Taril.8619

If we see them, it'd likely be during the 3rd expansion and/or its LW content. But who knows. I mean, they skimped out on the underwater ones for gen 2... They also can't market Legendaries very well unless they make them tradable so people buy gems to convert to gold... Though, they could make for a nice selling point for the upcoming expansion... Having the Legendary Armory, Gen 3 Legendaries and maybe even a new way to work on obtaining Legendaries (A number of people have complained about how lame just crafting them can be and how nice it is to get bits of lore about them... This theoretically could lead to more lore related collections for getting them) But then again, I'm somewhat biased since the idea of gambling with the Mystic Toilet to try and get the Clovers needed to craft Legendaries sounds about as fun as a kick in the nuts...

Can the necessary map currency, here 50 shards of jade, be farmed just as easily? Not quite sure if that pays off and should be a reason for it - right? Yes it can. Especially if taking advantage of the Bjora Marches currency conversion. It's not quite as infinitely scaling as karma... But you can also farm several maps currencies and use karma to purchase items from multiple maps with their specific currencies (Though, I'm aware that not all maps have Exotics you can purchase from vendors like Lake Doric. Though it's easier for ANet to just make all karma bought stuff to be this way and not have to worry about people buying stuff from multiple maps) It kind of sucks, but I get the rational behind it, trying to prevent any sort of economic exploits especially if they feel like adding in ways to help people buy things they legitimately want from these vendors (Such as the Bjora Marches conversion, which many people use to help get currencies for the Skyscale)

The kind that doesn't want too much attention. Keeping up appearances so you seem like a normal well adjusted person, while in your off time you're experimenting on corpses trying to perfect reanimation and abusing dark magic as much as you can. An example of this can be found in the LW4 episode Long Live the Lich. Where you have to investigate the farm. When you go talk to Sabil, everyone's like "He's a pillar of the community!" and you talk to him and he seems fairly normal. Then you find out that he's got his dead wife lying in his bed, he released the scarab plague on the local doctor, planted scarab eggs in the villages crops and is taking orders from Joko... Sometimes, being overtly evil and corrupted is a good way to get yourself arrested or killed in a fantasy setting... Better to act like a normal person and hide your dark hobbies, your literal skeletons in the closet... Of course, the flip side is, not every Necromancer is evil. The best example of this is Trahearne. He is a Necromancer, but all he wants to do is cleanse Orr from corruption. He even mentions how his minions aren't "Undead" and are instead just animated flesh (Which I guess technically makes the Necromancer class more accurately "Fleshmancers" or "Golemancers" than actual "Necromancers" if they aren't manipulating the dead... Which seems to be the case all their skills are about manipulating souls and life force with Scourge being a Sand Mage...)

I guess so you can't turn things like Karma into Gold as easily. Given how easy it is to farm out Karma, with Karmic Retribution lvl 3 in a LW zone, allowing items like these to be salvaged/sold/dumped into the mystic toilet could have adverse effects on the economy.

To be honest, given the state of it in WvW... It should never have been in WvW in the first place. When you have to nerf something that is only relevant to its singular game mode to near uselessness. Chances are it was a bad idea to implement in the first place.

