Racial abilities and Mistfire wolf should be buffed

The game has been out for 5 ish years now. Why are racial abilities and Mistfire wolf still intentionally under tuned? Originally it was so no one race had an advantage. But here we are now with 2 elite specs per profession, mounts, gliding etc. Are a handful of abilities really going to break the game? Would they really alter your decision on which race you chose? Even if they did, is that a bad thing? Why even have them in the game if they are completely unused?

I just think it's time they could be brought in line with other abilities so they are actually viable choices for builds.

-Side note- Why does Revenant not have access to any of these? Even if they were in the special ability slot.

@sgeisi.5981 said:Are a handful of abilities really going to break the game? Would they really alter your decision on which race you chose?

Yep and yep, because certain combinations of racial and profession abilities can break the game, and metas will shift from simply the class your using to both the class and race, and thus forcing players who play raids and metas to abandon characters they've long been using because they weren't the correct race for the meta.

Even if they did, is that a bad thing?

Considering the above, absolutely. Your choice of race and class should be personal, but many who play the meta will have various characters for various situations (fractals, raids, pvp, wvw) and for various setups too (damage, support/healing, carry etc). However, even when those cases are so spread out, it's extremely unlikely that all meta players have the 'correct' choice of race and class for however that meta will turn out.

And then balancing happens, meaning that those current choices are now invalid, which means players will have to create entirely new characters and abandon old ones, and if the meta shifted to what they were forced to delete because they didn't have the character slots? Madness ensues.

It should not be a requirement that players who play meta need 45 slots for one of each race/class combination.

And that's not even getting into the way some people absolutely despise playing certain races, and don't have any characters of that race. if they play meta and their absolute worst nightmare comes true that the race they hate is now meta with their favourite class, you'd see those people leave the game instantly, if not absolutely riot.

Why even have them in the game if they are completely unused?

Flavour. They're fun if you're not in the meta game, and sometimes you'd just prefer the skills of your race over the skills of your class.

I just think it's time they could be brought in line with other abilities so they are actually viable choices for builds.

I'm sure what I outlined above relays the importance of racial abilites never becoming viable choices for builds.

-Side note- Why does Revenant not have access to any of these? Even if they were in the special ability slot.

Issues with the energy mechanic. Racial abilities have never affected profession mechanics, but with the revenant, all skills apart from autoattacks use energy, so how do the balance that out.

On top of that, revenant legends are a set utility bar and balanced around that. Adding racial abilities, in any capacity (including mistfire wolf) would make for one horrendous effort to balance it, thus the effort of balancing it and implementing it is an unnecessary development cost, especially when resources can be spent elsewhere for far, far more benefit.

@sgeisi.5981 said:The game has been out for 5 ish years now. Why are racial abilities and Mistfire wolf still intentionally under tuned? Originally it was so no one race had an advantage. But here we are now with 2 elite specs per profession, mounts, gliding etc. Are a handful of abilities really going to break the game? Would they really alter your decision on which race you chose? Even if they did, is that a bad thing? Why even have them in the game if they are completely unused?

The game is not supposed to be "racialized".

This isn't D&D where we decide the races of a certain set of skin-tones are good and powerful and the races of a another 'brightness setting on the color wheel' are evil and weak. Nor is it a game that follows any of that kind of negative thinking in it's design.

The racial abilities they have... are minor nods to lore.

But I find it a good thing that they are all undertuned. I've bolded the part of your post that I feel is very important here.

The last thing we need is people putting 'character race choice' into the meta like some more D&D-inspired games end up with.

As for Mistfire Wolf... I would agree that it alone should be buffed to be equivalent to any class based elite skill.

The problem with making mistfire wolf viable is that there are some people who don't have the deluxe edition of GW2 (or the heroic edition or whatever it's called). Meaning that some people don't have the mistfire wolf elite. If everyone had access to it, from free to play players to someone who owns everything, it would make sense. But with a portion of players who don't have it unless they shell out the gems to get the deluxe edition, it means mistfire wolf can never become meta viable.

and imagine the rage of players finding out they got the deluxe edition for mistfire wolf elite and finding out they could have saved their cash long ago because it's now been spread to everyone.

@sgeisi.5981 said:Are a handful of abilities really going to break the game? Would they really alter your decision on which race you chose?If they are good, yes I think they will. Not every class has comparable utilities or elites. Some are considerably better than others. You would need to balance these racial skills not only with each other, but also with every other utility skill available. If your build's best utility skills are racial, then yes I absolutely think they will determine which race many people choose.

Even if they did, is that a bad thing?Yes I think it would be a bad thing. Races should not determine what kind of build we should play. Races are cosmetic only. This is a good thing in my opinion.

