Guild Wars 2

Snow Leopard elite skill costs 30 points to unlock, yet every other “spirit / transformation elite form” costs 10. Why are snow leopard players being punished for wanting/choosing snow leopard as a spirit guide/mentor?

Yes we can choose other forms as they’re not locked out but there is no reason for snow leopard to cost so much more then the other norn racial elites. It’s not more powerful, it doesn’t have 1/3 the cooldown so why the increased cost.

Norn racial elites don’t need two tiers to buy and if you MUST put an elite skill in there, then make up a new one that will cost 30 points and stop punishing Snow Leopard RPers.

Apparently they deem the Snow Leopard form more powerful than the other three. But really. Skill points are cheap. By the time you hit 30 and unlock Elite Skills you should be able to get all the bonus ones from some 10 zones.

They’re all kinda useless to be honest. Wouldn’t worry about it unless there’s an elite skill buff patch.

Skill point prices aren’t supposed to reflect the power of the skill. Each (racial) elite is approximately as good as every other one, at least in theory. There does seem to be some logic to the ordering, with the skills that are simpler and/or more useful for solo play costing less. Essentially, however, ANet just determined that unlocking every skill should cost everyone around 180 skill points. Every class has a 30-point racial elite, so one form had to bite the bullet for the Norn.

Having one extra 10-point elite instead of a 3-point heal or 6-point utility doesn’t make a huge difference overall. Humans and Sylvari pay 175 points for their full range of skills, I believe, while Charr and Asura pay 178, and Norn pay 182. If Snow Leopard Form cost only 10 points, Norn would have a 13-16 point advantage, instead of a 4-7 point deficit.

Maybe cause of the stealth?

Eventually you’ll learn all skills available and have a ton of free skill points (around 80 maybe) if you’ve done all skill challenges, so its a non-issue. You’ll learn everything eventually, and so will every other norn who worships a different animal deity.

I dont think the norn racial is useless at all.

On my guardian, i dont really like any of the class elite skills so I use my bear form.
It doubles my health pool and gives a sweet charge and interupt.

The damage could be alittle higher though, its an elite form after all.

Snow Leopard skill is now officially the only form that can attack while running. It is powerful imho. But I use it in WvW to escape not to do dmg… It really saddens me that snow leopard is the strongest of all the forms since bear is the iconic norn shapeshift form and the bear is the largest predator on land, but I am waiting for a patch…

khadorian.6417:

I dont think the norn racial is useless at all.

On my guardian, i dont really like any of the class elite skills so I use my bear form.
It doubles my health pool and gives a sweet charge and interupt.

The damage could be alittle higher though, its an elite form after all.

“Doubles my Health Pool”… but you do realize you still recieve a lot more damage and you loose your class regens and mitigations… If you use Bear Form for extreme situation its like pressing a suicidal button

I think Norn Racial is bs and weak compared to the other racial skills. It is especially true for certain professions such as Rangers since we HAVE to go close to attack when transformed and we can’t move while attacking. It kinda defeats the purpose of a ranger (at least one built for range). Every other race have skills that can remove conditions, Aoe attacks or cool weapon summons like Charrzooka or summoning aids into battle.

Meh, people complaining about racial elites strenght.. its an RACIAL skill… or as arenanet has always said it.. its mostly cosmetic and cool looking… its not supposed to be better then the professions elite skill

even though engineers elite skills suck so much that snow leopard actually is an improvement :S

Warmage Timeraider.5861:

Meh, people complaining about racial elites strenght.. its an RACIAL skill… or as arenanet has always said it.. its mostly cosmetic and cool looking… its not supposed to be better then the professions elite skill

even though engineers elite skills suck so much that snow leopard actually is an improvement :S

Even if any of this was true, the phrase “Supposed to be” stands out like a sore thumb.
Thats the whole point. Every other race actually has USEFUL racials. Norns do not.

Also, Engineers elite skills are great.

I had always hoped for some sort of epic skill invoking the spirits for a Norn’s racial elite. Like…a Spirit Punch. You load the skill up for four seconds, all while invoking the power of the spirits as their symbols fly into your arm, you gain regen and protection during the loading animation, and when you fire your punch you do a tremendous amount of damage to one enemy (and a ton of damage to everything else around it), send him flying, and put a condition on him based on which spirit you chose at character creation.
Bear = crippled
Raven = Blind
Snow Leopard = Vulnerability
Wolf = Bleed

These last about 4 seconds (except for blind, which does its thing and goes away after one hit). You only put a condition on the targeted enemy, but all enemies around you get hit and sent flying.

Norn elites are quite useful. Bear Form’s Charge is incredibly awesome, Wolf form regens health on attack (making it useful to get into a toe-to-toe battle, even for a Guardian), and Snow Leopard has stealth. Raven Form offers no particularly valuable move, unfortunately, but three out of four forms are far from useless.

I’d be on board with the Norn racials getting a buff or a revamp. While you can argue that they’re not completely useless, the utility they do provide is very situational and not up to par with the other racial elites. Having you skill bar replaced with mediocre skills while deactivating your utility slots doesn’t exactly scream “elite” to me. I pretty sure my damage output actually drops when I shape-shift.

What I’m getting at is that I never find myself between a rock and a hard place shape-shifting to save the day, because in the end it just makes me die. A buff would be nice, or perhaps a racial skill that doesn’t involve shape-shifting.

Bear form is powerful. I’ve used it in dungeons to avoid a repair cost, I’ve used it when I’m outnumbered… how is it not useful?

