The Skills That SUCK

Well, I finally decided to comprise a list of skills that pretty much suck and need some type of reworking. The skills with a lot are info on them are the ones that DEFINETELY deserve some reworking. The other skills are just some that need to be tweaked to be more useful.

Feel free to add any other skills that you feel are underpowered or feel free to comment on mine and maybe enlighten me how to make good use of some of the skills I currently have listed.


Elementalist:
Glyph of Concentration - Glyph Energy:5 Cast Time:1 Recharge Time:1
Your next Spell cannot be interrupted, and ignores the effects of Dazed.

This skill is way too situational. It might be a little more useful if you couldn’t be knocked down as well, and had an instant cast time. But as it stands now, the mesmer anti-interrupt mantras beat this skill hands down.

Lightning touch: Lighting orb has better overall damage and a faster recharge. 15 energy for a skill that is only decent damage when there is a water hex on the target? No thanks.

Lightning javelin: Wow…5 more energy than LS for the off-chance that you will interrupt your target…IF you are attacking a ranger or warrior…which should be attacked last anyway. ENN. OHH.

Mesmer:

Chaos Storm - Spell Energy Cost:15 Cast Time:2 Recharge:30
Create a Chaos Storm at target foe's location. For 10 seconds, foes near this location suffer 5-12 damage each second. Chaos Storm drains 1-6 Energy whenever it strikes a foe casting a spell.

This spell really doesn’t do enough damage and doesn’t have much an energy denial potential. Also the AOE on this spell is very limited. All a caster has to do is take a step or 2 and this spell is completely negated.

Fragility - Hex Spell Energy Cost:10 Cast time:1 Recharge:5
For 8-18 seconds, target foe takes 5-17 damage each time that foe suffers or recovers from a new "Condition"

This spell used to be amazing. After the nerf, it is almost completely pointless. The damage is pitiful now and there is no situation that would ever make this skill useful for the skill slot that it takes up. RIP frag mesmers L

Keystone Signet {Elite} - Signet Cast Time:2 Recharge Time:30
All of your other "Signet" rings are recharged. All of your non-"Signet" skills are disabled for 17-7 seconds.

This skill sucks. End of story. I’ve tried many builds using this, but it just never seems to come in handy. Signet of Midnight, Plague Signet, and Signet of Judgment are just way better to use in any situation. Also, with Mantra of Inscriptions up, you almost never need to use Keystone Signet in a signet build. Not to mention…signet builds aren’t very good to start out with. With this skill, you pretty much HAVE TO go all signets, or you will be totally gimped. GG retarded skill.

Mantra of Earth - Stance Energy:10 Cast Time:0 Recharge Time:20
For 30-78 seconds, whenever you take earth damage, the damage is reduced by 26-45% and you gain 1 Energy

Hmm, this skill doesn’t seem too bad now does it? Oh wait, that’s right, there’s only 6 skills in the entire game that do Earth damage. But wait, couldn’t it counter that annoying obsidian spike??? NO. The one and only decent earth nuke skill completely ignores any type of armor or resistance. So unless your just getting pwnt by some Earthquake and stone dagger spikes (lol) then this skill will NEVER be worth a slot on your skillbar.

Epidemic: Radius is too small. Energy cost is too high. Could be a useful skill…just isn’t useful enough.

Fevered dreams: Currently is bugged I believe. Tested it many times, but only works half the time for some reason. Maybe the radius is adjacent instead of the listed “in the area”…This needs to be reworked


Monk:
Divine Healing - Spell Energy Cost:10 Cast Time:2 Recharge:30
Heal yourself and nearby party members for 10-210 points.

Hmm…not much to say about this skill except for the 2 second cast time and a 30 second recharge time. Two seconds for a monk cast is WAY too long, you will get interrupted in an instant. The healing seems decent, but a 30 second recharge time on a skill that’s only decent? = just not worth the skill slot.