But what other purpose is there for adding in PvP into PvE zones? Also, you have to consider how something being implemented into the game will actually function. Maybe YOU want PvP in PvE zones and don't have intentions to gank people... But what about every other PvPer in the game? Can you say that none of them will use this situation to start ganking people? This is not being "Afraid of something different". This is "Being tired of this exact thing in many other games which have become dumpster tier as a result". I've played most MMO's that exist. In ALL of them that had PvP and PvE mixed in an Open World have been trash. With the only notable exception being Eve Online, which has an emphasis on corporations controlling various points and there's occasional battles between corporations over strategic points (But outside of that, it's people ganking those in mining ships trying to earn some currency by harvesting rocks...) WoW Classic is also not just nostalgia fueled, it's also a solid game, before years of questionable additions ruined the game and turned it into a pile of garbage. It's worth noting that not all of the changes made were bad, but the bad decisions were monumentally awful (Things like the LFG system, flying mounts, wellfare Epics, the dismantling of the talent system, Vengeance mechanic, dumbing down all classes to remove any notable skill ceilings, random bonus stat rolls on gear (Warforge/Tertiary stats) etc) It's why TBC and WotLK are seen as the best era of WoW, because they implemented a lot of positive changes to the game (Such as Arena, better quests, improved classes and class balance (I.e. Tanks other than Warrior existed. Ret Paladin had more to do than just auto attack. Etc.), Faction advantages in PvP were diminished with the availability of Horde Paladins and Alliance Shamans etc. But implementing PvP into PvE doesn't change this. PvE will still be dead for PvPers. Them coming into a PvE map to PvP doesn't change that. WvW will still be dead for PvEers. Getting ganked repeatedly in a PvE map won't change that. If you want to improve these things for these players, you have to give them incentives to try out the modes. Though, this is already somewhat the case, PvPers can still get skins from doing PvE. PvEers can get gear and Legendary materials from WvW. Just, these people don't WANT to play these other modes. That's why after 8 years, they still don't. The mass is PvE players. Not PvP players. Adding PvP to PvE maps adds nothing for PvE players. So... In what scenario do you think your suggestion is going to "Make it better and more compelling to the mass"? And neither do you. People are constantly giving fresh new ideas. Ideas like "Actually update PvP and WvW for the first time in 8 years" That's what would benefit the PvP and WvW community. Not shoehorning in PvP content into PvE content, to heck with the consequences it would have on the majority of the playerbase that doesn't play PvP and WvW for a reason. You can be 100% sure, when you've literally experienced it many times over. PvP in PvE open world is not a new idea, it has been used by many, many MMO's over the years. To which it has constantly been complained about for the same reasons time and time again. That being, with unlimited targetting, it always devolves down to people being awful and just ganking players who have no desire to play PvP. While with limited targetting with toggled flags, everyone always complains that there's no-one to fight because no-one flags for PvP ever (Since no-one in these PvE environments cares about PvPing at that time... If they did want to PvP, they'd end up going to the dedicated PvP areas instead of toggling on PvP and hoping to run into someone else who's also flagged or willing to flag) The latter issue was always exacerbated by the fact that PvE zones often didn't have places to funnel players towards in order to engage in PvP. One of the issues that is typically solved by instanced PvP zones like Battlegrounds or Conquest maps that literally get people willing to PvP, stick them in a map and then show them some shared objectives to funnel towards to promote actual fighting (Otherwise you end up with stuff like WoW's Alterac Valley where people just rush past each other to go kill the boss to get the "PvP Rewards" from winning the match). It is even further crippled by flying mounts, so people in a zone don't see each other because everyone's just flying around at different heights and making their own way through a map (Compared without mounts/limited ground mounts, where people will often follow roads to not get mauled by the PvE enemies that will slow them down)

Most of it comes from the fact that, up until that point, the personal story has its entire focus on you doing something. Level 10 arc is all about you making a name for yourself. Level 20 arc is dealing with a problem related to you. Level 30 arc is you joining up with an order. Level 40 is random "Hey look it's Destiny's Edge" Level 50 is you being a member of your order and discovering a Risen scout. Level 60 is now about Trahearne's Wyld Hunt. Trahearne getting the legendary sword Saladbowl. Trahearne being given a vision from the Pale Tree about how he'll become a General and lead an attack into Orr. Trahearne being destined to cleanse the land of its corruption. Oh and you're there as well. Level 70 is about being commanded by Trahearne to go fight in Orr (Of course, you get to have your input and can dictate where you'll be deployed, but it's still Trahearne ultimately making the decisions) Level 80 is about Destiny's Edge beating Zhaitan. You're there as well, being the only one using the god damn cannons and doing all of the work. But nah, it's "The commander worked with Destiny's Edge to beat Zhaitan" Basically, because there was literally 0 interaction with Trahearne in the personal story (Aside from in early sylvari quests) they had to shoehorn in an entire character's worth of development into a single arc, which makes a significant impact especially on someone's "Personal" story. This, coupled with the terrible writing of the rest of the Orr campaign, where basically nothing of note happens to develop any characters (And Trahearne tags along on a couple of missions and is a dumb AI but is literally what the mission progress is linked to so if he bugs out you have to restart) and the huge disappointment that is the final confrontation with Zhaitan, ends up with people having a somewhat bitter taste after it all and pinning it down to Trahearne as his introduction marked the downturn of the writing.