Our racial elites need some serious help. Yes they have some fun skills like stealth and a charge, but in most pvp and pve situations using them will just get you killed. The only time I feel safe to use them is in pve against non-elite mobs and then it takes longer to kill the mob than it would if I just used my weapons.

TLDR: Norn racial elites are weak and the lack of a heal while shifted gets you killed.

As others pointed out, every race has one 30-point elite, so one of the transforms had to bite the bullet for the Norn. If it helps, you can look at it from a lore perspective: Snow Leopard is a relative newcomer as far as the “main” spirits go, so most Norn are having trouble and still learning how to “become” her.

It’s not really that big of a deal, anyway.

As far as their power goes…I’ve actually used Become the Wolf rather effectively a couple times. As a Guardian, it provided me with a good mixture of offense and defense that helped in some solo situations, compared to the two tomes that are either fully offensive or fully defensive.

Is it required to choose snow leopard as your spirit guide during character creation to be able to use “Snow Leopard” elite?

Umka.1537:

Is it required to choose snow leopard as your spirit guide during character creation to be able to use “Snow Leopard” elite?

No. All transformations are available to all Norn (outside of sPvP/tPvP). You just have to purchase the elite skill.

Really they should take off the timer so you just switch form and stay that way until you’re ready. Its just like an engineer kit, its not like it gives you superpowers, just some options.

And I find the time is not enough to really get any real skill with the abilities, so I dont use it, at all. No time to train with it, abilities are average (worse since you dont know them as well as your class abilities which are turned off), its lose/lose.

Rykoth.5963:

Bear form is powerful. I’ve used it in dungeons to avoid a repair cost, I’ve used it when I’m outnumbered… how is it not useful?

because besides the increased HP pool its nothing but weaker:

a) no damage mitigation
b) no blocks
c) no regens
d) no healings

result: Insta dead.

Warmage Timeraider.5861:

Meh, people complaining about racial elites strenght.. its an RACIAL skill… or as arenanet has always said it.. its mostly cosmetic and cool looking… its not supposed to be better then the professions elite skill

even though engineers elite skills suck so much that snow leopard actually is an improvement :S

The problem is that the result of them being “mostly cosmetic and cool looking” is that nobody will really bother to use them, because using them feels significantly weaker than using other elites – and it’s not fun to feel so weak.

DrakeWurrum.6049:

Warmage Timeraider.5861:

Meh, people complaining about racial elites strenght.. its an RACIAL skill… or as arenanet has always said it.. its mostly cosmetic and cool looking… its not supposed to be better then the professions elite skill

even though engineers elite skills suck so much that snow leopard actually is an improvement :S

The problem is that the result of them being “mostly cosmetic and cool looking” is that nobody will really bother to use them, because using them feels significantly weaker than using other elites – and it’s not fun to feel so weak.

Here is the main problem… its not weaker than other racials only, its also weaker than an empty elite slot… meaning that I’m stronger unshifted, why would I shift into an animal form then? Not even the stealth of the leopard gives me more survivality than what my character can actually achieve without using it.

Guys, can somebody, who already has “Become the Snow Leopard” skill, please xplain “Prowl” mechanic?

If while “being” leopard I activate Prowl – will I become “stealthed” for remaining time that left or it has shorter cooldown and needs to be reapplied?

..also, can I switch back to norn from leopard before 30 seconds is over?

Thank you!

(This section of the forum does not have quote buttons like others for me)

Umka:
Prowl will give you approximately 6 seconds of stealth when you activate it. You’ll become visible for approximately 4 seconds afterwards, then can activate Prowl again. You can use Prowl three times during the transformation due to skill timing and cooldowns.

You can revert to norn form by using the 0 skill again.

In open world PvE, using stealth will almost immediately drop aggro. You can still take damage from a mob’s AoE circles if they started casting prior. It’s quite useful to get past a big swarm to get to a point of interest or commune skill point.

Thank you very much Sarisa!

Leopard is the only Norn transform skill that has any viability whatsoever in WvW. The stealth and charge lets you disengage from any fight imaginable.

It’s not a great elite skill, but it’s the best of the Norn ones.

I maintain that Wolf is pretty decent for solo-PvE, moreso than the others. The life-steal on the 2 and the group regen howl are good for keeping yourself up during the duration, and were amazing on my tanky-support Guardian. However, I imagine what transforms are good or not will depend a lot on your profession.

Who picks these? There the worst racials ever.

Yeah, the racial’s feel underpowered. At least they could lower the cooldown’s maybe? Just an idea.

Wolf form should also summon some goober wolves to fight with you. You know, like every other annoying wolf in the kitten game does.

Schakal.6091:

Apparently they deem the Snow Leopard form more powerful than the other three. But really. Skill points are cheap. By the time you hit 30 and unlock Elite Skills you should be able to get all the bonus ones from some 10 zones.

That still isn’t the point. With no distinct advantage over any other racial transformation skill they should not cost 3x as much!

Either lower the recharge time to compensate or up the duration of the transformation and leave the recharge time alone or make the skill 3x as powerful as all the other transformations to validate the cost.

It’s punitive and poorly thought out design.

TurtleofPower.5641:

They’re all kinda useless to be honest. Wouldn’t worry about it unless there’s an elite skill buff patch.

That’s a subject for another thread

Himei.5379:

I think Norn Racial is bs and weak compared to the other racial skills. It is especially true for certain professions such as Rangers since we HAVE to go close to attack when transformed and we can’t move while attacking. It kinda defeats the purpose of a ranger (at least one built for range). Every other race have skills that can remove conditions, Aoe attacks or cool weapon summons like Charrzooka or summoning aids into battle.

They could use a small buff. Why waste development time making skills that are useless and weak.