Guild Wars 2

It’s been mentioned already, but Snow Leopard form is pretty good in terms of getting around a map, or chasing someone in wvw. The sprint is not only insanely fast, but it covers almost 2k meters or so, and ends with a knockdown if it connects. Also the invis on it is pretty awesome as well. The leap attack is alright if it connects, and I will admit the autoattack and the roar are garbage but like I mentioned I only use it on my Norn for travel lol.

Its pretty much: Well I’m unable to be caught anymore in PvP.

Yeah, after reading about that I started using Snow Leopard in WvW regularly (on my guardian). It’s not particularly interesting for actually fighting with, but for running away – I’ve seen nothing better. I’m sure there’s some irony in that.
Skill 4 can be a little unpredictable though. You want to use it when there aren’t any reds too close to you (or target one off in the distance the way you want to go… just stealth and WASD around a bit to get your bearings if needed).

I’ve gotta say though, because of that I think it justifies the 30-point cost alone; it really would be OK to give the other forms move+attack as well. Snow Leopard would still be the better “panic” button.

Im sad that the guardian trait for longer duration on elites dont work on our forms.
It was actually partly why I did the norn guardian combination.

Now I think my norn look great but It bothers me the form last so short, its not like they are overpowered or even strong anyway.

I use snow leopard to get past zergs into keeps and sometimes bear, but thats just cause i like the looks of it.

Conclusion for this thread:

60 Skill Points – Gain Stealth a few secs.

I’m sure that’s what all of you imagine when you read about shapeshifting norns… gaining stealth for a few secs to run away. Impressive…

Mesket.5728:

Conclusion for this thread:

60 Skill Points – Gain Stealth a few secs.

I’m sure that’s what all of you imagine when you read about shapeshifting norns… gaining stealth for a few secs to run away. Impressive…

Ahah pretty much!

In my opinion ANet did a very bad job on our elites, not because of the fact that they aren’t strong enough (was clearly stated that racial skills would have been subpar) but because they aren’t fun at all. How can you enjoy such a flavour transformation if it only last 30 secs every 4 minutes??? I really cannot get the reason of such a long cooldown on skills that has no impact on game balance.

Codo.2860:

Mesket.5728:

Conclusion for this thread:

60 Skill Points – Gain Stealth a few secs.

I’m sure that’s what all of you imagine when you read about shapeshifting norns… gaining stealth for a few secs to run away. Impressive…

Ahah pretty much!

In my opinion ANet did a very bad job on our elites, not because of the fact that they aren’t strong enough (was clearly stated that racial skills would have been subpar) but because they aren’t fun at all. How can you enjoy such a flavour transformation if it only last 30 secs every 4 minutes??? I really cannot get the reason of such a long cooldown on skills that has no impact on game balance.

forget the cooldown… give it to me 24/7 and I wouldn’t use it either… I’m half my character while transformed.

Mesket.5728:

Codo.2860:

Mesket.5728:

Conclusion for this thread:

60 Skill Points – Gain Stealth a few secs.

I’m sure that’s what all of you imagine when you read about shapeshifting norns… gaining stealth for a few secs to run away. Impressive…

Ahah pretty much!

In my opinion ANet did a very bad job on our elites, not because of the fact that they aren’t strong enough (was clearly stated that racial skills would have been subpar) but because they aren’t fun at all. How can you enjoy such a flavour transformation if it only last 30 secs every 4 minutes??? I really cannot get the reason of such a long cooldown on skills that has no impact on game balance.

forget the cooldown… give it to me 24/7 and I wouldn’t use it either… I’m half my character while transformed.

Ok, I agree, but roaming the map in animal form maybe fun, at least it would add a bit of flavour and diversity.
But with 30 sec duration and 240 sec cooldown no-one can have fun, nor have a minimum of flavour and immersion… it’s simply pointless.

Only useful skill is Snow leopard for wvw, you can escape anything with #4 and #5 and is the only transformation who can move while attacking with #1

Snow Leopard is the only Racial skill that lets you go invisible ( pretty sure )

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.

At the same time, the elites should be useful. The transformations are a big part of what a norn is. On the surface, players who first played Eye of the North didn’t just see giant humans, they saw giant humans who TURNED INTO BEAR-PEOPLE. At least give us a reason to want to do this.

please ANET read this and do something about it. Norn elites are bullkitten…WHY SHOULD NORNS RUN AWAY FROM COMBAT?

ok guy seriously all the racial elite skills are pretty useless. anet did that on purpose to avoid one race from being played above all else. if u look at any of the races, no one has anything exceptional as an elite, they are all quirky and fun for pve with maybe a couple good skills, thats the point. stop complaining that it should be more deadly, its cool! thats the whole point, the only bad thing is the long kitten cooldowns.