Characters I'd like to see more of? CanachSayidaRiel DarkwaterShadows Agent KitoOgdenAniseTaimiDawkkurraReasons: Canach, Sayida and Ogden are cool characters, with a nice amount of incidental laughs due to how to the point they can be. Riel and Kito make some sense as the Orders of Whispers and Shadows would both jump at the chance to get involved with gathering intel from Cantha and infiltrating whatever their version of the same Order would be. Also, ANet have yet to actually do anything about having these 2 Orders interact after mentioning that they split into 2 sects due to differences. As far as Riel vs Kito (As opposed to Kossan), well, Riel as the Master of Whispers hides her true identity within the Order so can go onto assignments like any other Agent. Kito vs Kossan because Kito is the one who's with us throughout most of PoF and Kossan so far has been a mostly lame character who's just been like "Koss is grandpappy!!!!!" for much of his screen time... Anise because she's a cool mesmer who isn't annoying af. Ideally, I'd love to see more of Queen Jennah being a total boss, but I think it might be harder to justify her travelling to Cantha as opposed to Anise (Who should likely have less to deal with in the Krytan capital after the events of Lake Doric and the dismantling of the White Mantle and affirmation that Jennah is actually looking out for the citizens what with that vocal minister complaining about her abusing her power was cut short by Jennah needing to put up that barrier to stop everyone getting smooshed by cannonfire...) Taimi and Dawkkurra because they're adorable characters :3 (Well, pre-S4 Taimi before she was all about "I'm dying!" and "I'm FINE!"... Ideally S2 Taimi where she was all sassy and adorable i.e. Kas: "What is this place?" Taimi: "It's a caave~") There are other characters I'd love to go to Cantha with. But they're all dead so...

For the most part, Condi = Hybrid. Since the optimal gear for increasing Condi damage, is Viper's which offers a bunch of Power and Precision alongside the Condition boosting stats of Condition Damage and Expertise. This is then further reinforced when (Or if) you manage to cap out your Condition Duration via a mix of Expertise and Runes/Sigils that enhance the duration of conditions your build uses, where Grieving gear is the next most optimal stat selection for damage due to the Power, Precision and Ferocity it adds in addition to the Condition Damage. There currently doesn't exist an optimal "Condition" stat selection, which would be Condition Damage as a main stat and Expertise and Precision as a secondary (Precision due to Condi on Crit effects) As far as Power vs Condi (Hybrid) goes: Power is better for Open World, Dungeons, Fractals and many Raid bosses. This is because things either die very fast (Open World enemies and trash in Dungeons/Fractals) or because of transition/immunity phases which clear all active conditions.Condi (Hybrid) is better for select Raid bosses that do not feature such interactions that clear conditions.If you're interested in Raiding, you can check out Snow Crows to find out which bosses prefer Condition builds and which prefer Power builds (Just click on the boss and look at the composition they show. I.e. Click on Cairn and see that all the builds are Condi damage or click on Mursaat and see that all the builds are Power damage)

