Guild Wars 2

Does anybody use them?

Do you find them better than other options you’re presented with?

What do you think about them as a whole? Individually?

Racial skills are more so a ‘if in need of an alternative’ choice.

So for instance, on a ranger you have Entangle (bind and bleed aoe), rampage as one (buff yourself and grant might to your pet) and spirit of nature (passive heal when active and revive down players on spirit skill activation)

So, if you’re not going to fight big mobs, you generally wouldn’t use entangle, if you’re not traited for spirits than you wouldn’t normally find yourself using SoN either, so most of the time the ranger skill that is used is Rampage. However, if you’re in an area where your pet has a high risk of death, so boss fights or dungeons, then you probably wouldn’t use it as it only gives swiftness, stability and I think 1 stack of might to you. In these cases, you would bring one of the racial elites. For a human ranger normally it would be HoB. I’ve seen AoM used instead of spirits for support rangers in dungeons and it is possible to make it work, but the times on them are a bit bad currently. No clue when you would use RoG, maybe if your a PBAoE necro or ele so you still have access to skills? Probably better just to pop an elite afterwards though.

RoG is a good skill to use as an elementalist fighting thieves, everytime they get close they get chilled.

Increase the war puppies to 1 minute and I’d use em, for sure.

I’ve found Hounds of Balthazar to be superior to the elites I get on my Engineer. I’ve been able to pull off a whole lot more with the puppies than I have with supply crate, mortar, or elixir X

Avatar of Melandru for the root, healing spring or curing conditions on wvw

RoG for wvw as an ele with no better elite in zerg v zerg fights. PBAoE chill and poison as you mist-form through a zerg of 70 is quite fun.