Guild Wars 2

This has been a topic of discussion over on the Norn forum, and the general consensus seems to be that, while everyone knows that racials are meant to be weaker than class skills, the Norn elite skills are just not fun to use. I mean, we have four elite skills, the most out of any other race, and only Snow Leopard is really of any use, only because it has stealth. And even then, it’s a situational use at best.

So, many Norn players would like to see Norn elites get a bit of a makeover, not really to make them strong or anything, but just so that they can be fun to use, and at the very least fill some kind of role in a player’s repertoire should they decide to use them. So, I thought I’d put together a list of ways that they can be improved upon:

1) More unique attacks. All forms essentially share the same attacks and the same animations, with the only difference being the effects that they have. These should be more unique for the form in use, to give the feeling of “Holy crap! I’m a kittening bear!”

For example, it would be good for Raven if Swoop was an actual flight skill that evaded attacks, as well as dealing damage, keeping them stationary instead of being a lunge (similar to how regular bird mobs behave). Wolf’s Leap should be more like a dash instead of an awkward jump, portraying the speed and ferocity of an actual wolf. You know, things that make each form more unique in some sense.

2) Remove rooting on some form skills. Each form is essentially required to be stationary for every attack, which makes things difficult in fights where mobility is necessary. Yeah, skills like Bear’s Maul and Wolf’s Blood Frenzy should still require the player to be stationary, but at least allow players to use Snow Leopard’s Growl or Raven’s Shriek while on the move. It’s a simple fix, but one that can make the forms more enjoyable to use.

3) Cutting cooldowns on tier one elites. As it is right now, all Norn elites share the same cooldown of 240 seconds. Which kind of defeats the purpose for most of them. For the tier one elites at least, the cooldowns should be bumped down to 180, putting them more in line with other tier one racials. Snow Leopard can keep it’s current 240 cooldown, since it has the advantage of stealth.

4) Dialogue. An aesthetic thing to consider, since the character doesn’t say anything when using a form. Something like “Protect me Bear!” or something cheesy like that to give an extra uumph to it.

Hope you guys would consider at least one of these things, as a lot people would really like Norn racials to be more fun.

Agreed on all accounts. They’re just the worst racial Elites in the game.

I’m sorry to inform that the Wolf Form is to me the most superior of them all due to my PvP background. Having that handy 3K-5K heal on a low cooldown and 2 AoE CC + 1 single target cc that also gives you a gapcloser

I’d like the skills to be cast while moving, but I know how OP it’d be.

I’m glad with the skills, it follows the elite trend of having a high cooldown for a strong skill.

Druu.9604:

I’m glad with the skills, it follows the elite trend of having a high cooldown for a strong skill.

Ahahahahaha!

Oh wait… you’re serious?

…

There is no reason to not remove the self root from the auto-attacks on these forms and the non-channeled attacks. None whatsoever.

The stationary skills are what is really killing it. Dodge is possible if you’re not stuck in one place, but it isn’t a 2nd health bar. It is your health bar which goes down very quick if you can’t dodge heavy hits. Wolf form (the only 1 I have ever really used) is far better simply because of the heavy life steal. The others have no life steal or are stationary(except snow leopard) but it can move while attacking you know? They just did a choppy job on this category of racial elites. Sure not make them superior to all but don’t make them kitten useless.