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A list on 'useless' Skills and Traits that could use some updating


The V.8759

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I thought it would be nice to make a long list of all the skills and traits that are basicly never used in the game. I think it's a shame that we have so many skills and traits in the game, but a portion of them is just useless, even for a niche.Now I'm not knowledgable about every class, at least not in depth enough, so please post your listings and I will add them to the list. Please note that things that have a niche are not useless (Thumper Turret for blasting for example) and will not be added to the list.

ElementalistSkills

  • Glyph of Restoration
  • Ice Spike
  • Shatterstone
  • Conjure Frost Bow
  • Signet of Air

Traits

  • Conjurer
  • One with Fire
  • Power Overwhelming
  • Elemental Shielding
  • Strength of Stone
  • Arcane Precision
  • Elemental Contingency
  • Elemental Surge
  • Latent Stamina
  • Tempestuous Aria
  • Lucis Singularity
  • Traits

Engineer (Includes Toolbelt skills)Skills:

  • Elixir R
  • Throw Mine
  • Utility Goggles
  • Flame Turret
  • Net Turret
  • Rocket Turret
  • Shredder Gyro

Traits:

  • Expert Examination (?)
  • Orbital Command
  • Autodefense Bomb Dispenser

GuardianSkills:

  • Signet of Courage
  • Light's Judgement
  • Hold the Line
  • Save yourselves
  • Mantra of Truth
  • Hallowed Ground

Traits:

  • Blinding Jeopardy
  • Perfect Inscriptions
  • Retaliatory Subconscious
  • Empowering Might
  • Battle Presence

MesmerSkills

  • Illusion of Life

Necromancer

Skills

  • Signet of Vampirism
  • Summon Bone Minions
  • Signet of Locust
  • Signet of Undeath
  • Spectral Wall
  • Well of Darkness
  • Lich Form
  • Serpent Siphon

Traits:

  • Feed from corruption
  • Spectral mastery
  • Fear of Death
  • Dhuumfire
  • Life from Death
  • Unholy Martyr
  • Flesh of the master
  • Putrid Defense
  • Soul comprehension
  • Death Nova
  • Unholy Sanctuary
  • Terrifying Descent
  • Terror
  • Spiteful Renewal

RangerSkills

  • Frost Trap
  • Muddy Terrain
  • Griffon Stance
  • Spirits (outside some group content)
  • Signet of the wild (active)
  • Porcine F2

Traits

  • Empathic bond
  • Shared Anguish
  • Natural Healing

Revenant

ThiefSkills:

  • Ice Drake Venom
  • Ambush
  • Tripwire

Traits:

  • Signet of Power
  • Sundering Shade
  • Shadow Protector
  • Guarded Initiation
  • Assassins Reward
  • Vigorous Recovery

WarriorSkills:

  • Fear Me
  • Imminent Threat

Traits:

  • Brave Stride
  • Great Fortitude
  • Merciless Hammer
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@The V.8759 said:I don't have enough time myself to complete the list at the moment, post your suggestions on what should be on there and I'll copy it in

we use signet of mercy in gvg'sjust saying

for warri id say right off the batskills:fear meon my mark (not sure if its used in pve for insta vulnerabillity)imminent threatsight beyond sight

traits:brave stridegreat fortitudemerciless hammer

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your lock on trait for engi, half the holos in WvW run it and it is the most powerfull reveal ingame as it will only go on cooldown when it actually reveals and has 2 seperate cooldowns.for thief :traits :signets of powersundering shadeshadow protectorguarded initationassassins rewardvigorous recovery

skills:i personally think ice drake venom, skale venom, ambush and tripwire are of not worth a slot, yet i have seen them too much in use to put them on a list here.

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List has been updated:

  • For warrior I added the suggestions, but kept in sight beyond sight and on my mark (See MUDse comment).
  • Signet of Mercy has been removed from the list
  • Lock on has been removed
  • Thief suggestions have been added. I kept out Skale Venom for venom share niches
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Ranger:Skills:Frost trapMuddy terrainGriffon stanceSpirits outside group contentSignet of the wild active

Traits:Beastmastery upper row (just lackluster)Natural healingPoisonmaster (is used but is crappy)Empathic bondShared anguish (judt because its the worst CC break trait)

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Elementalist:

  • almost the entire earh trait line
  • some of the fire trait line (adept and master traits)
  • Cleansing water since its the most OP trait in ele that guide the way to build ele too much in pvp.
  • If you change cleansing water than change weaver grandmaster too.
  • Tempest trait line to give it more team support than just healing on auras and some weird might that doesn't even stack well.
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@MUDse.7623 said:

