Are these skills useless?

Ranger:
- Winter
- Otyugh's Cry
- Primal Echoes
- Quick Shot

Warrior:
- Protector's Strike
- "Fear Me!"
- "Charge!"

Elementalist
- Grasping Earth
- Iron Mist
- Ice Spear
- Mind Freeze
- Rust

Mesmer
- Ignorance
- Panic
- Echo
- Ether Lord
- Mantra of Concentration / Mantra of Resolve

Monk
- Scourge Healing / Sacrifice
- Holy Veil
- Light of Dwayna

For one, no elite skill is "useless".

Charge, for one, is incredibly useful in some profitable scenarios.

Unless you use all of those skills I don't see why you would ask. If you think they're useless simply don't use them. A majority of them already have some good usage, just look at their descriptions and try to find a good situation when they'll have a good effect.

Are you referring to PvP or PvE uselessness? Theres PLENTY of skills that i can name that are useless in PvE but "godly" in PvP and vice-versa. I mean Mantra of Concentration/Resolve [immune to interuptions], i actually thought this can be THE thing to have on you in PvP with Mesmers and Rangers [distracting shot] around you.

Err...Last i checked Winter converts ALL elemental damage into cold damage, right? I guess you didn't notice the "outcry" against Aeromancer with their Lightning-Armor-Penetration spells ....I dunno, this sounds like the perfect counter against Air Elementalists :P

Although i'm not too sure about the effectiveness of it in PvE.

In Pve a useless skill I've found is all the Mind ____ (E) that the elementalists have, from all I've seen enemies have close to infinite mana, so this wouldn't be all that useful in Pve , but in PvP, if you're a primary elementalist then it is awesome because it always does the extra do to having energy storage.

Winter combined with the ranger cold-resistant armor is probably a good combo

Charge! is good because one of the fighter henchmen has it, and he uses it all the time

Echo+Arcane Echo+Arcane Theft = enemy boss left with one skill, . The skill is good if you want to copy a good, but long cool-down spell

Scourge Healing is probably good against monk bosses

Some skills are better in PvP than they are in PvE, and vice versa.

Charge! is a shout, all other running skills are stances. This allows you to combine Charge! with Balanced Stance so you can run without worrying about being knocked down.

Echo works on non-spells, unlike Arcane Echo. So, you Arcane Echo on Echo, then use Choking Gas (10 second duration @12 wilderness, 24 second recharge), and Echo again on Choking gas when it wears off. This allows you to keep Choking Gas going non-stop.

If Panic didn't cost 25 energy, I'd think it was a better skill. Unlike Ether Lord, it doesn't leave you energy-less, but it still cuts spell caster's energy regeneration in half. Did you also miss the AoE aspect (well, adjacent)? Combined with Ether Lord, your enemies will be left completely without energy and no way to get any without help from a necro ally or Peace and Harmony.

A ranger packing Winter, Mantra of Frost, and Frost Bound armor (+def vs water) would laugh at anything an elementalist can dish out. Wouldn't Winter also effect shadow/holy/chaos damage?

Mantra of Concentration/Resolve are excellent vs interrupts. I go Mo/Me whenever I want to be a primary healer so that I have access to these skills.

Holy Veil + Nature's Renewal will increase hex casting time by 3-4x. If that doesn't sound impressive enough, consider that Backfire takes 3 seconds to cast. If those skills stack, Backfire now takes 12 seconds to hit the Veiled target. Otherwise, it takes 9 seconds.

