Curse

StormDragonZ · Oct 17, 2008, 04:23 AM // 04:23

I'm sure every elite skill, in some way, is useful for something. Nonetheless, I'm not sure if I'll put my "best" list into the "worst" elite skill thread... I'll think about it.

Pwny Ride · Oct 17, 2008, 04:32 AM // 04:32

Mesmer: Psychic Instability

Well it's my favourite elite, and its the best in my eyes.

That or Migraine. Really, anything you can do with domination magic, you can do in a more interesting and entertaining way with Illusion.

See: Frustration + just about any interrupt skill. Ever.

PyrAnkh · Oct 17, 2008, 03:00 PM // 15:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by illidan009

Or rather...does i smelz a troll?

A bad one anyways, since icy shackles is quite usefull.

Tyla · Oct 17, 2008, 03:01 PM // 15:01

Warrior: Hundred Blades
Monk: Amity
Necromancer: Grenths' Balance
Ritualist: Signet of Ghostly Might
Ranger: Strike As One
Mesmer: Symbols of Inspiration
Elementalist: Stone Sheath
Assassin: Seeping Wound
Paragon: "The Power Is Yours!"
Dervish: Vow of Strength

On a more serious note...

There are no "best". There's always one to suit the enviroment you're going to be in. For instance, BHA won't be "best" when it's an area filled with melee now, is it?

TheDarkshineKnight · Oct 17, 2008, 03:05 PM // 15:05

For PvP:

Assassin: Hidden Caltrops
Dervish: Wounding Strike
Elementalist: Savannah Heat?
Mesmer: Visions of Regret?
Monk: Word of Healing
Necromancer: Spiteful Spirit?
Paragon: Stunning Strike
Ranger: Expert's Dexterity
Ritualist: Offering of Spirit
Warrior: Eviscerate

For PvE:

Assassin: Assassin's Promise
Dervish: Arcane Zeal
Elementalist: Ether Renewal
Mesmer: Echo?
Monk: Word of Healing
Necromancer: Spiteful Spirit
Paragon: Focused Anger (Woohoo, Imbagons.)
Ranger: Barrage
Ritualist: Offering of Spirit
Warrior: Dragon Slash?

upier · Oct 17, 2008, 05:57 PM // 17:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by wind fire and ice

PvE:
Ele - AP
Mes - AP
Rit - AP
Nec - AP

Quick!
Somebody check!
Did they just clone me?!??!

jaximus · Oct 17, 2008, 06:35 PM // 18:35

for pvp
war: evis
ele: shatterstone
monk: restore conditions cuz its used in both ha/gvg, otherwise word
nec: corrupt echant
mez: powerblock
ranger: burning arrow
sin: moebius
rit: caretakers charge
derv: wounding strike
para: cruel spear

for pve
war: cripslash
ele: savannah heat
monk: healers boon
nec: spiteful spirit
mez: signet of illusions
ranger: barrage
sin: shadow form (should be removed from the game)
rit: wep of remedy
derv: wounding strike
para: focused anger

Tyla · Oct 17, 2008, 09:00 PM // 21:00

^
IA > BA
PoD > Corrupt
Without proper healing, RC won't be much. It's not a bad skill, but you can't say that there is a "best" Monk elite in PvP at all.

DSlash >>>> Cripslash by far in PvE. Crippling has a negligable effect at best in PvE, and Deep Freeze would be more than enough.
Signet of Illusions = wut? SoI is a horrible skill
Xinraes' > Remedy.
Healer's Boon? Pop up a SoA and heal off the damage that gets through. A WoH or two is enough healing.

----

Yes, it had to be done.

Age · Oct 17, 2008, 10:47 PM // 22:47

Generally speaking

Warrior. Dragon Salsh,Eviscerate and Devestating Hammer.
Monk WoH,Restore Condition and shield of Judgement.
Ranger Burning Arrow,Inced. Arrow.
Ele. Elemental Attunement,Invoke Lighting,SH and Sandstrom.
Necro SS,Spoil Victor,Jagged Bones,Life Transfer
Mesmer Crippling Angish,Powerblock
Assin. Flashing Blades
Derv. Wounding Strike,AoL,D,M,G&B

This is all I can think of for now will update later.

jaximus · Oct 17, 2008, 10:53 PM // 22:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyla

^
IA > BA
PoD > Corrupt
Without proper healing, RC won't be much. It's not a bad skill, but you can't say that there is a "best" Monk elite in PvP at all.

DSlash >>>> Cripslash by far in PvE. Crippling has a negligable effect at best in PvE, and Deep Freeze would be more than enough.
Signet of Illusions = wut? SoI is a horrible skill
Xinraes' > Remedy.
Healer's Boon? Pop up a SoA and heal off the damage that gets through. A WoH or two is enough healing.

