Guild Wars 2

A war between the charr (no flame legion), humans (tyria only), asura (no inquest) and Norn (no sons of svanir). Who do you think would win?

Rules:
No alliances between other races except with minor ones (dredge, skritt, centaur ect.)
War takes place in Tyria with no interference from Cantha
Must make sense lorewise with no cannon information

jul.7602:

Must make sense lorewise without cannon information

Wut?

BuddhaKeks.4857:

jul.7602:

Must make sense lorewise without cannon information

Wut?

You cannot use cannon information.

But it has to make sense….
Ok

The humans would be wiped out due to the fact of geographic prescence being in center of all races and their land would be likely battlefield…ps why leave out sylvari?

The Elder Dragons would win.

jul.7602:

BuddhaKeks.4857:

jul.7602:

Must make sense lorewise without cannon information

Wut?

You cannot use cannon information.

Cannon

That Word

I don’t think it means what you think it means.

Charr.

The only reason why Charr haven’t invaded anyone was because the Flame Legion and Dragons.

You take away their enemies and you have a race starving for more war.

Charr. They are the most inclined to want to takeover the land once the dragons are gone. This gives them the preparation and motivational advantage. They also control a vast territory with the industry to back their war effort.

The norn will be contend to hold onto their steads at the onset of the great war. The Asura occupies a same territory at the far away from the Charr. Therefore, the Charr will focus first on the humans who incidentally pose the greatest threat to their conquest. First, they will make some excuse to wage the war to make the norn and asura think its none of their business to interfere. At the same time they supply weapons to the centaurs to put additional pressure on the humans.

The asura will be next. It will be a tough fight with the asura golems and laser cannons but the charr will eventually win with their superior numbers and industry . The asura will probably continue to haress the charr even as they escape underground though.

The norn will be the last to go. Tough as they are, they would not last under the firepower of the charr which has taken over the tech of the humans and asura.

And thus the charr will conquer the continent ….. until the next disaster strike the disaster prone Tyria.

FateOmega.9601:

The norn will be the last to go. Tough as they are, they would not last under the firepower of the charr which has taken over the tech of the humans and asura.

1. I don’t think the Charr would be smart enough to take over the Asura tech.
2. What about the massive amount of damage that would have been dealt towards the Charr through invading the Humans (who would hold out against the Charr from Divinities Reach’s walls) and the Asura (with the massive amount of golems, and other crazy things the Asura have).
3. If I am interpreting you correctly, the Charr (in your scenario) would be the offensive? Anyway, the Norn are used to the coldness of the Shiverpeaks, whereas the cold would damper the Charr’s spirits, and we all know that moral is a important thing in war cough world v world cough.

I think they are used to fighting in crazy conditions by the time they finish fighting the dragons. If they can defeat Jormag the pact probably have developed some solutions.

Unfortunately despite their burly looks the charr are not just dumb muscles. They might not be able to create high tech (magic) stuff like the asura but using the already invented stuff shouldn’t pose a problem. (i.e. the air ships)

Sithaco.4673:

3. If I am interpreting you correctly, the Charr (in your scenario) would be the offensive? Anyway, the Norn are used to the coldness of the Shiverpeaks, whereas the cold would damper the Charr’s spirits…

You do realize the Charr are covered in fur? And they already hold a lot of the lands in the north. It’s not like they have no experience with cold. Also, it’s kitten difficult to dampen Charr spirits for battle; they’re raised to want battle.

I agree with those who have said that, without alliances, the Charr win.

(With alliances, the Quaggan win. Everyone wants a friend Quaggan.)

Charrs would win easyly. What we see in the game are only the territories of the iron legion. Dont forgot Charrs have all the regions of the north. We just saw 1/3 or 1/4 of their real forces.

Norns are incredibly strong, far far far stronger than a Charr or a Human, and i think nobody could win against them in Shiverpeaks, because of the snow and the icy cold. It would be a vietnam-like war. But they lack of technology and organisations.

Asura have a great technology, but golems show quite fast their limits. Their forces is the technology, and for me, Charrs > Asuras. Because they have heavy tank, motorcycle and copters. And Asuras are very physycaly weak.

Humans don’t have technology. They use catapult and bow (did you saw some seraph with rifles ? neither me. Those weapon seems quite rare in Krytia), and they are so “weak” that centaurs push the line to Shaeemor, the doors of the human’s capital. They don’t rule the regions where they live (soldiers complain about the fact that centaurs do what they want). And physically, they are weaker than Norns, Charrs, Hyleks… only the Skriits and the Asuras are weaker than human in this plan.

for me Char >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Asura = Norn >>>> Human

PS: sorry for my bad english. I do my best. I hope you can understand me

I would also have to agree with the Charr, but this scenario has been debated to death. Most people think Charr or Asura would win because of their technology. I’m not sure why Sylvari wasn’t included though, they can create an infinite amount of full-grown soldiers, not even the Charr can do that.

Charr or Asura, because of technology, but Charr technology is aimed towards warfare. They have an imperialistic culture. I think they’d win.