Duelling in open world areas, is often annoying. With people spamming duels on people for kicks and giggles. Sure, it can also work out fine, but in those situations, there's usually specific places where people gather and want to duel (For example, outside of Orgrimmar in WoW you'll find bunches of duelists challenging each other). In which case, there's literally nothing to gain from doing something other than adding in a dueling lobby so likeminded people can challenge each other there. Open World PvP, in the sense of "Everyone is a target" in literally all games that have it, is 99.99% griefing. Killing undergeared/underprepared players, targetting people whom are doing other tasks (Such as gathering or doing dailies) and/or roaming as "Kill squads" to ensure a numbers advantage because such players are too bad to win in aforementioned duels... Only in that rare 0.01% of the time is Open World PvP actually utilized in a way that makes for fun gameplay for both sides, where people break out into ad hoc duels or teamfights over specific locations. In general, PvP is more fun when its on an even playing field. Which usually means, dedicated PvP areas where only people that want to participate can go. That way you get actual fights rather than just griefing (It's also more fun to play as an actual PvPer as the draw of PvP is to have opponents that present some resistance. Since ganking is about as fun as going into a starter map and farming level 2 enemies beyond that odd draw of "Haha, I'm ruining someone elses experience!" that some people apparently get) Heck, it's one of the reasons why WvW used to be extra lame, back when it was necessary for 100% map completion in Central Tyria, you'd find tons of people whom were only there to get all the PoI's, HP's and Vistas which offered no fun when you slaughtered them with your fully optimized PvP build and on the flip side, it was no fun getting annihilated when you jumped in to do something not PvP related and kept getting ganked. It's still somewhat a problem with WvW, with dailies and such tasking people with various non-PvP related things but at a much lesser degree than what it used to be.

To be honest... I'd probably end up just writing "Haha, commander go brrrr" on all the paperwork... That's basically what happens anyway. Who can fault that when the result is a dead Elder Dragon... I miss what he COULD have been. He had a lot of potential as a character, but was marred by the terrible writing of the 60+ PS which left him in a position where he was not at all used well, leading to him being largely disliked and thus being essentially deleted from the game until the end of HoT (He had a few cameo appearances in LS2 but that was it and it was basically just for a single piece of dialogue each time). His character was used better post-death when you meet him again while reforging (Regrowing?) the legendary sword Saladbowl. But alas, that's a bit too late, what with him being dead and all (Also it's not even him, it's a memory from the sword itself...) and really didn't amount to much of his potential. But yeah, he could have been a fantastic character. He was not portrayed as some amazing super flawless character, his legendary sword wasn't ridiculously OP (Unlike Sohothin which Rytlock still is allowed to have despite being an utter tool and incapable of using it even 0.0000001% as effectively as the commander), he wasn't inherently in a position of power (Unlike Rytlock who's a Tribune and can apparently ask Smodur to come visit us... Or Taimi who has influence by being Zojja's apprentice... Or basically any other member of Destiny's Edge sans maybe Caithe) He could have been a great character to develop alongside the player character, having to work around things like people in charge not caring about what we have to say (Like literally what was the basis of the first quest in the Orr chain, where no-one would listen to us about the invasion from Orr, except that one lass on the beach). But instead it was just "lul now he's a Marshal" and then "lul now you're a Commander" which meant that "lul, now everyone obeys your orders without question!" which not only just makes no sense at all in the story (Going from everyone laughing at the military advice from a scholar and a no-name adventurer who literally only just joined an Order like 5 minutes ago and has a collective experience of 1 actual mission... To being in charge of basically everyone with no resistance at all for no reason), but also completely stifles any ability to create meaningful characterization (Such as, you know... Taking even 2 seconds to acclimatize to a new role after having complained to the Pale Tree about not being a tactician...)

