Guild Wars 2

Ok I have recently started out as a Norn, but already I am a bit disappointed with my research on the race, everybody mentions the uselessness of the animal forms I won’t “hit on the blindman” as my country use to say on a overused topic, but my question is did ArenaNet already show any sign of change regarding this matter?

It takes away signets and utility skills, and only perhaps 1 or 2 forms are even remotelly usefull, elite skills shouldn’t be labelled as “Fun only” skills, they should be called it’s rightful name, “Elite” and also fun.

And for Wolf Spirit’s sake, the Norn, a race that breaths, lives the battlefield, (and the mead heh) you would expect a decent set of overpowered-balanced skills, like a two stories bear, or a Call Brothers to Arms skill, where you would summon 2 to 3 average norn warriors, I mean the sky is the limit, instead we got this bland set of 4 animal forms, if used on PVP or Endgame content, you’ll probably get kitten :x

Sad part is that the balance is out of wack. You regularly see Humans who sacrifice their class Elite for Hounds of Balthazar, but no sane Norn would use Raven Form, ever.

Norns got the short end of the stick when it comes to racial Elites.

Well I really like the Wolf form for the Life Steal, Fear and two knockbacks and I usually only use it in a group fight when I’ve exhausted all my combinations and have 20 seconds to spare.
But true, I am disappointed that you can’t use Utility or Class Skills while in the form and that you can’t use it underwater.

They’d be so much better if they’d just remove the rooting from most of the skills.

To be honest, some of the racial elites could be buffed slightly without making them more powerful/useful than profession elites. Form changes especially, should last for at least a good bit. Weaken their actual effects if needed, but buff the duration please.

Son of Elias.5420:

Racial elite skills are, universally, worse than class elite skills.

This is deliberate and will not be changed. A person shouldn’t choose their race on overpowered elites; it should be mostly a cosmetic choice.

People keep answering this on the many many posts already opened for this topic. You don’t seem to get what the problem is: most transformation skills are weaker than a geared character, not weaker than another similar skill. (this also aplies to the warrior elite skill Juggernaut or something.

For example: My Axe autoattack does normally 800-1K damage… while in any animal form my auto attack goes from 300 to 450. All attack skills are REALLY weak and if you sum this to the fact that we are stripped from all our utility skills, we are pretty much left with a gimped giant furry form unable to kill anything.

I myself like to play as tank warrior, axe shield with full pow/tough/vit. In bear form I die so much faster because i have no healing, regens, shouts, shield stance,… basically bear form is a suicide button for me, specially since I usually get all the aggro due to high toughness. Even though I have a bigger health pool, damage recieve is much greater and I have nothign to mitigate it. Conditions destroy me while in Bear because it completely lack of any cleanse method.

Overall animal forms are horribly implemented and very bad designed. They are not fierce, strong and cause fear;… they are weak, clumsy and very likely to get killed.

Only people that find something usefull on transformations are low level players or glass classes that uses wolf or leopard stealth as an oh kitten button… the rest of us are left with 60 wasted skill points.

I opened this post few after the game was launched and the issue still the same:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/races/norn/Norn-Bear-Form/first#post159690

KrakenAZ.9367:

They’d be so much better if they’d just remove the rooting from most of the skills.

Yeah! What is the go with that?
I personally think the elite skills were rushed and aren’t finished fully yet. They can’t be, right? They’re so bad. As stated above; they’re not ‘elite’ skills, not at all. Elite racial skills should be your second best skills after class racial elites. Otherwise they should simply add another hotkey and label it ‘fluff’.

All I wanna know is this:

Who decided that Snow Leopard was the 30pt Elite Skill?!?!
My spirit animal is BEAR, kitten

At least you don’t have the Asura elites

Faranox.4217:

All I wanna know is this:

Who decided that Snow Leopard was the 30pt Elite Skill?!?!
My spirit animal is BEAR, kitten

The fact that Snow Leopard has Stealth is what bumped it up to 30pts. It has the advantage of making the Snow Leopard form actually useful. Highly situational mind you, but useful.

Oglaf.1074:

Faranox.4217:

All I wanna know is this:

Who decided that Snow Leopard was the 30pt Elite Skill?!?!
My spirit animal is BEAR, kitten

The fact that Snow Leopard has Stealth is what bumped it up to 30pts. It has the advantage of making the Snow Leopard form actually useful. Highly situational mind you, but useful.

