Guild Wars 2

The Problem
As it stands, racial elite skills have been sidelined to be obvious second choices to any class elite. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but it does create a problem:

We have got to the point where half the flavor inherent in a race is automatically cut away from you if you want to have a strong build. Even though I love the Norn Elites that let met transform into different shapes, I can’t justify picking any of them over Timewarp or Entangle. This isn’t really a choice so much as an illusion of choice.

The Solution
Give us one more slot that is reserved strictly for elite racial abilities. This could be a full sized slot skill that goes next to your class elite, or it could be an ability that goes to your F5 key and hovers above your class elite slot.

This would obviously require some balancing of the racial elites, but in the end it would give us a sense of our races back to us. Transformative abiltiies that lock class slots would either need to be changed to let us use them freely or the other racial elites that are fire and forget would need to be nerfed.

As it stands, we were sold the flavor of our races when we first started learning about our game. Did I want to roll a Charr and get that awesome bazooka? Did I want to be able to shift into a huge bear monster since I was such a huge fan of the Norn in GW1? I love the golem tech the Asurans have, I’ll roll one of them!

There is obviously some details that would need to be ironed out, but as it stands, being completely cut off from our elite racials is not cool, it really takes away from the sense of character and belonging in the world. I stop being a Norn and just start being a really big Mesmer, I stop being a Charr and turn into a Cat-Warrior.

I’d be happy for an across the board nerf to all racials to ensure the balance remains, but our kitten racials back to us!

While your suggestion is an “interesting” one, you should put it in the suggestions forum.

To be brutally honest, racial skills are even less of a factor to most players than you seem to make them out to be. I think part of the reason they ARE so anti-climatic is that the introduction of the (powerful) PvE skills in GW1 frankly “broke” the game in many respects. Uber-powerful skills have been tried by Anet and if you notice, they do not exist here….for a reason.

Promoting racial “diversity” at the risk of unbalancing the game (some would add, further) is not something that is really needed (at least form where I stand). I don’t disagree that the racial differences in this game are largely an illusion, but for the sake of game balance that just might be what Anet was attempting to achieve in the first place.

Correct me if I am mistaken, but it sounds to me that you are suggesting that racial abilites should have more power instead of being fluff skills.

Racial skills being only fluff skills is a deliberate design choice made by ArenaNet in order to avoid the situation of people being forced into playing a specific race, because that race has more powerful racial skills than the other races.

A great example is WoW. There are a ton of races in that game, but you’ll find that you actually are forced to be a specific race in order to compete in certain content.
If you want to play PvP then you are forced to play a human, because their racial skill has the same function as a PvP trinket, which means that they can stack double dps trinkets.
If you want to be best in raids and dungeons then you have to play a pandaren, because they have a 50% extra buff on foods and flasks.

They specifically want all races to be as strong as each other. As such, they can’t have strong skills specific to a certain race. Even if they all were the same strength, they would be strong in different ways, making people who want to do that be forced to be that race. (such as if Sylvari racial was high dps and asura was tanky). They want race to be purely cosmetic. So by making racial skills 2nd best, you don’t require them to be whatever build you want to be.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

Correct me if I am mistaken, but it sounds to me that you are suggesting that racial abilites should have more power instead of being fluff skills.

Racial skills being only fluff skills is a deliberate design choice made by ArenaNet in order to avoid the situation of people being forced into playing a specific race, because that race has more powerful racial skills than the other races.

A great example is WoW. There are a ton of races in that game, but you’ll find that you actually are forced to be a specific race in order to compete in certain content.
If you want to play PvP then you are forced to play a human, because their racial skill has the same function as a PvP trinket, which means that they can stack double dps trinkets.
If you want to be best in raids and dungeons then you have to play a pandaren, because they have a 50% extra buff on foods and flasks.

This comparison between GW2 Racials and WoW racials is hardly relevant considering the nature of PVE in GW2. In WoW, the PVE environment was extremely demanding, in GW2 group composition doesn’t really matter that much (You can min-max things, but even at the min end of the spectrum the content is easy or it is a world event where the zerg is all that matters.)