@RedShark.9548 said:for warri id say right off the batskills:on my mark (not sure if its used in pve for insta vulnerabillity)sight beyond sight

many warriors switch in sight beyond sight and/or on my mark for me in WvW so guess there is a niche use for it.

the question is, does it help them to kill you? if not at all, well then id say it still needs some tuning, keeping in mind that those skills are specifically made to somewhat counter stealth

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@RedShark.9548 said:

@RedShark.9548 said:for warri id say right off the batskills:on my mark (not sure if its used in pve for insta vulnerabillity)sight beyond sight

many warriors switch in sight beyond sight and/or on my mark for me in WvW so guess there is a niche use for it.

the question is, does it help them to kill you? if not at all, well then id say it still needs some tuning, keeping in mind that those skills are specifically made to somewhat counter stealth

well if i fight multiple opponents and one is a warrior then yes it does. if i fight only a warrior then no, i have to do other mistakes to die to a warrior, but that is more a slow warrior skill issue that you wont fix with those skills.

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@"The V.8759" said:GuardianSkills:

  • Sanctuary
  • Bane Signet
  • Signet of Wrath
  • Signet of Courage
  • Light's Judgement

Traits:

  • Blinding Jeopardy
  • Perfect Inscriptions
  • Retaliatory Subconscious

How is Bane Signet useless? It's been THE meta skill for anything PvE since this game launched and still is. Everything else has changed over the years but Bane Signet is and has always been in the Guardian skillbar every time you enter a raid, a fractal or a dungeon. It might be a bit boring but sometimes boring is good.

Add "Hold the Line!" on the list. It used to be good but it has been left behind by the powercreep. You can also add Empowering Might and Battle Presence on the trait department.

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Necromancer:TraitsSpite:

  • Spiteful Renewal
  • Dread (Arguably)
  • Signets of Suffering

Curses:

  • Terrifying Descent
  • Terror

Death Magic:

  • Flesh of the Master(Under preforms can actually be a detriment in PvE)
  • Shrouded Removal (scourge only)
  • Putrid Defense
  • Soul Comprehension
  • Reaper's Protection (Could be useful if surrounded by better traits.)
  • Deadly Strength
  • Death Nova
  • Corrupter's Fervor
  • Unholy Sanctuary

Blood Magic:

  • Life from Death (Especially on scourge)
  • Banshee's Wail
  • Unholy Martyr

Soul reaping:

  • Spectral Mastery
  • Fear of Death
  • Dhuumfire (Scourge only in WvW and PvP)

Scourge:

  • Feed from Corruption

Shroud Skills

  • Dark Path
  • Life Transfer
  • Tainted Shackles

Weapon Skills

  • Mark of Blood
  • Rending Claws
  • Unholy Feast

Utility, heal and Elite Skills

  • Signet of Vampirism
  • Corrupt Boon (Arguable.)
  • Summon Bone Minions
  • Signet of the Locust
  • Signet of Undeath
  • Spectral Grasp
  • Spectral Wall (Under preforms)
  • Well of Darkness
  • Lich Form
  • Dessicate
  • Serpent Siphon

I didn't mention all the skills and traits that under preform either. Otherwise it would be almost all of them. I don't feel anything on reaper is useless, but a lot I can see as under-preforming.

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Add Warrior's Body Blow to this list.

Similarly to Merciless Hammer is is utterly useless because all the weapons that can take advantage of it are not Condition-based, but Power-based, so the extra inflicted Conditions are limp and impotent because you'd use them with Power stats.

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@The V.8759 said:I thought it would be nice to make a long list of all the skills and traits that are basicly never used in the game.GuardianSkills:

  • Sanctuary
  • Bane Signet
  • Signet of WrathTraits:
  • Blinding Jeopardy
  • Perfect Inscriptions
  • Retaliatory Subconscious

IMO sanctuary is a great point capture prevention in pvp and helps secure stomps/resses, to keep the annoying spectral flames away from boss in deepstone, and used when you need additional projectile hate uptime(i.e volcanic fractal boss).

Bane and signet of wrath are both used in pve with DH power and FB condi builds respectively.

Traits I agree.

I would suggest the shouts; save yourselves, hold the line, retreat. Add in hallowed ground and mantra of truth.

As for the elementalist, I always wanted to use it but I don't think it's worth it even for a support build - glyph of restoration. Almost the same goes for mesmer's illusion of life but I know one person who runs it in my server when zerging so I guess that counts? Lol >.>

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While I do think thief as a whole needs some work (unload needs a damage buff (it does less damage then most AAs while also limiting usability of your other weapon skills) and its ini cost lowered for sPvP / WvW, skills / traits like signet of malice / assassin's reward should scale significantly better with healing power and invigorating precision should also be affected by healing power), if there's one thing that needs a rework / improvement it's definitely the shortbow. No one ever uses it aside for "teleporting around". The ini costs are fine but most of the weapon skills are just bad. Take cluster bomb for example: it does barely any damage and requires you to jump into the enemy group to get any use out of it thanks to how detonate cluster works (which should honestly just be a second explosion right after the initial one).

