Guild Wars 2

The Facts

• 16 racial elites, 9 are on 240s cd’s (56%).
• 24 profession elites, 1 is on 240s cd (4%).
• 16 racial elites, 6 are over 1.5s cast time (37.5%).
• 24 profession elites, 5 are over 1.5s cast time (20%).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elite#Racial_elite_skills

The Effects
Usage of racial elites is quite rare. Not only do profession elites overshadow them in effectiveness they also are usable more and take less time to activate. I think that the balance team has focused too much on sPvP where racial skills are irrelevant, please consider the rest of the game.

Options

• Lower cooldowns on most of the racial elites. (Charr and Asuran skills especially in need of help)

Results of proposed change

• Racial skills will be worth the 10-30 skill points they cost to unlock.
• Player’s can feel connected to their character.
• No negative impact in PvP.
• No professions can have exclusive access to useful if situational elites.

I have to agree. Its not like it would overpower anything. Take the charr racial “Warband Support.” Not only is it a 240 second cool down and a 1.5 second cast time, but the NPCs it spawns are absolutely terrible. They only attack once every five seconds (not an exaggeration. I timed their attack delay with a stop watch once.) and do pathetic damage. Theres no way these things would even come close to overshadowing the class counter part, “Thieves Guild”. At least lower the cool down to a reasonable level.

No one uses Warband Support. Not even for aesthetic reasons. Its just bad at everything it does. It doesn’t even have a situational use.

I don’t actually like the concept of racial elites or skills at all. If racial elites were buffed in a manner that actually made them good, there would be more discrimination among groups and who they let in their party. Not only would you have to be the right profession, you’d need to be the right race too. Then, people who already have their characters level 80 may feel like they are supposed to remake their character or they may think that someone else of a different race and same profession will always be better. I only do WvW so it wouldn’t harm me that much unless one of the character’s races skills are very good at which point I feel like my hard work gone to 80 is now wasted. This is a little bit over the top perspective on it but it’s probably the reason why arenanet hasn’t made racial skills any good at this point. I also dunno how anything could be done with racial skills for this reason either.

Kravick.4906:

I have to agree. Its not like it would overpower anything. Take the charr racial “Warband Support.” Not only is it a 240 second cool down and a 1.5 second cast time, but the NPCs it spawns are absolutely terrible. They only attack once every five seconds (not an exaggeration. I timed their attack delay with a stop watch once.) and do pathetic damage. Theres no way these things would even come close to overshadowing the class counter part, “Thieves Guild”. At least lower the cool down to a reasonable level.

No one uses Warband Support. Not even for aesthetic reasons. Its just bad at everything it does. It doesn’t even have a situational use.

Warband Support is actually stronger than Thieves Guild, if the cooldown was lowered to 180 there would be no downside.

glaphen.5230:

Warband Support is actually stronger than Thieves Guild, if the cooldown was lowered to 180 there would be no downside.

Stop trolling. Seriously.

Male
Thieves Guild:8000 health) (105-126 DPS)
Black Powder (420-480 damage.)
Unload (98-114 Damage per shot. Shoots 12 shots instead of 8.)

Female
Thieves Guild:8000 health) (50% slower attack speed) (410-512 DPS)
Double Strike (480-510 damage per strike. Strikes twice.)
Wild Strike (910-970 damage.)
Lotus Strike (1500-1570 damage. Inflicts weakness instead of poison.)
Scorpion Wire (870-920 damage. While this is significantly more damage than the player can deal with the skill, it can only be used once by the summoned thief due to the long recharge time.)

Ranged Charr
10 000 Health
Shoot – Basic ranged attack. Deals 400-550 damage.
Aimed Shot – Ranged attack. Deals ~750 damage. Inflicts 5 stacks of Vulnerability and cripples target for 8 seconds.
Land Mine – Lays a Land Mine that launches nearby foes. Deals no damage. Has a very short recharge time but is only used when enemies get close.

Melee Charr
10 000 Health
Slash – Basic melee attack. Deals 400-550 damage.
Battle Roar – Grants nearby allies 3 stacks of might for 10 seconds.
Throw Axe – Ranged attack. Cripples target foe.

