

I've added a handful of updates to the list to add some more utility. Keep the comments coming.

9 seconds of -2 energy degen is equal to 6 energy loss, so it would act like an inversed Power Return that can't stack with itself. PD works against any skill (as can Magebane), but Power Flux only works against spells and chants. It would be all the interrupt a Mesmer would need, but I don't think it would be especially overpowered.

Variety is a good thing.

I really like your ideas, btw.

Great ideas for once, please remember that these are PVE only suggestions.

The healing light buff looks too powerful, but it is a good idea, and it also has a 1s cast time as opposed to 1/4 on glimmer, and 3/4 on WoH. I would also increase its recharge slightly to 5s, and change it to (at 16 healing):

Heal target ally for 100 health. If that ally is enchanted, heal for an additional 50 health and gain 5 energy.

Also, I would like Hex Eater Vortex buffed to 10e, 10r, and the same damage as shatter hex.

Boon signet needs a rework to make it more viable for bonders (at 16 DF):

Heal target ally for 66 health. If that ally is enchanted, gain 3 energy and this signet instantly recharges.

I wouldnt like mirror of Ice being castable on allies, instead I would change it too - 5c, 1\4c, 15r:

For 10 seconds, deal 90 damage to the caster every time you are the target of a hostile spell.

The power is yours - 10c, 2c, 20r, change to a chant:

For the next 10 seconds, all allies within earshot gain +1...2 energy regeneration.

Hundred Blades - Add 1 adrenal gain per foe hit.


OP much?

Basically, it'd give the Mesmer something that actually compares to Broad Head for the Ranger (less effective shutdown on one target, but more reliable if you get the timing right). PD and Return have downsides, but Return is non-elite while Distraction is arguably more powerful from the disables than the interrupt itself, especially when the target is using anti-interrupt skills... and still has a much shorter recharge (when it's the sole interrupt on your bar, the difference between 2s and 5s is huge) than is being proposed for Power Flux.

Looking at the other Mesmer skills...

Visions of Regret I like. It's obviously intended to be Backfire for non-spellcasters (punishing heavily for skill use rather than relatively lightly for autoattackers like Empathy) but as it currently is it's too restricted to take as an elite unless everything is going to be a Warrior or Paragon (and not necessarily always then). Hitting attack skills in general as well will significantly improve its versatility.

Enchanter's Conundrum... shouldn't be something that's most useful on those who don't have enchantments in the first place. I'd probably be inclined to make it increases the cast time for enchantments, and applies damage proportional to the number of enchantments on their bar that aren't disabled or recharging when it ends - giving the enchanter the choice between blowing through their enchantments at high cast times or taking the damage.

Mantra of Recovery was, I believe, made so it couldn't be kept up for PvE balance. Buffing it for PvE seems a reasonable option.

Symbols of Inspiration I don't really know well enough to comment.

For Air of Disenchantment, that makes it an interesting change... however, I think I'd rather have an area enchantment removal rather than a power disenchant on a single target (we already have that in Shatter Storm). If Air of Disenchantment also removed an enchantment on application, it would probably be a good skill for dealing with mobs that use mass enchantments (EOTN Charr, Raptors and Ceratadons come to mind). Right now, though, I'd rather use my elite slot to Echo Mirror of Disenchantment (better functionality, and more utility when facing mobs that don't need to have enchantments stripped) than use Air.

Recurring Insecurity: I tend not to use degens that much so I can't really comment... however, those changes would seem to make it that a) it's no longer overshadowed by cheap fast-recharging degens like Shrinking Armour and Images of Remorse, and b) it's powerful and fast-recharging enough to be the only degen on your bar while you concentrate on other hexes. It would certainly make me at least consider taking it if I didn't have a high Kurz/Lux rank for Ether Nightmare (which I don't...)

Tease: Needs all the help it can get. The implied flavour requires that you be close, but melee range just makes it too close.

Shatter Storm: Maybe, instead of being unlinked, SS could be linked to Domination or Fast Casting and have the extra recharge decrease with increased investment?

Considering different warrior bar possibilities, I still don't think this is overpowered. The only Deep Wound in Swordsmanship is Gash, which would have to be preceded by a Sever Artery. Adding this for Adren management would leaving a only a few slots for:
-Another Adren attack
-Bull's Strike
-IAS
-Run/cancel stance
-Conjure or Res

Even if you get rid of the Gash Deep Wound, you still have something like:

[Hundred Blades][Galrath Slash][Silverwing Slash][Body Blow][Conjure Flame][Resurrection Signet][Frenzy][Rush]

So, every 8 seconds you get a few strong hits in a row, if your Hundred Blades hits more than one person.

It would be fun in PvE because of "Watch Yourself!", but in PvP, I really can't see it getting out of line. It's like a useful Rage of the Ntouka, which would be nice for the Swordsmanship line.

Seconding this suggestion, although I think the healing power should be upped slightly to around 115, since it's at 16 Healing Prayers after all.

How bout a buff to Dwarven Battle Stance? Like make the recharge like 12 sec or energy cost to 5

Nice ideas, but there's a few skills here that I think are a bit over-powered.

Monk:
Aura of Faith - Reduce Cost to 5, reduce casting time to 3/4, reduce recharge to 10, add healing of 30..140 heath.
Given that Aura of Faith effects other sources of healing (such as signets), I think this would completely dominate Healer's Boon.

Paragon:
"The Power is Yours!" - Energy degeneration removed. Change Skill Functionality: "For 15 seconds, all allies in earshot have +0..2 energy regeneration."
15 seconds is a bit over-kill, and it would synergize insanely with other paragon skills that give allies more energy.

Cautery Signet - Lower Recharge to 8. All nearby foes are also set on fire.
I think lowering the recharge slightly would be enough to put it on par with skills such as Martyr.

Ranger:
Poison Arrow - Unblockable, does +5..30 damage to foes who are already poisoned.
A spammable, unblockable + damage skill that causes degen.. couple that with an IAS and it would be hugely overpowered. Just making it unblockable would be enough.

--

Apart from that, I like the rest of the ideas.
Very much /signed.

I would like to add a suggestion, move Izzy to GW2 and hire the OP as a skill balancer.

Nice work, not to strong but may have a use for them again. Really like the avatar of grenth suggestion.

I had the idea to completely rework aura of faith into a completely new type of heal, but similar to RoF:

5, 1/4, 2.

Gains double the divine favor bonus. For 8 seconds, the next time target ally is healed, all allies in the area are healed for 45 health (at 16 DF).

This would work well by casting it on yourself plus two allies and then using release enchantments, or by following it up with healing ribbon.

The reason to change it is because the current concept is inferior to healers boon, and not worth using instead.

Ewww...

Who puts their res sig in the middle of their bar like that?

No I actually like the way this skill is, but I think the energy cost should be lowered to 5 and/or have it so that you steal the additional health if your health was less than 50% BEFORE the spell was casted. A buff a dark pact would also help this skill out - rebuff this skill please.

This is the best "change this" suggestion to hit Sardelac in the few months I've been here.

I do think "The Power Is Yours!" would be slightly OP'd though, it's essentially like a partywide Blood Ritual. I say either give it an energy hit in the form it is now - maybe up to 11 or 12 instead of 8 max, or else maybe only 10 seconds or so on yours?