In the situation where there's a ton of different pieces of gear with different values and different effects... The end result is still that everyone will be wearing the same thing. The only difference is now it's much harder/more costly to obtain that same thing. That's literally how BiS lists function. People figure out what of the available options is "Best" and then tell everyone so that everyone can then use the "Best" option. If you add in gear treadmill... Still no different. Everyone still wears the same stuff. They just have to re-obtain the new "Best" stuff at set intervals for... Reasons. Even more so is the lack of choice when progressing between "Bests" due to how much work it is to implement bunches of armour (You can see it in standard gear treadmill MMO's. New expansions drop that powercreeps everything released before, everyone replaces their shiny end game loot with quest rewards that are better, then gets to the new max level and grinds out their shiny end game loot again. Rinse and repeat ad nauseum) In games like the Borderlands series, it can be pretty fun to go around picking up lots of items with varying stats and using them as you progress through the game and find more interesting items. But even here, once it comes to end-game, where you've got nothing left to do but farm for gear, you are looking for the 1 particular version of the items that is best. In MMO's, that end-game comes very quickly and so you reach a state where everyone would be looking for that 1 particular version of all their items very quickly. It essentially makes gear treadmills pretty terrible design. Especially when utilizing player markets that allow trading of items so people can just buy the best items rather than have to grind for it and hope for RNG to bless them, or when using a crafting system that allows actually useful items like relevant gear to be made (Both of which GW2 features) It's where skins is actually one of the best ways to keep loot meaningful. Since skins are timeless, they don't get outdated by new content (In fact, more content means more items to combine with them to make cool outfits), they're always relevant and there's never a "Best" skin that everyone will want to be using as its all based on subjectivity (What you think looks best with your outfit)

Okay. How to make it as non-toxic as possible: 1) Don't put it into a PvE environment, where players are using PvE tuned skills, PvE equipment and PvE runes and sigils. Instead, use a PvP environment, with PvP tuned skills, PvP equipment and PvP runes and sigils.2) Make it optional, accessed by some sort of lobby. So only players whom are wanting to engage in PvP can fight other players whom are also wanting to engage in PvP.3) Allow everyone who participates to have equal opportunities to obtain the gear, runes and sigils they want to use, say by having vendors that sell everything for cheap but with items that have no practical use in PvE. Oh wait...

"As the title suggests I'm looking at this from a PvE perspective. Raids are the Goal for new players. its the endpoint they seek to strive for. And as such it should be noted that their transition into that scene should be as smooth as possible. And considering many of these meme builds don't translate at all or even are bad in Dungeons, it sours early experiences." Try reading my posts because minions do not do this. They don't offer a transition into the end game content as I've run them. I've played perhaps dozens of Minion master builds over the years I've played the game as well as about a Dozen Turret builds and they just don't function as you would hope. Even with proper gear. You seem to forget that I'm a veteran player and don't need advice on how to build a class, and especially not on necromancer. I've also had the misfortune of experiencing(when I was new) and seeing Necromancer players in open world fail to get credit for events because their minions were just poorly designed. Again, since when has Raids been the goal for new players? Raids are only done by a minority of players. Even in other MMO's Raids are only done by a minority of players, outside of LFR versions that are nerfed to the point of being faceroll so that random plebs can drool over their keyboard and still beat the encounters to get loot. Raids in GW2 are so unpopular, that ANet simply hasn't released one in ages, instead replacing them with Strikes. So, why are "New players" so concerned with this content that is so niche? Especially if when they ask "What's the best place to get gear?" or "How to earn gold?" they'll be told anything BUT Raids since GW2's Raids are terrible for loot and actually only worth doing for a handful of unique skins. The main "End Game" for GW2, is either PvP, WvW or OW PvE. With OW PvE being by far the most popular and being the most pushed content (Every content update from LW's introduces new maps with new events, metas and things to farm) With OW PvE being viable, if not outright great for minion builds. Lots of sustain is possible very easily, minions can tank hits too because OW PvE enemies AI is jank and they like to switch targets for no reason. Turret builds are viable because DPS requirements are low. As far as the point about "Experiencing and seeing Necromancer players in open world fail to get credit for events because their minions were just poorly designed" literally all you need to do is hit an enemy in an event once with any skill, even an auto attack, and eventually die and you get credit. If someone is just afking in an event and letting their minions run around and kill stuff and not even auto attacking, then that's on them and not the fault of minions. Bearing in mind, that in fact, popular AFK farm strategies involve necromancers using minions and going AFK and having their minions kill stuff so they get loot. Which also suggests that minion damage on its own does even contribute to the necromancer now, otherwise these AFK farmers wouldn't all be playing Necromancer and Engineer and using minions and turrets.