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@Lily.1935 said:-SNIP-

Half of these things are fine. I'll copy that, and leave the stuff that's actually about fine. Let's not waste dev time, if some of them happen to read it.

  • Signets of SufferingThe trait is actually really good, it's just the Signets themselves that are A. underwhelming or B. conflicting in their purpose. The Plague Signet power-up may need to be changed though.
  • Reaper's Protection (Could be useful if surrounded by better traits.)Indeed. That's why it doesn't belong here.
  • Deadly StrengthIs fine.
  • Corrupter's FervorThe best trait in DM. No business to be in this list.
  • Unholy SanctuaryGood but underwhelming for a Grandmaster. Belongs in the Master tier.
  • Banshee's WailThis is a great trait in OW if you run Blood. Permanent Swiftness.
  • Rending ClawsNot great but does its job. Sets up bursts from the 2 skill.
  • Unholy FeastGreat for PvP. Cleaves Mesmer clones nicely.
  • Corrupt Boon (Arguable.)Nothing wrong with the skill. Lacks an effective build and circumstance but that's not the skills fault.
  • Spectral GraspCan be used successfully in PvP. Instant 75% LF when used right. Just pull mesmer clones and ranger pets to reset LF.
  • Well of DarknessAnother Nightfall, and not even the weakest of Wells.
  • DessicateSame thing as with Corrupt Boon.
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@Lily.1935 said:

  • DessicateSame thing as with Corrupt Boon.

I find this melee skilldoesnt fit the kit. It’s radius is way too small or should be ground target. There’s no animation so no feedback to the player of its hits. Based on its name, it should have some of that vitality drain like is found on the Lich now.

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@Yannir.4132 said:

@Lily.1935 said:-SNIP-

Half of these things are fine. I'll copy that, and leave the stuff that's actually about fine. Let's not waste dev time, if some of them happen to read it.
  • Signets of SufferingThe trait is actually really good, it's just the Signets themselves that are A. underwhelming or B. conflicting in their purpose. The Plague Signet power-up may need to be changed though.
  • Reaper's Protection (Could be useful if surrounded by better traits.)Indeed. That's why it doesn't belong here.
  • Deadly StrengthIs fine.
  • Corrupter's FervorThe best trait in DM. No business to be in this list.
  • Unholy SanctuaryGood but underwhelming for a Grandmaster. Belongs in the Master tier.
  • Banshee's WailThis is a great trait in OW if you run Blood. Permanent Swiftness.
  • Rending ClawsNot great but does its job. Sets up bursts from the 2 skill.
  • Unholy FeastGreat for PvP. Cleaves Mesmer clones nicely.
  • Corrupt Boon (Arguable.)Nothing wrong with the skill. Lacks an effective build and circumstance but that's not the skills fault.
  • Spectral GraspCan be used successfully in PvP. Instant 75% LF when used right. Just pull mesmer clones and ranger pets to reset LF.
  • Well of DarknessAnother Nightfall, and not even the weakest of Wells.
  • DessicateSame thing as with Corrupt Boon.

Signet of suffering shouldn't exist. It doesn't have a purpose in the game aside from shotty patchwork for a broken mechanic. And not in a OP way broken. Shroud should not block off your utility skills. This is a major design flaw of the necromancer and having a trait that later patches up the short sighted design of the dev's doesn't make it good.

Reaper's protection isn't surrounded by better traits within death or out of death. It makes it a gimmick at best and because it doesn't have the right support its not good. So I stand by my case here.

Corrupted Fervor being the best trait in death is arguable. I think shrouded removal is the best trait in death. Corrupted Fervor doesn't do much for you. It's fairly weak and death on it's own doesn't give a whole lot of options to support it. You end up having to choose it over something like blood, curses or soul reaping which all offer a stronger option. Blood gives quite a bit of recovery, curses has weakening shroud and soul reaping hives more health along with more life force on top of foot in the grave which is a stunbreak. Maybe it could be good if death had stronger support for a bunker condi set up but it really doesn't.

Deathly strength is bad. The necromancer forums have had this debate for years now. And the majority consensus is that it just underperforms. Every once in a while we get someone singing the praises of this trait but it's got a bad start conversation, in a bad specialization, with contradictory design around conditions and toughness with this odd outlier in the spec. It's very bad.

