Guild Wars 2

Title says it all, but there is more than just saying it to be done asap. Now note, I said some, not all racial elites. Some Racial elites are actually quite useful and I see them used regularly. But a large number of them are incredible unsatisfying even if its on purpose. For example, Avatar of Melandru, Power Suit, Artilery Barrage, Druid Spirit, Hounds of Balthazar( only 1 problem with them, cd is fine), Bear and raven form.

These elite skills I never see or feel like it can be used anywhere other than to eat up a trash mob with it for giggles. Simply buffing elites however feels lazy, and takes away from progression which being that these elites are weak in various ways, small bonuses from perhaps a questline, wouldn’t make them suddenly THAT important (unless the values they grant suddenly become too strong).

It would take time, nothing over night or month, not to mention currently many more important things are being worked on but still, here it goes.

Mini Racial quest line related to your character selection options. What I mean by being related, is the: Animal spirit you represent (Norn), College you studied in (asuran), day cycle you were born on(sylvari), Warband (charr), and Human god you worship (I think this was one of their options for humans). For simplicity sake, I will just say X to summarize this.

The quest line will focus on strengthening the bond between you and X, by:
-hunting down various Champion enemies in your homeland region
-participating in a specific event chain from start to finish
-collecting a chest which will drop an account bound trophy item related to that quest that you must turn in to a certain npc.
-Additionally, some instances (again would take time) in various regions that either require you hunting down an enemy of your race, locating a lost ally of your race, finding supplies or interogating(could be made into a mini game just like the OoW quest, where you must out drink the pirates), or preventing a large scale attack on a town/village.

Over time at various points in this quest line progress, an upgrade towards one of the racial elites will be applied. Things like(number values would vary depending on elite):

-Lower cooldown (20-40 seconds depending on elite)
-Longer duration (5-15 seconds depending on elite)(shapeshift skills, such as norn elites, Melandru, charrzooka(maybe more shots instead of duration))
-Higher health(golems, hounds, Spirits(sylvari), mistfire, warband)(10-25% depending on elite)
-Stability on use (3-5 seconds depending on start of elite)(skills such as power suit, norn elites, Charrzooka)
-Longer range (100-200 units depending on elite)(Take root turrets, Artilery barrage, Grenth,)

Suggested elites for the bonuses are only a suggestion. Some may not need those bonuses and therefore do not need to be taken into consideration

Thoughts?

I agree. Although people may rebut the notion by saying “Racial elite skills are supposed to be weaker than class elite skills”, there is no excuse that investing a significant amount of SP for Tier 2 and comparing them to their hilariously more effective Tier 1 versions should be MORE not LESS effective.

Norn and Sylvari racial elite skills especially should be tended upon.

I don’t know too much about sylvari elite skills but definitly agree on norn. The whole “racial elite’s should be weaker than profession elites” I agree on but it comes down to numbers at that point. Racial elite skills don’t have to offer high damage, but they should have some sort of use. For example, Norn can be sort of tanky with the high health pool and be allowed to attack on the move. Human can either be conditions or support(grenth and balathazar being cond, melandru being support, not w/e it is now :/). Asuran makes a good ally that distracts but I’m sure they would like small changes to the power suit.

All in all, racial elites in general should not be this downgraded. They shouldn’t replace the damage or support of any profession elite’s but they should be considered in various situations.