ArenaNet talk:Guild Wars 2 suggestions/Customizable Race Specialization

No. I am and always have been against races getting any sort of advantages or disadvantages whatsoever. They should all be the same for reasons I've explained a dozen times over before. --Jette 07:17, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Good Idea. But I don't see the effects of theese suggestion pages. Anet didn't nerf ursan, while many pages tell them to do something about it. 84.1.193.152 15:13, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * This is why WoW fails, because people of a competitive nature feel like they are being forced to select a specific race just so they can be most effective at healing. Also, magic came from the gods, whom the Asura do not worship. I'm not saying that they can't use magic, but they're more scientific than magical.(Terra Xin 23:34, 7 July 2008 (UTC))
 * Did you even read the article, Terra Xin? I guess it's not worth asking if you read the more detailed stuff on my talk page, or you'd have shut your mouth about the Asura. It's all accounted for there. I didn't spend two months thinking this stuff up so some stuck up half-wit like you could shoot it down in a sentance or two.--Shai Halud 06:03, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Race Specific Spells
I think would be cool to have race specific spells like the ability to bring down a searing crystal for the charr or being able to trap your opponent in vines to score combo hits for the sylvari this way every race has there own good side and no race is better than another.
 * Not trying to be mean or anything, but the race specific skills are in almost every archived page of these suggestions. Plus in the Movement of the World article it says that the charr abandoned any belief of gods, so why would they rely on ancient magic from teh titans, the charr's first "gods".  Though it si different because normally people expect the carr's ability to be fighting, not magic related. Lord Zepherr04:01, 2 July, 2008 (UTC)
 * No. This is a bad idea.  It will result in only one thing: certain races will be "better" at certain jobs than others, and teams will only accept professions of that race.  As dumb as it may sound, all the races should be identical except for aesthetics, otherwise people won't be able to play the profession of the race they want.  --Jette 22:36, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Just one thing. What about Morale Boost recharging? Like Res Signet? I guess that would even it up with the unfairness of the race specific skills. They cant exactly spam it if it needs a morale boost. Just putting it out there. Memoryfish 01:19, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Tell you what... if they agree to allow us to play Mursaat and Spectral Agony is the morale-boost-recharged skill, I'll consider it. Even then, no promises.  --Jette 05:45, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Race-specific spells would so un-popularize my muchly-wanted Charr healer and Asuran Dervish. @_+ Please, no race-specific spells, unless each race has a spell that does one of each sort of thing -- a Norn would have to have a melee one, a ranged attack one, a life-stealing or minion-summoning one, a mesmer-y one (energy stealing, maybe?), a healing one, and a damage-dealing spell sort of one, at the very least. It'd make it so certain races can only play certain professions, otherwise, and that is decidedly lame. It's bad enough that I can't even make my Monk a smiter, if I wanted to, without utter ridicule. And the morale boost recharge would be meh-worthy. It depends how common bosses are in GW2. At GW1's current number of bosses, it would just mean that there are a bunch of mostly-unusable skills for each race, and it'd be kinda pointless creating them in the first place, quite possibly. Spectral Agony would be amusing, though. Mwahahaha! You haz -24 degen, lose 81 HP per second, and move 80% slower! GG. ;O Isolina Black
 * Some games use damage-dealt to refill a counter (similar to adrenaline in a way). You could have party-dealt damage adding to that counter, which can be used to power stronger skills. Slower recharge than adrenaline or energy, but still faster than morale boosts. As for race-specifics, I find that passive bonuses is worse than race-specific skills, if your goal is diversity. I do hope ANet finds a good way to make all race-class combos equally viable. -- [[Image:User_Alaris_sig.JPG|Alaris_sig]] Alaris 14:02, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * What's wrong with race specific spells? Yea, some race/proffesion combinations will be less useful, and not accepted. So what? Don't we all think 'noob' when we see a wammo? Don't we all kick any monk trying to be a warrior? Don't we all rofl when we see an elementalist trying to monk? You can't avoid less useful combo's, but that's not a reason to don't have any race specific stuff. Okay, you might want to be a certain race. But aren't there any warriors who want to run around like an evil necro while smashing everything to pieces, or assassins who want to look like a mighty warrior for the illusion of doing damage (and looking less gay)? The whole point of different races is expanding the amount of playstyles and combinations (that's what I think about it). Half of the suggestions are about being able to better costumize your character. Don't QQ about it. --Sir Bertrand 14:34, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of race-specific spells. I've argued that Asurans and Norns should feel different even if both are played as warriors. But they should both be viable. I don't want people to have good reasons to lol or kick other players just because of their race-profession combo. PS: there are Asuran warriors in GW1 already, so we know they can do it. They are as good at it as Norns, in fact. -- [[Image:User_Alaris_sig.JPG|Alaris_sig]] Alaris 14:48, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Not when the Norn get to pull out UBER LEET BEAR FORM ATTACK 5 seconds before entering ear shot.[For 60 seconds, you assume the form of a bear. While in this form, your Health is increased by 250 and your attacks strike for 25% more damage.] Unbalanced, but not as unbalanced as say.. Ursan Blessing for example which is 5 times stronger. Urm, ANet, why are all the regular humans who can pick up a 'branch with honey' favored by the bear spirit more than the Norn? Don't read that last bit if you're not from ANet. We don't want more redundancy.
 * Anyway, another point should be that these similar PvE skills may be able to be used in different ways, making PvE tactics easier in some cases ie Bear Form being the equivalent of say.. Asuran Surprise! [attack deals +50% damage. Recharge 3 seconds.] Which is far easier to counter than something that is irremovable, cast before entering agro and lasting for a full 60 seconds with no lag before reapplication.
 * I propose that under each race should be a note that says easy, medium, hard and expert for PvE and that PvP should be restricted for fighting against people of the same race if using race specific skills. We most definitely could have mock wars between races with core non pve skills because 'in the interest of fairness the event organiser will not allow it.' AKA High Priests of Balthazar AKA ANet. Any other way and racial wars will not only incite racism (Already happening. Good one ANet) but will become mundane and boring (Already happening. Good one ANet.) non-chronological inserted by Spawnlegacy 06:19, 4 July 2008 (UTC) Keep it here plz ^^