Amity {Elite} - Hex Spell Cost:5 Cast Time: ¼ sec Recharge:45
For 8-18 seconds, adjacent foes cannot attack. For each foe, Amity ends if that foe takes damage.

Seems decent, but with a 45 second recharge time? Wtf is that? Take it down to 25-30 second recharge and maybe up the cost to 10-15…then we’ll talk.

Scourge Sacrifice - Hex Spell Cost:10 Cast Time:2 Recharge:5
For 8-18 seconds, every time target foe sacrifices life, he sacrifices twice the normal amount.

This skill is just too damn situational. It would be funny up against a Dark Aura touch necro…but that’s about the only thing this skill would come in handy for. Still, seems like a good idea, maybe make the cast time only 1 second???

Bane signet: Pitiful damage and a ghastly cast time to go along with it. Just not worth the space.


Necromancer: Ok, might sound weird but I honestly have no quarrel with any of the necro’s skills. With a certain build, all of them can come in handy in a decent number of situations. I’m not saying that the necromancer is the best type of character or anything like that…but all of its skills seem to serve a purpose. Only 2 skills that I can think of that need a little help…

Malaise: This skill is useless against smart casters who change to a negative energy weapon swap. Just change to your high-energy weapons, cast a bit, change back, and BOOM, malaise is gone in seconds.

Plague sending: 2 second cast time…wtf.



Ranger: Ranger I feel is the most balanced class…but they do have some skills that are just useless. Also, I have a large quarry with the Beast Mastery line in general. Pets just are too stupid to keep attacking the target (especially when chasing), or switch targets when you do.
I propose to make the Charm Animal button kind of like the spacebar button for us. You select the target you want him to go after and press Charm Animal to lock him on target. If your pet gets too far out of range of you, he will automatically come back. If he has a hex on him and you don’t want him attacking. Select yourself and click Charm and your companion will follow you. If your pet gets stuck behind something, continuously click Charm so your animal will go around the target. I think this would greatly help the BM line.
On to the other skills…

Symbiotic Bond - Shout Energy Cost:10 Cast Time:0 Recharge:55
For 120-264 seconds, your animal companion gains +1 Health regeneration, and half of any physical damage dealt to your animal companion is redirected to you.

Pets rarely die in the first place. I’d say make this skill have the reverse effect, and you have a damn good skill on your hands.

Incendiary Arrows {Elite} - Preparation Energy Cost:5 Cast Time:2 Recharge:24
For 8 seconds, your arrows interrupt and set your target 'On Fire' for 1~3 seconds.

This skill has amazing potential…but 8 seconds with a 24 second recharge time and 2 second cast? What the hell are they thinking? Maybe up the time from 8 to 12 would increase this skill’s effectiveness…but 12 seconds seems like too much. I’m actually not sure how to make this skill useful enough.

Melandru's Resilience {Elite} - Stance Energy Cost:5 Cast Time:0 Recharge:25
For 8-18 seconds, you gain health regeneration of 2 and energy regeneration of 1 for each "Condition" and "Hex" you are suffering.

As a ranger primary, you almost never have energy or health issues. As a ranger secondary, putting a lot of points into WS just for a little health and energy regen IF you have a LOT of hexes and conditions on you seems pointless. It also takes up your stance so you cant combine it with any other stances. Plus, if you have hexes or conditions on you, your degen is probably a lot more than just –2…making this a not very effective counter to degen, and only a mild at best skill for energy management.

Power shot: It’s not that this skill is horrible…its just that other skills serve the same purpose and are almost 100% of the time better. Maybe rework this skill to make it somehow unique…

Dryder’s defense: Either up the duration or lower the recharge time. Only 10 seconds with a 60 second recharge makes this extremely situational…not worth it compared to all the other stances you * could * be using.


Warrior: Lots of pointless skills here. I’ll only put the 3 that I see the least though

Crude Swing - Hammer Attack Energy Cost:5 Recharge Time:5
Attack all adjacent foes. Each foe you hit is struck for 1-8 more damage. This action is easily interrupted.