Humans would be the weakest as they have poor technology, perhaps big armies but that would get wiped out by anything the Charr or Asura bring, same with Sylvari. Norn are more capable warriors than Humans, they can withstand more both mentally and physically and their society is all about challenges, fighting etc. But eventhough Norn are powerful indeed, they would not hold up to the technology Charr and Asura have. Asura can bring in lots of Gollems to fight in their place (which is most likely) therefore the other forces will get exhausted more easily most likely, but by the looks of it there are more Charr than there are Asura.

Charr>Asura>Norn>Human>Sylvari

Ledha.9640:

Charrs would win easyly. What we see in the game are only the territories of the iron legion. Dont forgot Charrs have all the regions of the north. We just saw 1/3 or 1/4 of their real forces.

Norns are incredibly strong, far far far stronger than a Charr or a Human, and i think nobody could win against them in Shiverpeaks, because of the snow and the icy cold. It would be a vietnam-like war. But they lack of technology and organisations.

Asura have a great technology, but golems show quite fast their limits. Their forces is the technology, and for me, Charrs > Asuras. Because they have heavy tank, motorcycle and copters. And Asuras are very physycaly weak.

Humans don’t have technology. They use catapult and bow (did you saw some seraph with rifles ? neither me. Those weapon seems quite rare in Krytia), and they are so “weak” that centaurs push the line to Shaeemor, the doors of the human’s capital. They don’t rule the regions where they live (soldiers complain about the fact that centaurs do what they want). And physically, they are weaker than Norns, Charrs, Hyleks… only the Skriits and the Asuras are weaker than human in this plan.

for me Char >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Asura = Norn >>>> Human

Norn would be the weakest of them all. Norn do not have leaders. They have heroes. These heroes are the link that binds them all together. The Ash Legion could easily send a assassination squad to assassinate the heroes. This will destroy the Norn’s morale and cause the Norn to be disorganized. Iron Legion cannons will scatter what is left of the Norn and the Blood Legion moves in to clean up the mess.

Asura are not united. Put in 5 Asurans in one room and you have 17 opinions on how to approach a battle. The High Legion would be able to just move in before a decision is made.

Humans are resilient. If anything, they are the greatest challenge that Charr would have to face. Humans faced crises over crises again and will do again in the future. It was humans who defeated the White Mantle when they were at power. It was humans who pushed the Unseen to their doom. It was humans who pushed back the Titans. It was humans who defeated Shiro Tagachi and his Afflicted that plagued Cantha. It was humans who defeated Abaddon and stopped Nightfall from taking over Elona. Present day, Queen Jennah was able to unite the Charr and human which everyone including the fans thought was impossible. The Centaurs and bandits plagued Kryta for one reason, Minister Caudecus used them. If Caudecus backed down, Queen Jennah would have a formidable force united to defeat all enemies.

Assassinate the Norn heroes?

Oh, you amuse me so.

Lore-wise, Norn characters would be at least ten times as powerful as a character of any other race. Our playable Norns are real wussies, really. You don’t sending a few kittens to take out a big legendary Norn hero; you send an entire Legion and hope for the best!

As far as Charr vs Norn goes, it depends. In this scenario, are all the races suddenly going, “Let’s have a WAR!”? If so, the Norn would actually be offensive for once, which they have never been against another nation. While historically, Norn fight individually, they’ve recently been learning how to fight as a group, as we see with the Wolfborn.

In other words, if we have a situation where the Norn race actually gets together and fights as an army, every other race is screwed. A single Norn is stronger than an entire Charr warband – we see this in ‘Movement of the World’; when the Charr first encountered the Norn, the charr assault was totally destroyed. The lore states that the charr would have only defeated the Norn (back then fighting as individuals) with an entire Legion devoted to it. So we’re talking a third of their forces.

As far as assassinating the heroes, that wouldn’t work – every Norn considers themselves a hero. Saying you’d send the Ash Legion to assassinate the heroes is like saying you’d just assassinate every Norn. And how would you even do it? The charr kinda stand out, and a follower of Snow Leopard would be just as stealthy as an Ash Legion charr.

That said, the norn would almost certainly lose an all-out war between them and the charr. The charr have better unit tactics and war material then the norn do. However, we’re talking about a four-way battle here – humans vs asura vs norn vs charr. If the races make the same assumption we are (specifically, that the charr are the greatest threat), they might simply all attack the charr first. In which case the charr would be utterly destroyed, and it would be humans vs asura vs norn left to duke it out.

Also, good luck winning any sort of decisive victory vs. the Norns.

You can’t just march onto Hoelbrak and kill everyone and call it a day; Hoelbrak is essentially nothing more than a very, very large homestead. There are countless homesteads and other Norn settlements out there. If you declare war on the Norn, prepare for a dirty guerrilla-type campaign to be waged against you.

Compare it to, let’s say, conquering the Black Citadel and executing the Tribunes or Divinity’s Reach and beheading Queen Jenna.

