Having all those racial skills wasted just because they are not good enough to be at the same level as the other skills is really bad in my opinion. I think they need a good boost and maybe a way to access them for all the races like mastery lines for asuras to master the norn spirits after living with the Norn and so on, that would be amazing and an interesting way of using the masteries.
The problem with this is that you’d have a few races stronger than others. At one point of the game norn racial skills functioned like fgs and had to be nerfed. I agreed with this because I didn’t want to roll a different race to be optimal.
Before anyone else jumps to “we can’t have the races unbalanced,” the OP did suggest letting other races learn each other’s racial skills.
Having said that, I’m cool with them as they are. They might be underused, but I think it would be jarring to see an Asura “Become the Bear,” a human call in a Charr warband, or a Charr pray to any of the human gods under any circumstances.
One way to make it good for all is make it so all races/classes can learn all racial skills. make it into an almost quest or something learning the skills other races have. Then they can be made good skills with no worries.
So as to not make it too much for utility slots you can only equip one set of racial skills at a time or something.
One way to make it good for all is make it so all races/classes can learn all racial skills. make it into an almost quest or something learning the skills other races have. Then they can be made good skills with no worries.
So as to not make it too much for utility slots you can only equip one set of racial skills at a time or something.
Yeah that’s how it is in GW1. With acquisition by gaining faction or being able to go to an outpost and buy it from a trainer or doing a quest or questline or a mission and the skill is the part of the reward.
OK…had a nice post all written up…and it got an error when posting and I lost it all…:(
To sum it up:
I’m all for a small buff. Lets say to duration and lowering CDs on the racial skills…more so than buffing power of the skills themselves(although a SLIGHT boost on power of each skill would be welcome by many…I’m personally ok with duration and cooldown adjustments to where they last a little longer and we can use them a little more often.)
Just enough to make them viable for use in certain play-styles/builds. Not enough to make one race more appealing than another…unless you just like the thought of having Animal Forms…or to be able to summon Golems…etc. I am in no way advocating for another URSANWAY type of situation…just so that if you would like to use them, they wouldn’t hinder you…as some actually do hinder effectiveness currently.
I may be in the minority here, but no cross-race learning of racial abilities. These are what makes each Race “special”. Lets not lose sight of that.(ducks for cover)
I would hope the devs would kindly take this into consideration. There have been many threads on this, but perhaps Gaile can pass this along so that it could be thought about and possibly considered for some work in the future.
I do because I can
I can because I want to
I want to because you said I couldn’t
So what about Revenants and any future professions that don’t get to choose their skills? They are just SOL?
Due to the skill assignment mechanics of the Revenant…it appears so…not that I agree…just that that is how it was designed.
Not fair, agreed…but also in light of what the Revenant is and where his power/skills come from…I can see the logic…even if it is slightly flawed logic.
I do because I can
I can because I want to
I want to because you said I couldn’t
it is to my understanding that racial skills were in the game to give more options to low-level characters, this is why they are objectively worse than some professions skills (like the charr shout and the warrior shout)
one thing that i hated in WoW was that i was forced to play races i didn’t like, or that didn’t fit my style because their racials were just too powerful.
as for “being able to learn other races skills”, that would screw up the RPG element in a big way… an asura calling in a charr warband? a sylvari turning into a bear? a charr praying to lyssa?
no thanks…
the only way i can see a buff to racials is if they’re only avaliable in the open world
an asura calling in a charr warband? a sylvari turning into a bear? a charr praying to lyssa?
no thanks…
What’s wrong with an Azura that earns the respect of the Warband?
What’s wrong with a sylvari learning how to invoke the spirits of the wild? In a certain way sylvari Ranger do just that.
Also, The gods are real in GW2, so what would prevent a Charr to have a particular experience with the god Lyssa? Making them use their free will to believe, just like any creature with free will can in the real world.
All the examples you gave sound like incredible story lines inside the world of GW2.
an asura calling in a charr warband? a sylvari turning into a bear? a charr praying to lyssa?
no thanks…
What’s wrong with an Azura that earns the respect of the Warband?
What’s wrong with a sylvari learning how to invoke the spirits of the wild? In a certain way sylvari Ranger do just that.
Also, The gods are real in GW2, so what would prevent a Charr to have a particular experience with the god Lyssa? Making them use their free will to believe, just like any creature with free will can in the real world.
All the examples you gave sound like incredible story lines inside the world of GW2.
what is wrong with an ancient greek praying to xbalanque?
consistency is what is wrong… what would be the point of having different races with different cultures and different personalities? just for different armor models?
hell, why even bother with different professions then? what is wrong with a warrior having an animal pet? what is wrong with a guardian invoking the elements? what is wrong with a mesmer building turrets?
Having all those racial skills wasted just because they are not good enough to be at the same level as the other skills is really bad in my opinion. I think they need a good boost and maybe a way to access them for all the races like mastery lines for asuras to master the norn spirits after living with the Norn and so on, that would be amazing and an interesting way of using the masteries.
