Guild Wars 2

I’m playing a Nord Ranger, loving it. But I have some issues with the elite skills, so I wondered a few things.

Are the transformations based on the stats you have yourself? I have both the wolf and leapord transformation skill and I noticed the following things.

The Wolf is quite powerful, for only 10 points it is definately worth it, but it is also very annoying.
It actually allows a squishy ranger with no points in toughness or vitality to spend time in melee, due to the lifesteal slash. The amount of HP helps too. But the fact that it feels very stationary and that you cant move using any of the skills. Although I understand a skill such as the lifesteal slash to prevent moving, but the first skill isn’t a skill I would expect that from. Unable to move while attacking is a big issue in a game as dynamic and fluid as this one.

The Snow Leopard costs 30 points, I expected a strong transformation. But the opposite is true. Sure enough the movement feels right with this form. You can move around while slashing and you feel mobile. But, wether it is due to my base stats or not, I am extremely squishy as a snow leopard and am much stronger in my normal form to remove this form from being useful to me. Going snow leopard just leads to lots of deaths for me. The invisible skill is nice, but that only works if you don’t get one shotted first.

I haven’t tried the bear and raven ones yet. But I wondered if we can expect to see some changes to these skills. They are clearly not yet fully operational.

Currently I’ve shelved the leopard skill. It’s simple not usable for me. It’s too weak and squishy. I still use the wolf form, because I that can be very useful, but would like to see more mobility. It’s not a fun form to be in in its current state.

I play an engineer and havent gained enough skill points to try to any other one apart from the bear.

I really liked the bear, the knockbacks are awesome and its pretty tough, however i found myself going back to my class based skills (engie supply drop at the moment) as it just didnt appear to have as much of an impact as i would of expected, definatly enjoyed it though, and would be interested to know if they are based on the stats you currently have in any way.

For general PvE exploration, I prefer the Snow Leopard transformation above anything else (even Elementalist class elites), due to the Stealth. By using it at appropriate times, you can sneak past a large number of mobs to reach that difficult to get to point of interest or skill point.

Wolf is the best CC, due to having both a fear and a knockdown to provide interrupts.
Also note that Bear will increase your health and durability.