Guild Wars 2

In gw1. Bearform was prittey much what norn was all about.
Lower the cooldown alot.

I still wont use it even if they lowered the cooldowns to 30 sec,those transforms are utterly useless skills.Imo just remove them,who uses them ? unless youre not just started the game or just acquired them to test them out or show off,other then it being practical..wich it is not,in No situation did i ever found that using a transform would be a wise thing to do.When i first got them i thought it was gonna be so cool using this in pvp or wvwvw,BIGGG dissapointment

If by “Bearform” You mean getting hammered, killing armies worth of charr/destroyers/monsters in general with a group of 1-5 (with the player character and their party) while they turned into bears every 5 mins or so, then bragging about it to everyone they knew (and everyone they didn’t know) then you’d be right. Norn have always been different from humans in more ways than just “oh they turn into bears and they’re really tall.”

Back to the skill itself… 4 minutes is not an unreasonable cooldown for an elite skill that buffs the hell out of your hp, toughness, and power, which grants a ridiculously long range sprint (it’s basically back to back “ride the lightning”s), and is usable in WvW. It’s pretty much THE best zerg escape or chasing skill (has a knockback when you reach your target if you’re chasing, and it generally runs PAST them and actually knocks them backwards) except for maybe snow leopard form (less hp, but has stealth and the ridiculous sprint is on a 10 second CD instead of 15.) The rest of the bar is useless, but the sprint is OP.

Lower cooldown in PvE might be ok. Maybe 2-3 minutes instead of 4 to bring it in line with most of the other elite skills, in WvW it needs a longer CD if anything, not a shorter one.

Terra Dactyl.2047:

If by “Bearform” You mean getting hammered, killing armies worth of charr/destroyers/monsters in general with a group of 1-5 (with the player character and their party) while they turned into bears every 5 mins or so, then bragging about it to everyone they knew (and everyone they didn’t know) then you’d be right. Norn have always been different from humans in more ways than just “oh they turn into bears and they’re really tall.”

Back to the skill itself… 4 minutes is not an unreasonable cooldown for an elite skill that buffs the hell out of your hp, toughness, and power, which grants a ridiculously long range sprint (it’s basically back to back “ride the lightning”s), and is usable in WvW. It’s pretty much THE best zerg escape or chasing skill (has a knockback when you reach your target if you’re chasing, and it generally runs PAST them and actually knocks them backwards) except for maybe snow leopard form (less hp, but has stealth and the ridiculous sprint is on a 10 second CD instead of 15.)

Slightly lower cooldown in PvE might be ok. Maybe 3 minutes instead of 4 to bring it in line with most of the other elite skills, in WvW it needs a longer CD if anything, not a shorter one.

The skills are useless,good luck running into that zerg being able to hit some people maybe knock some down and then get killed.Honestly i have more luck surviving something like that when i pop stabitlity and endure pain,running into it while transformed is a suicide run,and unless you have 10 people doing it at the same time,it’s not worth it.

Caedmon.6798:

Terra Dactyl.2047:

If by “Bearform” You mean getting hammered, killing armies worth of charr/destroyers/monsters in general with a group of 1-5 (with the player character and their party) while they turned into bears every 5 mins or so, then bragging about it to everyone they knew (and everyone they didn’t know) then you’d be right. Norn have always been different from humans in more ways than just “oh they turn into bears and they’re really tall.”

Back to the skill itself… 4 minutes is not an unreasonable cooldown for an elite skill that buffs the hell out of your hp, toughness, and power, which grants a ridiculously long range sprint (it’s basically back to back “ride the lightning”s), and is usable in WvW. It’s pretty much THE best zerg escape or chasing skill (has a knockback when you reach your target if you’re chasing, and it generally runs PAST them and actually knocks them backwards) except for maybe snow leopard form (less hp, but has stealth and the ridiculous sprint is on a 10 second CD instead of 15.)

Slightly lower cooldown in PvE might be ok. Maybe 3 minutes instead of 4 to bring it in line with most of the other elite skills, in WvW it needs a longer CD if anything, not a shorter one.

The skills are useless,good luck running into that zerg being able to hit some people maybe knock some down and then get killed.Honestly i have more luck surviving something like that when i pop stabitlity and endure pain,running into it while transformed is a suicide run,and unless you have 10 people doing it at the same time,it’s not worth it.

Today I learned escaping = running towards the zerg. Never knew.

“Chasing” is what it implies, not charging headlong into a zerg that isn’t running away. If someone (or a few someones) are running away, you have a (guessing here) 2400+ range sprint with a knockback to catch at least one of them. Shortbow thieves can’t do that (until they get enough initiative for a third infiltrator’s arrow). dagger/dagger eles with lightning flash can’t do that. Only bear form and snow leopard form can close that much distance that fast. You can easily catch someone who’s out of vision range in about 2-3 seconds and knock them back.

Now, get a shortbow thief or a dagger/dagger ele who ALSO has bear form and you can run even farther (transform, sprint, end transform, profession-specific gap closers, congrats you’re like 1/4 of the way across the borderlands in 4 seconds.

I never said running into the zerg transformed was a good idea. I don’t even like running into the zerg as a tornado (which blinds the people it hits).