----

Yes, it had to be done.

tyla, i disagree with you a lot here. ia is good for grouped people. seeing as rangers go on splits rather often, ba is better. pain of disenchant is only good if there are enchants. same with corrupt. energy/recharge/cast time all favor corrupt. nice as a cover hex also on enchanted people, plus hex removal is harder to come by that damage healing. then again i dont play nec much. rc is needed in both ha/gvg. the healing changes. rc is the same. therefore best. d-slash has bigger numbers. c-slash has movement control and degen. also the bleeding leads to gash. go play hm and tell me that the degen isnt very useful with the high armor and extra skill slot. play mes in pve and say soi isnt good. you can use any any spell you want with it. put your points in fast casting and illusion. (fast cast nuker? 16 fire, 13 fast cast, inspired hex=e manage + throw back the nasty hexes on you) plus it gives you mega utility. i dont like the xinrae stuff cuz is op'd. soa + word? triple spec, you usually have 2 monks so go pure. hb is the lazy monk elite, thats why everyone uses it.

Betrayer_Of_Wind · Oct 17, 2008, 11:07 PM // 23:07

PvE
as primary prof:
war:earthshaker
ele:SF
ranger:glass arrows
mesmer:VoR
necro:SS
sin:moebius
Rit:OoS
Para:Focused Anger
Derv:WS
Monk:WoH

as Secondary prof:
War:skull crack
ele:OF
ranger:Melandru's resilience
Nec:---
Mesmer:air of disenchantment
Sin:assassin promise
rit:---
Para:Stunning strike
Derv:WS
Monk:---

PvP
as primary
War:Eviscerate
Ranger:Magebane
Ele:Mind blast
Mes:Power Block
Nec:Soul Bind
Derv: WS
Para:Stunning strike
Sin:shattering assault/moebius
Rit:Weapon of Remedy

For Secondary prof:
War:--
Ele:ice shackles
Ranger:Melandru's resilience
Mes:Expel hexes
Nec:---
Para:Stunning strike
Derv:Grenth's grasp
Sin:---

Shadow form is just for farming builds so i dont consider it a decent elite to have on a bar.

the "---" means i cant really think of a real good elite being used as sec prof

Tyla · Oct 18, 2008, 01:33 PM // 13:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaximus

tyla, i disagree with you a lot here. ia is good for grouped people. seeing as rangers go on splits rather often, ba is better.

And on-stand it creates alot of pressure. So much that I'd rather keep that one up instead of BA.

Quote:

pain of disenchant is only good if there are enchants. same with corrupt. energy/recharge/cast time all favor corrupt. nice as a cover hex also on enchanted people, plus hex removal is harder to come by that damage healing. then again i dont play nec much.

A cover hex shouldn't need an enchantment to operate. PoD gets rid of enchantment stacking at the same time as doing AoE damage which results in quite a bit of pressure.

Quote:

rc is needed in both ha/gvg. the healing changes. rc is the same. therefore best.

Yes, and if the enemy team isn't running many conditions? RC and WoH are pretty much a good couple. WoH cleans up any damage that gets through with ease, RC cleans up harmful conditions and can be used for bitch conditions as a primary heal too. They both go hand-in-hand, so there's really no debate on superiority unless you run a dual RC backline for some reason.

Quote:

d-slash has bigger numbers. c-slash has movement control and degen. also the bleeding leads to gash. go play hm and tell me that the degen isnt very useful with the high armor and extra skill slot.

6 damage per second. What? I could just run Sever Artery / Gash and put Deep Freeze on someone for a greater effect and run D-Slash, charging things like SY, Brawling Headbutt (which is also movement control) and the likes. Not enough room for deep wound using 2 slots? "Finish Him!"

Quote:

play mes in pve and say soi isnt good. you can use any any spell you want with it. put your points in fast casting and illusion. (fast cast nuker? 16 fire, 13 fast cast, inspired hex=e manage + throw back the nasty hexes on you) plus it gives you mega utility.

The only Mesmer skill that really shines with attribution is Arcane Conundrum. An extra 4 damage on your CoP isn't worth it at all. Assassin's Promise charges all of your PvE skill needs, and is actually a stronger elite than SoI. Heck, in PvE even Power Block is. Oh, and VoR is pretty awesome too.

Quote:

i dont like the xinrae stuff cuz is op'd.

Nice reasoning there.

Quote:

soa + word? triple spec, you usually have 2 monks so go pure. hb is the lazy monk elite, thats why everyone uses it.