Ok, axes have cyclone axe that isn’t interrupted even if you are hit…what’s the deal with this skill? AoE skills like this in PvP just don’t come in handy. In PvE where it would, the monsters will be attacking you and you will rarely EVER get this skill off. Take the easily interrupted off. Period.

Flourish {Elite} - Skill Energy Cost:5 Cast Time:1 Recharge Time:10
All of your attack skills become recharged. You gain 1-6 Energy for each skill recharged by Flourish

Wow, you can recharge the very limited number of warrior attack skills that already recharge fairly fast for a miniscule gain of energy. I’ve tried this skill out with about 6 different warrior builds and 3 ranger builds…and it’s just not worth it.

Skull Crack {Elite} - Melee Attack Adrenaline Cost:9
If this attack hits while target foe is casting a spell, that foe is Dazed for 15 seconds.

Make this skill a ½ second cast skill. Then there is at least some chance that you can use this skill on anything other than an elementalist. As it stands now…You will rarely be able to pull this off. Even if you do, Dazed is easily removed by other monks on the team (assuming in GvG or Tombs)




Discuss

Go uninstall Guild Wars? Half of those are amazing skills, if your bar requires you to bring those.


Except mantra of earth.... that DOES suck. and a few other minor spells. Like Chaos storm.

But most of those actually are very good skills, yes, they are situational, but if your bar fits them, then they are good.

incendiary arrows is nice, remember it interupts spells, and 8 secs of no spells is good enough for me, plus u have the burning. 8 secs is a little short, especially cos it cant be used with practiced stance. to up the recharge, simple use serpents quickness.

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anyone that say symbiotic bond are "amazing" has GOT TO be kidding me... when you fight monsters in PvE, 3 monsters target you and 1 to your pet...

In PvP, if you do bring it... It better be some really special workable build.

However, I did find glyph of concentration useful quite a numerable times. But I must admit, if I had a choice... other things is probably better.

Lightning touch is just bad, I must admit... maybe if they drop the recharge. As of now, you can't even arcane echo this.

Chaos storm is actually decent enough to serve its purpose as an AoE, but comparing to other mesemer skills; it just aren't so great.

epidemic just get own by monk's fast recharge mend, even if it has a large radius.

Ah, anyway... don't want to type too much... I can't believe well of suffering is not in the list thou.

Mantra of Earth= Sand Drake farming

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Suffing + Feast of Corruption. Simple answer to that one =p and helps with UW dual runs.

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Ok... it is a big list, many skills to go.

Glyph of Concentration: It is very nice when you can't afford to have mesmer secondary, e/mo for example.

Lightning touch: Cast time under a sec, and it's a skill - not a spell. Can be used with r/ele (expertise+air magic) for example. This skill also have situational AoE - very nice when you know what to do with it.

Lightning javelin: It has it's uses, sometimes it's crucial to interrupt an attack. Situational, but usable.

Chaos Storm: A nice move against ball formations. Also it's great against spells spammers, just use it with slowing hexes/conditions... just like any other AoE.

Fragility: Still pretty nice (actually it's great) in condition based teams, put it on Martyr monk for example. Or use as a spike with Crystal Wave... or many other spells.

Keystone Signet: Once again, has it's uses... in some specific builds. But I agree that it's not worth the elite section with it's actual cast time and recharge.

Mantra of Earth: As someone above mentionned, great agains't some earth mob... Sand Drakes for example.

Epidemic: Again... could be crucial in some condition based teams.

Fevered dreams: Looks fine for me... anyway, this skill is a must for conditions group.

Divine Healing: Can be used in ball formations, and under some conditions (QZ for example) - this is very nice 277 hp for whole formation each 15 secs (if using QZ).

Amity: Somewhat less useful that some other monk's elites, but can be used in some strategies in PvP and can work pretty well in farming (no need to have 55hp monk when mob can't attack). Once again, recharge can be lowered by QZ or some other skills... changing it's recharge will ruin most of physical damage dealers.