Heh. Ooops.
Non canon info? Asura with their dupes from the lesser species. Let alone the golems and magitech.

A Norn could tear a golem apart with his bare hands. No, a Norn child could!

Yea, but how many ‘lab assistants’ are shooting said Norn with some eldritch death-beam at the same time … or exploding? :P

Advent.6193:

Yea, but how many ‘lab assistants’ are shooting said Norn with some eldritch death-beam at the same time … or exploding? :P

Don’t you know that if you shoot a Norn, you just make him mad?

Son of Elias.5420:

As far as Charr vs Norn goes, it depends. In this scenario, are all the races suddenly going, “Let’s have a WAR!”? If so, the Norn would actually be offensive for once, which they have never been against another nation. While historically, Norn fight individually, they’ve recently been learning how to fight as a group, as we see with the Wolfborn.

In other words, if we have a situation where the Norn race actually gets together and fights as an army, every other race is screwed. A single Norn is stronger than an entire Charr warband – we see this in ‘Movement of the World’; when the Charr first encountered the Norn, the charr assault was totally destroyed. The lore states that the charr would have only defeated the Norn (back then fighting as individuals) with an entire Legion devoted to it. So we’re talking a third of their forces.

As far as assassinating the heroes, that wouldn’t work – every Norn considers themselves a hero. Saying you’d send the Ash Legion to assassinate the heroes is like saying you’d just assassinate every Norn. And how would you even do it? The charr kinda stand out, and a follower of Snow Leopard would be just as stealthy as an Ash Legion charr.

That said, the norn would almost certainly lose an all-out war between them and the charr. The charr have better unit tactics and war material then the norn do. However, we’re talking about a four-way battle here – humans vs asura vs norn vs charr. If the races make the same assumption we are (specifically, that the charr are the greatest threat), they might simply all attack the charr first. In which case the charr would be utterly destroyed, and it would be humans vs asura vs norn left to duke it out.

And that is the problem. Every single Norn thinking themselves as a hero. If legendary heroes get assassinated, every single Norn will think their tactics is better or foolishly charge in front of the Blood Legion’s rifle.

It is like every single private soldier in the army promote themselves as a commander. Who is going to command who? Who’s tactics is right? Who is going to bother listen to the other? It is clearly a mess and nothing else.

The Chain of Command by the Charr is absolute. Every single soldier are disciplined and trained.

When the boastful Norn soldiers arrive in the frontlines, they will arrive to a disadvantageous battle only to get themselves bombarded with shells.

This is like a Roman army vs. Barbarians except the Romans assassinated all the Barbarian leaders.

Oglaf.1074:

Also, good luck winning any sort of decisive victory vs. the Norns.

You can’t just march onto Hoelbrak and kill everyone and call it a day; Hoelbrak is essentially nothing more than a very, very large homestead. There are countless homesteads and other Norn settlements out there. If you declare war on the Norn, prepare for a dirty guerrilla-type campaign to be waged against you.

Compare it to, let’s say, conquering the Black Citadel and executing the Tribunes or Divinity’s Reach and beheading Queen Jenna.

The Norn wouldn’t resort to guerrilla campaign. Why would the “Strong” resort to cowardly measures?

The Norn would’ve fought Jormag to extinction if not for the Spirit of the Wild. They would fight the Charr to the death this time.

But lets say that cowardly Norns do fight a guerrilla warfare. There is a huge counter to this. Turrets!

In the Charr storyline, the Ash Legion wanted to make a Ghostbuster Turret for more precision in the Charr storyline. When the turret fires, the Charr gets ready for battle in one second defeating the Norn’s element of surprise.

There is nothing cowardly about it. As I explained, that’s most likely what you can expect when fighting the Norns as a whole, because they don’t have any sort of organized military. Each individual homestead/settlement would organize raids and stuff to ruin your day.

And how in the world to stationary turrets counter it?

NPC lionguard charr can be heard complaining about how cold they are in snowy places and Norn NPCs remark on their fur. If people think the iron legion are going to just march into Norn lands and blast them to smithereens needs to do some homework on what happens to….well, EVERY army that tries to invade Russia. Sure the norn don’t have conventional armies, but the harsh climate of their homelands is their number one defense. Guerrilla tactics and scorched earth would leave anybody invading in a very sorry state. Reminds me of the American revolutionary war. A very powerful, conventional army eventually lost to a bunch of farmers that used hit and run, and extremely (for the popular view of the time period) unconventional tactics.

Doesn’t matter how good at chess you are, or if you have more pieces, if the other guy starts cheating and no one calls him on it, he will win.

