What, no elite on your bar?

There are people who would scoff, so I thought you were serious. If you weren't, just consider my post a statement in general to people who are, and not aimed at you.

Understood, no problem. ^

IMHO most builds are more effective with an elite skill, but that's me. For a while I ran a channeling build on my rit that had no elite, yet worked very well. I run with Clamor of Souls - I don't rush in front to use it... I don't need to. Aggro is easily broken, they come to me, I zap 'em.

My MM runs mostly with OoU, or AotL when I feel like tanking. I like OoU, suits my style of play; I deal damage and still have the MM wall ('cause I don't run with fiends... yes I know they have a good attack speed and works really well with OoU, but they don't bodyblock enough for me, or cause distraction to foes).

The *only* build I've seen with no viable elite is a N/P Blood Spiker in HA.

[skill]Shadow Strike[/skill][skill]Oppressive Gaze[/skill][skill]Vampiric Gaze[/skill][skill]"Fall Back!"[/skill][skill]"Make Haste!"[/skill][skill]"Brace Yourself!"[/skill][skill]Song of Concentration[/skill][skill]Resurrection Signet[/skill]

The reason that there arnt many builds (popular/wiki ones) that don't have elites is that when you make a build, from what I've done anyway, you get an elite and then some skills to complement it. In the early days of NF, with Reaper's Mark, a guildie of mine came out with a build built around it. Of course it has been polished since then, with different ways of combining skills.

Unless you have two or three normal skills that work well with each other, or were intended to work with each other (like a Minion Master build in proph) you generally don't get non-Elite builds since nearly all new builds are built around an elite from the start.

I'm sure someone will point out that that is not the case for some builds, but from what I've done, it's take an elite and build a bar around it, and I would say that is what happens most often.

Personally I would rather have an elite on my bar. Lets face it these skills are an elite for a reason, that is why they are limited to one. The only character I did not carry an elite on myself for a long time was my rit, and that was because there was no elite to complement what I was running, eg. the slot was better filled with a common skill which had greater synergy with everything else on my bar. I had no elites avalible to me at the time of the creation of the bar thus I managed with what I had, as it worked. To me this is the only time not having an elite is good, when all the elite currently have no synergy with your bar. That or you are just starting out. However, now I run something that does have an elite in it, completly redid my build, and admittably it is much better than what I was running before. Remember the good old days when you had to wait till the desert to even get a monster that you could cap a elite from? By then you were between level 15-20. Granted you managed, however, the moment you got a decent elite that is when you really started to pump out the damage or do you job really well. Heck go retry some of the old chapter 1 desert area with an elite. You will find it is almost bethticly easy. So end in end, the only time a elite is really not needed is when no other skill has enough synergy with the rest of the bar or party to be useful (as in your a complete utility character there to carry the burdens of what other charcters did not have space to run). Anyway that is my two cents. Cheers.

Only 2 or 3 times in my 2 years and 6 months of GW... i dont use a elite in my skill bar... but this builds are very very very specific for something...

P.S. 1: paragorns, dervishs, rit, in this order are the harder to select a elite to use... my paragorn ever go for support and i use cautery signet... in my dervish i normaly use some form skill... and in my rit vanderlust is a must... but i ever find a nice elite to use... cant see a elite to complet your build? cautery signet...

P.S 2: in this last months i working (solo) in hard mode, missions and Vanquisher areas... (i finish tyria, elona and cantha missions and Vanquisher cantha and half of elona and Vanquisher 10/52 areas in tyria... stoped the rest of the world and focus in GWEN area now...) my first build are a 3 sfs and a mm + henchs (this months ago in cantha)... a complete fail... the areas go the missions go the time pass and better and better my team build are...
Now i use 3 earth eles the 2 hench monks from the area a interrupter if area have, the mesmer from the area or some other good hench from the area + DEVONA ... but my fouth hero is a smiter with divine boon and smiter boon + SB + smiter con and smiter hex... OR a MM hero... i begin with the classic golen build but in hard mode you must get the best skill bar for the areas and the best for the areas is SS elite... because in some areas 1 foe or boss can kill all mm in a single strike...
what i can say with that? you ever can fit a nice elite to your build... area have lots of bodys? golen... need minions and dont have lots of bodys? JB... the dungeon boss kill all yours minions with 1 strike in Hard mode and still with 98% of life? SS... what is the best elite skill? is your brain... if i still with the same build i never complet my first Vanquisher area...

Sorry about my english...

Heh, my bad.
NOW I feel like an idiot.

Of course you don't have to have an elite. Most of each campaign can be completed with all regular skills if you actually know what you're doing, and anybody who can't do that without an elite is probably the person who doesn't know what they're doing.

Now, if we're talking PvP or high-end PvE areas, that's entirely different. The margin of error in those is much slimmer, so the upgraded skills are paramount.

90% of each campaign isn't like that, however.

There was a thread on gwonline about this very subject, and it wound up degrading to a "prove it" mentality (i.e. post a build that we can't make better with an elite or else it doesn't exist). Hopefully this thread doesn't go that way.

Anything with Mending is already perfect, regardless of whether it has an elite or not, so therefore I win the argument.

No, you don't:

[skill]Echo[/skill]

Why shouldn't it? It's the only way for one side or another to win the argument; all this, "Well I did such and such without an elite," doesn't really mean anything if the build that was run would have been better with an elite.

Although there are places an elite is 'required' for a PUG, not all places need an elite to be effective or fun. If I'm in Tombs and a R/Mo has no elite (Barrage), then I kick the person. Yes, I have seen Rangers in Tombs with no elites at all. However, all classes have skills that can do what is needed for general quests or missions without using an elite. Elites may make the same build better, but that doesn't meant he build won't work. As long as the person has skills selected that allow them to do the job they need to do for the team, I can live with them not using an elite.

I have yet to see a build that cannot be made better by adding an elite though.

Got a Personal FoW tanking build and beats most of the builds out there and no elite, sadly no one understands what I mean and so I get kicked. For those with a similar problem I feel your pain :'(

Your argument is made somewhat irrelevant since you mention the words "tank" and "FoW". Didn't we cover this in another thread already?

I enjoy my elites, but to be honest so long as a person is pulling their weight in the team, I couldn't care less what's on their skill bar.

I went through Prophecies on every character without an elite. I didn't know where to get them, what ones were good and I was killing fine without an elite, so as far as I was concerned, I didn't need them.

Besides, PvE is easy enough. (Providing you take heroes/hench or have a very, very experienced, co-ordinated, intelligent team. So that's PuGs out the question.) At worst, you can scrape by without an elite.

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As I told you in the other thread, it's simply a flawed test, as you can make any build better (whether you use non-elite or elite skills).