Scourge Sacrifice: It's AoE hex, can be a cover hex... or can just ruin full necro build. And that with just one skill... think about it.

Bane signet: Knockdown bonus, recharge can be lowered by mantras or QZ (for free).

Malaise: Cast a bit means loose like most of the energy? Some casters can't afford to go low on energy to change their weapon. It's also very hard to do this when you are being pounded by a warrior or another damage dealer.

Plague Sending: Fast Casting... wtf.

Symbiotic Bond: Sometimes you need to get physical damage redirected to you (for balthazar's spirit for example)... or you just use your pet as a tank.

Incendiary Arrows: Thinking? Put QZ up and spam it up.

Melandru's Resilience: Think of a Mo/R... and it's worth putting in attribute points, just for some skills that you haven't paid attention yet.

Power Shot: I actually see no argument for this skill, don't see why they should rework it. Works pretty well.

Dryder's Defenses: Oath Shot... erm?

Crude Swing: Ever considered mesmer as your secondary? Or using it with Dwarven Battle Stance for example?

Flourish: Did work out for me, don't know about you. Can spam continuously energy skills with warriors primary, making it somewhat original and harder to counter.

Skull Crack: Does work out, and mostly it's devastating against casters teams. Concussion Shot can do the work if done right, but sometimes you just can't use either ranger secondary... or just energy skills.


Anyway, some skills may not be great - but they DO NOT SUCK. If you don't like it, don't use it... let other people use it instead.

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Um, crude swing (uninterruptable) + Earthshaker = farming griffons and everything else like it's your job. There's a reason it was nerfed. A good one.

Glyph of Concentration
Not a bad glyph, but I do agree the cast time could come down some to improve its usefulness. Otherwise, for 2+ second cast it works ok.


Lightning touch
Im not sure what a front line air ele can do... but this works well with w/e or anyother front line ele.


Chaos Storm
Agreed. This spell and many AoE spells seem to lose their effectivness with out snaring or holding someone in them.


Mantra of Earth
Playing the mantras of elements is like playing the guessing game.
In the cast of natural riturals water and fire mantras are favorable, but the other two.....
Ill rely on a prot monk thats always useful.


Epidemic
As much as Ive played with this skill, Ive always felt the same way.
Maybe we are using it wrong, because I seldomly see people complaining about it.


Divine Healing
Ive actually gotten really good milage out of this spell in PvE.
I used to think the recharge sucked too, but after getting a team that knows when to pull in for a big heal...this spell is handy.


Amity {Elite}
Use it with Arcane Mimicry on someone with Glyph of Renewal
If your team is hex heavy its pretty uber.


Malaise
I thought this was some sort of bug..but I guess theres no way around it. At least the skill is cheap and easy to reapply. I still like it.


Symbiotic Bond
This skill rocks in PvE but you need trolls ungeunt (or some self healing) to keep yourself alive.
People are used to ignoring pets in PvP but thats because a large majority of pets builds are non threating. ...and pets are hard to control.


Melandru's Resilience {Elite}
I used to hate this skill to. But Ive found its great for a frontline fighter. Anyone with this may as well also have troll ungent. The two together makes a seriously sturdy fighter.


Power shot
Agreed. This skill is still missing anything unique. Its just....beh..


Flourish {Elite}
I only tried this skill a few times and Ive never managed to make it work for me either. And I havent seen or heard of any builds that work well with flourish. There may be something somewhere, but I just havent explored it enough to know. So far, ...this skill seems not so special.


Skull Crack {Elite}
Ive only used this skill with the Spell Slasher in CA. My favorite rogue build to date. I havent had any troubles catching 2 sec spells with this.
My only beef with it would be that daze is very easy to remove (from friendly prot monk) AND this is an elite.

i'd like to add a few myself.