12/10/8 split... Not much of an attribute split since Divine Favour is negligable at best. Just because you're too lazy to get someone to take aggro and prot him/her with SoA and clean up with WoH doesn't make HB superior one bit.

jaximus · Oct 18, 2008, 09:15 PM // 21:15

you just argued in favor of ia because of condition whoring and then said rc is weak without conditions. meta says rc wins.
you argument against c-slash and for d-slash is weak. so to get the same movement control/deep wound, you use all 3 of your pve only skills, plus a second character for deep freeze. bar compression is good.
i dunno if you understand signet of illusions at all. you can use ANY spell you want in the game and it reqs to illusion. so you can have at 16 atts you can have empathy, meteor shower, (in fow 16 in curses for that nasty ss from the shadow beasts). for a better example, run this bar in fow. 16 illusion, 13 fast cast, 3 in inspiriation. [signet of illusions], empathy, meteor shower, inspired hex, revealed hex, arcane mimicry, conjure phantasm, rez sig/sunspear rebirth. youll have the most damage youve ever seen in one bar. steal ss off your team against the shadows, steal deep freeze from the skeles, steal life transfer from the scales. not only do you help the monks with hex manage you deal insane damage even without cry of pain.
i guess what i was saying with xinrae is that you had a point there.
your split monk bar takes away healing from seed of life is you choose to go that route. and word is most efficient below 50% i just dont see it shining like you say.
you seem be be pretty smart tyla, too bad anet cant find a few more people like us for skill balance maybe?

Tyla · Oct 18, 2008, 09:30 PM // 21:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaximus

you just argued in favor of ia because of condition whoring and then said rc is weak without conditions. meta says rc wins.

When do you see people running dual RC backlines?

If your claim of RC being superior to WoH is true, we should be seeing that.

Quote:

you argument against c-slash and for d-slash is weak. so to get the same movement control/deep wound, you use all 3 of your pve only skills, plus a second character for deep freeze. bar compression is good.

Deep Freeze is a more powerful snare than Cripslash. D-Slash carries movement control, shutdown and an incredible amount of defense in three skills. Unless of course you don't call knockdowns movement control or shutdown. You also don't need half as much movement control in PvE as in PvP, and if you did Deep Freeze is more than enough field control.

In terms of bar comprehension, you do understand that having 80% of all damage but armour-ignoring damage helps to heavily compress the Monks' bars, and having a fully functional and spammable knockdown allows field control aswell as shutdown with an incredible amount of DPS coming from D-Slash is pretty amazing for four skill slots, right?

Yes, Cripslash -> Gash allows a heavily covered snare with deep wound. No, it isn't superior to snare, shutdown, incredible damage mitigation and DPS in four skill slots when you could just use a Deep Freeze if you really need that much of a heavy snare.

Quote:

i dunno if you understand signet of illusions at all. you can use ANY spell you want in the game and it reqs to illusion. so you can have at 16 atts you can have empathy, meteor shower, (in fow 16 in curses for that nasty ss from the shadow beasts). for a better example, run this bar in fow. 16 illusion, 13 fast cast, 3 in inspiriation. [signet of illusions], empathy, meteor shower, inspired hex, revealed hex, arcane mimicry, conjure phantasm, rez sig/sunspear rebirth. youll have the most damage youve ever seen in one bar. steal ss off your team against the shadows, steal deep freeze from the skeles, steal life transfer from the scales. not only do you help the monks with hex manage you deal insane damage even without cry of pain.

Life Transfer is one of the skills I won't be bothered about at all.

What, other than Arcane Conundrum, Cry of Frustration and Cry of Pain (The Crys not needing any attribution to be useful) has a decent use in PvE? The only on-attack damage hex I'd ever want to use is Spiteful Spirit, and maybe Spoil Victor against high health targets.

Quote:

i guess what i was saying with xinrae is that you had a point there.
your split monk bar takes away healing from seed of life is you choose to go that route. and word is most efficient below 50% i just dont see it shining like you say.

I don't need Seed of Life. And if I did want that, I'd probably by running a different bar altogether. Heck, the conjunction of the two elites: WoH and RC is an incredible thing. You can't say either are better. WoH sees more use because it's enough of a heal 70% of the time, and RC needs conditions to be useful, keeping in mind that not everyone runs a condition based build. RC and WoH, again, go hand-in-hand.

wind fire and ice · Oct 18, 2008, 09:40 PM // 21:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

Quick!
Somebody check!
Did they just clone me?!??!

I hope im not a clone.

