Guild Wars 2

Morbridae.8607:

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.

I don’t know what is wrong with just leaving it as a costume. Turn it on or off like an engineer kit, but in this case, gives nothing to the player (and let him play as he normally is). This would be nice at least just to fool around on open world.

But… as it is today… (i said it before) even if the skill lasts for ever, and you would be able to use the bear form 24/7; it would still be useless!

Bear form is op. Use charge without a target, into a wall, and you do pretty broken damage. Just like fiery rush.

QUOTE
At least you don’t have the Asura elites

ok… but defensive golem is good in some class.. and the other asura’s racial skills are used a lot…

norn’s racial have too CD (elites) and the others are no sense………

QUOTE

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

as juggernaut for warriors……

I’d have preferred the transformation skills to work similarly to the way they did back in GW1 for the Norn NPCs. They just give flat bonuses to stats while allowing you to use your existing skills.

So I don’t have a lot of time to read this, I’m just going to toss out my idea to improve the Norn Elite Skills. Nothing has to be changed, only this:

Bear Form – Every attack, including basic attacks, knocks down your target.

Wolf Form – Every attack, including basic attacks, stacks 3x bleed on your target.

Snow Leopard Form – Every attack, including basic attacks, blinds your target.

Raven Form – Every attack, including basic attacks, causes the confusion condition on your target.

This makes each Norn form useful in most situations.

That’s all I got, laters!

Considering the sacrifices of using a form, we could start by extending the durations to at least 180 seconds. If it’s for fun and cosmetic use, 210 seconds of waiting for another use makes no sense. Not only do profession skills work better but they recharge far more quickly.

For the record, asura elites are better. Any summon is a net gain on the battlefield. The power suit is comparable to an animal form but can be used by an ally and has double the duration of animal forms.

I’m more than happy to extend this distaste to human transformations. I defy a new player to even read and understand the skills, let alone find 15-20 seconds of a form enough time to enjoy them. These skills are just not fun.

Until we can actually use our button 6 heals while transformed, you could turn them into 0-seconds cooldown toggles and they’d still be a bit sketchy.

at this point, after all we know about the game, the gear we have, the builds we “master”; we can say with enough arguments that the norn transformations are in fact debuffs instead of buffs. (besides people using Snow Leopard for the invis)

I mean, we have enough numbers to show that a character stripped of his skills and traits is good for nothing.

I still don’t understand why they don’t just is it for cosmetic and let us play with our weapon skills and utilities. Let the animal hold the weapons and that’s it. It will be much more useful, if they do nothing, than they are now.

Khorthall.1682:

Every attack, including basic attacks, …

+1 on all those ideas. Those form are ELITE, for god’s sake!

I’ve only used my racial elite once.

The Cathedral of Glorious Victory was contested, and I used Snow Leapord form to go stealth mode and cap the skill point without being attacked.

Other than that, I have never used them. The cool down is ridiculous and the skills are WAY too under powered.

What the heck you talking bout (those who don’t appreciate the racials) the snow leopard is the best elite ever! I’ve gotten out of sticky situations in wvw more times than I can count, I won’t go out without it!

Dietzen.6127:

What the heck you talking bout (those who don’t appreciate the racials) the snow leopard is the best elite ever! I’ve gotten out of sticky situations in wvw more times than I can count, I won’t go out without it!

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…

Same argument used over an over…

4 elite skills… 3 of 10 points, 1 of 30.

Only use so far: newbie “oh crap button”. Until they learn to use something better.

Mesket.5728:

Dietzen.6127:

What the heck you talking bout (those who don’t appreciate the racials) the snow leopard is the best elite ever! I’ve gotten out of sticky situations in wvw more times than I can count, I won’t go out without it!

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…

Same argument used over an over…

4 elite skills… 3 of 10 points, 1 of 30.

Only use so far: newbie “oh crap button”. Until they learn to use something better.

There are no other oh crap buttons for a necro, ergo the snow leopard is awesome.

Dietzen.6127:

Mesket.5728:

Dietzen.6127:

What the heck you talking bout (those who don’t appreciate the racials) the snow leopard is the best elite ever! I’ve gotten out of sticky situations in wvw more times than I can count, I won’t go out without it!

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…

Same argument used over an over…

4 elite skills… 3 of 10 points, 1 of 30.

Only use so far: newbie “oh crap button”. Until they learn to use something better.

There are no other oh crap buttons for a necro, ergo the snow leopard is awesome.

Necro is the last class to need an oh crap button… F1, spectral break stun, protection, fear, dazes, chill… must I say that the last 3 comes as AOE?

besides,… it is still totally un-justified… 30 skill points for a few seconds of stealth? just to save your kitten running away from combat? do you know how many thousands proud norns are revolving in their graves just because you do that?

