Guild Wars 2

A big reason i got gw2 was the ability to shapeshift and i would like for it to be usable in pve. I like the bear shape shift and it has a nice health bonus but only skill 2 and 5 do dmg. I hit 3 in a mob yesterday for a lvl 9 fractal and i was doing hits for 433 dmg. I do 900 with a hammer and i was like nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

I haven’t tried some of the other animals simply because bear is the want i want to use and bear usually means health and power which you get more out of juggernaut form which is fine for PvP but for PvE i would rather use bear even if isnt as good as juggernaut. I would just like a little more dmg for its skills so i can use it in PvE settings with out people getting frustrated at me.

I would get behind this if they were restricted to only pve and unlockable on any race so you dont have to feel forced into any one race for each class.

Witch would in turn make them pointless as racials tbh but that would have to be the downside to it.

Racial skills are weak by design. Anet’s vision of “balance”. in all honesty, I would prefer if racial skills either had more impact, or were abolished altogether.

Quarktastic.1027:

Racial skills are weak by design. Anet’s vision of “balance”. in all honesty, I would prefer if racial skills either had more impact, or were abolished altogether.

Abolish, they serve no purpose.

Linken.6345:

I would get behind this if they were restricted to only pve and unlockable on any race so you dont have to feel forced into any one race for each class.

Witch would in turn make them pointless as racials tbh but that would have to be the downside to it.

I dont understand this. Norn is my favorite race so i play i more then the others. I have guild mates who play charr and engy and love there type of class/backround and another playsonly human since he hates teh charr from gw1.

People like having there characters be there characters. I find it wierd you have to have it for every race being you get 5 character slots for playing the game and can make any class/race you want and that the game is already based on the type of weapons/class/ and race you are so it make no sense especially for PvE.

kdaddy.5431:

Linken.6345:

I would get behind this if they were restricted to only pve and unlockable on any race so you dont have to feel forced into any one race for each class.

Witch would in turn make them pointless as racials tbh but that would have to be the downside to it.

I dont understand this. Norn is my favorite race so i play i more then the others. I have guild mates who play charr and engy and love there type of class/backround and another playsonly human since he hates teh charr from gw1.

People like having there characters be there characters. I find it wierd you have to have it for every race being you get 5 character slots for playing the game and can make any class/race you want and that the game is already based on the type of weapons/class/ and race you are so it make no sense especially for PvE.

Becouse some people only want to have 1 character, I personaly have 1 of each class mixed races.

But if lets say bearform would get a buff that made it really good for a frontline fighter then my warrior would like to use it but he cant being a charr.

Buffing the racial skills would make people feel they had to be a certain race for a specific class and that aint good.

Imagine this warrior only norn only bearform elite lfg not fun.

Edit
Correction its based on your class and your weapons as of now race dont do much except underpreforming racial skills ( that you want changed) and lvl 10-30 personal story.

Quarktastic.1027:

Racial skills are weak by design. Anet’s vision of “balance”. in all honesty, I would prefer if racial skills either had more impact, or were abolished altogether.

I’d rather they be more “fun” to use in overworld PvE for trash mob farming, but still leave them flawed when it comes to the more group focused content. Trash mobs aren’t fun because they don’t really pose a threat. Leveraging that, why not redesign the Racial skills to be able to burst through trash mobs in a more visually oriented manner?

Norn transformations rank high on racial skills, because they have their own combat dynamic when using them. Asuran Hazmat suit would had been a close second, except its far too slow and sqiushy to fully enjoy on the short timer it has. Human skills are just all around terrible. The Charrzooka has SOOO much potential; I used to see these a lot in the early days. Sylvari skills need some rethinking, as their not very visually engaging, nor do they change play in any significant way.

I would also convert all racial skills to Elites, allowing the design and gameplay context to let them be both thematically stronger, and justify a greater degree of power behind them.

For the Charr, legion themes.
Iron: Charrzooka
Blood: Warband Ambush
Ash: ???
Flame: Bombardment

Humans obviously god themed. I was thinking about the Avatar skills from the old Dervish.

Asurans NEED “Air of Superiority” back, redo the golem suit to last longer and look into some speedier skills, “Polymock army”… somehow….. and turn “pain inverter” into a shock glove bundle with brawler type skills.

I don’t mind if it does a bit less damage or is a less ‘optimal’ skill, all my Norn characters will always use the bearform. It feels more like a proper Norn that way! I want my characters to have their own style and theme according to their culture and background, regardless of what’s the latest flavour of the month optimal gogogo max weapon damage setup. :p

Getting low on health because you’re swarmed by enemies, then changing into bearform and send the attackers flying left and right just feels very right for a Norn!

Unfortunately the Transformation skills are under-performing in general. They finally gave up on Guardians’ two Tomes and just converted them to entirely new skills (and I love it).

For the Norn Racial-Forms I wish they made it a toggle on/off (similar to engineer weapon kits) with a small cool-down when disabling it. Rework all the skills a bit (iirc only the snowleopard form could move while attacking with #1, been a long time since I looked at this so lilely to be wrong). Keep your existing stats or alter them slightly but don’t overwrite them like the forms currently does. And don’t disable 6-7-8-9 skills, runes, etc.

Make it something we would WANT to use, and something we can stay in for long enough to bother to learn what the skills does. And just weaken/strengthen it enough that it isn’t really better than our normal weapons.

atm I have no reason to go into bear form, because I do more damage with my weapons, and I can tank much more with my normal armor/runes, heal/utils etc.

That said, still used Bear and Snow Leopard a bit in WvW before they changed/nerfed the "Rush" skills. One of the best ways of running away from zergs, but even after months of using snow leopard as my elite (for stealth and rush) I never learned what skills #1 and #2 did.

Edit: Or heck, just make the Norn shape elites just change your apperance until you hit the elite again. Keep weapon and all other things and let it be a RP elite only. Would still be better than the existing solution.

I would rather they implement a Norn male body type that is just tall and not overly buff. Athletic buff is nice but thick neck buff, eh. I don’t want to look like a cartoon character from World of Warcraft.

My preference is to make a utility slot solely for racial skills. (another f6 perhaps).
Each race has one skill that gives a speed boost out of combat.
Each race gives has one skill that gives a soft cc.
etc.

Make them more or less equal in power/function across all races, so one (like asura now) is not above and beyond the others.

I’d like it if they removed the norn transformations from Elites and made them a purely cosmetic skill which lets you use your own weapon, armor stats, runes etc. I’d stay in Snow leopard form on my thief and bear on my guardian and warrior ;_;

All of the transformations, not just the Norn ones, suffer terrible animation locks that don’t fit with GW2 combat. It’s a pretty big disappointment.

What if racial skills were cosmetic rather than granting special abilities? Or if they granted anything make it something that was the same across all races just with different expressions (the abilities of a bear on norn could be matched by a wildcat on charr and a berserker on humans for example).