Curse

Seissor · Oct 23, 2005, 03:35 PM // 15:35

"Illusion of weakness"

I dont understand it....it takes away your health....then gives it back after so long.....WHY DO YOU WANT LESS HP!! >.<

Must be a mez thing....I dont play casters (cept for my monk, bunny medic)

entropy · Oct 23, 2005, 03:38 PM // 15:38

Umm its a great anti-spike heal. In the beggining of the round you cast it and lose X amount. Then you regen till you are full. Soon after that if you are spiked and dropped down the below 25% hp you are healed for X amount that you had lost. It's like a backup reserve of health

azunder · Oct 23, 2005, 03:42 PM // 15:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seissor

"Illusion of weakness"

I dont understand it....it takes away your health....then gives it back after so long.....WHY DO YOU WANT LESS HP!! >.<

Must be a mez thing....I dont play casters (cept for my monk, bunny medic)

Because you can heal the health it takes away. This means you get extra HP without increasing your max HP. Useful for necro sacrificing. Also, it has no upkeep and infinite duration unlike Vital blessing and Demonic Flesh.

The worst skill is... Unnatural Signet! Oh wait, they removed that skill. I'd say Leech Signet, 45 cooldown AND a conditional effect!

kKagari · Oct 23, 2005, 04:20 PM // 16:20

damn someone beat me to writing an essay for otyughs cry. i use that skill in pvp, it rocks. add a call of haste to it. judges insight for the finish, pets will start scratching for loads.

holy wrath...i think its pretty useless, energy loss is too high....

White Designs · Oct 23, 2005, 07:02 PM // 19:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hot Dead

Why would you want to cripple anyone but the flag runner or the theif in GvG?

Just quit now.

Former Ruling · Oct 23, 2005, 07:58 PM // 19:58

Power Shot.

I can think of no other comparison of skills where they both have the SAME goal when used (damaging the opponent), except one of them has worse recharge time, and doesn't do anything the other one cant. This is in comparison to Penetrating Shot.

Atleast when you compare other similar skills each has its own situation or does something differently that warrents its use for something. But as of right now I haven't fought any mob that Power Shot hits consistently better than Penetrating Shot..

Before the Sept. update I would have said Point Blank Shot, since its damage increase was the exact same as Power Shot's, but had half the firing distance...it had NO reason to be used. After the update it has a noticable increase in power over Power shot so the decreased distance isn't much of a problem.

a_scrawny_gnoll01 · Oct 23, 2005, 08:38 PM // 20:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Former Ruling

Before the Sept. update I would have said Point Blank Shot, since its damage increase was the exact same as Power Shot's, but had half the firing distance...it had NO reason to be used. After the update it has a noticable increase in power over Power shot so the decreased distance isn't much of a problem.

My exact thought as well before the update, no I'm not so sure what skill sucks for rangers.

I say Troll Unguent...

*hides*

Cymmina · Oct 23, 2005, 09:45 PM // 21:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Purple Pants Guy

First, what would you have 15 inspiration magic for? Second, why don't people use Power Drain? It costs 5 energy and with 8 inspiration magic you gain 17 energy giving you a net gain of 12 energy. All you have to do is find a spell to interrupt. I think the recharge time is 30. And it takes very little time to cast.

I used 15 for statistic purposes, since a lot of the numbers around here haven't been changed since beta and the official site uses 1-15 for its information. I regularly have 11 or 12 inspiration.

Power Drain @15: 5 cost, 25 recovery, 20 net gain, 25 recharge.
Mantra of Recall @15: 10 cost (correction), 38 recovery, net gain 28 (correction), 20 recharge

I can get 28 energy every 20 seconds (Mantra of Recall) or 20 energy every 25 seconds (Power Drain). On top of that, the Mantra of Recall is completely unconditional and I'm not screwed for 25 seconds if I miss my interrupt for whatever reason. Mantra of Recall should be treated like Illusion of Weakness: cast before going into battle, wait for recovery, dump your energy and wait for MoR to end and fill your energy back up.

Former Ruling · Oct 24, 2005, 12:24 AM // 00:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by a_scrawny_gnoll01

My exact thought as well before the update, no I'm not so sure what skill sucks for rangers.

I say Troll Unguent...

*hides*

Troll isn't bad - but lowering its cast time to 1-2 seconds (from the 3 now) would currently oepn it up to more possible uses.