Why even have them in the game if they are completely unused?What castlemanic said. For fun. For flavour. Why not? There is plenty of content that is easy enough to use any build you want. You could run around Core tyria using only Racial skills if you so desired. It might even set you apart from others and make someone smile when they see you riding in a Golem or fighting as a Norn Spirit.

They could make a mastery that allows you to unlock the racial abilities of other races.

@castlemanic.3198 said:The problem with making mistfire wolf viable is that there are some people who don't have the deluxe edition of GW2 (or the heroic edition or whatever it's called). Meaning that some people don't have the mistfire wolf elite.

Well, that would depend on whether or not it was 'in meta' vs 'THE meta'. Or even just "useful for some builds. What if, for example - it was basically a 'reskinned' version of "Summon Flesh Golem"?

I don't think it should be buffed in terms of power so much as having some skills buffed for 'fun', such as allowing battle suit/golem/norn form limitless in duration but each has drawbacks. (defensive golem only uses a slow auto attack and only uses the 'bubble' defense once every 45 seconds, offensive golem gatling ability has less power, battle suit and norn forms have a 3/4 second delay after using anything that isn't an auto attack, along with auto attack having reduced damage) with the point being you're not putting these on for any sort of benefit for battle but because you want to have fun running around as a werebear or in your battle suit or with a golem at your side. things like this.

Racial abilities / Mistfire Wolf are not being used at all because they are underpowered. The OP asked for them to be brought in line with other skills so that they are at least useful and could be used if anyone wanted to without being scolded by other players for using "crap skills". He did not ask for them to be made overpowered in order to be a "must have" for the "meta players". Some reactions to the original post are very inappropriate or even off-topic because making these things "the best" was never been asked for. I agree that these skills should be adjusted in order not to be "useless" anymore.

Disagree, they are deliberately designed to be unusable in all content, and if they became usable millions of characters who players have spent years of their playtime on and are extremely attached to would suddenly be outmoded as race becomes an important part of build choice. It would also affect future players forcing them to choose between aesthetics and character theme or mechanical viability and adhering to the metagame, as a meta would undoubtedly form given time.

However it's also just plain ridiculous to even have skills deliberately made unusable in the first place, so in my opinion they should just be removed, and in their place Anet should do a repass of the race based cosmetics and step up that system.

This would include:Re-passing character animations to individualize them more between races. There should not, for example, be so many animations shared between norn/sylvari/humans.

Changing effects to be individualized per race. For example, summon turrets on a Charr engineer and you get mechanical/dieselpunk looking turrets; summon turrets on an Asura and get alchemical/magitech based turrets. Place a symbol on a sylvari guardian and it will be an appropriate phrase from ventaris tablet, place that same symbol on a human and it will be the symbol of Dwayna.

Adding more cosmetic progression and purchases for racial gear, even if it is necessary that said gear is also be made available to every race in order to justify its development time.

Add in cosmetic uses for our character bio choices. Let Asura fight in a golem based around their chosen college, norn fight in their spirit beast forms, humans become an avatar of their patron god, charr to rally as a general of their legion, and sylvari to take on a wild form based on their cycle.

Or in summation, if race is supposed to be all about feel, and theme, and looks, and lore, and cosmetics then give each race enough of that crap that it actually feels like it matters!

No complaints here. I use poison field a lot with my condi Asura ranger. And the D-series golem is occasionally useful for glass cannon builds. I've even used the other golem on rare occasions, mostly to solo events that spawn tons of adds.

As for the Mistfire Wolf, I see that as more of a vanity thing than something that's actually supposed to be good.

Well thanks for all the input. But yeah, I think it was a bit misunderstood. I wasn't saying they should be buffed into meta builds. I was just thinking more along the lines of adjusting the cooldowns, activaitions times, or uptimes.

For example, Mistfire wolf has a 150 second cd with a 30 second duration, while something like Glyph of Elementals has a 90 second cooldown with a 60 second duration. Or the power suit. You can't even use that for fun, because it has a 4 minute CD.

And like it was mentioned, why not make them masteries? It could be a nice addition to core tyria masteries, and then your chosen race doesn't matter, and the skills don't go unused. There is no flavor, or anything fun about something that's never used.

Which brings me to the next thing. Just because not everyone has access to something, doesn't mean it shouldn't be viable, especially when it was a paid for thing. Not everyone has access to mounts, and yet those are without question the best form of transportation. But I would be totally fine with them adding that to masteries also, just so people could have access to it if it meant that it could be useful.