So yeah they have almost the same damage, more health, buffs and better CC at the cost of 60 second higher cooldown. The might stacks,vulnerabilities, and cripples should easily do far more unless the enemy sits inside the blind field and if they are in that, the Ranged Charr would use a Land Mine for a launch. The launch is 3 seconds long too and it has almost no cooldown. The melee is the only reason why the damage is lower and it kinda makes up for it with its spammable cripple throw, meanwhile the melee Thief has a hard time even hitting once after its initial Scorpion Wire. Ranged Charr does almost the same damage as the Thief.

Where are you pulling these numbers from? I’ve never seen Warband Support do Kill Shot, and as I said, they attack once every five seconds. Those damage numbers mean nothing when you look at them in the face of DPS.

Kravick.4906:

Where are you pulling these numbers from? I’ve never seen Warband Support do Kill Shot, and as I said, they attack once every five seconds. Those damage numbers mean nothing when you look at them in the face of DPS.

The numbers are from the wiki obviously. Test them both in game and watch enemies walk up to the Ranged Charr to be launch spammed.

glaphen.5230:

Kravick.4906:

Where are you pulling these numbers from? I’ve never seen Warband Support do Kill Shot, and as I said, they attack once every five seconds. Those damage numbers mean nothing when you look at them in the face of DPS.

The numbers are from the wiki obviously. Test them both in game and watch enemies walk up to the Ranged Charr to be launch spammed.

So post it, then. Otherwise I can’t take you seriously.

Kravick.4906:

glaphen.5230:

Kravick.4906:

Where are you pulling these numbers from? I’ve never seen Warband Support do Kill Shot, and as I said, they attack once every five seconds. Those damage numbers mean nothing when you look at them in the face of DPS.

The numbers are from the wiki obviously. Test them both in game and watch enemies walk up to the Ranged Charr to be launch spammed.

So post it, then. Otherwise I can’t take you seriously.

Post what? Go roam in WvW against melees and watch them sit on the ground while you range them from behind the Ranged Charr.

Ya I have to disagree man. The reason why they are so high is because then they would compete with regular elites showing favoritism towards certain races.

glaphen.5230:

Kravick.4906:

glaphen.5230:

Kravick.4906:

Where are you pulling these numbers from? I’ve never seen Warband Support do Kill Shot, and as I said, they attack once every five seconds. Those damage numbers mean nothing when you look at them in the face of DPS.

The numbers are from the wiki obviously. Test them both in game and watch enemies walk up to the Ranged Charr to be launch spammed.

So post it, then. Otherwise I can’t take you seriously.

Post what? Go roam in WvW against melees and watch them sit on the ground while you range them from behind the Ranged Charr.

I can’t take you seriously, at all, any more. You do this in every thread. You make bold claims and do nothing to back them up. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. IE: You.

Cush.4063:

Ya I have to disagree man. The reason why they are so high is because then they would compete with regular elites showing favoritism towards certain races.

I understand this reasoning, I do, but right now, you never see anyone use the racials at all. They might as well not even be in the game at this point. The only exception I can think of is the norn elite, Snow Leopard Transformation, and only necromancers take that.

There needs to be a finer line, I think. Currently the restrictions on the racials are just far to off this line to even look at them with any seriousness. Why even bother to add a set of skills if they’re so bad that no one would ever use them?

Kravick.4906:

glaphen.5230:

Kravick.4906:

glaphen.5230:

Kravick.4906:

Where are you pulling these numbers from? I’ve never seen Warband Support do Kill Shot, and as I said, they attack once every five seconds. Those damage numbers mean nothing when you look at them in the face of DPS.

The numbers are from the wiki obviously. Test them both in game and watch enemies walk up to the Ranged Charr to be launch spammed.

So post it, then. Otherwise I can’t take you seriously.

Post what? Go roam in WvW against melees and watch them sit on the ground while you range them from behind the Ranged Charr.

I can’t take you seriously, at all, any more. You do this in every thread. You make bold claims and do nothing to back them up. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. IE: You.

So you’re complaining about a skill that you’ve never even tried before?

you can count on one hand the number of racial skills (normal or elite) that are actually worth using in any build.

they really should just delete them (and improve/move the few decent ones into class utilities). after all, they “don’t want to make things complicated for new players” by allowing them to potentially waste their skill points on useless/terrible skills.

I have to agree with this post, these skills are just collecting dust.