I also haven’t used the transforms ever since joining a guild that actually pushes into melee range (which actually makes tornado usable) since there’s usually no reason to run away (it’s like 3 silver for dying, I only brought the transforms before because the other options for ele are all melee range and my entire old guild stayed at range 100% of the time), but the transforms are OP for running away from a zerg, chasing down a single person, or just covering ground obscenely fast. Useless for everything else, but almost too useful for those things. You put that sucker on a 30 second CD and I’d slot it again in a heartbeat. 2 minutes and I’d still consider it.

The skills are useless because you are rooted while attacking, have no access to heal/utility, and they don’t last very long. Sure it might be a slight buff in stat/damage in melee range on a target that doesn’t move, but cases where that is beneficial are rare.

Depending on what your class elites are, high chances are they are going to be much more useful and thus the norn elites are never touched.

i will use em…. cause i love the lore of the norn (in pve then ) pvp on the onther hand?

I kinda wish there wasn’t even a duration and it was more like an engineer kit toggle between humanoid / wereform, but that would be silly. Lots of fun though.

I’m with Terra Dactyl on the usefulness factor in WvW. Snow Leopard is godly for the dash and stealth. How is my guardian getting into that tower with a zerg outside unnoticed? Stealth kitty dash GOOOOOOOOO!!!! Boom, now I’m in with my blueprints and supply defending what might have been an unmanned / lightly manned tower or keep. Zerg escape likewise, transform→ steath → dash into the horizon, towards whichever objective seems most useful. It’s true that the form isn’t great at actual fighting, but for movement utility it’s pure gold. I’d like to use the ability more often, but ArenaNet have said they don’t want racial abilities totally blowing class abilities out of the water so I’ll settle for what we’ve got :P

In PvE I’m actually a big fan of werewolf. Skill 2 is a huge lifesteal that hits multiple foes, skill 4 is a shout that buffs your party with 20s+ of Fury and Regeneration, plus there’s the blowout that will interrupt a cluster of mobs. Skills 3 and 5 are also cc oriented, you get an aoe fear cone on 3 and a knockdown on 5, both of which I’ve found useful over and over again. As I understand lifesteal, it gets buffed by healing power (not 100% on this, would like a confirm / deny) so wolf form is a bit stronger on that cleric geared support character than a pure DPS type. My big gripe with wolf is that you can’t walk and chew gum on it… every attack roots you to the spot, unlike Snow Leopard which can move and fight. Wolf is very tanky though thanks to the lifesteal and cc abilities. Again I’d love to just shapeshift into this and go back and forth at will like an elite weapon swap. Not gonna happen but it would be fun

Only forms I don’t really get are bear and raven. Bear seems to have some fans, so I guess I overlooked it because wolves and leopards are more in character for my toons. I don’t know what raven is for. I want to love it but it seems a bit slow and fragile </3

TL;DR Weapon/Kit-like form switching would be too sweet, sadly. Snow Leopard and Wolf are very strong in their particular niches.

The various forms need some re-balancing, skill/function wise.
They’re a bit of fun, but in no way whatsoever ‘turn the tide’ skills, which elite skills were touted to be.

My character doesn’t use them anymore due to trait setup, but when they did it was always Raven, as that was their spirit totem.

I think the Norn shapeshift forms definitely need to be looked at again…

In my opinion, each form skill should last at least long enough to allow for people to read the skill descriptions of their new skill bar.

Anything less than that is just bad design.

ThiBash.5634:

In my opinion, each form skill should last at least long enough to allow for people to read the skill descriptions of their new skill bar.

Anything less than that is just bad design.

I was kinda thinking the same thing just now. I still don’t know what half of the forms do because I don’t even have enough time to read and learn all the skills. Are there ever going to be reworks for these? I understand they wanted racial skills to be weak so people don’t favor one over the other, but this seems a bit excessive.

Well why not buff the transform skills as a whole? Norn transformed for great advantages in battle, why not reflect this in gameplay?

In gw1, the norn would transform all the time, it was pretty much their fighting style. So why do most npcs just not do it anymore? I had almost forgotten they were a shape shifting race and not just taller versions of humans.

Penguin.5197:

In gw1, the norn would transform all the time, it was pretty much their fighting style. So why do most npcs just not do it anymore? I had almost forgotten they were a shape shifting race and not just taller versions of humans.

To be fair, Norn members of the Vigil do it all the time in the later part of the story.

Sadly, it makes them hilariously useless.

As long as you are rooted the form is worthless. Please fix. It is why i chose a Norn.

Caedmon.6798:

I still wont use it even if they lowered the cooldowns to 30 sec,those transforms are utterly useless skills.Imo just remove them,who uses them ? unless youre not just started the game or just acquired them to test them out or show off,other then it being practical..wich it is not,in No situation did i ever found that using a transform would be a wise thing to do.When i first got them i thought it was gonna be so cool using this in pvp or wvwvw,BIGGG dissapointment

I use them. However not for PVP. I use them to off tank in dungeons when our Guardian needs to heal, so I drop shadow refuge on him, bear form and charge in to take the aggro. Personally I think the cool down is good, and I have had no issues with the skills.