Guild Wars 2

Hi im new to the game and was just wondering do races really matter?

im thinking about playing mesmer and dont know what race i should pick to go with it

The primary concerns for Race choice are cosmetic. WHat looks cool to you ?

Charr have some issues with armor choices/clipping.
Asurans are tiny and more difficult to pick out in a frantic fight in PvP.
Sylvari are made of lettuce and taste great with a balsamic vinaigrette
Ive heard that Norn can be difficult to maneuver in tight spaces in jumping puzzles.

But for the most part there are no huge advantages/disadvantages to any of the races.

No. There’s no racial stat bonuses. There are a few racial skills which aren’t that great and aren’t usable in structured pvp.

They don’t matter a ton. The primary thing they affect is your visual appearance.

But your choice of race will also affect your early game experience since you start in a different place, and the personal story missions up until about level 30 will be different based on your choice of race.

You also get specific racial utility/healing/elite skills, but they tend not to have very significant uses in general play, and you can’t use them in PvP. They’re mostly just for flavour or for weird sort of builds.

We don’t really know at this point if one’s race choice will have an impact on the new expansion content, but I imagine it won’t be that significant if it does.

They matter only as much as the lore matters for you. Skill-wise no race is significantly better. The racial skills are mostly crap anyway, with 2 or 3 exceptions. They’re never crucial.

Choose your race for their story. That’s all that really matters.