Any skill that makes signet rings cost energy (such as Primal Echos) has a bigger impact than you might think. A lot of healing monks bring Signet of Devotion to get a heal in while waiting for energy to come back. Some warriors still bring Healing Signet. There's even crazy people who bring nothing but signets (usually Mo/Me or Me/Mo).

does anyone use light of dwayna for pve or pvp? seems like a useful skill as it will res all nearby allies except 25mana is a bit steep.....but iirc the cast time is half of normal res

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- Winter :Ask again on the final mission; Fire ele + Winter
- Otyugh's Cry : Won't really argue with you here <.<
- Primal Echoes : If your group doesn't use signets, why not? Maintained enchantment monks use Blessed Signet often, most people weild Resurrection Signet, and Warriors tend to have Healing Signet. How likely do you think it is that they'll use those skills when they cost 10 energy? It may even prevent them from using them, if they save them for when they're low on energy. Picture a warrior trying to revive his fallen comrades, but he's spent. Not gonna happen. As with other nature rituals, it requires coordination on your team's part. Since the only effect on the ritual is a negative effect, it just means circumventing that so that only the other team can feel the effect.
- Quick Shot : Quick hard to avoid attack. Never actually tried it myself so I won't bother trying to talk about it.

Warrior:
- Protector's Strike: Can't say I've used it or even recognize it <.<
- "Fear Me!": From what I've heard, it has a pretty large area. If you can garner some quick adrenaline, then you can cause a lot of energy loss to many people. Goes up to 4 at 13-14 tactics, not sure which.
- "Charge!": PvE skill primarily, although whatever the case, the point is, as said, that it is a shout rather than a stance, and can be used in conjunction with a stance.

Elementalist
- Grasping Earth: It's cheap and fast to cast and PbAoE. If you're surrounded and need to get away, there you go. The AL bonus is only to physical, so elemental or any other non-physical attribute on your weapons or spells will be unaffected.
- Iron Mist: 90% slow. Who cares if you can't hurt them? Some people weren't meant to be hurt yet anyway. I've used Mantra of Persistance to extend Imagined Burden to 40 seconds of 50% movement speed to set on a warrior that nobody was attacking to take him out for most of the battle. He spent most of the fight chasing people, and took no damage until we were all ready for him. 90% slow means that even if he were to use Hamstring on you, you could still get away. Not every skill is to make people easier to kill. Some are to incapacitate them temporarily.
- Ice Spear: Bleh, but what can I say, it's non-elite and spammable. What else are you going to use before water trident?
- Mind Freeze: Ok, you got me here. The damage isn't impressive, and neither is the slow debuff. There're other ice skills which provide unconditional damage and slow without causing exhaustion.
- Rust: You did not just knock rust! AoE water hex, turns Healing Signet to 6 seconds (during which the warrior will take extra damage), Resurrection Signet becomes 9 seconds (Even longer than the longest castin resurrection spell), Blessed Signet takes 4 seconds (Really annoying for a maintained enchanter). It only costs 5 and lasts a good long while to boot. Have you tried to resurrect an ally with a 9 second resurrection skill? It might not be a miracle skill, but I find a place for it if I can in my water ele builds. If nothing else, it's really fun to watch someone cast rez signet for that long.

Mesmer
- Ignorance: Totally locks out signet ring users. Toss it on an enemy just as you see them start Resurrection Signet and it'll fail, as will future attempts. Throw it on a warrior under fire and no healing signet for them. Throw it on a maintained enchanter and no more Blessed Signet for them.
- Panic: Think Backfire for signet rings while being AoE and also causing energy degeneration. Once again, REALLY annoying for maintained enchantment users. Causes them to lose energy even faster, and to take damage when they use Signet of Devotion and Blessed Signet. Puts Warriors at 0 energy regeneration and causes them to take damage when they use the only non-adrenal skills that are free.
- Echo: Great skill, can be used with Arcane Echo to get 3 copies of any spell, or alone to get 2 copies of any skill. Copy a signet, copy an attack, copy a stance. Doesn't matter. Some skills have recharge times set so that you can't use a skill constantly, but with echo, you may be able to. Some rangers fire multiple debilitating shots this way.
- Ether Lord: Really not a spectacular skill, with very limited usage. The energy gain isn't great, and it only takes 1 less second to cast than Energy Tap. At 10 seconds and 3 arrows, it only nets you 10 energy. The perk: You can take energy even when they're out. Unfortunately, that drawback is a lot worse.
- Mantra of Concentration / Mantra of Resolve: Mantra of Concentration is a great toss-up for when you need a stance for "Increases damage by 15% while in a stance". It lasts a LONG while. Mantra of Resolve is great for when you know you'll be interrupted a lot. That IVEX Trapper premade template becomes a lot more trapper oriented if you toss in Mantra of Resolve and a few more traps.