In defence of humans here:

There is a lot of evidence that Kryta is only having the problems it’s having due to an internal bid for power, similar to what happened to the Republic during the Star Wars prequels (where Palpatine manufactured crises to make the previous government look incompetant, and then to consolidate his own power). The centaur invasion is being supported by the bandits, and the bandits are supported by the Ministry and the White Mantle – remove the internal political disputes from the equation and odds are the centaurs would still be stuck at the border. If we’re ignoring the internal problems of other races, it’s only fair to treat humans as being in a unified position as well…

Additionally, I don’t think the Seraph we see are a good indication of how technologically-minded human forces are. Ebon Vanguard riflemen are mentioned in GoA but AFAIK never appear in game, while we see a much greater range of enemy types among the Ministry Guard and Separatists than among the Seraph and Ebon Vanguard. ArenaNet has a habit of only fully developing a faction that can be fought – in Guild Wars 1, for instance, you can pretty much predict that you’ll fight a faction if it has more than three or so different types in its forces that aren’t unique characters. The reason is probably division of resources – when fighting an enemy it’s important what specifically is among the enemy forces, but when it comes to allies it often doesn’t matter much more than ranged, melee, or support. So instead of a full treatment of forces that are always allies, we get a representative sample.

So, while humans clearly aren’t as industrially-minded as, say, the charr, the Seraph and Ebon Vanguard almost certainly do have more variety in their ranks than we see. It’s just that ArenaNet didn’t prioritise more than the representative sample.

Looking at other races:
While charr may have fur, that doesn’t necessarily make them cold-resistant. Consider real cats, for instance – cats are comfortable with higher skin temperatures than humans, and most felines are better adapted to live in warm environments than cold ones.

When it comes to norn, I think people are reading too much into norn propaganda. Nowhere does it say that a single norn is a match for a charr warband. It says that “warbands and smaller raiding parties could not overcome the individual strength of the Norn”. I can see how it can be interpreted that way, but even in GW1 the norn were willing to work together in small groups – what that line is really saying is that the charr didn’t send any forces large enough to overwhelm the individual advantage that the norn had. Now, it’s possible that there were individual norn who did take on entire warbands and win… but that might be no more significant when comparing the races as a whole than skilled players that can take on large mobs of Risen or solo Giganticus Lupicus – they’re not necessarily representative of the whole race.

Certainly, individual norn are likely to be stronger than individuals of other races, both for reasons of culture and physique. But statements like norn being ten times as strong as any other race are blatant exaggerations, and at the top end they appear to be about the same from what I’ve seen. A long human could beat the norn tournament champion in EOTN, after all…

The only race that could possibly match the Norns physical strength would be the Charr due to their immense size. Though, Norns look more muscular whereas Charr look more graceful and lithe… To say that a Norn is on average ten times as strong as your average human would definitely not be “propaganda”. Asura and Sylvari? Fuggedaboutit! No contest.

Norns are far stronger than the other races. They are not just “big humans”; they are giants. Aesgir Dragonrender knocked a tooth out of Jormag’s friggin’ skull with a normal blow for crying out loud.

Deal with it. Go Norn or go home!

I will repost, what I thought about this in another forum.

Logistics is the single most important element in modern warfare. Above strategy, above tactics, Logistics often determine the victory or the defeat in modern war. In the past ages, armies could maintain themselves thanks to pillage, but as armies became bigger and more sophisticated, logistic became more and more decisive to victory. “An army marches on its own stomach” as Napoleon said. This is why Scorched Earth and Strategic depth works so well for Russia.

The Charr have a superior advantage in terms of production due their industrialization but a serious disadvantage in transport due distances involved and, lack of sea access. The Charr seems to have evolved to attrition warfare due the needs hold the line against the ghost armies. In fact, I argue that this menace is what pushed the Iron Legion towards industrialization (in form of state planned economy). The Blood Legion is even more infamous for the “Human Wave” attitude thanks to controlling the breadbasket of the Charr nation which allows them to deploy bigger armies than their rivals. The Charr are in better position than the Asura in terms of production thanks to their industrialized society which allows them to produce more supplies and weapons for their troops and frees manpower necessary for production.

The main weakness of the Charr would be transportation. The Shiverpeaks block all the main routes to the rest of the continent. This means that the Charr would have to move all the armies and war-machines (and support them beyond) throughout mountainous terrain. If the Charr weren’t able to conquer Ebonhawke, a mountain fortress over 250 years, they won’t be able to do the same without the support of the Humans and the Norn. There are only a few safe routes and all of them would be vulnerable to ambushes. The Shiverpeaks is a fortress. A wall that has contained, isolated and stopped the Charr from conquering any more land to the West of Tyria. Some people have suggested the existence of Airships and Helicopters could solve the issue, but air transport is simple not enough, especially when they wouldn’t be able to transport the most heavy war-machines and cannons by air and. In any case Airships are invented by the Pact during the storyline.

The Asura are the opposite. The Asura has a superior advantage in terms of transport and long range supply but their production is inferior to the Charr. Still, the usefulness of the Asuran gates for combat is debatable since it seems that there is some kind of catch. Otherwise nobody would use anything but Asura gates. It could be as simple as energy requirements that made transportation of big goods prohibitively expensive. Even so, without counting the Asuran gates, the Asura have still the advantage over the Charr in terms of transportation thanks to their port and could still use the Asuran Gates for Special Forces. Unlike the Charr, the Asura have a well developed port next to their capital city. Sea transport is significantly cheaper than doing overland, it cost just a fraction and is faster than doing it by land.

