Guild Wars 2

So basically I want to make use of the racial skills. Which professions work the best with each race’s particular racial skills? Most of them are kinda easy, but some, like the Asura battle armor and the norn wereforms, do things that are a little more all-encompassing. Suggestions?

For instance, I think Norn works ok with thief, since you could use the wereforms while steal is on CD and your initiative rebuilds.

ele norn snow leopard for wvw

All are pretty much useless. Norn used to be good necro escape, but it was nerfed a long time ago.

so none of them matter

that wasn’t really relevant to my question, but thanks I’ll find my own answers.

I assume, since you are asking about racial skills, that you are not trying to do anything optimal, but more for fun, or a character theme, or RP? So pretty much anything goes.

Otherwise, there will always be a better normal skill to take. For example, you could use the seed turret on a sylvari engineer, but you end up with a turret on a long cool down and I’m not sure the turret traits affect it.

Something like asura thief + caltrops + radiation field could be fun. But caltrops can be used twice as often as radiation field. So you see the challenges with trying to use the racial skills for anything other than fun.

There is no practical use for any of them be it lackluster effects or long cooldowns for little effect. 100% relavent answer. For example, you can transform as a thief while your initiative regenerates. The trade-off is: you die. Each profession has its own skills that serve that use much better.

If you’re asking about this for roleplay purposes, then the question is irrelevant. You can roleplay a radioactive brick if you like.

As a general rule, they are weaker them “normal” skills. But from patch to patch a few of them sometimes become worth using.

From a raid/fractal point of wiew:
– Sylvari: Take Root, is a very high dmg skill atm for several (condi) classes
On condi necro its centesting with Flesh Golem, golem win on cc, but is alot less dmg.
On condi ranger/druid its Entangle or GoU, for entangle the argument is the cc/immob, GoU is a GotL stack + faster regain of CA. But again Take Root is higher dmg.

- Asura: Radiation Field, Mainly for condi Necro if you dont have a 3’th skill worth taking, this is rare, but can happen.

- Human: Avatar of Melandru, Not for any class specific (though mainly used on tempist). For Gorseval if you dont have any other soft cc’s for holding spirits, AoM can hold all 4 spirits for a LONG time with the Binding Root skill

I think thats about it

Yes, I’m doing this more for fun than anything else, yes I know anything goes. Also I should have specified I only pve (but people tend to ignore you when you say that because most everyone is focused on pvp it seems), so taking a racial skill or two won’t mean my death in any way, shape, or form. In any case, the main thing I was trying to figure out was this:

The norn were forms, the asura power armor, etc all replace the weapons skills, but unlike the engineer kits that do the same thing, these also shut down the class mechanic skills (like the tool belt skills of an engineer or the burst skills of a warrior). So i was trying to figure out which classes would be least affected by this.

What I came up with was that classes whose class skills produce constant effects (like guardian virtues), or are incredibly central to the functioning of the class (like the mesmer shatters) where not good choices if you want to use the aforementioned racial skills. But other professions, like thief (where you can use up your initiative and it will recharge while you are in another form), or elementalist (which is a skill 1-5 swap anyway), are not impacted by this.

Sorry if that was confusing.

@Sigfodr, that is useful info as well, thank you. That is the other aspect of what I was asking.

I’m using the racial skills quite often, I also try to persuade people to use them. Always with the same result: “it is not meta so scrap it!” Those are my experiences so far:

human
- engineer is just a huge wow-effect (not the game). You gain access to a very powerful healing-skill with an OK cooldown. It is not the best, but a good alternative to the boring healing-turret 101. The utility skills are good to cleanse conditions and the toolbelt (F1-F3) skills turn out to be area-versions of the skills with way lower cooldowns. Also the animations are pretty cool if you want to point certain things out.
- necromancer can use the Reaper of Grenth, which surprisingly works with the traits Bitter Chill and Deadly Chill.
- every class can use the Hounds of Balthazar elite skill until they reach level 80. Having two aggressive add which deal good damage and tank quite well is pretty nice for most hero-challenges in core tyria and even some in HoT territory.

sylvari
- take root works with many classes. It is a cheap way to have an invincibility-skill. It makes you immobile, but it can save your life a lot of times. I’ve been using it on my guardian to compare it with the Renewed Focus.