Ghostface Killah.3658:

ok guy seriously all the racial elite skills are pretty useless. anet did that on purpose to avoid one race from being played above all else. if u look at any of the races, no one has anything exceptional as an elite, they are all quirky and fun for pve with maybe a couple good skills, thats the point. stop complaining that it should be more deadly, its cool! thats the whole point, the only bad thing is the long kitten cooldowns.

Hounds of Balthazar, Downroot, Call Warband and Radiation Field are all pretty popular. :x

When I have to tell someone off for using Wolf Form in an Explorable dungeon, something’s wrong- As opposed to the status quo with PUGs, which seems to be “NEVER USE AN ELITE EVER”. By taking any of the animal forms in PvE content, you’re literally just wasting a slot, by using them you’re dealing less damage than 1 spam, and there’s not really any reason why these forms can’t be worthwhile.

I’d even say that this is a problem for more than just the racial elites, as I’ve never seen anyone seriously use Rampage, either.

I use Wolf form in my Vampiric set on my Necro for the life steal in PvE, but that’s about it. Being able to buff party members with fury and regen helps. Problem is, I’m not even certain if skill traits persist when in a transformed state.

I think all the Norn elites just need to be reworked, so that they have more unique animations and attacks and can be actually fun to use. I mean, all of them pretty much recycle the same attacks, but with different effects. It kind of makes it seem like they were added in at the last minute. Snow Leopard at least has stealth to make it stand out, which actually makes sense for the form.

Yeah, you can make an argument that they’re supposed to be like that, but Norn Elites aren’t even that fun to use. They’re just…… dull. I mean, Charr have elites that can summon a kitten bazooka or their war band. That kind of trumps everything a Norn has available.

Maybe I’ll try to right out some ideas and post it over in the Suggestions forum later.

Srsly yoo guise, they could fix them so easily

1) Slash the cooldown in half. 240 seconds is not okay.
2) Remove the stupid self-root when attacking. It makes the forms virtually useless.

They could honestly go with no cooldown at all for the first-tier norn elites and they wouldn’t be overpowered. Snow Leopard obviously would be though.

Anyone know if the devs have shown any sign of paying attention to this (or other racial elites, maybe elites in general)?

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.

If that really is the case then what is the point of wasting skill points on this stuff?, why even have cosmetic skills when we could have other more viable working skills, what an epic amount of wasted code and the player characters skill points..

I agree they could indeed use a buff.

I belive what the devs were trying to prevent was a “I WIN BUTTON”. Who wants to be in a WvW group and somebody pop wolf form for instance and be able to run in down 5 people in a group and run away with it. Sure it would be more fun for norn players but then they would have to buff all the other racial elite skills. Making all of them I WIN BUTTONS. They could be probably be buffed slightly but I wouldn’t take it to far.. That being said could they make it more useful in pve-dungeon while not making them all over the top Over powered in pvp-wvw?

Croatoan.8426:

…could they make it more useful in pve-dungeon while not making them all over the top Over powered in pvp-wvw?

I feel this disparity is the cause for a large amount of grief in GW2. Each part of the game needs to be balanced in its own way.

It may be, but it doesn’t apply in this case; most of the norn elites are not very good for either. Even Snow Leopard is probably better for WvW than PvE – in the latter, it has its uses, but I almost never have to use it because things don’t get out of control much.

The leopard is quite great for WvW purposes. Not only can you escape anything, but #3 and #4 skills do 6-7k damage with a glass cannon build and it’s easy to land both of those out of stealth. Will instakill other glass cannon builds.

I was really excited when I saw Norn under the Racial Skills section in the patch notes.
…
And then I was disappointed.

I understand the need to have racial skills be weaker than other skills, but making a skill both useless (mostly) AND have a crazy long CD with almost no up-time? That also kills it for the cosmetic aspect. Either make it useful outside WvW leopards, or make it less useful and make it last a lot longer and have a shorter CD so people can enjoy it as a cosmetic skill at least.
At the moment, I think I used mine once when I unlocked it and I wanted to see it. :c

O.M.G.! Just wrote a post and was near finished when I clicked a different tab with my mousepad on the laptop and everything got lost FML Award winning post gone to wastes, hahaha. Well a shorter version this time then, because the idea I just thought of is worth re-writing it.