I belive it was the fact that it was the only one finished and not in beta.

Oglaf.1074:

Sad part is that the balance is out of wack. You regularly see Humans who sacrifice their class Elite for Hounds of Balthazar, but no sane Norn would use Raven Form, ever.

Norns got the short end of the stick when it comes to racial Elites.

I admit I’m little bit silly, but, yes, I do use the Raven Form XD

Okaaaaay… so I admit I use Tomes of Wrath and Courage in Dungeons, PvP, and WvW, but, when I’m solo-ing in PvE, and I’m up against a sole Veteran boss, I just wanna call upon my spirit animal form and go “Caw! caw !”

… that and the Raven form has bleeding. Has its sues, esp. since my guardian doesn’t have condition damage other then burning.

Son of Elias.5420:

Racial elite skills are, universally, worse than class elite skills.

This is deliberate and will not be changed. A person shouldn’t choose their race on overpowered elites; it should be mostly a cosmetic choice.

Charrzooka would like to debate the idea of it being not worth the 30 points. Some class elite skills are bad enough to where some racial elites are worth it.

Even if the animal form was permanent effect… I would not use it. Its TOO weak compared to my character untransformed. It represents absolutly no advantage and its loaded with disadvantages… its not only not worth it, its a loss!

If you can’t figure out how to profit on an Elite that grants stealth to any class’ toolbox… …I’m guesing you’ve never been to the rich Oricalcum node.

Nike.2631:

If you can’t figure out how to profit on an Elite that grants stealth to any class’ toolbox… …I’m guesing you’ve never been to the rich Oricalcum node.

It’s just so highly situational. Most of the time it is not worth replacing your class Elite.

Nike.2631:

If you can’t figure out how to profit on an Elite that grants stealth to any class’ toolbox… …I’m guesing you’ve never been to the rich Oricalcum node.

Great! so now I now my 60 skill points invested in norn elite skills are totally justified, surely this is how and why they were all designed, planned and executed!

Come on, srsly… We all understand that racial elite skills are supposed to be weaken than the class elite skills but the Norn shapeshifts are just horribly implemented.

First of all, we need our utility skills, traits and buffs to keep up while shape shifted.

Second, they need extra buffs to justify the transformations, like stability for bear, fury for wolf, swiftness for raven, etc.. hey, they have a team that can work out this better than me for sure.

Third, the duration/cooldown ratio needs to be lower…

I’m sure they have a way to take out stadistics on how many people have them sloted and break it down by level, item level average… if they have this info, then they already know those 4 skills are totally useless.

the norn wereform elite skill 1 needs to change to attack able in the running. it will make these elite useable

Raven: Knockback/Daze cone CC, bleed stacking
Wolf: Group Fury/Regeneration, bleed stacking
Leopard: High mobility/speed, stealth
Not too sure about Bear, I think it can stack up Might for a group

They have their uses, but as said they tend to be less powerful than class Elites.

Oglaf.1074:

Faranox.4217:

All I wanna know is this:

Who decided that Snow Leopard was the 30pt Elite Skill?!?!
My spirit animal is BEAR, kitten

The fact that Snow Leopard has Stealth is what bumped it up to 30pts. It has the advantage of making the Snow Leopard form actually useful. Highly situational mind you, but useful.

Exactly right, what I was trying to say was that I don’t understand why Snow Leopard was picked to be the useful Norn elite skill. I’d much rather use Bear Form, but I have a hard time justifying it. Why did the Devs pick that one to be better than the other three?

Structure – all the races contribute three 10 point choices and one 30 point elite to a character’s Elite skill choices.

Nike.2631:

Structure – all the races contribute three 10 point choices and one 30 point elite to a character’s Elite skill choices.

Yeah, I totally get that. What I don’t get is why they picked Snow Leopard in particular to be the 30 point skill over the other animal forms.

Mesket.5728:

Son of Elias.5420:

Racial elite skills are, universally, worse than class elite skills.

This is deliberate and will not be changed. A person shouldn’t choose their race on overpowered elites; it should be mostly a cosmetic choice.

People keep answering this on the many many posts already opened for this topic. You don’t seem to get what the problem is: most transformation skills are weaker than a geared character, not weaker than another similar skill. (this also aplies to the warrior elite skill Juggernaut or something.

For example: My Axe autoattack does normally 800-1K damage… while in any animal form my auto attack goes from 300 to 450.

