Norn racial elites

Does anybody use them? I enjoyed toying with them on my necro the other day but the cool down is so insanely long it’s just not worth having on your bar. Are they powerful enough to warrant such a long cooldown?

TLDR: Nope

Basically all racial skills are designed specifically to be under powered compared to all class skills. This is specifically to avoid players creating metas where you're supposed to have a specific race to "be the best" at something. At such, they've succeeded (except for jumping puzzles, but that is irrelevant of the actual skills).

Example, there was a time where the Norn's Bear and Snow Leopard skills where 2 of the best elites in WvW, because their Charge ability let you run like 2 maps away super fast. This got changed, hard. I'm still very sad about that, was so happy I was playing Norn on my guard and finally had a useful elite skill ;)

I've suggested before that they should just change them to a toggle on/off, or at least let you stay in the form for as long as you wanted, and trigger the CD when you leave it. Considering how going into the forms are mostly a downgrade in damage/survival for most characters, I didn't see this as a big problem. But someone else pointed out that it would actually define the dungeon meta, because Bear/Snow Leopard, while nerfed, would still allow people to bypass more in dungeons, and thus become the defacto norm for speed-running.

So there you have it, we can't have nice things, because "humans".

Even at 180cd they wouldn't be useful, but they would be more fun to use.

@"joneirikb.7506" said:TLDR: Nope

Basically all racial skills are designed specifically to be under powered compared to all class skills. This is specifically to avoid players creating metas where you're supposed to have a specific race to "be the best" at something. At such, they've succeeded (except for jumping puzzles, but that is irrelevant of the actual skills).

Example, there was a time where the Norn's Bear and Snow Leopard skills where 2 of the best elites in WvW, because their Charge ability let you run like 2 maps away super fast. This got changed, hard. I'm still very sad about that, was so happy I was playing Norn on my guard and finally had a useful elite skill ;)

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I've suggested before that they should just change them to a toggle on/off, or at least let you stay in the form for as long as you wanted, and trigger the CD when you leave it. Considering how going into the forms are mostly a downgrade in damage/survival for most characters, I didn't see this as a big problem. But someone else pointed out that it would actually define the dungeon meta, because Bear/Snow Leopard, while nerfed, would still allow people to bypass more in dungeons, and thus become the defacto norm for speed-running.

So there you have it, we can't have nice things, because "humans".

True, but I think bypassing so much in dungeons is part of the reason they were abandoned. The trash mobs in them is insane but having some incentive to actually kill mobs instead of just running past them would be good.

I was just wondering because it would be cool if the skills were more viable someone could buildcraft a werebeast themed class, but I didn’t think about them becoming the required meta. Lol

The thing that gets me about the norn racials, compared to the others in particular, is that they are so crippling in some senses. The other racial skills, for the most part, just add a skill to your bar. You activate a norn racial, and you replace all your weapon skills with less-poweful attacks, and lose all your heal and utility skills too boot. And if you're a ranger, you lose your pet too! Rangers already have a thing for losing our pet, it's called Soulbeast, except then you get 3 useful skills of your choice based on your pet. (I haven't tried norn racials on other professions, partly because my disappointment in the norn racials has led me to roll other races; do the other professions all lose their profession mechanics/F-key skills too? I can see how they would.)

As for dungeons, the few I've been in, folks just run by the trash mobs anyhow.

I chose a norn partly for the fun of shapeshifting, but there's no fun in it when I lose so much, and it has such long cooldown. It could be made on par with other elite skills and racials, but instead it's just a big and instant nerf to your character. I don't see any design effort being put in to reworking this any time soon, though. One of the things I like least about this game is all the visible seams and edges: skills that are pointless to use, invisible walls, or worse, invisible non-walls that get you kicked from instances for following the thing your supposed to kill/escort(!!!), mobs that are invulnerable for no good or motivated reason, places where you can't use gliders/mounts "because". But that's quite another topic, isn't it?

I'd rather just see the CD's dropped to like 60s. At that pace, it would be worth it to use them just for fun or coolness. They are underpowered anyway- the more often we use them, the worse off we will be. But it would be super fun to do open world content (which is easy, so who cares if we gimp ourselves) as a wolf or raven, or an asura in a powersuit.

I use the wurm skill on my morning engineer for one more turret but that's not elite.

They should just remove all racial skills and replace them with one 'skill'. If you click it as a Norn you transform into the shape of the spirit you chose at character creation. For humans it will be the god you picked. Asura a Scruffy (that doesn't die on you or tries to kill you) in the colour of their college. Something connected to the cycle of day for the Sylvari and the Legions for the Charr.

Something that's purely cosmetic and only for racial flavour.

It will remove any balance issues and the Norn can finally shapeshift at will (as they should). Even the Norn Revenant so I won't have to rename mine Jora afterall. ;)