Mesket.5728:

Dietzen.6127:

Mesket.5728:

Dietzen.6127:

What the heck you talking bout (those who don’t appreciate the racials) the snow leopard is the best elite ever! I’ve gotten out of sticky situations in wvw more times than I can count, I won’t go out without it!

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…

Same argument used over an over…

4 elite skills… 3 of 10 points, 1 of 30.

Only use so far: newbie “oh crap button”. Until they learn to use something better.

There are no other oh crap buttons for a necro, ergo the snow leopard is awesome.

Necro is the last class to need an oh crap button… F1, spectral break stun, protection, fear, dazes, chill… must I say that the last 3 comes as AOE?

besides,… it is still totally un-justified… 30 skill points for a few seconds of stealth? just to save your kitten running away from combat? do you know how many thousands proud norns are revolving in their graves just because you do that?

They DO need an oh-crap button… if 5 people are coming your way, you can’t get away, and no amount of DS and spectrals are going to save you.
It has saved me so many times it is just good, and if that makes 1000 dead norn cry like babies, including you, well that’s just a side bonus :P

Your lack of knowledge or playing skills of the necro class still doesn’t make a valid argument how 4 elite skills costing a total of 60 skill points are useful. You just gave the usual, “I use it to stealth” answer, which is not more valid than the guy that said he uses it to mine the rich orichalcum time ago. It is still a crappy skill

I like the Norn elites, and use them when I can. I wish for longer duration and shorter cool down though. Norn elites are what keeping me from getting bored with the game.

strange thing is you can’t use racial elites in spvp/tpvp, so why worry about their usefulness? It’s not like your team can win because someone brought an asuran and they bunkered a point in a golem suit (which btw lowers your survivability drastically), its mostly for pve uses where you can goof off. Yet most racial elites are horrible, period. You can’t finish your personal story or do some quest line in your home city to improve them, its kitten from the start to end. Really saddening to even have racial utility/healing/elite skills with such little use.

Haven’t really used any of the norn elites since launch, which is sad because they were one of the main things I was looking forward to in this game. Turning into a bear in GW1 was amazing. In GW2? Not so much. CD too long, doesn’t last long enough, doesn’t really help you out either. I can just stick to Renewed Focus and not even bat an eye at the norn elites…

Sucks because the norn are supposed to constantly be shapeshifting in battle. Needs a change imo.

Funny, because it seems to me that when I use bear form (as a guardian) I actually deal more damage quicker. Consistently.

I like my characters to be as true to lore and atmosphere of the setting as I can manage, so every Norn I have has one of the racial elite skills. Sure, for most of the classes there are better or more “efficient” elites, buuuuut .. I mean, how can I argue with turning into a bear! With just one elite slot, my Norns can hit things as bear, hit things fast as a bear, smack things into the ground as a bear, roar and charge as a bear! It’s the things like this, that increase my enjoyment of GW2 :-D

NinjaEd.3946:

strange thing is you can’t use racial elites in spvp/tpvp, so why worry about their usefulness? It’s not like your team can win because someone brought an asuran and they bunkered a point in a golem suit (which btw lowers your survivability drastically), its mostly for pve uses where you can goof off.

You forgot WvW. It’s okay, so does Anet :P

Kalavier.1097:

Funny, because it seems to me that when I use bear form (as a guardian) I actually deal more damage quicker. Consistently.

Well, Bear form does increase your Power by like 2700, so it would make sense that you hit harder. The rub is that it’s up for 30 seconds every 240 seconds. It’s good, but not useful compared to the profession elites. It’s just sad that Anet didn’t want to make racial choice matter beyond the personal story. Of course Asura tend to be popular in PvP due to their small size and more “difficult to read” animations.

In GW1 when the norn went bear form they still kept their weapons in hand, maybe do this, and just add buff to different attributes when in a form, we don’t really need the skills that they add.

Personally, Wolf Form is a key component of my Norn Warrior tank build. As far as I can tell, with how my build is set up, there is factually no other Elite that would be more effective and work as well with it than the Wolf Form.

In WvW, when I’m tanking hard, I can hit my Endure Pain and that gives me time to activate Wolf Form and use skill #5 to leap into action. Once you’ve tackled an enemy with that, you can mash #2 and watch your HP bar fill right back up. The best thing is, the more enemies around you, the more HP you leech with skill #2, and as an extreme tank, if I’m going down you can bet there are more than 5 people on me to leech from.

