Guild Wars 2

For starters, love Norn elite skills. However, I do have some issues with them.
-Looks cool when you activate it, but for first couple seconds you stand there howling or growling or w/e which cuts into your time eating the enemy away.
-Cannot move and auto attack unless you have snow Leapord. Really annoying to stand still and claw at air because its really easy to dodge.
-Resummoning shapeshifting sets all things to default as in auto attack (1). If your basic attack (1) is set to auto attack b4 shapeshifting, it should be the same during shapeshifting so you don’t have to set it to “enable” over and over again.
-Lasts short, I understand because it is fairly beastly (Ha) but for turning into such massive creatures, maybe add some stability or last longer? you only get 30 seconds and depending on the boss or event, you can be stun locked for most of that and then its on the 4 minute cooldown making it very unsatisfying.

I play norn thief and gatta say, I pick Dagger storm over shapeshifting usually because its short cd, does good dmg, provides stability, and nothing like reflecting projectiles back at bosses. Please look into “buffing” shapeshifting but do so in a way that doesn’t make it the obvious choice. (Prefer just the stability even if its just for the first 15 seconds, and the other 3 suggestions)

Just a silly question, is there work on a underwater shapeshifting form? Basilik venom is very useless and its the only one I can use atm :/

Race Skills, especially 10 point elites, are not supposed to be good, and you taking your class elite over racial elites is kind of supposed to happen.

As for underwater elites, Guardians, Thieves, Elementalists, and Necromancers all only have one.

I don’t see taking profession elites over racial a good thing. I picked norn to shapeshift hoping it was promising but it really is just to feel kitten for 30 seconds. As for moving while attacking, counter it by making them costs more if thats your problem. Idc, I’ll gladly spend 20 extra sp just so I can do this. Limiting race elites is not a good thing, because then all people will just skip them and use the same profession elites which is dull and repetitive.

Dull and repetitive is how balance is achieved. A major goal in design was to make it so that race had no effect on how viable your character was. Making racial skills appealing over class skills would just break that most basic design philosophy.

I know this is slightly necro’ing the thread but I agree with the OP. I picked the Norn because I loved the “I got drunk and blacked out” story line and I thought the transform elites were going to be really fun to play. I understand that profession elites are supposed to be stronger so there isn’t motivation for picking a specific race predicated on its racial skills. I am completely all for that line of thinking.

My problem with these “elites” is that they ask the user to sacrifice a lot (all your utilities, and traits that benefit your weapons) just for what I consider to be a “style/flavor” skill. Tacking on a 240 second cooldown timer makes me extremely hesitant to use it so I usually just run around with signet of rage instead.

I know this is a small thing but I’m hoping that they will reduce the skill recharge timer on these skills (down to even transform duration with a post 30 second cool-down) I really don’t think they are powerful enough to warrant a 240 second cooldown timer which kind of takes away from the experience as playing as a norn.

I understand making profession elites more appealing than racial(otherwise all that would be left is Race X with Profession Y over and over because of a cool elite) but the point is, norn race elites are very VERY unapealing. Not just from cooldowns but from effects. I can’t speak for all race elites as I only made a norn and human. But 4 minute cooldown for an elite that does less dmg than being in human form? There should be some sort of benefit such as the ones I’ve listed if not some other kind that doesn’t make “Norn” shapeshifting the obvious choice, but one that feels worthwhile. You want professions elites to be stronger, but atleast make picking a race for more than just looks and story (which is alright, but as soon as I meet Traherne or w/e his name is, downfalls quickly.)

I recently read about this tweet from a GW2 dev:
“GW2 race popularity makes me sad. People avoiding charr & asura are missing the strongest story stuff in our game, IMO. pic.twitter.com/KUoIx51u”
http://twitter.com/Peter_Fries/status/257909948384698368

One way to encourage race diversity would be to make the racial skills WORTH using (so that people try out different race/profession combos). None of them really seem that useful. Hounds of Balthazar die in a matter of moments after being summoned (and the skill has a lengthy recharge, which makes this worse).

I mean, ArenaNet buffed Avatar skills in the original GW (PvE only, of course) for Dervishes (primarily by reducing the recharge time so that you could keep them up) because they weren’t really all that useful with a lengthy recharge time.

Racial skills aren’t nearly as useful as the reputation PvE-only skills in the original GW.

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

Dull and repetitive is how balance is achieved. A major goal in design was to make it so that race had no effect on how viable your character was. Making racial skills appealing over class skills would just break that most basic design philosophy.

But they are already more appealing.

Guardian Elites for example are just simply bad. I always end up using my sylvari turret spawning elite because it is more viable in combat while also having a shorter cooldown (150 seconds). Sure you can work Renewed Focus into one or two guardian builds, but the two tomes are terribad situational skills with 4 minute cooldowns.

And I had the same experience with Balthazar’s Hounds on my Mesmer.