(reset) Another way to bring the individual character of each playable race out, and not FU the balance or create meh-combos, is to make Anet work harder. They could build different spells/attacks with the exact same outcome, but with different animations and names. example: Norn Ele gets "blazing rage" which has the same effect as the asuran "alchemical strike". same skill different animations, names and symbols. So your sylvari ranger gets "Hail of barbs" instead of "barrrage", no problem, cept Anet has more work to do. Heck event the animations don't have to be that different. GW2 should have Race specific animations to go with spellcasting or attacks (so your char necro isn't doing the same thing as a human one) so a little different flavor there too. Where is the hook? We wont all know immediately what names and what skills go together for PVP. yes it will be more complex, because you would have to know what the different race equivalents for PVP are...... OR Anet could simply default to the human naming of skills for PVP.Monkenstein 15:01, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Meh. Keeping the race differences purely cosmetic seems meh to me. I'm all for keeping balance between all race-profs combos, which is a complex job in itself, but at the same time different race-profs should have different flavors. The norn gets forms (which leaves him/her weaker when not using the form), the asura could have pain-inverting shields or assassin-like moves, etc. That way they would both be viable, but they would nevertheless play differently. -- [[Image:User_Alaris_sig.JPG|Alaris_sig]] Alaris 15:21, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The Anet staff has already announced that they will be reducing the number of skills. Cosmetics is all you can hope for. They have shown a non-interest in PVE skill balance. So, if you want race specific unique-to-class skills, look elsewhere. 129.19.92.201 18:24, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * (moved from article) Ill just give an example: A player loves the attributes of the norn race but hates the models for them and loves the models of the asura. He knows asura aren't the greatest of warriors. Don't force people to take a race they dont want. I like the very flexible aspect of GW. - 20:52, October 20, 2008 UnnderVart

Hand of the Maker
People, I just want to be absolutely clear on this. First, there are over one thousand skills in GW1, many of which are redundunt or completely useless. If there are 8 professions in GW2 and each has 6o skills, then we can have about 20 race-specific skills for each race and still have only half the number of skills that are in GW1.

Second, this is not the race-specific skills article. That is located here. If you want to complain about those then I suggest you do it there.

Third, when I first found out about the GW2 suggestion pages, the first article I wrote warned about the dangers of race-specialization and suggested that the differences between racesbe limmited to asthetics. Everyone hated that article. I put it in Nikiwiki and it got a 0% approval rating. This suggestion was my attempt to find a way of taking race-specialization, which I believed could ruin the game, and turning it into something customizable and unique which could truely add to the gaming experience. The odd thing is it got really high approval ratings on Nikiwiki. Even one of my greatest citics, Bahumutkaiser liked the general idea. And he was a really smart guy that BK. Too ridgid and unimaginative if you ask me though. Anyway, have fun and someone should probably repost a lot of these comments to the Race-Specific Skills suggestion--Shai Halud 05:55, 27 July 2008 (UTC)