Guild Wars 2

Now before someone interjects, I know that racial skills are not intended to be better than regular skills.

But that’s just it, the vast majority of them aren’t even close to the strength of regular, class-based skills.

Let’s take a look at the two racial healing skills. They really are great examples of how racial skills should and should not be.

Healing Seed – Good.

Not outright better than class-based heals, but effectively a racial Healing Turret. Inferior in every way to an actual Healing Turret, but this gives classes without AoE heals the ability to support allies.

Prayer to Dwayna – Bad. Awful.

I honestly can’t find a healing skill that ISN’T superior. And not just by a little bit, by a lot.

Take Ranger for example. Prayer to Dwayna is effectively a weaker Heal as One, with a 50% longer recharge, 100% longer casting time, and does not heal your pet. Oh, and you can’t use it underwater, either.

Not enough? Warrior. Prayer to Dwayna is in this case, a weaker Mending, with a longer cooldown, can’t be used underwater, and doesn’t remove two conditions.

I could compare every class like this, but you understand what I’m getting at. I don’t think that Racial Skills should be BETTER than Class Skills… But they should be on-par. They don’t benefit from Traits, so even 100% equal to Class Skills, they’ll be inferior.

Honestly, every race should have their skills revamped and buffed, and have several skills that hook in to at least one trait, and preferably as many traits as possible. It’d be complicated, but potentially all racial skills could have a different copy for each class.

As an example, let’s look at Charr’s Shrapnel Mine.

Guardian : Functions as Spirit Weapon (mine); does not automatically explode, can be commanded to explode. Increased radius and damage.

Warrior : Functions as a Physical Utility Skill.

Engineer : Functions as a Gadget.

Ranger : Functions as a Trap.

Thief : Functions as a Trap.

Elementalist : Functions as a Glyph; Inscribes a rune on the ground at the set location, rather than tossing a mine directly. Could alternatively function as a Summoned Weapon, granting a second explosion when traited.

Mesmer : Functions as a Clone; Spawns a Clone at the mine’s location when placed, which taunts the nearest enemy.

Necromancer : Functions as a Well; Damage/conditions are not applied instantly, and are instead applied over 5 seconds as per a normal well.

I don’t really expect a suggestion like this to go through, but I’d love it if it were. Practically every skill could get this treatment, making them somewhat viable to add some diversity out there.

The racial skills are generally pretty bad. in fact the only one I view as not being horrible is Take Root.

Ok lets make something clear for starters , ALL racials are meant to be BAD/INFERIOR to equivalent class skills. This is how they are MEANT to be , there is nothing wrong there , it is not bad balance.

Anet made it this way so there would be no best Y race for X class (or at least keep the significance to minimum).

So will races ever get racials that could make people rush X race for Y class? No they wont.

@ Nox

I specifically stated to make them universally better. Not better than class skills, but at least hooking in to a trait for every class so that they’re potentially viable outside of level 15~60.

A simpler solution is to simply buff them outright, but as I said they’re just SO much worse that there’s no reason for ANY class to bring them.

So what’s the purpose of them? They took up coding time and, at least in some cases, art time. No one uses them unless they didn’t understand how inferior they were, or they decided to toss away skill points on a whim. I.e. they are essentially a waste of space and time, both of which would have been better used on other things. Flavor is all good and well, but only if that flavor is of actual interest to a fair proportion of players.

The OP said he’d like to see them be on par with other skills. On par simply means roughly equivalent. If that were the case, all these flavor-y racial skills would see far more use and thus not be a waste of time and space. IMO the dev team should be making things that many players might be interested in using, not just a handful. Done right, that flavor will be seen all over the place, which should be the point of racials. Now? Yeah.

Ugh people simple dont understand, ok one last time.

To make them viable/on par with normal skills mean directly to make people pick a race Y to a class X , yes it does. Simple because they are not the same racials , and some classes lack things racials IF buffed , would cover for , or at least help out on.

So , it would go directly against Anet idea of racials should not interfere with what class you pick? It would.

Solution to this would make all racials the same , exactly the same , just changing the skins , lets say on gives damage , a charr would use a pistol and a norn a bow. That is pretty much about it. Question is , how many would actually like this way where every race got the same skills.

Nox Aeterna.2965:

To make them viable/on par with normal skills mean directly to make people pick a race Y to a class X , yes it does. Simple because they are not the same racials , and some classes lack things racials IF buffed , would cover for , or at least help out on.

So , it would go directly against Anet idea of racials should not interfere with what class you pick? It would.

I’m pretty sure that’s a decision for ANET to make. And again, if racial skills are at least close to on-par with class skills… Good enough that you could see yourself USING them… People will still prefer different races. Everyone prefers different skills. (And racial skills can’t be used in sPvP anyway.)

Boolet.2968:

I’m pretty sure that’s a decision for ANET to make. And again, if racial skills are at least close to on-par with class skills… Good enough that you could see yourself USING them… People will still prefer different races. Everyone prefers different skills. (And racial skills can’t be used in sPvP anyway.)

You know … they already made that decision that is what im saying to begin with. That is also the reason racials are balanced the way they are …

On betas some racials were much more powerful they are now , they were nerfed to below the ground itself … exactly for the reason im telling you now.

Nox Aeterna.2965:

On betas some racials were much more powerful they are now , they were nerfed to below the ground itself … exactly for the reason im telling you now.

There is no reason they need to be nerfed “below” the ground. The OP is simply suggesting they are at least at sea level / on par with other things. I’m sure there can be some kind of middle ground that would allow the flavor of racial skills without making it too strong to ignore.

There has to be a middle ground; especially since they’re not in sPvP I’m pretty sure you can find a level where people would use them but not always use them. Versus the current situation, where they might as well be removed from the game entirely.

I would disagree saying they are so weak nobody would ever use them. Take the other two Charr racial skills: Battle Roar and Hidden Pistol

Battle Roar is a weaker For Great Justice. However, for a Necromancer, it is a godsend, as they have no way to buff the damage of their minions otherwise (I am talking outside of the trait in Spite). I run it quite frequently if I’m running a couple of minion skills.

Hidden Pistol is a good skill, a lot like the Ranger’s #3 Shortbow skill (name escaping me at the moment), but has a shorter cooldown at the cost of not gaining swiftness and lower damage. Still, this gives a number of classes a dodge skill that they lacked before (namely Necromancer and Warrior)

There are some skills that are just bad (Prayer to Dwayna is the best example), but you should never say that they are ALL that bad.

If they were powerful, how would racials like the Human self-heal for heal-weak classes like the Mesmer ever be balanced?