Guild Wars 2

I made a norn in thinking of wanting to have an epic Animal form.Well I got the epic animal form but its an epic let down for combat.Seriously the only animal form that has any heavy uses during combat is the snow lepord.“Especially pvp combat”

You can argue well you can still choose them but why when you have a better 30 point ability and or Elite on the bar.

At what point do you get this animal form? I’ve only just started playing, so I’m probably a way off yet lol.

Yes, they’re useless. You’re not the first norn to notice or mention this.

I only ever used Snow leopard due to the charge and stealth… but that wasn’t for combat, that was to get around faster. Combat yea, they all seem kinda crappy especially since they take away all your utility skills including signets and I don’t think they take into account the effect of traits, now if it was an “OMG nice new powers!” sorta thing and the new skills were good and they also gave you some utility skills or a bonus to stats based on the form, they’d be good for combat. But as it is they are pretty much just for skill completion.

There is nothing more terrifying than the sight of 5 norns in bear form charging with their charrge/flip (key 5) skill in WvW with an army behind them.

Only on tarnished coast server though xD

I don’t think they are that bad, they are great for using in quests, and personally I like the wolf form, especially with that Warwick heal attack on key 2.

I would like to see improvements on the animation, i’d like to run and morphin while on the go, not STOP DROP SHUT EM DOWN OPEN UP SHOP!…. oops i got carried away i mean, run without stoping while morphin into animation

I only use bear form at this time. It has saved my tail multiple time. Are you sure your useing the skill sets correctly?

It would be way, way more useful if it didn’t freaking root you for the majority of their attacks.

i need to use them more to be honest. and haven’t gotten snow leopard yet as am saving up SP’s.. but SOOOON.
: DDD the wolf and bear are pretty fun.

It’s really incomprehensible for a game which is all about mobility in combat to take that mobility away when the player is transformed or disguised. In combination with also making utility skills inaccessible, it just has “trap” written all over it. That really needs to change.

they are fun but the main two issues i see are.

1. they lock you in the spot when you attack
2. 30 second usage is just terrible it should be 5 mins or permanent, they arent overpowered at all and 30 sec is far too short…..

Engineers get permanent kits etc which are far more deadly than the norn were forms..

Oh man, I love using them but the trade off between use and cool down just doesn’t work. 30 seconds of action and 2 minutes of cool down? No. Makes it zero fun to use in combat.

Unlocked the wolf form for my norn guardian. Her spirit is wolf so it fits and I hoped it would be a nice skill.
Wow was I disappointed.
You basically lose all mobility. You are “rooted” when you attack, NPCs can get out of range very easily and hitting players in WvWvW was near impossible. The two shouts (or “howls”) are not too bad, but having to stand still for a couple of seconds is too much of a trade-off to be viable. Last but not least the cooldown feels way too long. This might not be the fault of the cooldown timer itself but the time the transformation is active in contrast; and because of the “rooting” the time you actually play as the wolf feels shorter because you can not “actively use” the whole 30sec.
All in all the wolf form in WvWvW felt like a sitting duck, landing one or two lucky punches on NPCs. It’s not “fierce” or “dynamic” in any way. I’d really like to see that changed.

The way I see it any elite skill, not just Norn animal forms, should be strong/intimidating/useful… While animal form has the initial intimidation about it, Large bear-man running at you, It’s just not enough given the skill sets just don’t do enough damage to capitalize on any panic that an opponent has and on top of that intimidation only works in a PvP setting. Aside from traveling quickly with snow leopard the animal forms feel under powered and rather useless. They really feel like they where built for a different game considering how you have to stand still for everything they do and their effects are weird or seem out of place and sorta crowbared into the current system. Maybe they planed the Norn’s racial elites for the initial incarnation of GW2, scrapped the whole idea, then brought it back because they couldn’t think of anything better but decided to save time and almost copy/paste their finished work.

To be honest, when I was looking at the skills at low level I was so excited that I get to turn into a Bear/Raven or a leopard, go on all fours and ravage my enemies. My dreams were shattered after transforming… I looked like a girl dressed in a bird costume getting ready for a halloween party.

I’ve not used the form enough to gauge how useful it really is, having just hit lvl 30. But I will say I was a little disappointed with the transformation itself. I envisioned it being something akin to what we saw in the opening movie with the warrior ‘growing’ into bear form. I know that’s just my ascetic side coming out in me. The twice I’ve used it, Raven form did seem to help … but there again, any benefit to toughness is a boon for an Elementalist (esp when your in a bind).

~A

While I Do agree they do need to remove the fact you cant move while attacking on all the forms, besides that I really don’t see what all the fuss is about. Ive got Wolf form and Bear form and LOVE them. Wolf form being my favorite, drastically increases my crit chance, increases health, toughness, and power by large amounts. and with the lifesteal on the attacks you can easily go toe to toe with elites straight up or take on loads of normal level mobs. Sure, you cant dodge and move around alot, but you dont need to. In PvP I even find it useful. You just need to have good timing and realize it works best when assisting another person who can cc for you. If your alone, use the leap or charge first, THEN attack.