Instead of having a transformation (I would say Jutsu, but I’ll keep it GW2) skill an alternative would be to gain a visual cloak over your character and gain a passive boon for having it slotted and when you activate it gain either an animal-specific unique skill (like stealth for Snow Leopard) for yourself, or gain a boon which is more usefull for party-play.

Overall my opinion on racial skills would be that they are meant to be a viable alternative to profession specific elite skills. An more generally applicable for multiple professions rather than be useful to only one profession. This should count all racial skills of all races, so you don’t choose one race over another race based on the racial skills, which I pretty much can do now.

If the class elites are better than the race ones won’t be used. If the race ones are better than the class ones won’t be used. Also, with regard to their exceptionally long CD, they should be used when going is at its toughest. You just have to make sure that you can change the situation for when it wears off or that you won’t be facing a tougher situation shortly later on.

They should also be something that either compliments your build or something you can build your character around.

Picking a particular race for the skill set they come with is as good a reason as any. Just as picking a class for the skills is. Other than racial abilities, that really only leaves aesthetics and story line / lore as reasons to choose a particular race. As long as one race’s elite skills are not better than another’s right? Well, I find that some race’s skills are better than others. Like the Sylvari. Becoming immune while you pop up a bunch of flower artilery has saved me in both pve and wvw.

In pve it has caused enemies on me to switch to attacking the flowers.

In pvp, it granted enough time for the battle line to shift so that I was among allies instead of enemies.

In both, it granted enough time for my healing skill to come off CD.

I don’t lose any of my skills while the flowers are active.

That is just plain superior to the Norn’s shape shifting.

Snow Leopard form is the best elite in WvW.
I’ve been accused of teleport-hack by some people that had no clue how a norn guardian could disappear and show up so far away one second later.

lLobo.7960:

Snow Leopard form is the best elite in WvW.
I’ve been accused of teleport-hack by some people that had no clue how a norn guardian could disappear and show up so far away one second later.

As a Norn I just can’t get behind this. It’s good at running away. This, a worthwhile elite skill does not make.

Deamhan makes a good point about when we’re using these elites. Instinctively when I got my first transform skill I thought of it as a ‘just in case’ button. I quickly learned that if I wanted it to be useful at all I would have to use it in the beginning of the fight. If I didn’t I’d just transform and die.

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.

I also love it on my guardian in WvW. Judge’s Intervention (1200) + Flashing Blade (600) + Leap of Faith (600) + Cat form Pounce (600) + Dash (1600) = 4600 movement in a matter of seconds.

Throw a 5s stealth in and it’s awesome, either escaping a zerg, or a 1v5 I’m about to lose (while baiting them into chasing me away from their original objective), or ganking someone unawares from behind.

A thing of beauty.

Only complaint is the cd is waaaaaay too long. 4m cd kitten Needs to be in 2-3m range.

Edit: Speak of the devil , lol.

In Snow Leopard form I can run, while stealthed, with #4 from the south gates of Bay to (or a little past) the sentry outside the Vale supply camp.

That is amazing mobility. What’s more amazing is you can do this multiple times during the duration of the effect. It’s great for closing/escaping.

@Sebrent: Few people complain that snow leopard does not have niche/fun uses.
Every other form on the other hand…

I went norn so I could be a werebear. I’ve wanted to do that since GW1.

I think it would be pretty awesome if some of the Norn’s shape shifting elites were utilities instead. Obviously, Snow Leopard should stay as an elite, but I could see myself having a lot of fun if both Wolf and Bear form were utilities; especially if they didn’t have cool downs such as we see with Engie kits. Heck, I could even see myself building around shape shifting just for the pure joy of it, even if it was much less effective than doing otherwise. Being able to roam as a wolf indefinitely would just melt my lil heart with warm joy!

Would any of you like to see some of the forms as utilities without cool downs too?

When I thought about the elites I thought about it like in gw1. See it like a weapon swap, you can swap to bear form and still use your weapons but your just a bit stronger (at the cost of aomething of course). Too bad it ended up as crappy elites -_-

Hounds of balth. Are pretty OP for racials…

For Bear’s sake ANet, make racials worth using!!!

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.

