Elite skill

Overview
These are a special type of skills that are generally more powerful than others. These skills can be identified by a golden border surrounding each elite skill's icon. Elite skills cannot be purchased from skill trainers like normal skills can, and are not available at all until late in the game. A character may place one elite skill in his/her skill bar at a time; putting a second one will cause the first to be automatically removed.

Amassing a large amount of elite skills is the objective of the title track Skill Hunter.

Gaining Elite Skills
Elite skills are more difficult to gain than standard skills are. The only way of obtaining them in PvE is to do the following:


 * Purchase a Signet of Capture from a skill trainer (first available in the quest Malaquire's Test in Lion's Arch).
 * Put the Signet of Capture in one of the skill slots on his/her Skill Bar.
 * Find and kill a boss who has the desired elite skill (see locations link below).
 * Use the Signet of Capture near the dead boss, causing a list of its skills to appear.
 * Select the elite skill from a list of the boss's skills and click Capture.

When a character captures an elite skill, the character gains 5,000 points of experience, his/her Signet of Capture is used up, and he/she must purchase another one if more elite skills are desired. The character can have as many of these signets on his/her skill bar at one time as desired, up to the normal maximum of eight.

You may only capture elite skills that belong to your primary and secondary professions. If you use Signet of Capture on a boss that doesn't share a profession with you, you will not be able to choose a skill to capture.

Alternatively, you may also unlock elite skills for PvP by spending 3,000 faction each at a Priest of Balthazar, for example in the Great Temple of Balthazar.

List of Elite Skills

 * For an alphabetical listing of all elite skills, see: Category:Elite skills.
 * For a list of elite skills by profession, see: Elite skills list
 * For a list of elite skill locations, see: Elite skill locations or Skills by capture location

Related Skills
These skills operate on elite skills though not elite themselves:
 * [[image:Mesmer-icon.png|15px]] Arcane Mimicry
 * [[image:Mesmer-icon.png|15px]] Signet of Humility