I don't understand the need. You don't have anything detrimental from having an active Mark over not having one. If the idea is to have a cancel button that simply removes the Mark, stolen skill and malice... Then you're in no better situation than if you just left it on the target while you attacked other stuff anyway (With the downside of not being able to even get initiative from incidental cleave damage) The only way a cancel button would make sense is if it did something to Steal's cooldown, in which case it would be OP because then you're effectively getting Mercy for free (Sans the init boost and stunbreak but the init boost is not particularly relevant when running M7 anyway as you generate tons of init). Which would not only be a huge boost to BQoBK as you could spam steals to get Quickness but also would allow for things like Unload, Heartseeker, Flanking/Larcenous Strike and Cluster Bomb to be spammed without having to deal with going into stealth and landing the stealthed attack by just cancelling the Mark to dump the Malice and reapplying it to proc M7 more.

PvE Players: Can we have a useful Warclaw?Mom: We have a Warclaw at home. Warclaw at home: WvW Warclaw

Actually there is. There's Ravens (That you actually obtain from Raven's Shrine in Wayfarer Foothills), Owls, Eagles and Hawks. Anyway as far as Raven inspired professions... Mesmer, Necromancer and Elementalist all fit easily. Thief also works well, as does Ranger.

If it's ONE profession per race, I'd say: Asura - Necromancer. They say that Necromancy and Golemancy are very alike and given that all asura have to study Golemancy as part of their schooling, it makes the most sense.Charr - Engineer. A lot of what we see from the charr is their machines. Tanks, copters, rockets, turrets etc. Ergo, Engineer is a good fit.Human - Elementalist or Mesmer. It's a bit of a tie here. Since on the one hand, there are a lot of notable human characters whom are Mesmers (Such as Kasmeer, Jenna and Anise) as well as Lyssa using illusionary magic too. On the other hand, there's a lot that can be said about elemental magic with the various gods that had elemental affinities (Dwayna = Air, Melandru = Earth, Abbadon + Lyssa = Water, Grenth = Ice, Balthazar = Fire)Norn - Ranger. A notable part of norn culture is hunting and living off the land. They revere animals and their associated animal spirits and so Ranger makes a lot of sense for them.Sylvari - Thief. There exist Night blooms which prefer solitude and would take to keeping to the shadows (Such as notably, Caithe). Not to mention the results of the sylvari's first contact with another race could cause them to be more cautious. Thus Thief seems a good choice.

In order to be able to put points into an Elite Specialization, you first need to fully unlock all skills and specializations from the core class. It costs 398 hero points to fully unlock everything from a core class. It then costs 250 hero points to fully unlock an Elite Specialization (30 to unlock it, then 10 per trait, 15 per skill and 25 for the Elite Skill, with Revenant being an exception and needing 20 points per skill and 30 points for their Elite Skills) So in total, it will cost 648 hero points for you to go from 0 skills to fully unlocked Firebrand.

Having the Warclaw be improved in PvE could be interesting. It could also be combined with a way to work on the Warclaw Collection in PvE too, to mitigate the "I dun wanna do WvW!" crowd that percieve it as a "Necessity" for whatever reason. For example, increase its base movement speed up to 600 to match the Raptor. Then let Warclaw's Blessing activate faster and also provide a boost to the Warclaw's speed per player affected by it (Up to a cap of say 700-750 or something). Whack in an extra bonus of something like "Players share participation progress for x seconds after being affected by Warclaw's Blessing" And voila. You have yourself a new niche mount, that works well for doing metas and event dailies. That also bypasses the common complaints about mounts (I.e. The "I can't get to events because people with mounts get there too fast" and "I can't get participation because Raptor insta-nukes every event") While still being usable when solo (Especially if mount lines functioned properly. I.e. Getting the 3rd endurance bar from Warclaw Mastery 3. Getting the global buffs from PvE mounts final masteries)

Nerfs to Sand Shades CD's. Shroud skills now once again trigger at both the Sand Shades and Necromancer on use. Shroud Skills in WvW reduced target cap to 2. Yes, this includes Sand Savant only having a target cap of 2 and therefore being strictly inferior to not picking a traitYet they are still very much meta in zerging, while roaming has seen a resurgence of near unkillable core necros. I've seen core necros shroud tank 4 people without them being able to break through it, cause they kept regenerating about as much shroud as they did damage lol. And of course after they drop shroud, they are back to 100% as soon as it's on cd.Core Necro isn't Scourge though. So it's no surprise there's beeen a resurgence of Core Necro's after Scourge got destroyed.