Yes but the Norn elites compared to… Reaper of Grenth for example. There is no contest. The human racial allows for more versatility and incorporation into builds working with other skills. Im not saying elites should be completely overpowered but the norn got the short end of the stick compared to this and others such as Binding Roots when it comes to racial skills.

I could already think of ways to make the Norn racial elites worth using.

For example, depending on which Spirit of the Wild you picked when creating your Norn, using a racial based on that Spirit will give certain benefits to it. Example: those that follow the Bear gain increased Power and Vitality (Bear is supposed to be the stockiest of the four); those of Wolf’s pack gain increased Toughness and Power based on allies and pets around you; those within Raven’s embrace gain increased Boon Duration and Swiftness; finally, those that follow Snow Leopard gain increased Swiftness and Condition Damage/Duration based on…perhaps how many allies you’re not surrounded by (since S.Leopard seems to be the most solitary of the four).

Alternatively, just give all four forms some form of utility and/or CC, with Snow Leopard and Raven being focused on utility while Wolf and Bear are focused on CC.

This may be a weird thought: maybe the Norn elites would seem like less of a waste if the cooldown was shorter. (The same could possibly be said about some of the other races’ elites, so maybe some of those could be changed too.) I understand racial abilities are supposed to be cosmetic and for fun, and the transformations are kind of fun, but most of my fun in using them is taken away by the fact that, after only 30 seconds in this other, interesting form, I’m left with a 2 minute cooldown. 2 minutes is the longest cooldown any skill in the game can have after all. Maybe ArenaNet could consider shortening the cooldowns on these abilities a little bit; since they’re supposed to be cosmetic and for fun, let us have that fun more frequently.

I can assure you that if I could change the race of my Necro, I’d pick Norn any day of the week for access to Snow Leopard. It wouldn’t permanently replace my professional Elites, but it would definitely be used multiple times during any playing session.

(Not to mention that with four racial transformations plus three Necro transformations, the fun factor would be through the roof.)

I’ve been using norn bear a lot for the charge+knockback on target. I’m seeking a one shot with that attack 5. I’ve come really close and hope to pull it off. Norn elites are very fun and Im always laughing when I use. Cheers Norns!

You know what is sad?

A norn guardian, all the elite skills are useless!!

Tomes are a joke, RF is good but it’s boring.

My main and only character is a (beatiful, hehe) female norn guardian.

The bear form is pretty fun for trolling zergs in WvW. Maybe there are better ways to do it, but the bear form charge is a launch on all targets in your path. That and rocket boots + slick shoes combo!

I’d much rather they be changed so I can summon a spirit raven/wolf/bear/snow leopard rather than become one. Something similar to Mistfire Wolf that lasts for like 60 seconds.

These are our spirit animals after all.

Either increase the time spent in the transformation or decrease the cooldown of the transforms to 180s. Right now they are ridiculously stupid.

Aye aye! They even buffed the mistfire wolf so it’s actually a bit useful now (use it for PvE on my mesmer), and yet, the Norn racials – which are visually the coolest – are still incredibly useless. Make them completely useless but make it a toggle-skill at least so we can enjoy running around in LA roaring at people. :C

you right man, the norn skill is really ridicoulous, the humans, Chars, plants too have a good racial skill but norn….c’mon that trasformation is useless and move like a robot

I’m still level 55 but I like bear form very much. I try to play more like support/dmg dealer focused on support, but sometimes I just need some plain damage and nothing spells zerg better than to use the staff’s empower plus roar in a dungeon, not to mention the knockbacks that take in 2 gos those anti-cc boss buffs. Really, I don’t know about how good is the bears dmg at 80 with ascended, but at least right now, for me, Bear is ridiculously strong, the only drawback is not having a self-healing spell.

xusa.4021:

…Bear is ridiculously strong, the only drawback is not having a self-healing spell.

I’m sorry, but I have to disagree in a (what it will look like, its not) hostile way. If you think Bear is ridiculously strong, then your character might be ridiculously weak instead.

Read at this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/races/norn/Norn-Bear-Form/first#post2231455

Your character is actually weaker while transformed. You have less skills, less mobility, less mechanics, less everything, just raw stats and pretty bad ones. The damage is pathetic, not a bit down but pathetic. The 1-5 skills are so bad it makes you wanna switch to normal form in 5-7 seconds after transformed.

HP goes down faster in bear form than in normal.

All four skills should merge into one, Transformation, that let you choose which animal are you going to transform on-the-fly. I think of something like the ele’s elemental atunement.