Granted the cant attack while moving IS a big problem. But only for chasing running foes, and you really shouldn’t pop it to chase people. Use it for a toe to toe fight and its awesome and works as advertised IMO.

They really cant and should not make things like utilities and traits work when in forms. It just opens up too many possiblities for OP’ness and like they said would make some professions feel like they need to be a certain race to be the best.

If changes need to be made at all, the only 2 changes they should make would be these:

1)Allow us to use the skills while moving, (At least all of the attack skills)
2)Allow our Healing Skill to still function. Or Give all Forms their own Healing Skill (Wolf form already has it built in pretty much, but I can see how the other forms need it)

Comparing other racials I would surmise that racial elites aren’t intended to be on-par or better than class elites.

In rare cases they currently hold up well, but I would suspect (given the overwhelming number of undertuned racial elites) that these will get nerfed soon enough (Hounds for example).

They’re useless and frustrating. Very long cooldowns, nearly no damage, mostly melee and 90% of abilities root you in place when using (#1 too).

As a norn warrior I basically have 5 Juggernauts. Five useless Juggernauts.

Not worth the skill points

As a norn ranger, taking on a form comes with these great benefits: poor mobility, slow attacks, half the skill bar disabled, no pet and the joy of being knocked around like you are made of pillow and covered in bubble wrap.

I do believe they are strong and can be used effectively, but the vulnerability, sluggishness, skill duration and deabilitating cool downs are deal-breakers to me. I’d be far more forgivable if they were not strung up by a 30 second timer. Make them last until downed or simply balance power and skill recharges and just make them perma with the ability to change back.

And as someone pointed out, GW1 norn were clearly able to stay in bear form indefinitely and had control over it. This really isn’t that hard, Anet, you’ve got to make things consistent and give the norn some credit; they are spirit-revering, self-engineered, legend-seeking shape-shifters and deserve the utmost respect with epic forms.

I actually like the animal forms, I use all except the raven. In particular, I’ve found the wolf form to be handy, and it has gotten me out of a tight spot on more than a few occasions.
However, I don’t WvW, nor did I play GW1, and no doubt that does…er.. shape.. my experience.

Dante.1508:

they are fun but the main two issues i see are.

1. they lock you in the spot when you attack
2. 30 second usage is just terrible it should be 5 mins or permanent, they arent overpowered at all and 30 sec is far too short…..

Engineers get permanent kits etc which are far more deadly than the norn were forms..

I agree completely

1. The forms are very clunky, which is a shame because the movements in this game are very fluent.
2. I feel like the the Norn forms should replace the timer with a counter. i.e “x” amount of attacks until your form disappears.

Many many new threads created around this…

Animal Forms = Buggy and full of dissapointment

As a Norn follower of Raven, I wanted to pick only the raven form and stick with that, to honour my chosen spirit.

Now I find that the Snow Leopard is the only really decent one, and the Raven lacks all characteristics of corvines. No flight, nothing that suggests intelligence or wisdom – just a ball of black feathers slashing at things aimlessly.

What a swizz.

I’m praying they turn the forms into toggles with a 10 sec cooldown similar to weapon swapping. Until then, I think they need to work on fixing bugs and cleaning up some larger gameplay issues, like camera FOV and WvW culling.

These elite skills really need some work. They don’t even need buffs, they need fixes. They need to not root us during the #1 attack, they need to not get rid of our pets, and they need to at least let us keep our healing skill.

I think they are fine as is. They do not want to make it so you have to choose norn in order to be competitive.

I use snow leopard in WvW. If I don’t wait to use it, I can escape any zerg. The dash is just crazy with the speed/distance you travel. Love it. I only use it when I need to bail out.

I NEVER use the racial elites. Only too show of being a giant bear.

Either allow the (Bear,Wolf and Raven) forms to attack while moving or increase the forms time to 1 min. Seriously… 15 secs is spent as deadtime or moving around spamming buttons hoping the ability actually works…

If I could make my hybrid form an indefinite non-combat costume, “town clothes” more or less, that would satisfy my needs for it entirely. Now that I think I’ve got an idea of ANet’s balance goals, I don’t expect these powers to ever actually be worthwhile in a fight.

I like the Wolf, half health, turn Wolf, few attacks, full health =D

But yea, i think they could use a buff to make it worth more for elites. Ex: Longer duration, can’t do crap with 30 sec.

And Immune to crowd control, as a trade off for losing other skills. Can’t tell how frustrated after I transformed and got long knock back or stun by mobs, it’s embarrassing.

Do all racial forms heal you back up to full when engaging them? Can they be used as an emergency way out, especially Bear?