norn
- bear transformation is excellent to eat a load of damage without dying. I saw people using it in the heat room of the Thaumanova Fractal. I also remember quite funny build for WvWvW where a guy used to get 90k hp for the duration of the transformation.

charr
- warrior can make use of battle roar in the early leveling stages. Although the cooldown is longer than For Great Justice, it can be used in combination to quickly buff up a group of people when you do not have access to all skills/traits yet.
- other damage based classes and support classes can also make use of battle roar.
- engineer can use the hidden pistol, which also has a nice toolbelt skill. It looks like the unload from the thief. Looks pretty cool, but is not much effective thou :S.
- some condition builds, ofc no metas, use the shrapnel mine utility.
- Although the Atillery Barrage got me for a while, I found alternatives for it. Cast time is too long, cooldown is way too long. And the damage is sadly not even close to the Elementalists’ meteor shower.
- similar to the hounds of balthazar of humans, the call warband also grants you access to two npc companions which attack automatically and take a lot of damage.
- the charrzooka is just epic. Sadly the duration is so short. It is not a quite effective elite skill, but a lot of fun to use. And it grants you access to a leap skill, if your class does not have one. Aiming is a bit weird thou.

Asura
- necromancer and engineer can use the radiation field as a conditon source.
- the elite golems are nice helpers and compared to most other companions of that powerlevel, they have a lower cooldown. Only one at a time.

HnRkLnXqZ.1870:

I’m using the racial skills quite often, I also try to persuade people to use them. Always with the same result: “it is not meta so scrap it!” Those are my experiences so far:

human
- engineer is just a huge wow-effect (not the game). You gain access to a very powerful healing-skill with an OK cooldown. It is not the best, but a good alternative to the boring healing-turret 101. The utility skills are good to cleanse conditions and the toolbelt (F1-F3) skills turn out to be area-versions of the skills with way lower cooldowns. Also the animations are pretty cool if you want to point certain things out.
- necromancer can use the Reaper of Grenth, which surprisingly works with the traits Bitter Chill and Deadly Chill.
- every class can use the Hounds of Balthazar elite skill until they reach level 80. Having two aggressive add which deal good damage and tank quite well is pretty nice for most hero-challenges in core tyria and even some in HoT territory.

sylvari
- take root works with many classes. It is a cheap way to have an invincibility-skill. It makes you immobile, but it can save your life a lot of times. I’ve been using it on my guardian to compare it with the Renewed Focus.

norn
- bear transformation is excellent to eat a load of damage without dying. I saw people using it in the heat room of the Thaumanova Fractal. I also remember quite funny build for WvWvW where a guy used to get 90k hp for the duration of the transformation.

charr
- warrior can make use of battle roar in the early leveling stages. Although the cooldown is longer than For Great Justice, it can be used in combination to quickly buff up a group of people when you do not have access to all skills/traits yet.
- other damage based classes and support classes can also make use of battle roar.
- engineer can use the hidden pistol, which also has a nice toolbelt skill. It looks like the unload from the thief. Looks pretty cool, but is not much effective thou :S.
- some condition builds, ofc no metas, use the shrapnel mine utility.
- Although the Atillery Barrage got me for a while, I found alternatives for it. Cast time is too long, cooldown is way too long. And the damage is sadly not even close to the Elementalists’ meteor shower.
- similar to the hounds of balthazar of humans, the call warband also grants you access to two npc companions which attack automatically and take a lot of damage.
- the charrzooka is just epic. Sadly the duration is so short. It is not a quite effective elite skill, but a lot of fun to use. And it grants you access to a leap skill, if your class does not have one. Aiming is a bit weird thou.

Asura
- necromancer and engineer can use the radiation field as a conditon source.
- the elite golems are nice helpers and compared to most other companions of that powerlevel, they have a lower cooldown. Only one at a time.

Wow there are some good insights here… completely forgot about the toobelt skills for the racials, and the reaper of grenth for necro is pretty nice with those traits. Thanks!

I’m a charr, and I do think the Battle Roar is useful under a lot of circumstances. The elite Charrzooka is actually useful to range-deficient classes like Guardians. It’s a full range attack that deals multiple burns, and its 2 attack spams knockback so much that it will cut through a Champ’s defiance bar.

Asura/theif is good if you’re going condi. The potent poison has good synergy with radiation field and pain inverter aoe can add extra confusion while in stealth. If you’re going for power technobabble with basilisk venom to stunlock.

Nice! keep them coming!!!!