Monk
- Scourge Healing / Sacrifice: Even if you don't focus fire on the monk, Scourge Healing makes them take damage anyway as they heal their ally. Paired with skills that reduce the effectiveness of healing, and the damage may go above the amount they heal. Probably not, but in any case, the amount of net health gain on their team is reduced. Somebody's going to have to heal the damage the monk takes, and whether that's the monk himself, it still = less energy for them.
Scourge Sacrafice on the Fi Boon Healer and they'll take 20% damage whenever they use Offering of Blood. 66% damage on a BiP necro. Tons of damage on a Dark Aura necro.
- Holy Veil: Pass. One pip of your energy regeneration for an enchantment that barely helps. Maybe on a mo/me with an interrupt you could find a use for this: 6 seconds of casting backfire should be relatively easy to spot for a good mesmer.
- Light of Dwayna: One of the fastest rezzes, and it's PbAoE. Sure, it's expensive, but if you can get up multiple people simulataneously quickly, it's not so bad right? I'd suggest Bring Heal Area with this though. I actually like this in PvE where a lot of the hench die in the same area. Little Thom, Devona, Cynn, and Eve are often all corpses at the same spot. (Don't know why Cynn goes to the front lines so often.)

Some of them might not be the best suggestions for usage, but the point is, even in highly conditional circumstances, they DO still have uses.

Someone test this for me... (I don't have alot of time)

soul barb + mind freeze:

Does the soul barb trigger twice?

If so, water ele got a pretty good potential comparing to air/fire/earth in terms of damage.

Also... mind freeze is 66% slower now according to some site (same goes to other water spells to thou).

Add on:
Quick shot increase your refire rate not your arrow speed... you can now spam the most powerful bow with slowest speed at lightning speed... I say it is way better than dual shot... unless you need the elite spot. Very useful for R/E.

Charge: can be also very useful in GvG (ganking guild lord)

I do not know a single mesemer skill that can not be put into good use... aside one, but that skill is history.

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Warrior:
- Protector's Strike
- "Fear Me!"
- "Charge!"

Since I have played most of my hours as a warrior I will speak about the warrior skills. First off skills cannot be judged soley by one of these pve, pvp 4 on 4, pvp 8 on 8. Some skills might have little use in one but have great use in another. Charge is an extremely useful elite. It is great for farming with players that do not have a sprint. It can be useful in pvp where the warriors you are working with don't have to bring sprint. You can also use it beside a monk to help him get out of trouble. Its also a shout so it doesn't cancel your stance. Fear me is another great skill. It takes off around 3 energy, but you have to remember that a monk reversal of fortune is 5 energy. Two fear me's are like taking away one reversal of fortune. As for protectors strike I haven't used it much, but I do know warriors spend a lot of time chasing people around. It has a quick recharge time and would be a good way to make people pay for running.

12 axe + 12 strength + fleeing enemy with 60AL = ~97 damage protector's strike every time. Not as useful as bull's strike for stopping a kiter, but they'll feel the pain.

The thing about Otyugh's: it's basically a really cheap way to give all the pets on your team a constant +20 armor boost. If you were running a pet-heavy build, this would make them a bit more tanky at 80AL. Combine with call of protection and they're really tanky. Otyugh's has its place.

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Mark of Pain at 18 Curses and 4 Rangers spamming quick shot. Ghostly Hero and team at altar or a mob of monsters in a mission.
Beat that AoE.

Good Game.

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