Ele's:
Firestorm used to be an essential skill for an ele, in fact it was your only true aoe damage spell until you got to LA. After the update, firestorm is absolutely useless; the enemies flee the area after taking 2 hits from it, come back and take another hit then run off again. Maybe if a nuker's job was to scare enemies away this would be useful, but when you are trying to hold them in place to get that meteor shower off...

thunderclap {E} - it was only useful when it was bugged, which says in itself how useful it is. lose 7 energy each time you wand a target and knock him down? no thanks, definately not worth the elite either.

glyph of sacrifice - one of those situational skills, where there are just very very few situations to use it in. only thing that comes to mind here is maybe getting off that last meteor shower before you die, you still need a second to cast the glyph; and who goes out and plays with a build that is counting on the fact that you will die?

Rangers:
I can't believe you forgot Otyugh's Cry! you see, it's so crappy it isn't even noteworthy Really though, what is 1 or 2 random level 5 animals gonna add to your fight? Let's not forget that 50% failure under attrib 4 either!

Charm animal - i don't know if anet listens or not, but this skill on its own its a big space waster. either combine it with comfort animal to save skill slots, or add some effect like pet-target calling, remove conditions/hexes, or something.

Ignite arrows - Again, related to the anti-aoe patch, this skill used to be very useful indeed, now all it's good for is making the ele on your team angry and scaring things off. not bad in pvp though...

Marksman's wager {E} - another elite that isn't worth it, I've never seen a human player use this skill. Ever. Blind, evasion stances, hell even walls make anyone stupid enough to fire while using this skill drain all their energy.

Primal echos - i guess you can't have EVERY skill in the book useful all around, but all this does is screw up those already very-rare signet builds, seeing as nothing in pve uses a signet regularly.

Necromancer :
Dark fury - 17% max health just does not = 1 extra adrenaline for 5 seconds. If you are already supporting a team like that, OoP and OoV are already enough hassle.

Chilblains - i see this skill used all the time in pve monsters, the only time it is used by humans is on altar maps to strip the ghostly of their spellbreaker. It's just too expensive energy-wise to use often.

Im sure there's more out there, but meh.

This is going towards Dmitri3:

You have the right idea for most of those skills. I thought of, and tried, most of the things you suggested. But for most of those skills i pretty much had to gimp the potential of my other skills to make the skills listed work better (in most cases)

There were quite a few things i didnt think of on how they would work PvE wise...I dont play PvE though, so i just wouldnt know.

Things like using plague sending...with a cast time of 2 you could just use plague touch.

Or epedemic where its 15 energy and only works on ADJACENT foes. This might help in PvE...but in any kind of serious PvP...no.

And skull crack is in no way devastating against caster teams. You will pretty much never get this skill off vs a prot monk (using all 1 sec cast spells or less) and if you get it on an ele or necro? The prot monk removes it in a heartbeat.

Melandru's Resilence...Ok, got me there. I actually tried it on a prot monk using draw conditions and it did work well against condition based teams...I'll retract this skill.

Power shot...is just beat by penetrating attack, except when using judge's insight...because the penetration doesnt stack. I say slightly increase the damage of power shot by 2-3 would be fine.

Malaise in PvP also doesnt work, because GvG and good HoH monks all know to bring off-hands that provide no additional energy, so u switch to the offhand, malaise is gone, then you switch back and have your energy back.

Thats just a few...admitedly, you do make good arguements on some of the skills though. And your appairently a big fan of QZ...


Oh, and Otyugh's Cry doesnt suck. +20 armor to ALL pets in a coordinated pet team makes for some good tanks. Plus, if your pets are off target, they will ALL focus on one. If ya cant tell....i'm a fan of BM ...pet AI still needs some improvements though.

I think Ez Cheez hit the nail on the head. Those skills do need changes, and after reading through that I've also confirmed several of my beliefs (such as mantra of earth and chaos storm) and informed me of several skills that I'd be better off not having. Thanks, and I hope something does happen. RIP Fragility Mesmers, you were useful and not overused, yet you were raped, raped like the little skanks you were dressed as... **tear in eyes** "No, not again Phillip, I promised myself I wouldn't cry like this, no... not again..."

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