Guild Wars 2

Oglaf.1074:

A lot of animals have fur but would never survive in the arctic.

Like Lions.

Say whuut?

http://i.imgur.com/LL8DC.jpg

A picture of a lion cub in a non-arctic zoo during Winter proves nothing.

Nice try though.

:P

Dammnit! Thought that was a winner x)
But seriosly though i really think that charr would win.

Pzycko.4302:

1. Charr is just as smart as the asuras. The only thing that differs them is that the asuras belive in the eternal alcemy and the charr rely in the power of iron and steel. I dont know wich one is the most powerfull but looking at history the charr is the most battle hardened race of them all. And if they would just put their brightest enginners to it they would probebly not only understand the asuran tech, they would probebly improve upon it.
2.The charr already obliterated the humans once. The humans in divinitys reach would be an mild breaze compared to the people of old ascallon.
3. Charrs have fur Duuh!

1. I don’t believe this is true. There are certainly some charr that are as smart as almost any asura, just as there are humans, sylvari, and norn, but i don’t think the charr average intelligence is as high as the asura average. If I had to guess, in fact, I’d say the averages among the races except the asura are about the same. However, charr psychology and culture is such that it’s a lot better at making the best usage of its discoveries.

2. The charr had the Searing, and then they failed to take out Ebonhawke.

3. While they may have fur, most cats (Siberian tigers and snow leopards being exceptions) are acclimatised to warmer temperatures – they just have a different set of adaptations (where humans lost fur, cats evolved to be comfortable with higher body temperatures than primates). What we’ve seen of the charr indicates a strong preference for warmth over cold. While they’re probably less likely to freeze than an unprotected human, I suspect the charr are most comfortable in the same sorts of climates as humans, and are thus unlikely to be comfortable in the Shiverpeaks.

The Charr obliterated Ascalon, tearing large gaps in the Great Northern Wall, and the Ascalonians still held out for around 15 years, not to mention that after their capital was destroyed they still held a fortress at the southern tip of the Blazeridge Mountains where they were constantly able to stay one step ahead of the charr when it comes to seige weaponry, even though they used more old fashioned weaponry such as trebuchets. The Humans would never lose Divinity’s Reach to the charr.

I wouldn’t go quite that far – Ebonhawke survives as much because it’s being supplied by asura gate as the active defenses. A siege of Divinity’s Reach would mean that Queensdale at least had probably fallen to the charr – unless DR can import food from elsewhere, the charr would have the opportunity to starve the city out. And, when you get down to it, Kryta is fairly lacking in strong defensive lines similar to the Great Northern Wall – although if they were willing and able to commandeer and expand Black Haven, or Junction Haven and Vigil Keep, they could probably form a formidable eastern defensive line.

While on the topic, expanding Fort Salma and Overlake Haven (and commandeering the latter) would give a decent southwestern defence line as long as they could also gain control of the lake (or at least deny control of it to the enemy).

Apart from the Humans’ remarkable ability to turtle for long stretches of time behind walls or in fortresses, making sieges against them extremely time-consuming and costly, there is also the aforementioned history of Humans self-destructing Predator-style if defeated/on the verge of defeat (e.g. the Cataclysm, the Foefire, the Jade Wind). So yeah, the Charr probably will eventually break the Human’s turtling strategy, either by a huge expenditure of force and/or as the result of a GW equivalent of a nuclear holocaust, but any intelligent Charr would be wary of the possibly extreme, apocalyptic outcome of such a victory. “Yargh! We got them pesky Humans! Half the continent has been glassed, and everyone in our invading army has been turned into rabbits, but yargh! We got them! We sure did! Yargh…”

Kill.3458:

I dont get why people think the sylvari are an easy threat. We know LITTLE about the capabilities of the Pale Tree and others like it. For all we know if it was ever in danger it erect a powerful barrier, perhaps its roots spread throughout the tarnished coast allowing it the power to make the area extremely hard to trespass on.

The thing is, all of those abilities are pulled out of thin air. As far as we’ve been seen, the Pale Tree has next to zero ability to do what you describe – that’s one of the reasons the sylvari exist in the first place. If it did, why would there be conclaves of Nightmare Courtiers within spitting distance of the Grove? Not to mention Risen.