For a long, long while, Shrapnel Mine became a primary skill for me. (Then I l2p’d a little more and don’t need the cripple so much.) My Asura still use Radiation Field.

…My Norn are 100% devotees of their class, as Norn racials are junk. Which is sad, because Wolf form has a decent attack/heal and some great buffs, but it doesn’t last long enough and it can’t attack while moving. All terrible.

As it is, I don’t use most of the skills in my classes, either. Most are too corner-case with long cooldowns, so I end up with lots of condition-removal for end-game anyway.

I never really understood why we have racial skills in the first place.

I remember them saying that they wanted your race to only have a cosmetic effect so you aren’t pressured into choosing a particular race, but if so, then racial skills would need be lacklustre by principle to allow for that.

Elite Racial skills just need to be useful IMHO. Both of my Norns use their class elites, which aren’t any better, because the forms are pretty much useless. Besides, I honestly don’t recall a single Norn being able to change into multiple animal forms in the lore.

The elites that I’ve found the most useful for PvE are:

Either Golem for the Asurans
The Hounds of Balthazar for Humans
Legion Support for Charr
Flesh Golem for Necromancers
Thief Guild for Thieves
Supply Crate for Engineers

Thankfully my Sylvari is a Necromancer, but my Norns are a Guardian and a Mesmer and are pretty much hosed in the elite skill department for both race AND class.

As to the non-elite racial skills, I tend to not even use them.

I have to say the asuran racial utilities are pretty strong and useful for a variety of situations. I even use Radiation Field with my warrior for poison/weakness application.

Brother Grimm.5176:

While your suggestion is an “interesting” one, you should put it in the suggestions forum.

[ … ]

The “suggestions” forum has been closed for quite a long time and ANet has expressed their desire for everyone to make their suggestions in the appropriately related sub-forum so the teams related to that area may see the suggestion better than they would sifting through a mess of suggestions unrelated to their area of expertise.

One solution is masking.

You pick every single racial skill, and you may a version of it with the same exact behavior, but different visuals.

Examples:

• Avatar of melandru (Changed to look more like this .)
  • Sylvari: “Aloe Heart”. Form that uses the current Avatar of Melandru skills and appearance, but with slightly different names and a more greenish tint. No need to change skill names and icons much as the plant theme is shared.
  • Norn: Wurm form. Form that has different skill icons and visuals, but the same effects.
  • Asura: Support Powersuit. Again, a form same skill effects and icons, different looks and names.
  • Charr: Support Tank. Once again, same skills, different names, skill icons and visuals.

• Take Root?
  • Humans: Pray for Help. Cower and a yellowish magical shield covers them, as several magical floating crystal turrets pop around as if they were coming from the mists.
  • Norn: Call Rock Wurms. Cower and get covered in rock, and wurm sprout around.
  • Asura: Request Assistance. Cower and get covered in a purplish magical shield, and aura style turrets pop like teeported in.
  • Charr: Cover Fire. Cower and get covered with a metal plating. Charr style turrets fall from the sky.

• Charzooka?
  • Humans: Kormir’s spear.
  • Norn: Raven’s Staff.
  • Asura: Prototype Mini Skyhammer.
  • Sylvari: Portable Peashooter.

And so on.

Same skills, different flavor.

This allows total balance, making them usable even in PvP, while keeping their flavor and themes, at the cost of having to change 5 skills instead one.

Be a roaming necro in WvW and then tell me the norn elite isn’t better than any of the class ones. Mobility is something precious to necros and having the ability to stealth and then run away when needed is a blessing.

If you want to re-write all the other ones so be it, but please leave the norn necro alone.

I like this idea. I’ve got all races up to lvl 80 and so far I see nothing different other than their looks and the op makes a good point that by taking racials you are simply gimping your build and therefore you never see anyone use them. For pve this needs to be added.

The sylvari druid spirit is one of the far more useful racial skills I’ve seen. It hits hard. It pulls conditions off you automatically. It takes hits better than a guardian and warrior. It immobilizes up to 5 enemies at once. The number of situations I’ve used FGS over the spirit on my ele doesnt even reach double digits.