Kravick.4906:

Cush.4063:

Ya I have to disagree man. The reason why they are so high is because then they would compete with regular elites showing favoritism towards certain races.

I understand this reasoning, I do, but right now, you never see anyone use the racials at all. They might as well not even be in the game at this point. The only exception I can think of is the norn elite, Snow Leopard Transformation, and only necromancers take that.

There needs to be a finer line, I think. Currently the restrictions on the racials are just far to off this line to even look at them with any seriousness. Why even bother to add a set of skills if they’re so bad that no one would ever use them?

I agree. Wish they never would have made them and just made some more regular elites. I spent hours trying to figure out which race was the best to pick due to racial elites when I bought the game prior to making my first character all to find out that there was no reason to. They should just take them out of the game and replace the classes with another elite.

Cush.4063:

Ya I have to disagree man. The reason why they are so high is because then they would compete with regular elites showing favoritism towards certain races.

There is already favoritism towards certain classes elites. Just being a racial elite makes no difference.

Anyone else have some thoughts?

I like the idea of shortening the CDs. I mean, the elites are quite a lot weaker than the comparable class elites, so if in turn they had 25%-33% shorter CDs than the comparable skills that’d be something at least.

Let’s look at the elites.
Asura(considering, the racial utilities here are quite strong, the elites can be on the weak side, so it’s not THAT bad)
Melee Golem: Garbage
Range Golem: Slightly better than garbage
Hazmat: You call that a skill? Roleplay value

Charr
Charrzooka: Better than no ranged weapon at all. On professions with decent ranged options, it’s garbage tho.
Warband Support: Roleplay value/some meat shields in case, your profession got no summons
Artillery: Say, what?

Norn(they could do with longer durations, honestly)
Raven: Terribad. Buff plz
Wolf: Good, while it lasts. More sustain than any other transform skill in the game. Should have some sort of stability from a skill and it would really be able to tank stuff.
Bear: Decent for a burst with charge
Leopard: God mode

Human
Balthazar: God mode
Grenth: It’s a decent skill, honestly. Lacks some serious impact, tho, so players will often grab higher impact skills. Good candidate for cooldown reductions.
Melandru: Honestly, any skill of the avatar has some serious value and impact. It suffers from the roundabout way of doing things.

Sylvari(these are all good skills, yet they lack impact. All of em are candidates for a lowered cooldown)
Dog: Decent pet
Root: Decent invul skil
Spirit: I have yet to figure out, how strong it is exactly on this one. Soneone enlighten me.

About all that Favoritism:
Any character on a profession with weak elites will be more flexible in wvw, if the character is a norn.
Roaming Guardian? Try norn.
Roaming Engineer? Try norn.
Roaming Necro? Might be possible with norn.

Great point, I woul go further and reduce also the racial utilities cds (or improve them), just 1 example of how bad they can be :

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEEQBS04w21AA-w

Ele utility : Cleansing fire 40s cd(can be traited to 32s cd), remove 3 conditions and burn foes.

Human utility : Prayer of kormir 40s cd, remove 3 conditions.

The racial utility is complitely useless.

Don’t compare Racials to profession specific counterparts, unless almost any profession got a decent counterpart. The idea about racials is NOT that your Ele might take kormir over cleansing fire, it’s that your ranger gets an active condition removal or your interrupt based mesmer gets another instant cast interrupt(technobabble)

It’s not about replacing profession skills, it’s about filling holes in your profession’s skillset or stacking up similar skills.

they need to do this.
it is ridiculous that some racial elites have 240 second recharge.

if you play WvW and ask anet why your racial skills are useless they will tell you “we don’t want race to be a factor”

so how exactly do they explain asuras? those midgets with poorly choreographed skills, asuras have a huge advantage in pvp scenarios, their hard to spot skill casts and small size is far greater than any racial skill.

Asuras are not as big of a problem as you make them seem, yes they are small so they get lost in a zerg of 15-50 players easily, but in smaller scale combat you should be just as aware of them as the rest of the players, it is not the games fault people look at small and view it as something to not worry about. Only other time I could see it being a problem is if you play the game on a 11-13" laptop, at that point it is not truely the Asura that is the problem it is your screen space. There is a major difference between those that have 1920×1080 and 1400×900 and it is pretty obvious to see the space difference.

