The "Useless {Elites} Challenge!!"

I never see Plague Signet {E} used, but it's an interesting wild card with Draw Conditions. Say a team mate is hit with Deep Wound and Cripple, and they have a warrior on their ass - draw the conditions out of them and apply them to the enemy warrior with Plague Signet. Maybe there are better examples... like countering Virulence combos.

there are useless elites...?

Lies!

Could we have some sort of list of these useless elites?

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Keystone Signet, not that it's bad, but your WHOLE BUILD has to be based around it.

useless elites, lets see
ok here goes
-peace and harmony
-life transfer, people might dissagree, but life siphon is better then life transfer and its not even an elite, life transfer lasts half its recharge so you cant spread that around like you can with life siphon
-incendiary arrows, only 8 seconds, choking gas is better and its not an elite, much like trasfer/siphon
-ether renewal, anet went super crazy nerf batty with this one, made it worse then useless
-IW, it has potential, but people who use it dont pet points in fast cast cause they focus on attack and defense, cover enchants if not casted by allies really quickly will not be used fast enough to stop real pros from removing IW
-keystone signet, cmon, im gonna even gonna say what sucks about this skill
-mantra of recovery, might be usefull in some builds, but this being an elite is just horrible
-skull crack, i have been trying like crazy to keep this skill from sucking, its not possible
-cleave, WHY????? eviscerate is 100000000x better

I made an axe-specific Hydra farming build based on Flourish some months ago. The trick is that you have to precede Flourish with 2 attacks (3 if you're lucky) that haven't recharged before you use Flourish. Otherwise it's wasted.

Here are some attack sequences that will render all Wards and evasive stances useless:

(they have to be launched in this order to trigger the energy and recharge of Flourish)
Swords:
1) Pure Strike
2) Seeking Blade
3) Flourish
4) Seeking Blade
5) Pure Strike
6) Seeking Blade
7) Flourish
...back to step 1, and throw in Final Thrust for good measure. It should be your only adrenaline skill, since this build is all about energy skills (Flourish doesn't charge adrenal skills)

This will be an unending chain of +damage attacks that cannot miss, and if the target's stance or ward is evasive, Seeking Blade can cause bleeding too.

Axes:
1) Swift Chop
2) Wild Blow
3) Thrill of Victory
4) Flourish
5) Thrill of Victory
6) Wild Blow
7) Swift Chop
8) Flourish
...back to step 1. No room for adrenaline attacks here because of Wild Blow, but if the target tries to use a blocking stance (or the monk casts Aegis), Swift Chop will give the gift of Deep Wound, and Wild Blow will end the stance anyway. (Thrill of Victory won't work against Aegis, since Aegis isn't a stance for Wild Blow to remove).

Knock-Down, Drag-Out (sword + stonefist gauntlets):

1) Griffon's Sweep
2) Seeking Blade
3) Flourish
4) Seeking Blade
5) Griffon's Sweep
6) Seeking Blade
7) Flourish
...back to step 1. This will absolutely devastate someone foolish enough to think that Ward Against Melee can save them. Knockdowns PLUS Bleeding, and none of the attacks can miss. Wear your Stonefists when executing this combo. If you catch the target inside a ward, and the first hit does knock them down, they may literally never be able to move from that spot until either they're dead or the Ward ends.

My sequences of attacks are very logical, and not at all random as they might appear. They are based on the recharge times of the attacks, and meant to maximize the number of skills that Flourish will recharge each time. Keep in mind that Flourish has a 1-second cast time (WHY?!?), and a 10-second recharge, so you have to use it strategically. You could even possibly add in an extra attack or 2 on the combos, depending on the skill recharge time (Distracting Blow would be an excellent one to throw in, kind of a poor man's Cry of Frustration).

Best place to practice this (to get the timing down pat) is on the Sand Drakes outside Elona Reach, since they spam Ward against Melee nonstop. But even against real people, you can really catch someone off guard if they're sitting inside a Ward or using a stance and have that smug, but false, sense of security.

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