Guild Wars 2

I’ve been mulling over this idea for a long time. Racial skills are a wonderful way to introduce flavour between the different races, but because they’re underpowered compared to the standard class skills, most players never touch them. What’s more, Revenant characters can’t even use their racial skills at all!

So, what if each character receives an additional 3 racial skill slots (2 normal, 1 elite) into which you can only put racial skills? This would allow players to bring their usual build while adventuring, while also allowing them to do things like call upon their patron god for blessings, assume their Spirit totem, or summon their golem/warband/sylvan hound to help wreak havoc on their enemies? Racial skill slots would be unlocked at levels 5, 15 and 25 (elite), roughly at around levels when the skills would be useful and while new players are still unlocking new slots on their skill bar, so they can grow into them.

Because the racial skills are generally less powerful than normal skills, I honestly feel that it wouldn’t have much impact on the game’s balance. (Problem skills such as Take Root can be directly adjusted if the need arises.) Players have already proven that they can tackle the game’s toughest content without racial skills; the extra aid might in fact help more players get into things like high-end Fractals and raids, as well as giving ordinary players just that bit more edge in things like HoT maps or LS episodes.

For obvious reasons, they are disabled while in PvP. I am uncertain as to whether they should likewise be disabled in WvW; I don’t think they would have much impact from a balance perspective, but having two 40-man zergs all summoning extra allies before a fight might be too much of a performance hit.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that the Mistfire Wolf would go into the racial elite skill slot too.

It would be nice if Racial skills could be useful, but they will not be for most people. Also it is in my belief that anet really doesn’t want them anymore. they have already got rid of them from the Rev class, might as well just remove them and they say “oh no one used them so we are going to remove them since we don’t feel like making them useful”. I also think they said they don’t want them useful or powerful otherwise people will choose one race over another because they are “better” so they might as well just get rid of the skills tbh.

Repeating what I’ve proposed before.. make it a Mastery!

Example – Engage in special quests and earn experience in the Shiverpeaks to unlock the ability to use Norn racial skills, regardless of the player’s race. Likewise for Asura in Maguuma, Humans in Kryta, etc. Your mastery rank may even influence the potency and duration of the skills, making them something more than a skillbar ornament.

Add an additional F-skill accessible ONLY in PvE to slot in a single racial skill of your choice, among those you have unlocked. Sort of a toned down version of the three PvE slot skills that were alloted in GW1.

As for the racial elites, that’s a trickier problem that someone with more insight can ponder over.

tl;dr: Racial equality for everybody, more content for players who like their Tyria vanilla.

/slashies

Major Domo.9250:

to unlock the ability to use Norn racial skills, regardless of the player’s race

A Charr praying to Dwayna. Seems legit.

When leveling racial skills are already unlocked, no need to spend hero points on them (not that earning hero points is difficult) It’s a nice thing to learn using the first utilty skills for new players I guess.

It’d be cool if when you made the char, you had 4 racial skills, 3 utility and 1 elite.

These will slowly be superceded by learnt class skills, but they’d be there to fill the slots initially.

@kamedin: While it is true that the easiest solution is for ANet to simply ignore or even remove racial skills altogether, I feel that that would be a mistake on their part. It’s the same mistake they made when they dumped the old 3rd path from Twilight Arbor; they looked at the numbers and go “Oh, nobody ever runs this path. I guess people must not want to do it so let’s just remove it.” The truth was that nobody ran that path because it was BUGGED. ANet drew the complete incorrect conclusion, and I think it’s the same scenario here. People don’t use the racial skills because they’re inferior to their normal skills, so why waste your “normal slots” on sub-par skills? That doesn’t mean that people like me don’t WANT to use them. I would LOVE to bring racial skills more often, if it wasn’t for the fact that I get attacked by other players for “not pulling my weight”.

At the same time, I also understand why ANet can’t make the racial skills the same or more powerful than normal skills, because it could potentially lead to situations where players start demanding that “all Warriors must be Charr, because Battle Roar is effectively a free FGJ.” The racial skills should be fun extra additions that help the player or their party, but not to such an extent where they outshine normal skills.

So, by including racial skill slots, it effectively gives the best of both worlds. Players can bring their additional “flavour” skills, yet not compromise what a player brings to the table via their main build.

@Major Domo: I think your idea has merit, but as DirtyDan suggested, it likely wouldn’t make a lot of sense lore-wise. There is no evidence, for example, that any non-Norn has ever been granted the ability to assume Spirit form by the Spirits of the Wild. (And any such incidence would probably be a momentous event to the Norn.)

I do like the idea of a “Racial Power” trait tree though, that could improve the power and duration of your racial skills. However, I think that could potentially move racial skills into the “too powerful” area where people start choosing characters based on a combination of their race+class. For game balance reasons, it’s best to continue to leave them as lower-power versions of class skills.

@Carighan: Since the change to the trait and skill trees, you actually already start with all of the racial skills unlocked for free. As it currently stands, racial skills already do what you suggested; they are free skills you can use while gaining levels and unlocking your normal class skills.

One other benefit of racial skill slots is that it potentially opens the door to having class-wide skills make a comeback. Remember the “Antitoxin Spray” from LS1? Such skills could fall under the providence of racial skills, meaning that ANet could introduce new skills with specific uses for different areas, without having to force players to dump their valuable build slots for skills needed in rare circumstances.