I still hold a place on my skillbar for it. Its high cast time keeps me from using it loosely in battle, but it can be used combined with the ranger's many defensive skills to keep you going when the monk hs better things to worry bout.

smurfhunter · Oct 24, 2005, 12:59 AM // 00:59

leech signet is awesome - it can interupt anything. aaanything. which is awesome for mesmers who have all these nice anti spell interupts, but few anti *skill* interupts

NatalieD · Oct 24, 2005, 01:48 AM // 01:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by smurfhunter

leech signet is awesome - it can interupt anything. aaanything. which is awesome for mesmers who have all these nice anti spell interupts, but few anti *skill* interupts

But the recharge is painfully long, and it doesn't do anything beyond interrupting if you hit a non-spell. Play a ranger if you want to interrupt non-casters.

Xue Yi Liang · Oct 24, 2005, 03:03 AM // 03:03

This shouldn't count but I'll mention it anyway. I used to love the Unyielding Aura + Divine Intervention combo until it was nerfed. Now UA is in my skill "junk pile."

Krazax · Oct 24, 2005, 07:18 PM // 19:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cymmina

I used 15 for statistic purposes, since a lot of the numbers around here haven't been changed since beta and the official site uses 1-15 for its information. I regularly have 11 or 12 inspiration.

Power Drain @15: 5 cost, 25 recovery, 20 net gain, 25 recharge.
Mantra of Recall @15: 10 cost (correction), 38 recovery, net gain 28 (correction), 20 recharge

I can get 28 energy every 20 seconds (Mantra of Recall) or 20 energy every 25 seconds (Power Drain). On top of that, the Mantra of Recall is completely unconditional and I'm not screwed for 25 seconds if I miss my interrupt for whatever reason. Mantra of Recall should be treated like Illusion of Weakness: cast before going into battle, wait for recovery, dump your energy and wait for MoR to end and fill your energy back up.

Mantra of Recall is crap. This skill makes you wait 20 seconds to get bonus energy. If you are seriously taking that long to kill something, you're not doing your job right. A mob or player needs to be dead in 10 secs or less. Pure and simple. Also, it's 10x's better, and more effective, to take what energy you need by stealing it from other targets. Why? Because you are commiting a form of attack against your enemies. You are helping prevent dmg to yourself and party. You are reducing their effectiveness by stripping them of their precious energy to fuel your attacks.

An elite skill that does no purpose but give you bonus energy is useless. (Now don't even mention Glyph of Energy, because that removes exhaustion from the next casted spell - that's a huge bonus). Mantra of Recall does not deserve to be an elite. It should be a normal spell, because it effectively does the same thing as Glyph of Lesser Energy but has a delay, costs more, but oh look out has a slightly faster recharge. Hoop dee dang doo!

The skill needs to loose it's elite status for it to become usefull.

BrandonIT · Oct 24, 2005, 08:20 PM // 20:20

I personally like Leech Signet as a backup to Cry of Frustration. I'll usually run a spell interrupt, Cry of Frustration, and then put in Leech Signet as an either/or backup skill interrupt/energy gain. PvE monsters like to use their main skills in a 1-2-3 fashion, so I like being able to interrupt one Giant Stomp, move on the next one, interrupt his Giant Stomp, move on to the next one and start attacking while my teammates/henchies are finishing up the very first one I interrupted.

I'm not sure what skill I would vote for most useless, but I'm sure I can find one when I get home.

BTW, the thing I really love about Guild Wars, is this thread. For every useless skill, someone else says, "No way! I use that skill all the time..."

JYX · Oct 24, 2005, 08:34 PM // 20:34

People. People.

Stop embarassing yourselves.

At 10 inspiration, you gain 13 energy from Mantra of Recall per 21 seconds (recharge+cast). This translates into 1.86 pips of extra energy. Inspired hex does 6 per 21 seconds, which is 0.86 pips of extra energy. Plus hex removal. Plus it doesn't recharge if you miss your hex. Drain Enchant gives you 8 per 26 seconds, translating into 0.92 pips of energy. Plus enchant removal. This added together is roughly 3.64 pips of extra energy, this translates into roughly 191% casting for your monk...although I don't suggest using Drain Enchant as it will most likely affect the quality of his casting.

