Guild Wars 2

Now the idea came to me yesterday, almost no one in the game uses the characters race abilities simply because they are weaker versions of other abilities save for the elites.

I know its meant to be balanced so that no other race is more commonly used over the others, but to be honest i like the idea that instead of sacrificing a useful skill for a moderate one, i can have that one slot specifically for one of my race abilities.

The idea is that
1. It breathes more life into the characters we made so we actually feel like what we are, instead of just “Oh, you are a warrior”

2. It gives people more options in how they want to set up their character, for instance i have a Charr warrior, and “Battle Cry” is a weaker version of “For great Justice” so having the extra skill is always nice.

3. Keep it strictly PvE. The area where the major unbalances take place is in PvP.

But that’s just something I’ve been tossing around in my noggin for a bit to add more flavor to our characters and the races we chose. Granted it doesn’t HAVE to be 100% as I’ve stated, but being able to have the option of throwing in one of our race abilities into the mix without sacrificing out utility seems great.

Racial identity is the last thing we should be worrying now.
The first is quality and consistency of the gameplay.
T-down.

Race Skills should be skills, that players can use, without having to put them into any skill slot at all.
They should be like choosable passive abilities, that could be just activated situational and they should be more a mixture about *COSMETICAL EFFECTS and some positive effects mostly)

For example:

Humans would have these racial passive Skills:

Melandru’s Grace
While this Skill is used, then you will let grow beautiful flowers at the places where you kill enemies on land and your Execution Animation becomes themed in a Melandru Style letting your character transform into a a humanous Melandru Avatar Form, that executes the enemy with the “Rage of Nature”..
When executing enemies, while using this passive skill, the character will gain for short time a bit more Vitality, Healing Power and gains for 10 seconds Regeneration.

Lyssa’s Devotion
While this Skill is used, then you will create illusions of yourself, which don’t attack anything, but just follow you around for some time, whenever you kill something..
When executing enemies, while using this passive skill, the character will transform quickly into a humanous Avator Form of Lyssa and execute the enemy with “Chaos Sphere” and gain for short time a bit more Condition Damage and Boon Duration as also for 10 seconds Retaliation

Balthazars Courage
While this skill is used, whenever you kill something, your character will howl out a war scream with a unique animation.
When executing enemies, while this skill is used, enemies will get pierced by a special fiery war banner of balthazar, the “Eternal Purgatory” that is used after quickly transform into a humanous Avatar Form of Balthazar. players gain for short time then more Power and Crit Damage and gain for 10 seconds also Fury.

Grenth’s Cruelty
While this skill is used, will’o wisps will appear and follow you around for some time, whenever you kill something.
If you execute enemies while using this skill, your character will quickly transform into a humanous Avatar Form of Grenth and execute the enemy with “Gate to Death” while the player will gain for some time then additional Condition Damage and Condition Duration plus for 10 seconds Stability

Dwayna’s Passion
While this skill is used, will be created a celestial globe that glimmers of light and lets wind appear around the place at the spot where an enemy has been killed.
When you execute an enemy, while using this skill, the execution animation will quickly change into a humanous Avatar form of Dwayna and the enemy will be executed by “Sky Breaker”, while gaining some Precision and Boon Duration as also for 10 seconds Swiftness

Kormir’s Insight
While this skill is used, you create whenever you kill something a tome of wisdom that magically appears and a pen writing something into it, as if the character would have learned something new…
If you execute players while this skill is used you will quickly transform into a humanous Avatar Form of Kormir and execute the enemy with “Might of Wisdom”, while gaining for some time more Toughness and Crit Chance as also for 10 seconds Protection

So stuff like that would alllow Anet to make racial abilities more of a cosmetical feature, that changes the looks of how our characters execute enemies with more epic finishing moves regarding to the racial skill that has been chosen out as also gaining a visual effect that appears if you kill something and some temporal buffs regarding to the chosen racial skill that are of passive nature, which could be for all races similar consisting out of 2 little temporal stat buffs and 1 boon. for 10 seconds if you kill something.

Thats my way how Id handle racial skills with effects, that favor no race over an other via different skill effects that can be used in battles.
But instead, effects, that are similar for all races, don#t favor one race over an other and mostly give the character only visual effects.

I like the idea, Orpheal.

It just bothers me greatly that we have racial abilities, yet they serve no real great purpose.