This topic comes up on a regular basis but its still worth covering else it appears that is no longer of interest. It has also manifested in various forms as people that are interested in the extra dimension of race try and tweak ideas to make it so it can fit their interest but not create a negative aspect to game play. Racial's were an extra dynamic when building a toon that made one of the same profession feel different than another. Racial abilities should be in line with others so that a player could ask themselves do I want this class ability or this racial one with this particular build. I don't think anyone looking for these options are saying they want this race to be "meta" for a class but they should play differently. The suggestions have ranged from:

• Reviewing / updating existing abilities
• More synergy between core traits and racial abilities
• Racial elites that would replace class elites
• Special racial ability bars so that people can slot racial abilities as they stand without losing any class ones
• Racial abilities that replace 1-5 like engi/ele kits/attunements do

And that's just some of them. Now others have raised the concerns on balance, and/or a race becoming meta because of an ability. But we have already seen ANet adjust racial abilities in the past so to me I don't know if I agree with this one. In the end its the same as balancing ones for a class but it would require collaboration across multiple devs since the given ability would impact all classes/elites so I do agree the challenge level increases in this case. I think that the level of challenge is worth it's development time. To me racials just creates more combinations for players to try and leads to more depth which extends the replay-ability of the game and makes each character created to be more distinct. Having a reason to have 5 rangers is ok in my book.

Not everyone is an alt-o-holic though so without metrics (which ANet has even if we don't) its hard to gauge this. I can only speak for personal experience. As metric today I have one toon for each class and one for each of its elites that I enjoy playing today with a few more for experiments between condi/power/hybrids. Others will have more toons and other people less. I would hope that ANet could challenge players with saying, oh what race for this profession next, all of them should be interesting and something we want to try in combination with a class and none should result in either the answer being none or oh no it has to be this one.

Good gaming to you!

ALL elites should be buffed. They're nothing more than fillers and don't deserve the name "elite".I'd prefer a 5th utility slot a million times over our elites...

Just want to add in here...as a person who has posted about this for a long, long...long time.

The Racial Elites and Mistfire Wolf just need to be made equal. The OP did not ask for them to be made over-poweringly broken. Just to where they can be viable to use. A shorter cooldown, and adjusted damage on their skills to BALANCE them with other Elites. That is all we woudl like.

I have played a Norn main since Beta...and I would love to use the forms. Because, using them adds that flavor of playing a Norn. Using them in some places though, is ill advised and can often lead to you not succeeding in a some PvE scenarios.

As far as WvW/PvP goes...disable them in those game modes if you think it will throw off the "Meta" that much. Wouldn't bother me at all...though I know some would raise complaint because they want them in those modes as well.

My hope is that they can be tweaked and balanced to be a usable choice in all game types...but at least in PvE so choosing them doesn't result in goal failures or frequent character deaths .

Raid and WvW balance keeps racials from being too useful, but I'm okay with that. (Note: I am not a raider or wvwer, but I understand the need for balance in those modes.) It's nice that the racials are occasionally-good options though. If they were brought up in power to match other skills, their cooldowns should be longer as an offset for the added flexibility. Racial skills shouldn't be actively discouraged by being truly sub-optimal, but they should have some use if the player can shoehorn them in.

• Please do put racial skills in Revenant. The class already feels so half-done (or worse, underwater).

• Norn forms should be more like kits, if I'm being honest. Maybe a bit of a cooldown between uses (30 sec, 1 min) to avoid constant switching, but the 30-second duration on a junky transform skill that goes on a 3-4 minute cooldown is sad.

@castlemanic.3198 said:The problem with making mistfire wolf viable is that there are some people who don't have the deluxe edition of GW2 (or the heroic edition or whatever it's called). Meaning that some people don't have the mistfire wolf elite. If everyone had access to it, from free to play players to someone who owns everything, it would make sense. But with a portion of players who don't have it unless they shell out the gems to get the deluxe edition, it means mistfire wolf can never become meta viable.

and imagine the rage of players finding out they got the deluxe edition for mistfire wolf elite and finding out they could have saved their cash long ago because it's now been spread to everyone.

This is a concern, but I do love the animations of mistfire wolf so much! I hope we can get a second version of the skill (for players who already have it), with massively reduced damage but you can keep it out permanently just for the animations.

As to the OP, there are valid reasons for not making racial skills too powerful. I think the problem though, especially with racial elites, is that most class elite skills are simply underwhelming (especially when you consider their CDs), which is why sometimes racial elites seem like a better option. So buff most class elites and that concern will mostly vanish.

Also, this wouldn't be a problem if there were some journey/collection you could do to obtain the racial elite skills of the other races.....

There's a connection i made that i never explained,so let me make it clear.

the very moment racial skills become viable choices, they become viable for metas. Theres no middle ground, no in between point where racial skills can be considered viable choices without having them be considered for metas. This is the reality of the min-max community, which already shows extreme amounts of toxicity to those who dont play as well as they do. The very moment racial skills become viable is the exact moment they will be analyzed, metas tossed around and overtaken by race/class builds.

Racial skills have to, at every point in the game, be underpowered to at least give players the ability to choose their race without facing toxicity for their main being the wrong race.