You can't use a glyph of lesser energy as a monk for two reasons. The first being that the spells themselves don't cost a whole lot, theres no point using a glyph for a 10 energy spell. The second being that this is just bad time management. Monks are pushed for time as it is, spending 1 second casting a glyph and 1 second using your prot/heal decreases both your heal per second and reaction speeds. Assuming then you used your glyph for Aegis...which is probably your best bet as you can prepare beforehand and its energy heavy, this translates into a gain of 10 energy every 30 seconds. That sir...is 1 pip, conditional on you repeatedly using a 15 energy spell, at the cost of time management. Comparing it to glyph of energy would be more valid, its faster recharge makes it slightly better in terms of hypothetical max energy gained, but still not as great as blood/insp for energy, still affects reaction speeds and limits the spells you can use.

If that accounts for your attitude towards elites in general, then I guess you missed the boat on Energy Drain back in the day. Who did everyone drain in mid/late game? The pets, NPCs. That sure as hell doesn't sound like shutdown to me. They do it because they want energy no questions asked. This is compounded by the odd assumption that Energy Drain is OK. That spell gets you 11 energy every 30 seconds. Thats 1.1 pips of energy regeneration. This is even worse than Glyph of Lesser energy by virtue of it being elite. As for the energy denial factor, I'm not giving up my elite for shoddy energy management and 4/5th of a debilitating shot every 30 seconds. Offering gives twice as much. Inspiration, should you have the slots, gives more.

By now you should've realised that while you were probably talking about Ele, everybody else was talking about monk. Though in that context...the 20 second thing still doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You cast the thing say 10 seconds before you're due to engage...regen some energy...spam some heals/enchants, overheal if needed. Then 10 seconds into the fight recall comes back and you have full energy, this is a slight edge you have over other forms of energy management...you can use it early and take advantage of some extra natural regen.

For Quick Shot. Why are you comparing Quick Shot to Tiger's Fury or a Shortbow? The idea is you use all three of them together for very fast shooting. If you're going for a DPS ranger, QS is still a great way to go. In addition to this, it makes the ranger spike even easier (dualshot/quickshot/savage). Its useful in either spike or DPS, definately one of the strongest Ranger elites.

Signet of Humility is an awesome skill. The casting time can be a pain but it costs no energy so just use it during your downtime. It may well take down energy management if you get lucky with the recharge, (if the enemy uses offering 1 second before you cast it...well you're just unlucky), it shuts down poison arrowers, screws over both hammers and axes.

Until I think of something truly terrible...I'm gonna go ahead and vote Skull Crack. The adrenaline it requires makes no sense...you wouldn't use this in PvE, in PvP it gets healed too often. Warriors have a hard time interrupting spells anyway so even putting it on is a problem. Then you got the QS ranger standing next to you, dealing out respectable DPS, conditioning, and he goes and throws in a concussion shot.

Akhilleus · Oct 24, 2005, 08:59 PM // 20:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by NatalieD

Pin Down: 15 second recharge. Crippling Shot: 1 second. It also costs less energy, and it doesn't require any points in Marksmanship, which is sometimes advantageous.both.

pindown and oath shot gets the same effect, except oath shot will renable the rest of your skills as well; this combo is significantly better than crippling shot and 1 other skill to replace where pindown would be.
though, admittedly, one crippling shot ranger can be devastating to a caster team, if his allies consist mostly of high-damage warriors.

smurfhunter · Oct 26, 2005, 05:38 PM // 17:38

leech signet is great on interupt mesmers, for example if im doing a migraine build and i dont have much energy, ill waste all my energy in the migraine hex/coverup hex and then just camp them with leech signet while my energy returns.

i like it. cry of frustration is the only other one like that and its 15 energy. ouch.

i cant decide between rust and ice spear as the best skills in the game

Arngrim120 · Oct 26, 2005, 06:01 PM // 18:01

My vote for worst skill in the game goes to Otyugh's Cry. This skill is completely worthless in PvP. As for PvE...come on now. Are there ever really enough animals in an area to waste a skill bar slot with this?

IPlayGuildWars · Oct 28, 2005, 12:06 PM // 12:06

When IWAY first came out, my team used Otyugh's Cry to turn every pet against one target, as well as give it a healthy armor boost.

There's a lot of warrior/ranger stances I never see used...

Yamat · Oct 28, 2005, 07:13 PM // 19:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ruoenkruez Tudor

... and mantra of recall is pretty sucky

Mantra of Recall FTW on monks... EDrain is ruined with it's 30 sec recast time, and what monk has time to find a caster to interrupt? Since you're probably wanting Inspired Hex already, this is a great compliment for 10+ (net) energy boost every 20 seconds.