Racial skill are meant to be less powerfull since all the race have different race skill but same class skill. They are there for the fun of using them and not of owning kitten

Then they shouldn’t take the slot of your Elite skill, and everyone should have an additional Racial slot. Because there’s no reason to take one over your Elite aside from RP.

Also personally, I wished they would actually turn you into the animal, not a were-form. But I guess that’s minor.

We need a QOL buff. Moving while attacking alone would go so far for all of them.

i’d like a sort of RP aspect to it where we can freely switch into the forms but they work exactly like tonics allowing us to swap in and out of form freely (out of combat) without effecting balance.
(i mean this as an extra set of skills along side the elites)

I have to agree they aren’t that great but Wolve and Leopard have some use.

Anyway I think they may be more useful if u get stability as long the skill is on.

I just hit level 30 and was tempted to go for an animal form but having used the animal form potions you get I decided against it. Besides, I like fighting with my axes. Now, gimme bear form AND axes……

I actually LOVE my raven form. I’m not sure what previous posters mean about being “rooted in spot” because I find that I can run around in my raven form. Perhaps the game developers took your suggestions and changed that?

I agree that 30 seconds is too short, and I would love to have a minute or two of my animal forms.

As a ranger, I find it fun to just charge in and tank for a little while. =P

I didn’t unlock leopard as an option. Does that come at a later level?

A rethink into the forms and their use and abilities should be implemented. Nobody uses them much in their current state.

Elusieum.8795:

I actually LOVE my raven form. I’m not sure what previous posters mean about being “rooted in spot” because I find that I can run around in my raven form. Perhaps the game developers took your suggestions and changed that?

I agree that 30 seconds is too short, and I would love to have a minute or two of my animal forms.

As a ranger, I find it fun to just charge in and tank for a little while. =P

I didn’t unlock leopard as an option. Does that come at a later level?

What people mean by rooted down is not because they cannot move in general, but when you auto attack with #1 your character is stuck in place, putting you in a huge disadvantage on moving targets. Despite the increased health on some forms, you’ll actually receive more damage because your character loses utility and will have a harder time moving out of red circles.

The only form which allows you to move and attack at the same time is the leopard, which is the reason for the huge cost in skill points.

Thats the beef of it anyway. Unless Anet changed this last patch, I doubt many people use these forms outside of an escape option. The Leopard charge skill is fun in some ways.

Well I had an extra 10 points to blow on something so gave animal form a go and yep it was as bad as I thought it would be, actually worse. I didnt think it would be limited to just 30 seconds a time. EPIC FAIL ANET. Should start calling you bioware.

So i guess it’s safe to say, that at this point, you’re better off spending those points on the Mistfire Wolf Summon, Entangle and Rampage?

Would Spirit of Nature also be more worth getting compared to Becoming Snow Leopard? At least, first anyway?

I never liked the whole “racial skills are meant to be used for fun and not for utility”. Why the hell are they there anyways then? They need to be more useful than they are now otherwise no one will be using them and they’ll be just considered awaste of skill points.

Norn forms have very high cool down times and last nothing, pluse they can’t move while attacking.

To make them worthwhile they should:
Increase duration to 1 minute.
Gain Unshakeable trait while transformed.
Ability to attack while moving for single hit skills.

darkcool.8615:

Racial skill are meant to be less powerfull since all the race have different race skill but same class skill. They are there for the fun of using them and not of owning kitten

Tell that to the Asura, or humans.

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

darkcool.8615:

Racial skill are meant to be less powerfull since all the race have different race skill but same class skill. They are there for the fun of using them and not of owning kitten

Tell that to the Asura, or humans.

True… I LOVE my racials on my Asuran Ranger – the golems are AWESOME.

I gotta admit this thread has me worried. I picked Norn for my thief alt because I envisioned animal form to be the huge, hulking hybrid form from GW1, but the way people sre describing the experience is… meh. Guess I’ll see when I get a few more levels.

Figured I’d search thread since I’m sure it’s already been brought up.

I play Norn Necromancer and it is fun, but the shapeshifts are aweful and make the class seem like it has no racials.
I remember back when I first got my Snow Leopard Form (30 skill points) I was soooo excited until I found out that it’s high damage output is less damage than my necro’s autoattack.
I really hope norn racials gets some improvements.
I also hope Necros get their extensive list of bugs fixed.
This would help me enjoy the game better.

Guess I picked the worst race and the worst class. How typical.

I can see how these, based on werewolf, would probably be too slow and clunky for pvp with the hard pauses and roots. It can keep a monster(s) in AC occupied for a bit though and reduce the incomimg damage from the monster(s). Fear, Belly Bump #4, self heal #2, whatever, and repeat. Belly Bump #4 does not work on bosses I think though. Only works well when monster has its back to a wall imo.

I was unpleasantly surprised at how clunky and unagile it felt after getting it. Hard to use againts a moving target for sure.

D/D Ele

Honestly if they just made it so we could move while attacking that would be enough for me.

Well that and stability for as long as the form is up.