-Lotus- · Oct 18, 2008, 09:49 PM // 21:49

Warrior: (PvE) Triple Chop, (PvP) Evis
Monk: WoH
Ele: Searing Heat
Necro: (human) SS, (AI) Jagged
Mesmer: i like having a primary attribute, thank you very much
Ranger: BHA
Rit: Xinrae's Weapon
Sin: Mobius
Derv: Wounding
Para: Expel hexes (the paragon elites kinda suck)

jaximus · Oct 19, 2008, 12:02 AM // 00:02

tyla i liked you cuz you made sense before. 2 rcs would be stupid seeing as the recharge is 2s. therefore that argument is flawed. i could say why not two woh if word is better? youd step on each others toes if you did that and conditions would kill you.
you keep saying deep freeze, do you bring an ele hero/person in hm? i see a lot of the triple necro/bha/barrage thing. good thing about cripslash is the ability to use flail. your pesonal numbers from the sword are lower, but you trigger mark of pain more often leading to more dps as a whole. i view builds more of what can i do for the team than what i can do for me. my cripslash choice as the best elite for warriors in pve was because it offers a snare in one character without restricting to a secondary. im not saying with a proper team another elite cant be more effective. im purely offering evidence supported reasoning for why i chose what i did.

Chucky333 · Oct 19, 2008, 12:37 AM // 00:37

PvE:

War - Cleave, one of the most underrated skills for PvE, because DPS > Spike damage in PvE, by far.
Monk - WoH.
Ranger - Incendiary Arrows or BHA for HM.
Necro - SS.
Mesmer - Hard to say, probably VoR in PvE at the moment.
Ele - Mind blast is just awesome, but personally i like SF better.
Sin - MS.
Rit - OoS.
Paragon - Cruel Spear.
Dervish - AoL.

PvP:
War - Evis, Devhammer.
Monk - WoH.
Ranger - Dshot. yeah, i know, no, i dont care.
Necro - Corrupt enchantment.
Mesmer - Power block.
Ele - Mind blast.
Sin - MS.
Rit - WoR\OoS.
Paragon - DA.
Dervish - WS.

I don't agree with the entire 'every skill has its uses' thing btw, at all.
GW is full of skills that are absolutely a pile of shit and will never see play on any skill bar in any given situation, skills such as Amity are some of the worst ideas ANet had because they don't serve any purpose, there is just no reason for someone to run this even in the most gimmicky and lolbuilds people can come up with, and unfortunately there more skills like Amity.

jaximus · Oct 19, 2008, 02:30 AM // 02:30

chucky, cleave was good until gwen gave us symbolic strike, rez sig +1 more is the same without the devotion of points to axe.

upier · Oct 19, 2008, 07:27 AM // 07:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaximus

i dunno if you understand signet of illusions at all. you can use ANY spell you want in the game and it reqs to illusion. so you can have at 16 atts you can have empathy, meteor shower, (in fow 16 in curses for that nasty ss from the shadow beasts). for a better example, run this bar in fow. 16 illusion, 13 fast cast, 3 in inspiriation. [signet of illusions], empathy, meteor shower, inspired hex, revealed hex, arcane mimicry, conjure phantasm, rez sig/sunspear rebirth. youll have the most damage youve ever seen in one bar. steal ss off your team against the shadows, steal deep freeze from the skeles, steal life transfer from the scales. not only do you help the monks with hex manage you deal insane damage even without cry of pain.

SoI is bad.
And it's gotten even worse AFTER Gwen.
The point of SoI is to be able to run skills from multiple lines at high attribute investment. After Gwen one is able to fill up half one's skillbar (well 3 skills) with elite like skills that require NO attribute investment at all.
This means that the player now has 200 points to spend on 4-5 skills. Which means you can max 2 lines which equals the SoI effect for those two lines. It's going to be hard finding 5 skills that do not work in two lines. (Keep in mind - you can actually use SKILLS rather then just spells.)
The second issue is the fact that some skills actually do not need max investment into the specific line to be effective. Yes, they get better - but the higher investment of attribute points into that line will end up negating the positive effect that that brings. Now while SoI negates that dilemma - you ARE giving up your elite slot for that. And you are achieving something that is nice - but really not needed. (For instance - when you start running around in HM - DF/MS are pretty much as effective at 0 as they are at max - the high ele armour will reduce a lot of that damage. You want MS and DF for their KD and their AoE slowdown rather than damage. And you get that effect with 0 in the line. Same thing with something as nice as Maelstrom.)
The third issue is that the fact that the mesmer actually has some very nice skills - but they are mostly let down by a simple issue - long recharges. So it might be better to do something about that.

So - what SoI does is:
1. It supports only half your bar.
2. It does things that are nice - but far from needed.
3. You aren't doing anything about the real PvE problem - long recharges.

Once again:
SoI is bad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wind fire and ice

I hope im not a clone.

Well the pure win of your statements sure suggests that!