There’s more, as well. As a tank my damage is low — very low. The only enemies I can really kill with ease are thieves, being that I’m impossible for them to take down and they themselves go down very easily (most other classes of enemy will just run away when they realise they can’t kill me). But with Wolf Form, now I have at my disposal three attack skills that do perfectly good damage. When someone attacks me solo, I can sometimes use Wolf Form to actually get enough damage (and crowd control too) to take them down, something I could never do otherwise with just my weapons.

The “Fear cone” skill’s use just goes without saying in WvW; the howl skill (#4) gives AoE blowout (or whatever they’re calling that now), which is actually an invaluable ability to have as someone who primarily plays a “line breaker” role in WvW.

Honestly my build would be half as effective without Wolf Form there as backup.

Elricht Kaltwind.8796:

Honestly my build would be half as effective without Wolf Form there as backup.

Sounds pretty neat, got a link for it we could check out?

Faranox.4217:

Elricht Kaltwind.8796:

Honestly my build would be half as effective without Wolf Form there as backup.

Sounds pretty neat, got a link for it we could check out?

Sorry, a link for what exactly?

Omg, Norns elite Bear form is the best of other race abilities. 5th skill charge at 100500 speed to 100500 range 2 times in this form. Easy to exit/enter battle in wvw or quick movement in pve

I find the wolf form and the human’s hounds of balthazar to be very useful

Interesting take on wolf form, I never looked at it.

Personally, I like the Snow Leopard for two reasons:

1) Has the shortest cooldown on its 1500 charge.

2) It gives an invisibility, which is good for not only escaping
bad situations but also opening world chests that are guarded

Honestly I have done very little with the Animal Forms, as I prefer the Elite Survival Skill (can’t remember its name, lol) for Ranger. I find Class skills to usually be better than racials, except for my Asura Engineer, whose racial skills are on par with his class skills.

Until recently, I’ve never used any of the Norn racial skills. They’re not bad, but they only helpful in specific situations. The problem I have with them, is the lack of skill diversity. All of the elites are transform skill and all of the utilities are summon pet skills. Both of these skills types are very situational, and mainly playing Guardian, I’m already loaded with never used summon pet skills.

When I chose Raven for my first Norn, I had been under the impression that’d determine the transform you get for your beast form hah. I didn’t mind spending all the skill points on the transform skills personally. Though I do wish they had better uses. I use snow leopard only in certain circumstances where I need to get somewhere quickly. Plus the stealth helps a bit for certain things but… really I think the combat with these forms needs better uses. I always imagined the norn beast forms would be magnificent and powerful just as they were presented in GW1. I wanted to love using Raven form heh… but it’s very hard to when most of the skills keep you rooted to the ground or are really situational. I get that they didn’t want them to be over powered but maybe more usefulness would have been nice.

I beg to differ. As a BBunker/Beserker build using Knights gear, I deal some rather serious damage, with a decent bit of healing to back my survival, letting me on average handle a fair number of creatures at once, in some cases, even multiple veterans.

I took both bear and Wolf forms, and while Bear most certainly got the short in having two push attacks, and no gap closer, that doesn’t make a bigger gap, by being a push, while the wolf on the other hand lets me handle twice as many monsters, and almost twice as fast, boosting my crit from 20% to 80% and granting me an insane amount of regeneration, while stacking a fast paced bleed on everything in front of me, and allowing me to siphon life from every target I hit.

I have yet to play with Raven, or reach enough points to get Snowleopard, but I would NOT write off the shape shift racials of the norns.

As for the Owl and Ice Worm, both are excessively situational. I would say that if you are a warrior, with a bleed build, the owl could be a potentially huge asset, in not only the fact that it applies a bleed, but puts another target on the field, making tab targeting that much harder. The worm is pretty much just a mortar, that doesn’t move, or apply conditions of any kind far as I know. So yes, unless again you are just looking to put another target on the field, this one does indeed seem utterly useless.

Which now has me curious as to if they count as spirit weapons for the sake of a spirit weapon build. Can anyone confirm this?

Necro cannot escape fights in wvw. You either win or you die.

But a norn necro?? Hello bear and snow leopard. Zoom zoom.

Would be cool if anet gave each race a seperate trait line based for racials. U would have Youngster Traits(adept), Adult(master) and Elder(grandmaster) or something, and u could get taits to lower the cd or get new benefits for ur racials. idk i think it would be cool 8D

Transformations are bad. Stop fooling yourself with forced scenarios to make it fit. The sole fact that you use it to escape just proves us right, they are in fact lame skills and people don’t use them as they were designed… bear charge into bear runnaway lol

Bear form can be usefull :>

I use bear-form for tanking and might, but that’s about it. One of them does fear I think, and that’s useful. I’m just disappointed about how short it is. In GW1 it lasted a lot longer on the Norn npcs.