The main weakness of the Asura is production. The Asura show no sings of industrialization, they are a nation of craftsmen, each golem seems to be handcrafted and every invention is unique. This means that the Asura have a significant disadvantage in production. This is also affect the ability to maintain their own armies, by having multiple, often unique models, they needlessly over-complicate their logistical needs. This is one reason the US military is considered among the most powerful. To compensate for their chronic logistical disadvantage of having to use troops thousands of kilometers away from their core territory, the US armed forces demand a constant simplification of logistics, there is only one fuel. Almost everything the US fields, from camp stoves to Humvees to helicopters, runs on JP-8 fuel, which is compatible with diesel engines. By the same token, the US tries to field as many weapons as possible that rely on the same types of ammunition, and use as many of the same pieces of equipment between the services as possible.

This is where the Asuran advantage of invention also becomes they biggest weakness. The well-proven Soviet T-34 proved to be superior to the needlessly complicated German tanks, which kept getting pointless upgrades, hampering the ability of the Germans to field enough armored forces while the T-34 was upgrades as it was necessary. Constantly diverging funds for the secret ultimate weapons is the way towards defeat. Sophisticated technology demands significant diversions of manpower from ground-combat operations. Maintaining a helicopter requires dozens of ground-crew personnel. This affects both armies but more the Asura due their poor production capabilities compared to the Charr. In short, the Asura has the advantage of being in a better position in terms of transport, but the Charr have a superior philosophy for production and are only hampered by their strategic position.

There’s also the question about who would be a better strategist. This is more murky, but I think the Charr thanks to their experience, pragmatism and focus on war. The Asura would be probably vulnerable to over-planning. No battle plan survives contact with the enemy, and the Asura seems more than capable of making that mistake. The Asuran inventions are a wild card but they can’t be definitive for victory (unless they develop a WMD).

runeblade.7514:

Son of Elias.5420:

As far as Charr vs Norn goes, it depends. In this scenario, are all the races suddenly going, “Let’s have a WAR!”? If so, the Norn would actually be offensive for once, which they have never been against another nation. While historically, Norn fight individually, they’ve recently been learning how to fight as a group, as we see with the Wolfborn.

In other words, if we have a situation where the Norn race actually gets together and fights as an army, every other race is screwed. A single Norn is stronger than an entire Charr warband – we see this in ‘Movement of the World’; when the Charr first encountered the Norn, the charr assault was totally destroyed. The lore states that the charr would have only defeated the Norn (back then fighting as individuals) with an entire Legion devoted to it. So we’re talking a third of their forces.

As far as assassinating the heroes, that wouldn’t work – every Norn considers themselves a hero. Saying you’d send the Ash Legion to assassinate the heroes is like saying you’d just assassinate every Norn. And how would you even do it? The charr kinda stand out, and a follower of Snow Leopard would be just as stealthy as an Ash Legion charr.

That said, the norn would almost certainly lose an all-out war between them and the charr. The charr have better unit tactics and war material then the norn do. However, we’re talking about a four-way battle here – humans vs asura vs norn vs charr. If the races make the same assumption we are (specifically, that the charr are the greatest threat), they might simply all attack the charr first. In which case the charr would be utterly destroyed, and it would be humans vs asura vs norn left to duke it out.

And that is the problem. Every single Norn thinking themselves as a hero. If legendary heroes get assassinated, every single Norn will think their tactics is better or foolishly charge in front of the Blood Legion’s rifle.

It is like every single private soldier in the army promote themselves as a commander. Who is going to command who? Who’s tactics is right? Who is going to bother listen to the other? It is clearly a mess and nothing else.

The Chain of Command by the Charr is absolute. Every single soldier are disciplined and trained.

When the boastful Norn soldiers arrive in the frontlines, they will arrive to a disadvantageous battle only to get themselves bombarded with shells.

This is like a Roman army vs. Barbarians except the Romans assassinated all the Barbarian leaders.

No, it would be like Roman legions against Asterix and company. The Charr would get kicked so hard they would probably land in Elona.
Contrary to popular belief, Norn are neither stupid, nor incapable of organization. They just don’t tend to band up for any small warband of thugs coming in to cause trouble – why should they?

But pose a real threat and you will have a Norn horde on your doorstep. And there is no stopping a Norn horde, not with the kind of weapons and tactics the Charr use. Maybe the Inquest could stop them, by nuking them… but gods help the little guys if even a single Norn gets through. They’d get clobbered by a ripped-off arm of their own golem.

Oh yeah, and to put things into perspective. A single Norn managed to do what it took the combined might of the Pact to replicate – hurt an Elder Dragon.

There are Norn, there are Norn heroes (players) and then there are walking Norn legends. You definitely don’t want to mess with the latter.

And to answer the original question, in a race vs race war Sylvari would probably win. Simply because they can have an endless supply of fully trained warriors who are curious about the concept of death instead of afraid of it. They would wear anything down over time, even Norn or Charr.