This gets brought up from time to time. Different people make the same points, which are:
PRO: make them more powerful
Racial skills are in the game; why not make them comparable to profession skills?
If racial balance is the issue, why not allow any race to learn any racial skill?
CON: no, don’t make them more powerful:
Racial skills are intended to add color to the races, not to be comparable.
It’s good for the game that they aren’t as powerful because it ensures that the professions are self-contained — you won’t see a ranger using the same skills as a mesmer.
Making them comparable makes balancing the game more difficult — everyone agrees it’s already difficult enough (even if few agree on how well or poorly ANet does at this). It’s especially difficult to balance across and within professions, if racial skills matter.
Racial skills already offer valuable utility to new players: the racial skills are available to slot immediately, without spending specialization points.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
an asura calling in a charr warband? a sylvari turning into a bear? a charr praying to lyssa?
no thanks…
What’s wrong with an Azura that earns the respect of the Warband?
What’s wrong with a sylvari learning how to invoke the spirits of the wild? In a certain way sylvari Ranger do just that.
Also, The gods are real in GW2, so what would prevent a Charr to have a particular experience with the god Lyssa? Making them use their free will to believe, just like any creature with free will can in the real world.
All the examples you gave sound like incredible story lines inside the world of GW2.
No thanks, homogenesation for the lose.
But what would be fun is if certain skills got a racial tint, like for instance Charr:
The warrior skill “For great justice” could be replaced with battleroar, or
Banners for charr could be their legion themed banners… just examples here, and they could do that for all races and classes. i think that would be really cool, and make each race more diverse than just the character model.
I understand that from a pvp standpoint this would be met with resistance because people want to quickly recognize what skill is being used, but i believe people would learn this quickly
Just an idea though, based on what i would like to see, because i’d like to see more racial diversity, hence why i disagree with the person i qouted
I am not a huge fan of races learning other races’ skills; I like each race being unique. But then I’m usually a roleplayer and lorehound first, and I like the races having something that makes them them. That said…
I really don’t like that some of the racial skills override the unique profession mechanic (I’m looking at you norn and any other skill that replaces slots 1-5). That is one of the biggest problems I have with using racial skills. Some of them would synergy well with professions if it weren’t for the fact that they override the central mechanic of the profession you’re playing!
I don’t like it at all. I also see the racial skills are all kinda weak and “cool but useless”.
But my “Technobabble” coming from the mouth of a Silvary does not make sense, the same with prayers since we do not believe in a god (but “everything is a part of a big machine” though. Yo.).
Then to tweak certain skills would be nice. The Power Suit is kinda cool to play around with, but the cooldowns and the time limit are ridiculous compared to the general use. I could come up with several problems to fix that, but nobody cares. So I rather stay with my grenade launcher (aka Mortar)..
EDIT: Fixed mistakes due to brainlag.
Zedexx, sly Asura Thief/Assassin
and politically highly incorrect. (#Asuracist)
“We [Asura] are the concentrated magnificence!”
As other people pointed out the “learning other race skills” worked fine in gw1 and was also interesting on the RPG side since you learned those skills by being in close contact with a certain race and by doing so you end up learning their ways.
Also I don’t see any issue with not asuran using asura technology since in the lore we already have Scarlet that studied with the asura and learned to use their knowledge at her advance and also we have the Priory using asura based technology and not only asura have access to those kind of stuff.
Obviously if a race skills sharing would be implemented it would just give more options and make those races that want to use those skill make feel even more unique instead of using the profession skills.
Man I would love if the race skills would be buffed and even if other races could use them (from lore we know that at least humans was able to learn other races skills) and with all the “I want each race to be unique” that is long gone. Norn used to be “Norn have no armies and no leaders only heroes” but live with leaders and join armies (Orders) and refuse to just be their own Norn. Asuran used to be similar to norn except maybe more ruthless). Now all the races just blend together like what made them different is gone, so might as well allow racial skills to be useful and learned by them all or just get rid of them.
Same here. During development of GW2, Norn were marketed has being able to actually transform into various animals and fight like that. But the elite transformation skills, such as bear and wolf, all only last 30 seconds and have a cooldown of 240 seconds. 30 seconds isn’t long enough to make good use of them and add that with the extremely long cooldown and the skills are completely worthless.
And the Charr elite skill, Hidden Pistol. That’s even more worhless than the Norn animal transformations. You’d be much better off using something that actually does something other than making you roll backwards (which is basically nothing more than an extra dodge).
Edit: I’m not too concerned about “balance”. ArenaNet is pretty good at that, and if they ever decide to rework and/or replace racial skills, I’m sure they’ll make them awesome without being too OP. It’s just a matter of when and if they actually want to do anything.
P.S. In my opinion, Norn elite transformation skills could be balanced and function similar to engineer kits. Basically you stay in the transformation until you die or end it manually. It would be really nice to actually fight as a bear or wolf all the time.
