Guild Wars 2

as an avid gw1 player, i was dissapointed to find the lack of secondary professions as well as the lower number of total skills, considering that was a strength of the first. however, i was at least excited that there were race/class combos you could set up. but sadly, this is nonexistant at all in spvp. why? if they are balancing skills across professions, im not sure why this was left out.

I think it would add a lot of flavor and unlock a number of different viable builds. a charr guardian could have more ranged options for instance, or a human ranger could get more condition removal. that, and some classes just have awful elite skills imo (ele), and it would be nice to have more than 3 u dont like to choose from. anyone know? thoughts?

I love that they are not used in SPvP and TPvP. I really hate choosing a race in order to get the most out of my character. In WoW, you are at a disadvantage right from the start if you are not a human (or undead before the WotF nerf).

In a game mode that tries to put each player on equal footing, having even small imbalances with racials = a bad thing (imho)

in theory they should be balanced. its similar to the skills on weapons. because they have control over what all those skills are, they can easily be balanced across from / relative to one another.

otherwise, why even have them in the game? i can sort of understand from the competitive standpoint, but if they are balanced all it would do is allow for more build variety and slight build variations based on class, which, IMO, is a good thing. none of them seem overly strong, but would give more options to classes (ie, extra ranged options, or different status effects your class can not get).

but, most importantly IMO, its the extra elite skills. i feel like 3 is too little variety, especially when 1-2 are usually some combination of lackluster or not viable for your build/playstyle, which often leaves u with 1 choice, and it often feels more like an addon to your build than anything or too situational.

i was able to get on board with their reasoning for no secondary classes (balance/uniqueness), and less skills (higher quality?), but i feel like when churnign out builds im often starting with the same few traits and 1 or 2 key skills i cant live without, and it gets a lil stale

tl:dr: more flavor is better, and its not hard to balance

felivear.1536:

I love that they are not used in SPvP and TPvP. I really hate choosing a race in order to get the most out of my character. In WoW, you are at a disadvantage right from the start if you are not a human (or undead before the WotF nerf).

In a game mode that tries to put each player on equal footing, having even small imbalances with racials = a bad thing (imho)

Agree, racial abilities should never be allowed in to spvp. You may think they should all be balanced, but it wouldn’t take long to see that that isn’t the case. They’re no more balanced than the different classes.

Imbalances issues vs variety.

Guess ArenaNet decided not to even bother.

The potential issue with racials in sPvP is if the racials are worth using, you might start pigeon-holing classes into particular races. Unless you start adding a ton of skills, you’ll end up either making racials worthless (at which point why have them at all?) or end up with “We don’t want you because you’re a Sylvari warrior and we need a Charr.” If they’re adding a ton of skills, I’d personally rather see them given class-wide instead of racially.

thats why asuras are not being overused.. wait what?

There already are enough imbalances with the small characters and being difficult to discern their intentions by their animations…

1) anet cant even balance the system they have now to… really anyones satisfaction.
2) i think they wanted people to rp their pvp characters?

We need a weekend event where all racial skills are allowed. It would be an awesome experience for everyone, because we are sick and tired of the same old crap every game.

On the one Hand, more Skills available to choose from sounds pretty good, but there are certain downfalls to it that make it understandable why racial abilities aren’t used in sPvP:

1) If one race has better skills or skills that are better suited for a certain class or role, ppl will most likely choose that one. Therefore, creating a character gets less personalized and visually, the game is less interesting if you always see 5 asura’s vs 5 asura’s or sth. like that.
2) More skills = harder to keep balance in check. Especially in Skill you’d have to balance over 8 classes, with different skill-interactions, Synergy etc.
3) Racial Skills, that are designed to work in PvE, would also have to work in PvP, so you’d have to again maybe have the Skills have different Effects in PvE and PvP, which is sth. you don’t wan’t to do if not necessary: It makes the game harder to approach by Beginners and if you want your game to succeed, you need to make sure that you can hook beginners fast and not overwhelm them with information right from the start.