Unholy Sanctuary has been labeled as one of the worst traits of them all. And you want to top that off it actually doesn't function hardly at all with scourge. It will fail on scourge if you don't have something like 16% life force to use. This trait is a trap. It suckers newbies into thinking its amazing when in truth it has proven to be more of a detriment than anything else. Even on reaper and core. Even if this was a master trait if I had only one minion I'd take Necromantic Corruption over it. Even if it was an adapt trait I'd take shrouded removal over it. Even if it was in another trait line as an adept I'd take something else. It is that bad.

For banshee's wail I think I might have been a bit unfair with this one. Yeah it's not bad. My frustration is more with the warhorn skills themselves than the trait itself.

Unholy fervor has been a part of the biggest regret I have in guild wars. I hate this skill. It might be personal bias since I used to like it. But they changed its function slightly and ruined its animation making it look like I'm paddling my enemy on my necromancer. And the skill doesn't perform that well either. I shouldn't have made frostfang. Underwhelming legendary with an underwhelming axe animation.

Unholy feast is slow with an added effect that doesn't come up all that often.

On a profession with tones of access to boom strip and corrupt, corrupt boon doesn't stand out. Not only that it's one of the more self damaging corruption skills.

Hmm? Did I miss an update with this skill? But 75% sounds like a bug if that's true. But you also claimed dessicate did that, which it doesn't so you might be reading into it wrong.

Well of darkness has a long cool down and is the weakest well. It's one moment to shine was a janky build using chilling darkness which was patched almost instantly.

Dessicate gives 10% life force no matter what you do. It's a slow skill with a massive tell, low might stacks and short range. It is not a good skill by any stretch of the imagination.

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@Matt H.6142 said:Revenant - Ive never touched the heals on incoming damage, condi or physical. The staff orb, taunt/retaliation improvements don’t seem that impactful, and momentary pacification doesn’t fit some elites.

you talking about the herold heal? just because you dont use it doesnt mean its never used, pretty much every single rev in wvw is using that one as main source of healing

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Hiya! Sorry for a late update, but had a busy weekend!Anyway, the list has been updated accordingly. Some people's feedback was unusable if it would only focus on PvE or just be way too general (I can't do anything with "the whole earth line on Elementalist)

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Guardian

Shouts - Shouts need an overhaul completely for PVE in my opinion, as they aren't really that great no matter whats your role. But to be more precise:

  1. "Retreat"
  2. "Stand Your Ground"
  3. "Hold the Line"

Mantras:

  1. Mantra of Truth

Weapons - Shield:

  1. Shield of Absorption - Not really useless, but i think it could use some improvement

Traits:

  1. Focus Master
  2. Communal Defenses
  3. Tenacious Defense
  4. Inner Fire
  5. Zealous Scepter
  6. Shattered Aegis
  7. Empowering Might
  8. Pure of Voice
  9. Retaliatory Subconscious
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@Yannir.4132 said:

@Lily.1935 said:-SNIP-

Half of these things are fine. I'll copy that, and leave the stuff that's actually about fine. Let's not waste dev time, if some of them happen to read it.
  • Signets of SufferingThe trait is actually really good, it's just the Signets themselves that are A. underwhelming or B. conflicting in their purpose. The Plague Signet power-up may need to be changed though.

Doesn't do enough and actually makes plague signet a self-destruction skill. It should have at least positive effect not negative.

  • Reaper's Protection (Could be useful if surrounded by better traits.)Indeed. That's why it doesn't belong here.
  • Deadly StrengthIs fine.
  • Corrupter's FervorThe best trait in DM. No business to be in this list.

Doesn't even have synergy with deadly strength.

  • Unholy SanctuaryGood but underwhelming for a Grandmaster. Belongs in the Master tier.

Deathmagic as a whole is the most useless traitline in the whole game of any classes...

  • Banshee's WailThis is a great trait in OW if you run Blood. Permanent Swiftness.

There are better ways for swiftness than this shitty trait. Not to mention that it just gets outclassed by vp

  • Rending ClawsNot great but does its job. Sets up bursts from the 2 skill.

Huge aftercast

  • Unholy FeastGreat for PvP. Cleaves Mesmer clones nicely.

Way to slow for the effect it does.

  • Corrupt Boon (Arguable.)Nothing wrong with the skill. Lacks an effective build and circumstance but that's not the skills fault.

It's fine i guess, but only mentionable in gvgs

  • Spectral GraspCan be used successfully in PvP. Instant 75% LF when used right. Just pull mesmer clones and ranger pets to reset LF.

But shouldn't be outrunnable. As every class except necro has enough movement for that

  • Well of DarknessAnother Nightfall, and not even the weakest of Wells.

Well of darkness definetly is the weakest of the wells, that's why nobody plays it ever

  • DessicateSame thing as with Corrupt Boon.

Could use some spice

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