This. Fighting in animal form = disadvantage.

Oh, and you can’t mine oraculum in animal form either.

Well as a big time pvp warrior, I LOVE our cat form when I need stealth.

It allows me to get away and/or into spots without being seen. I don’t keep it up over my main elite all the time, but when coming up to a tower or when I know I am being chased down, I slot it, and time it for the stealth and get in or away.

Works great.

But u get to be a flippin’ animal!!!! Wut more do you want?!

These need buffing big time before the thought of even using one crosses my mind. I can’t believe some of the normal attacks in these forms root you in place. That’s just silly.

I can’t help but laugh as I pummel people who try to use these animal forms on me in WvW. Norn elites are sad.

Bubby.6475:

But u get to be a flippin’ animal!!!! Wut more do you want?!

Something that doesn’t suck worse than being made to watch two Uwe Boll movies back to back?

Snow leopard grants you the ability to escape pretty much anyone in WvWvW. Pop it, stealth, untargeted charge. Goes further than RtL and I believe you can get it off twice per elite use. Shame to have to use an elite slot to do it though.

Bair.8240:

Shame to have to use an elite slot to do it though.

Hit the proverbial head of the proverbial nail.

I don’t get why do we need near-useless racial elites? Why not putting them on par with class elites? No overpowering or underpowering.

I agree that the racial elites are underpowered. I agree that they shouldn’t take away class abilities (like my ranger’s pet) and every other buff we have whenever we use them.
But let’s keep this in perspective, eh?

1) There are some uses to these forms. Look at Snow Leopard; besides the stealth, when I use it my crit chance goes from 14% to 144%. It quadruples my Precision. Other posts have also broken down some of each form’s merits.
2) They can always be useful if your class abilities are unavailable for some reason (say, for rangers, your pet is dead and your Pet Switch is still cooling down.
3) GW2 allows us to get as many skill points as we want just through normal gameplay, even after reaching Lv. 80. By unlocking these skills, we aren’t ‘wasting’ a finite resource.
4) Uh… they are kinda fun, and isn’t that the whole point of video games?

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that we shouldn’t expect racial skills to be game-breakers when the game itself says that one race or another will not make you any more dangerous at any role. Yes, they could be better, but my main complaint lies more in their bloated 4 min. cooldown than anything else.

I never understood why MMOs put racials into the game that were anything other than aestheticly pleasing. No game ever gets them balanced correctly.
Choosing a race should be based purely on aesthtics and not how that race can give you an edge in the game.

Perhaps the word elite is used as it meaning ‘exclusive’ in this case, rather then as ‘best’. The notion that elite HAS to be Best is as fallacious as Diablo 3 players lamenting that ‘Legendary’ items are not the best items, since they are in WoW.

I am fine with elite skills being fun racial exclusives. Besides, imo any skill with a 3-4 minute cooldown is completely impractical.

It would be cool if they redid some of the elites and made shapeshifting similar to kits , giving you a skillset to work with permantly to swap in and out. That way you could mix some of the skills the forms provide to compliment your build.
Even though I doubt this is gonna happen it would make me so very happy if they did that. Hell people would even get gear and unique skill builds that would compliment those like using a lot of on-hit proccs or bonus healing for wolf forms leech or such. Or playing a bear tank. Let’s make it happen!

It just sucks that humans get the Hounds of Balthazar and we get nothing. We honestly can’t use any of these animal forms or any other in WvW without getting completely pummeled.

A good example is that I fought a human guardian who used the hounds on me (I’m a guardian as well). Sure I have renewed focus and it’s useful as an emergency button but these hounds can deal some stupid damage. I still ended up winning the fight because he wasn’t a good player but I can imagine if two evenly matched people fought each other the hounds are more useful than turning into a bear.

Hounds of Balthazar is an amazing Elite.

You often see Human players use it rather than their class Elites!

I’ve yet to see a single Norn player use any of the Become The… in either WvW, sPvP or PvE.

Norns get the best elite in the game.

Lysico.4906:

Well as a big time pvp warrior, I LOVE our cat form when I need stealth.

It allows me to get away and/or into spots without being seen. I don’t keep it up over my main elite all the time, but when coming up to a tower or when I know I am being chased down, I slot it, and time it for the stealth and get in or away.

Works great.

This. This. This.