A Norn horde on the doorstep? That is a great gift actually.

Charr’s engine of destruction killed their gods. The Charr just need to steamroll them down like a pile of meat.

Most people seems to overestimate the power of Norns just because a few Norn are famous. Companies of Norn tried to take down the Dragonspawn but instead they became Icebroods(Edge of Destiny). The Dragonspawn sent a Ice storm to Hoelbrak and rustled their jimmies but no Norn army had managed to take down the Dragonspawn until Destiny’s Edge got there.

I say that Humans would win because my GW1 character commited multiple genocide on his own.

Charr gods were not real gods. And Charr seem to have trouble steamrolling anything. They had to use the Searing to get over a wall, and one of their Legions kinda managed to tie up the other three all by itself. I doubt smokelickers are just so kitten powerful.

And yes. Jormag nearly wiped out Norn. If you think the Legions are a match for an Elder Dragon, I think you’re wrong.
But the fact that the Norn knew they’re going to get wiped out and didn’t back down should tell you something.

Gaudrath.6725:

And to answer the original question, in a race vs race war Sylvari would probably win. Simply because they can have an endless supply of fully trained warriors who are curious about the concept of death instead of afraid of it. They would wear anything down over time, even Norn or Charr.

The issue with the sylvari is they have a single point of failure – the Pale Tree. If you destroyed Divinity’s Reach or the Black Citadel, it would be a heavy blow, but the races would probably be able to recover. If you destroyed Hoelbrak, it would be even less of an impact.

But if you destroy the Grove? The sylvari are done. That’s it.

On the other hand, the plot armour on them Mary Sues are miles thick… The Pale Tree is probably immune to any sort of damage, or whatever.

:(

On a bit of a side note..

(Taken from wiki) According to norn culture, the Sons of Svanir are not evil, nor are they viewed as such. Though they are credited with corrupting nature by other norn, they are allowed to co-exist with the others so long as they do not prove themselves as a threat.

Would the Sons of Svanir ever assist the Norn in fighting the other races?

Son of Elias.5420:

Gaudrath.6725:

And to answer the original question, in a race vs race war Sylvari would probably win. Simply because they can have an endless supply of fully trained warriors who are curious about the concept of death instead of afraid of it. They would wear anything down over time, even Norn or Charr.

The issue with the sylvari is they have a single point of failure – the Pale Tree. If you destroyed Divinity’s Reach or the Black Citadel, it would be a heavy blow, but the races would probably be able to recover. If you destroyed Hoelbrak, it would be even less of an impact.

But if you destroy the Grove? The sylvari are done. That’s it.

While I’m no lore junkie (but I’m trying) I do remember something from my Sylvari’s storyline and that is the existence of others that aren’t from the Pale Tree at all, so there could be more of them out there, but if it’s a war involving only the Sylvari we know specifically of, and the Pale Tree was destroyed? Then yeah, they’d be screwed.

Sithaco.4673:

Would the Sons of Svanir ever assist the Norn in fighting the other races?

They wouldn’t really go offering their help, but if the Sons were threatened by common foe in this case I could see some sort of uneasy alliance happening. Though whether or not Jormag would let his Icebrood fight alongside them? I doubt it. You’d have to settle for the Sons who are still Norn through and through.

It would probably be a toss up between Asura and Charr.
Industrial vs Magical. General overall technological mastery for both. Asura have the gates, so logistics might be on their side.
Norn are too individualistic. Maybe not Wolf.
Human’s are too whiny. Threaten their queen, gg. Wiki says they’re masters of agriculture and history. Meh. Even their Gods bailed.
Sylvari…I can’t see them getting involved in a large scale war unless it directly affected their Tree. So if the Asura tried to use it as a magic battery or the Charr for kindling, their might be issues.
I would have to vote Charr, since iirc, they’re the only one’s who haven’t been stomped hard. Primordus beat up the Asura; they ran away.
And everytime a Charr army invades, some human gets the bright idea of blowing up their kingdom instead of letting it fall into the hands of the Charr. e.g. Orr, Ascalon.
For the Legions.

draxynnic.3719:

When it comes to norn, I think people are reading too much into norn propaganda. Nowhere does it say that a single norn is a match for a charr warband. It says that “warbands and smaller raiding parties could not overcome the individual strength of the Norn”. I can see how it can be interpreted that way, but even in GW1 the norn were willing to work together in small groups – what that line is really saying is that the charr didn’t send any forces large enough to overwhelm the individual advantage that the norn had. Now, it’s possible that there were individual norn who did take on entire warbands and win… but that might be no more significant when comparing the races as a whole than skilled players that can take on large mobs of Risen or solo Giganticus Lupicus – they’re not necessarily representative of the whole race.

Certainly, individual norn are likely to be stronger than individuals of other races, both for reasons of culture and physique. But statements like norn being ten times as strong as any other race are blatant exaggerations, and at the top end they appear to be about the same from what I’ve seen. A long human could beat the norn tournament champion in EOTN, after all…

A number of reasons can explain this away, the major ones being:

1.) your fight with Magni was solo, but just because you can win doesn’t make you stronger, a fight is more than just brute strength, this guy fights other brawlers you’ve saved 3 different continents and killed a god at this point…..which leads to my next point.