On the terms of Racial elites, I really think they are fine as is, they are fun to play around with and have a role-play viability, but do not determine your race on what is best for your class as it should be. If you played GW1 the PvE skills became paramount in PvE that almost all builds had them, I would rather not see WvW become the place of racial skills. If they disallowed Racial skill in WvW that would be the only way I would even accept them looking at changing the CDs to lower then they are.

If Asura got an advantage, it’s not that animations are hard to see. The animations are the most ridiculously exaggerated ones over all the races by a wide margin. if anything, animations are easier to see on asuras.

The advantages, Asura have is about dodge rolling.
Test it yourself, when fighting an asura. How easy is it to keep track of the movement of, say a Norn vs how easy it is to track an asura.
A dodge will move an asura by a distance like twice his body size. So you, who was tracking something tiny with your eyes right a couple of seconds ago will have difficulties finding him again, if there are some flashy spells going on. On the other hand, a dodge roll of a norn does nothing of that sort. Actually, the edge of his new location will overlap with the old one.
That’s the problem, when facing asuras. Their positions are hard to keep track of. The skills themselves can be spotted far easier than when a Norn makes the same moves.

I use Summon Golem on my Asura Memser when by myself, because the enemies never seem to agro my clones, they go for me. When in a group I use Timewarp.

I use Summon Hound on my Sylvari Guardian, because I dont like either of the Guardian elites.

I mostly use Signet of Rage on my Charr Warrior, but sometimes I’ll use Warband Support when I’m alone.

My Norn Guardian is using the racial transforms as well, again because I dont like the Guardian elites.

But yet, no skill in this game should have a 4-minute cooldown. That’s riduculous. I think they wanted to eliminate what happened in GW1 with certain skills like Shadow From being abused. I would seriously change the 4-minute skills down to 3-minutes (180 seconds) at least. Or make them last longer than 30 seconds on the summons.

I’d say no, unless they open up a race change option.

Having race play a major part in the playsytle of your character IMO is a bad idea. As Cush pointed out, having certain race/profession combinations being the best would be bad.

BUT, if they allowed us to swap race, /shrug maybe not so bad as long as there were viable options for everyone.

I will say I really love the bear form for norn though. “ohh, I have to travel through Orr? ok” Bear form + hold skill5 = “wait I’m already across?” =D

It is already a reality that certain races mix well with certain professions and especially for norn and asura, there exist builds, which only work with them as race, like for instance a MoC based interrupt ranger just is not complete without technobabble.

The strong and possibly build defining racials are:

Asura: Technobabble, Pain inverter. Radiation field is somewhat strong, too but not necessarily build defining.
Human: Dogs. These things kick some serious kitten . Also got access to active condition removal.
Norn: Elite forms.

Mesmer: Asura(moar interrupts)
Ranger: Asura(moar interrupts), Human(somewhat reliable CR and an elite which comboes nicely with the surplus of snares, the ranger possesses), Norn(well, there is that 25k damage oneshot build with bear form #5)
Engineer: Norn(at last some useful elite for roaming), Human(at last some useful elite for duels)
Guardian: Norn(elite for roaming)
Ele: Actually pretty neutral. I’ve seen some eles rocking Leopard, but honestly, FGS is almost as good and more useful outside of escapes.
Necro: Norn(Elite for roaming), Asura(some access to confusion)
Warriors are pretty neutral, as are thieves.

As you can see, many of those classes work pretty well with the norn forms in case things go badly. They either got lackluster elites or no built in escapes, or even both. Norn elites are not that bad utility wise(well, you at least get a launch attack) and can be used to escape from bad situations.

Malganis.7468:

snip
But yet, no skill in this game should have a 4-minute cooldown. That’s riduculous. I think they wanted to eliminate what happened in GW1 with certain skills like Shadow From being abused. I would seriously change the 4-minute skills down to 3-minutes (180 seconds) at least. Or make them last longer than 30 seconds on the summons.

That I can actually agree with, I would love to have my golem suit for more then 30 seconds to play around with, that thing is so much fun to run around it. As well other skills summoning skills seem to get destroyed by the 30 seconds for the fun form they could posses. So something like golem suit I would say 60 seconds and the others something around at least 45.