People talk trash in general about racial elites because they aren’t generally as effective as class elites…but for any class that does not have access to stealth Norn is by far the most useful race to run in WvW for this reason alone. You can get off 3 uses of it per elite usage and the #4 skill can be used untargeted as a means of bolting out of any situation (invisible to boot).

I main Norn Ranger and let me tell you, Snow Leopard is always on my bar if I am not running with a well balanced group or a zerg army where I will run Rampage as One. It’s just too good an escape to not run it. Of course if you are a mesmer or thief you have no need of it whatsoever.

Bob.8456:

Lysico.4906:

Well as a big time pvp warrior, I LOVE our cat form when I need stealth.

It allows me to get away and/or into spots without being seen. I don’t keep it up over my main elite all the time, but when coming up to a tower or when I know I am being chased down, I slot it, and time it for the stealth and get in or away.

Works great.

This. This. This.

People talk trash in general about racial elites because they aren’t generally as effective as class elites…but for any class that does not have access to stealth Norn is by far the most useful race to run in WvW for this reason alone. You can get off 3 uses of it per elite usage and the #4 skill can be used untargeted as a means of bolting out of any situation (invisible to boot).

I main Norn Ranger and let me tell you, Snow Leopard is always on my bar if I am not running with a well balanced group or a zerg army where I will run Rampage as One. It’s just too good an escape to not run it. Of course if you are a mesmer or thief you have no need of it whatsoever.

Yep …. Snow Leopard ….. my ranger loves it!!!!

I just wish they had a shorter cooldown.

Just take Snow Leopard into WvW with you. And when you finally are getting overrun by a zerg (only a matter of time) pop stealth, and your 3,000 distance charge.

Twice.

Enjoy saving time running back from spawn/repair bill!

Oglaf.1074:

Hounds of Balthazar is an amazing Elite.

You often see Human players use it rather than their class Elites!

I’ve yet to see a single Norn player use any of the Become The… in either WvW, sPvP or PvE.

Racials cannot be used at all in sPvP, so that’s probably why you haven’t see anyone using them :P

Also I think racials should either have their costs reduced or be given to you automatically when you unlock a skills tier, a lot of them go unused as is, which seems like a bit of waste.

That said, wolf and snow leopard form both seem useful in certain circumstances, but why anyone would swap out an Elite simply to run away rather than providing any kind of group assistance is beyond me… Unless, I suppose, you swap it out when everyone else is dead and you haven’t used your Elite.

Still, I prefer to have something that will either slow the enemy’s advance in some shape or form.

All but maybe 1 or 2 of the toal racial elites in the game are completely worthless and honestly I think they want it that way. They were so worried races would be chosen based on skill favoritism, but in it’s current state it’s impossible to do that and thats the way they like it. I seriously doubt any changes will come to these skills sadly. Such a waste of skill points

Only thing I dislike is that I can’t use my heal skill while transformed. That has gotten me into trouble.

As a guardian, I will use bear to chase down a ele and knock him down. I also can use it to break away from a zerg that buttjams me. It works wonders.

Unfortunately Bear Form is by far the worst. It is sad, because it is my favourite Spirit of The Wild.

Whoever came up with the idea of having Knockback tied to a form that can’t move while attack should be… spanked. It counters itself!

Bair.8240:

Snow leopard grants you the ability to escape pretty much anyone in WvWvW. Pop it, stealth, untargeted charge. Goes further than RtL and I believe you can get it off twice per elite use. Shame to have to use an elite slot to do it though.

This exactly. It’s an amazing escape skill in WvW.

If you don’t happen to have RtL, you can also use it to catch (if you’re backed up by some other plays). Dash, cripple, stealth, wait for back up. Repeat if needed.

You can stealth 3 times in one transform btw.

Also good for getting through the zerg into a fort.

This is a great ele elite for WvW. Especially if you don’t happen to be D/D.

It is also an amazing ground cover skill. You can get across the map in no time.

The need to root to transform (movement breaks) is a bit of a pain, but I’ve been playing Focus offhand these days, so when in trouble, pop invuln, transform, goodbye!

This might be particular to ele’s, whose other elite choices even in class are pretty weak and practically just as special purpose.

Well snow leopard form is a pretty good skill for roaming thanks to stealth and charge. But yeah the other Norn skills sucks. LOL at Snow Wurm and Owl.

meh at least those are Useful elites ever tried using Charr’s mortar?