2.) GW1 protagonists were exceptional people, they were not run of the mill humans they were the best of the best. When everyone else failed they succeeded because we were heroes kitten You can’t count the player character when fairly assessing these things. Maybe it hasn’t been explicitly said anywhere about the norn vs. warband business but if we use deductive reasoning we assume that these border conflicts involved a single norn vs. a warband style conflicts. After all norn were, and I will emphasize WERE extremely individualistic (I think we have seen a change in this since gw1, back then bear was the only important spirit to the norn we met, which is inherently an individualistic spirit, now we see spirits such as wolf becoming more prominent, and the whole “everybody needs to be one big team to beat the dragons” feel.) so we would expect a single norn roaming around, and when did we see a charr without his warband? (I say his because the ladies were home cooking at that point in time). If a norn could not successfully match or at least intimidate a warband than how would they have earned the “grudging respect” that charr have for them?

I feel like people are stereotyping the Norn a little bit here. Keep in mind that we have an example of a Norn hero winning a battle by waiting for his opponent to fall asleep, then murdering her while she slept.

Not all of them are gung-ho Bear types, that charge directly at the enemy. Followers of Raven would outsmart their opponents. Followers of Wolf would band together and defeat them in a group. Followers of Leopard would murder them in their sleep.

The Norn have come a long way since 250 years ago, when the only Spirit they learned from was Bear. They’re okay with underhanded tactics and working together now. And as Drax mentioned, “warbands and smaller raiding parties could not overcome the individual strength of the Norn” was how the Charr met the Norn a long time ago. If warbands couldn’t overcome the Norn when they fought individually, they don’t have a prayer against Norn fighting together.

Icarus,

You’ve actually kind of made part of my point for me. Physical strength isn’t everything – in terms of analysing how the races measure up, you need to think about ‘strength’ in terms of overall fighting ability, not simply who can win an arm-wrestle. That said, even in arm-wrestling abilities I think saying the norn are ten times anyone else is an exaggeration. The average norn is about 50% taller than a human, which assuming roughly equal proportions comes to about 3-4 times the muscle mass. Furthermore, observation of animals in the real world shows diminishing returns in the increased strength with greater size, so having 3-4 times the muscle mass of a human might only grant roughly double the strength. And that’s just comparing to humans.

In fact, I think in Edge of Destiny, Eir might even acknowledge Rytlock as stronger. He’s certainly bigger than Eir.

Your second point is pretty much exactly my point, really. The GW1 heroes are (or are close to) the best of the best that humans have to offer. Magni Bison was the up-to-then undefeated champion of the Norn tournament – thus, I don’t think it’s unfair to reason that he is also the best of the best among the norn at the time, or at least close to it. And as it turns out, the best of the best among human heroes can beat the best of the best among norn heroes in single combat. I’ve freely stated that the norn average is certainly greater than the human average, or the average of any of the other races, but when you come to each race’s greatest heroes, they top out at about the same point.

When it comes to the idea of every single norn being able to take on a warband on their own – I think that’s balderdash. A few, yes, probably could (just like our PCs of any race can take on entire Flame Legion warbands if we’re smart about it and there are no champions and no more than one or two vets) – and it’s possible that the charr drove all other norn before them until they drew the attention of those norn who could take on a typical warband and win. Or they may also have run afoul of Wolf-following hunting parties or Raven-following tricksters who lured the sentries into ambushes at night and then slaughtered the rest of the warband in their sleep. It doesn’t have to mean that every single norn can take on a charr warband and win, just that the charr advantage in organisation and numbers was offset by the typical norn being a better fighter than the typical charr.

When it comes to Asgeir – he had the aid of the Spirits of the Wild and possibly other norn as well, and Rytlock came close to matching his feat. Until and unless we get a more detailed account of the feat than “it happened”, I don’t think we can really draw conclusions from his accomplishment, nor can we know that a best-of-the-best hero from another race wouldn’t have been able to repeat his feat under similar circumstances.

About the strenght of the Norn, if you talk to Romke, he will tell to you the story of each sailor with him. At a moment, he tell the story of his second (i don’t remenber his name), and say precisely that Orrien needed to be more than 50 to finally take him down. And we don’t speak about a living legend, a hero, or a soldier, but a kittening random norn sailor.

We have many example of heavy armies being defeated by smaller armies because of the cold or guerilla strategy. Napoleon in Russia is a good exemple. The war between Finland and Russia is another one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War

the difference here is that the men who will use guerilla against you are far stronger than you and real hunter and soldiers. Not casual people with poorly weapon and training.