Kneel itself is a 1500-range rangefinder; select a target and then look at the red bar under the skill. Or look at the blue ring that shows you your range limit while kneeling...

Nerfs to Sand Shades CD's. Shroud skills now once again trigger at both the Sand Shades and Necromancer on use. Shroud Skills in WvW reduced target cap to 2. Yes, this includes Sand Savant only having a target cap of 2 and therefore being strictly inferior to not picking a trait In competitive modes, it's outright inferior due to having such a small radius that you'll get a lot less passive healing from it. In PvE, it has replaced Blood Fiend as the new go-to heal skill as it provides more damage (Due to scaling off of Power), albeit Blood Fiend provides more healing especially without Signets of Suffering trait to allow SoV to do anything in Shroud. It's possible to run a Well focused build that includes Well of Darkness. But in general, it's prioritized behind Well of Suffering and Well of Corruption. It can still be decent with its damage alongside the pulsing Blind and Chill. It's just that Suffering does more damage (Along with the stacks of Vulnerability) and Corruption corrupts boons which is nice utility. Well of Darkness is worth using if there's no other utilities you feel you need, especially given the burst that's possible by dropping all 3 wells on someone and then going into Shroud to get Death Perception, Reaper's Onslaught and Soul Barbs stat boosts on them.

Ley Line Gliding is quite nice. Even with mounts such as Skyscale/Griffon, it can be useful to traverse maps like Bloodstone Fen and Ember Bay among other areas where it can be useful. The last couple of masteries for Itzel/Nuhoch/Exalted are pretty lame. The challengers generally require several people to beat because they're super tough (More so than your average HoT HP Champion) and are not particularly popular to be done. Otherwise their only use is to allow the purchase of the items for the Order backpacks but that's of limited relevance if you enter LS3 and can farm currency to purchase Ascended backpieces... With the final mastery being basically just for 1 unlock each: Itzel with the Adrenal Mushrooms is useful for a HP in Auric Basin where you have to eat the funky meat and not throw up (But can be done anyway with a number of class skills that can provide persistent healing), it theoretically can be useful for fights but in my experience the places where Adrenal Mushrooms are tend not to be places where any fights of actual note take place (I.e. HP's, Meta event champions/legendaries)Nuhoch with the Nuhoch Alchemy seems basically irrelevant for anything I've encountered so far, even the troublesome Chak HP's make it pointless by the Champs just insta-downing you with the first hits of acid anyway. Maybe it has use for the achievement in that one mission where there's that area with 100 Chak you need to kill, but if you just pull them 1 at a time with a ranged weapon it makes it less necessary.Exalted with the Exalted Gathering is literally just used to get an item for the Specialization collections.Really, after getting the key masteries (Up to Blazing Speed for Itzel, up to Exalted Acceptance for Exalted and up to Nuhoch Stealth Detection for Nuhoch), Gliding and the LS3 masteries (Up to Oakheart's Reach which is necessary for the JP in Draconis Mons and is very useful in Draconis Mons and Dragonfall before getting your Skyscale) are the most useful.

Once you get level 11 you unlock the ability to spend Hero Points to access utility skills, including Minions. Obtaining them all requires level 31 as the final minion, Flesh Golem, is an Elite Skill which only unlocks at said level. Necromancer minions do not have a limited duration. They last until they die, you die, you change zones, you enter water (Without said minions also equipped in your underwater skill set) or upon mounting occasionally. The exception is Flesh Wurm, since as it cannot move, moving too far away will cause it to die (Other minions will follow you and will teleport to you if you move too far from them)