Theres no good outcome of racial skills being buffed into being viable.

@castlemanic.3198 said:the very moment racial skills become viable choices, they become viable for metas.While I don't agree with a lot of the attitude that shines through the rest of this post, here you have nailed it. The moment racial skills become competitive (=equal, as some have put it) with profession skills, certain race/prof combinations will gain an advantage over others. Even if it's just a niche in which the skill becomes useful. Race selection in GW2 should have no effect beyond optics and lore and undertuned racial skills are there to ensure this. I really don't need the equivalent of WoW's dwarven priests (fear ward) and tauren tanks (extra health) in GW2.

Yes, they absolutely do need to be buffed up to the point that they are actually useful. Everyone who thinks they will influence Meta builds, are just overreacting and being sensationalists honestly. Let's look at this logically, and in the exact same way this "issue" was looked at with other MMOs.

There is zero point in basing metas on class/race combinations. Since skills are always being rebalanced, metas are always in a state of flux. Sure, some diehard players will insist on using only the best race/class combinations for meta at all times, but in the end, the masses will take the path of least resistance and not care about races in meta. Those diehard players WILL be a minority, this is a fact, it has been proven repeatedly in EVERY MMO that has racial bonuses. On WoW, it's a well known fact that certain races are better suited to certain classes than others, however this fact has had zero impact on metas because you can't freely change your race. The simple fact that it costs time or money to change your race will prevent races from influencing metas. The only place you'll actually see any real impact from this is PvP, and that is only if they don't simply restrict Racials from PVP game modes.

I actually agree with the OP. I disagree with the reasoning that tuning them as regular skills would have some negative impact on the game. No, it would just make the game more interesting, and it serves very little purpose having intentionally undertuned skills.

IMO, it's totally fine if being an asura engineer carries some benefit that being a human engineer doesn't, and/or vice versa, as long as it isn't such a huge advantage that it became game breaking, in which case it would face balance iteration the way that normal skills and traits do.

The meta is more or less a non-issue. I actually kind of like the idea that character race could be factored into the meta, and I don't think it would have this tremendously bad impact on the game, because most people wouldn't care - they'd still play what they want to play. It's not like we don't have toxicity currently because people aren't already elitist about class. It's not like including race in that consideration would make toxicity worse, it would just make choices more interesting for people who aren't toxic.

@Panda.1967 said:Yes, they absolutely do need to be buffed up to the point that they are actually useful. Everyone who thinks they will influence Meta builds, are just overreacting and being sensationalists honestly. Let's look at this logically, and in the exact same way this "issue" was looked at with other MMOs.

No they're not being sensationalist, they're being real.We've already had a case where they had to nerf seed turret for over performing and causing a case where you needed to play sylvari necro i believe it was post Lich nerf & pre-plaguelands because it's bleeds were stupidly overtunned.

It's not being sensational, because this behavior has been proven time and time again. Also, with regards to wow, there were two aspects that made classes slightly better because of certain races: underpowered racial abilities and an extremely slight buff to stats which becomes negligible when at max level, that was true during wrath of the lich king, and holds extremely true now, with stat inflation and a much higher level cap.

So what is being asked is to buck all mmo conventions to turn into an extremely predictable scenario of roxic elitism that will ruin the game for many, because the number of people who run meta builds is way higher than your prediction.

@TexZero.7910 said:

@Panda.1967 said:Yes, they absolutely do need to be buffed up to the point that they are actually useful. Everyone who thinks they will influence Meta builds, are just overreacting and being sensationalists honestly. Let's look at this logically, and in the exact same way this "issue" was looked at with other MMOs.

Let's be completely honest here, the turret seed thing NEVER extended so far that you were required to play Sylvari to be Necro or Ranger. People still played other races for those classes and did just fine, had very little trouble finding groups, etc... It was mostly used by Rangers as well, and the reasoning for this was due to the fact that ranger (and necro) elites were (and for the most part still are) massively underperforming. The skill already was at a good balance point, but those two classes have poor choices of elites. They arn't even the only classes that suffer from that. Really, that situation only showed the poor state that most elites in GW2 are in. A LOT of elites need to be buffed up, hell, some elites are actually WORSE than utility skills that provide the same function (Mesmer, Mass Invisibility vs Veil for example)

@sgeisi.5981 said:I just think it's time they could be brought in line with other abilities so they are actually viable choices for builds.

They can't be viable choices for builds: as soon as they are, there's a chance that they can be 'best', which then creates a situation in which one prof or another has to be a certain race. That's exactly the situation intended to prevent by undertuning the skills.

The primary value of any of the elite racial skills is to offer an option at level 31, when many players won't have access to an actual elite. Similar utility is also available for the other slot skills. And, various racial skills have interesting niche options, especially during personal stories.

In short, the very reason the OP uses to justify a change is why they won't be changed.