Elite skill

An elite skill is a special type of skill that is generally more powerful than normal skills. Elite skills can be identified by a golden border surrounding their icon. Elite skills cannot be purchased from skill trainers like normal skills can and are not available at all until the Crystal Desert in Prophecies, Kaineng City in Factions, or Kourna in Nightfall. A character may only place one elite skill in his skill bar at a time; putting a second one will cause the first to be automatically removed.

Acquiring elite skills
Elite skills are more difficult to acquire than standard skills. One way of obtaining them in PvE is to do the following:


 * Purchase a Signet of Capture from a skill trainer.
 * Put the Signet of Capture on your Skill Bar.
 * Find and kill a boss who has a 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, they gain 250 experience for each of their levels (e.g., 5000 XP at level 20) and the signet is permanently replaced by the captured skill. The character can have at most 3 signets of capture on his skill bar at one time.

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 and the signet will remain on your bar.

Alternatively, you may also unlock elite skills for PvP only by spending 3,000 faction each at a Priest of Balthazar, for example in the Great Temple of Balthazar. You can then use an Elite Tome of a PvE character's profession to capture any elite skill of that profession you have unlocked for your account.

Also, you can purchase skill packs through the Guild Wars online store.

Lists 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:
 * Arcane Mimicry
 * Price of Pride
 * Signet of Humility