Guild Wars 2

As it stands right now I don’t consider using any of the Charr racial abilities with my Guardian, and after checking out other people’s discussions of racial abilities most of them feel the same way.

The main problem (at least for my character) is that the racial abilities don’t have much synergy with our traits and the only combo I can make is with the Hidden Pistol ability, which really isn’t that good.

One possible solution could be to buff up the abilities in the general way: reduced cast time, increased effect, increased range, increased damage, etc.

The other possible solution, which may be trickier, is to have racial abilities have classifications so that they work with traits. For example; Charr’s ability Battle Roar could be classified as a shout for professions with shouts; the only problem is that not all classes use shouts so Battle Roar would have to be classified as something else for a different profession.

While this is more complicated and probably less feasible I think something should be done about racial abilities because when I started playing this game I felt like that the racial abilities would provide for more uniqueness to each class, but in actuality they just get left in the dust.

They were left in the dust so that they would never interfere with a player picking class/race. On the betas , this was not so at first while they balanced each racial.

I imagine the devs did not want a player to pick his race like asura/guardian just to find out later that people would look down on him or that at least he was not the best he could be , since the norns had a racial that gave an edge for guardians.

This is the reason they remain they are , this is also the reason all races got the same stats , something also brought up on another thread.

To avoid making one/some races/combos best which would base the players on their race/class choices , this is the decision made.

Personally i agree with it , i dont like the idea of having to pick a race to play a certain class. Even more , if this would be brought up now , most likely people would take it in nicely , after all there is no race changes , and many already invested a lot of time on one of their chars.

The races already show an affinity to certain classes.
And for the most part, unless under certain conditions, Racial skills suck.

I only use Battle Roar on my shout-focused Warrior (And still don’t get much from it, but I at least like to have it.)
And I’d only ever use Shrapnel Mine/Hidden Pistol on an engineer because the Toolbelt version of it is on par with other Gadget skills.
I’ll only use the Human’s healing skill on Mesmers, but mostly because Mesmers have no ability to heal themselves.
And I’ll only use pretty much any of the Asura skills on Engineers/Mesmers because they accent those skill types being Glamors/Gadgets. Save the Radiation field it’s useful in many ways.

I am against this and agree with Bato… I hate the looks of Charrs, but i really want to use the skills, especially charrzooka… Also i really love my necro sylvarie, but would prefer for necro charrskills…

May racial skills are weaker, but for most professions (which i choose through look, not through theoretical racial skill combinations…) i prefer the skills from one race.
Especially Engeener, while i totally dislike Nornskills for it, i really want the Humanskills for it…

1. I agree with Aeterna that racial skills are generally weaker to avoid picking a raceprofessions combo. However, they made most of them soo obsoulete especially for norns, that it isn’t worth the trouble. Utility racial skills arn’t too bad, although the norn ones I see no one use nor do I ever use them. But the elites, have an unattractive cooldown, and don’t do nearly enough damage. Should be one or the other, Shapeshifting for Norns has a 4 minute cooldown, and lasts 30 seconds. You remove all utility skills, get very weak and mostly stationary skills for 1-5. It’s a shame to see a potentially bad*** skill play out so poorly. Charr racial elites look fine and I see many use them, Sylvari I see often, Asura here and there, don’t see much human or norn however.