Guild Wars 2

I’m giving transformations another shot. Today I used Bear Form’s #5 to scare the kitten out of a mob of enemies in WvW. By the time they got back up they were all focused on my terrifyingly large claws and my teammates swept in and eradicated them all! It was glorious. (At least that’s how it went in my head, real reports from non-tranformed denizens may differ)
The roots are still awful…

ImagoX.4718:

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.

Before GW2 was released, I thought all the concept art of Kodan where actually the Norn (polar) Bear Form.

How disappointed I was…

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

This. It would not be feasible to have “powerful” racial abilities, compared to class abilities.
Those who are powerful, they are most likely already scheduled for a nerf. Sorry.

I’ve wanted to roll a norn to turn into an awesome bear form ever since seeing the concept art for Eye of the North, with the big bear behind Jora. I even chose bear as my spirit animal. So i’m constantly “feeling bears power”. However the transform was very underwhelming. This was my dissapointment at lvl 30.

Flash forward to today and I’ve found a use for one of the forms. Lately in WvW i’ve been running with “gank groups” basicly mobile small teams that focus on flipping camps and disrupting supply lines and taking out stragglers. And mostly these teams are theives and mesmers due to their ability to stealth and hit hard and fade away. Well let me tell you that the snow leapord form has the best escape in the game. Transform, #5 stealth, then #4 dash to a range of 3000+ away. Nothing in the game can catch you. Granted it’s on a 240sec cooldown so it’s only for emergency use, but it works perfectly. Hearing my teammate on teamspeak go “what the hell was that?!” after I flew by was priceless.

You should be able to stay in them indefinitely, like how engineer kits work. They really don’t seem powerful enough for this to be imbalanced, and if it is they could tone them down a little.

not sure if, but ive noticed many norn players dont even know that the charges in bear or snow leopard form, you have to HOLD the key pressed, to charge a longer distance.

snow leopard form has a stealth (5) and this charge skill, which you can use twice during the full duration. I always have this elite in my bar in WvW because i can get away out of EVERY situation with it, even if a whole enemy zerg is heading towards me, i got out alive a lot times already even when 5 or more people were alrdy focusing me in a zerg, just use your stone signet, signet of the wild (to not get interrupted during transform) and then my leopard form (the cast animation takes some time but you can alrdy use its 5 stealth skill slightly before you see your new skillbar). Sure you have to waste 3 long cds for it, but who else can do this other than thieves?

if anet will ever change that all forms attacks are usable in movement, and maybe even the shapeshifting itself, i might also give bear and wolf a second try. I just love how bearform gives me about 3k armor and 40k health even in a full glasscannon build, i am working on a bunker set now and lets see how my stats will raise up then with it.

What I think about this:

Make animal forms toggle skills.
Let us keep our utility skills.
Let us move while attacking (the whole game was promoted like: “cast on the fly”, but I cannot move my legs while I use my claws?)
Nerf the forms health pools so that they are no longer overpowered, but fit to the animal forms (tanky but lower dmg bear vs. stealthy but lower hp snowleopard…)

I think I have never seen another Norn using an animal form, what a waste of 4 racial elite skills…

Ive used my animal forms for 2 diff things helps for soloing skill point bosses in pve specially the wolf cause the howl causes sick regen in WVW as most who wvw know almsot everyone are ranged aoe and like to stack and cast in one area from a safe distance 90% of the time if they take even a lil damage they run, here i use bear or snow leapord, bear looks the most intimidating imo and it has a nice charge that throws your target into the air and knocks themdown there roar gives 3 might stck i belive to your allies get it out of your head that you should be unbeatable in animal form but when you crash through enemy lines and they all focus you if your teams not a bunch of sissies they push in when eyes are on you, in short i think they make good line breakers, also useful for running down ppl trying to run away specially the leapord form as it has a charge and a pounch that pins down a target.

Awesomeist Maximus
80 Norn Warrior
Crystal Desert

I would just like something that is less situational, like human doggies. You can use those every time the timer is up and they will always be awesome.
Every Single Time.
Just imagine, animal forms would be awesome every single time they were off cooldown.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

You should be able to stay in them indefinitely, like how engineer kits work. They really don’t seem powerful enough for this to be imbalanced, and if it is they could tone them down a little.

Wolf form alone would make you a killing machine, at least in PvE. Very hard to bring down what with the knockback, regen, lifesteal and fear. Plus that life steal works per each mob hit so you could just wade into impossible furballs and walk away from it. Then there is the leopard stealth and sprint… pretty powerful abilities and would definitely be too powerful if you could just switch in and out of them like an engineer can do with their kits.

Personally, i think just removing the root on attacks would make the forms much more desirable. As it is, they’re highly situational, difficult to use right and useless in moving fights (PvP).

Holdin’ down the fort.
In reality I received no backup and died quickly, but I still think there’s some potential here.

What better way to go down than fighting as a giant man-bear!

where’s my dolphin form?!

knight.8926:

where’s my dolphin form?!

This made me laugh loudly. The entire office is staring at me now. Thanks.

One word describes them, LAME.

Eliminating the self-root on attack would help a lot. Combat is pretty clunky and poor quality for a Guild Wars game </3. As for better elites, my guardian does mainly use the Norn racials (Wolf→PvE/Snow Leopard→WvW, some niche PvE requiring stealth / dash).

My warrior, mesmer, ranger & ele pretty much use their class elites. Just remember that every Norn has access to stealth, fear, dash etc regardless of class

The shapeshift for the norn is a complete joke. As all other post here; You need to stand still, cant change as you move and the time and recharge for it is just insane. Why cant we stay 100% shifted? Its not overpowered, on the contrary! And no utilityskills?
And also, besides this.. all norn elites are a joke. Elites are supposed to be possible “gamechangers”.. but the norn are left with crap!

shapeshifts i like em , wish they would not have such a long recharge time i mean its the racial’s most special ability.

in pve the recharge must me less long seriously.

Most are completely useless. Snow leopard is the only viable one because of the long range charge (like bears), stealth on low cooldown, and the ability to attack while moving.

GREAT in WvW (I play a Guardian, no escapes besides this!)

Animal Forms need to have at least 120 second duration. As it is, 30 seconds is a joke. The cast time should also be instant.

Between some of the things that’s been said, I figured I would add my two cents. I like being in animal form, I think it’s pretty cool looking. I kind of wish that you could go animal form and not have the actual countdown to the form ending start until you enter combat or take damage. Just something fun for the roleplaying enthusiast.

if you WvW alot Snow Leopard will never leave your bar, between the stealth and the dash it’s the ultimate “what do we say to the god of death? not today!”

I came up against a Mesmer in WvW last night. He was fighting well, but soon allies joined me and he tranformed into Snow Leopard. At first I didn’t know what had happened because I hadn’t seen that form, but he caused a little havoc and managed to escape us, despite my best bearform efforts! Well played.

I really wanted to play norn only for shapeshifting and thought how cool it would be to use in combat but I am ready to be a smaller race and just not have it period.Seriously wish I could change my race now.Wanted to be a shapeshifting thief. Sounded cool in my head and on paper but in combat especially pvp it sucks unless you use snow lepored which I find that dumb.

Can be rather fun for roleplay…