Norn couldn’t beat Charr or Asura, but attack them in Shiverpeaks would be an horrible mistake, and surelly need heavy ressource for have the victory.

your error is trying to insert logic into a world that is dictated by magic. bodily proportions are meaningless here because Anet has demonstrated a disproportionate amount of strength in the norn for their body size (such as the massive rock being lifted above the head of a norn in the intro). Their architecture also suggests this ability (they don’t seem the type to use pulley systems). Rtylock may be stronger than Eir but this could be an example of an exceptionally strong charr and an adimittedly aging norn, or if the norn follow human conditions perhaps norn women are weaker than norn men in that case you aren’t comparing anything more useful than a banana and Iceland. The norn strength is more akin to that of hercules, than joe body builder. They are not simply “big humans” they are an entirely different species, and follow entirely different rules (such as the elephant in the room we are ignoring which is their ability to increase their strength and prowess even further by shapeshifting).

My other point was maybe not emphasized correctly. It wasn’t that I was saying this is the best humanity has to offer so here is their max “power” and magni is the “max” for norn. I am saying they are exceptional spanning the races, a companion of yours became a god! This isn’t a matter of a rare breed that still pops up every generation this is more “we haven’t seen this in 250 years since those amazing individuals”. Magni was the absolute best brawler…of those who entered…..in the extreme southern reaches of norn lands. in EoTN we saw only a very small, localized fraction of the norn as a race. Even in your post you are essentiall saying “the person who destroyed a lich, traveled the world, ascended, came closer to the stars and eventually slew shiro, after uniting the factions…briefly, then went to elona and killed a god, is equal to a fella who is the best brawler in a norn game” which is ludicrous, it’s like trying to have a foot race between the world’s fastest human runner, and hermes, or the flash, or whatever very fast moving special person you wish. The fact that the fight was difficult at all is a credit to Magni for even putting up a fight against our, honestly, ridiculous player character.

I’m not suggesting that every norn can fight every warband because I agree that is ridiculous, after all both sides were impressed by the other. But between the brute strength, the unorthodox fighting style, and the shapeshifting I think your average norn could hold their own against your average warband. Afterall the norn have home field advantage. If the scenario was to change where they went on the offensive than I would agree wholeheartedly that the charr would flatten them in ascalon. They don’t have the numbers or leadership to deal with the charr in a traditional “everyone line up and face each other and shoot” type of conflict.

I’m surprised at all this discussion about a single norn vs an entire warband.
From the wiki, I got the impression that the norn and the charr fought to a stalemate, acknowledged eachother’s strength, had a beer and called it a day.

Likewise, if I remember correctly, Eir is the leader of Destiny’s Edge because she is a master strategist.

Multi-Section Simulation:
The Charr would likely start with Humans given the geography between them is good for their large tanks due to the flatter ground and wider spaces. They would ultimately use their forces and superior military power and mobility to put the Humans on the defensive, which is likely due to the Human’s lack of such ridiculous military power, however possessing a gigantic castle-city to help defend themselves. With that, the Charr will put the Humans under siege while the Human Guard and Shining Blades defend the city, along with the fact that(most likely) there are more Human Scholars than Charr Scholars due to their strong association with their gods making them lean more towards the use of magic, giving humans a good balance of strengths to hold their own.

However, for the Charr to move their forces to the Humans in the first place, they’d have to move through Hoelbrak first and Norn territory, thus they’d be forced through the cold and mountainous regions along with being subject to guerrilla warfare by the Norns. The Norns have both the advantage of their transformations, giving them adaptability in certain areas and better survival instincts, and their companions, the Norn will be able to severely weaken the Charr forces while they move in to take the city. Hoelbrak, however, is not a normal city in the fact that it is naturally made with Mountain’s as it’s walls, therefore making it hard to “put under siege” or break. Most likely, the Charr will create a supply route with multiple fort-camps throughout the mountain paths to lead to a main foothold fort outside of Hoelbrak on one side of a mountain, then will begin to dig through in attempt to tunnel into the Norn city. While supply will be difficult as well as facing the environment and spontaneous attacks of the Norn, the Charr will likely break through eventually due to their industrial technology and enter a battle within Hoelbrak through the tunnel. With discipline and training of the Blood Legion, they will likely take the city and use it as their new major foothold when they move on to set siege to Divinity Reach. However, due to the fact that Norns aren’t all situated so densely in Hoelbrak and have multiple holds and villages and camps throughout the mountains, they will continuously pester the supplies and holds of the Charrs, in which case the Charr would have their Ash Legion scout to locate and purge and counter the Norn retaliation, which won’t be easy due to their affinity with nature in those mountains. They would move their remaining forces into the plains of Human land.

Humans, during the Charr expansion west, would begin their defenses through the Gendarren Fields, setting up siege machines one the western shores of Lake Bounty and Gendarr, along with the Brigantine Isles, and also naval units in said bodies of water as to set up a wall of defense against the Charr war machines. They would send scouts of Adventurers into the Mountains to scout the movements of the Charr, however require Soldiers to go in these teams as well to help deal support the teams against Norn ambushes, as Scholars are better suited for large-scale battles than stealth operations. This “Lake Defense” will hold off the Charr for a while.