Kill.3458:

Hell we dont even know how many pale trees their are and if the posses the same abilities

We know there exists at least one other Pale Tree. But those aren’t the same as our sylvari – the other Pale Tree has no ‘Dream of Dreams’, and the interactions have been limited between the two ‘plantings’.

Why do most of you all think humans will go first??? lol

The gods have stepped back sure, but there not entirely gone.

The only thing id have to add here is that humans WONT be the first to go, they have proven that they can take overwhelming odds (for a time) then in spite… blow all there valuables up leaving it with after effects.

Also All humans possess a little divinity in them meaning feats of smashing Charr or Norn or out-smarting a genius Asura or out doing a first born sylvari is NOT impossible – Even without divinity its still possible.

Humans have faced and owned the charrs false gods …and those false gods are huge they posses greater magic and strength…..yeah humans wont go down first thats for sure.

As such How can you all forget Shiro Tagachi? He steam-rolls everyone, a singular Norn wont due, Not even a small 3 to 5 party; Nay, not even a party of 10 norn.

As someone said the divinity within humans is THE X-factor.

Id pay to see Shiro Tagachi/Varesh Ossa Vs. A Elder dragon now THATS a fight.

Norn win. All died due to cold weather.

Humans wont win, but you know what? If the other races like the Charr or Asura want to take out humanity, their not going to enjoy it because of many reasons.
1. We humans never give up, NEVER. We’ll go full Guerilla tactics and no race is going to sleep softly in Kryta. How much is a good nights sleep?
2. Charr already tried to rid of all of humanity and their still dealing with the aftermath. That’s right, if we go, we’ll keep fighting even after death, caused maybe by a second foefire if anyone marches into Divinities Reach and try to call it their own.
3. Kryta isn’t the only human kingdom. Eventually Cartha will open again (If you want to or not in this scenario) and everyone knows how xenophobic they are to other non-human races, they almost completely purged their continent of non-humans. (It doesn’t sound good now, but if humanity is pushed into the hills and swamps, that does not sound too bad after losing your kingdom, you home, and likely everyone held close)
4. After finishing off humanity, how long until the Asura, Charr, and possibly Norn crumble because of over reaching over our land?

Humanity might not win at first, but we’ll make it impossible for anyone else to win.
Forever Kryta, Ascalon reborn, and long live humanity!

Nick.5697:

Humanity might not win at first, but we’ll make it impossible for anyone else to win.
Forever Kryta, Ascalon reborn, and long live humanity!

I’m just gonna hide Magdaer somewhere over here…

Asura. Without their gates and teleportation, no one is going anywhere.

Ability to house bases unreachable by enemies + Massively superior mobility = win.

I see a lot of posts forgetting/neglecting Guild Wars 1 lore.

Someone said the “Charr killed their own gods”. False, that’s just the opening line in the Charr creation story. The Charr never had true gods. In Guild Wars 1, Pho to be excat, the Charr actually worshipped the Titans. Why? Because a Shaman found them and had got a cauldron (Which caused the Searing [Destroyed the Great Wall and allowed invasion into Ascalon]). The Charr themselves NEVER knew they were following false promises. The Shaman leader had betrayed their race for gain. How? If you played Nightfall and roamed the Realm of Torment there was a Charr there who said he did “great deeds” for the Charr gods and did not understand why he was there when he died until later he realized he was decieved. The titans later were defeated by the Humans (with the help of the Shining Blade [Human], the Vizer [Caused Orr to sink with one powerful spell], A Seer [Help the Humans fight the Muursat by Infusing their armor to prevent Spectral Agongy from killing them instantly {He was also an ancient being that the Muursat once raged war on with his race and he is the ONLY one seen in GW1, so we can assume he was the last one left, but he seeked revenge and gladly helped the Humans for this purpose.}], The Dwarves [King Jalis faction to be specfic, The deldimor, who helped the Humans in the far Shiverpeaks and in return the Humans helped him take back their fort.], and Glint [The first dragon ever meant, She had forseen the Flameseeker Pho. and guided the Human heros]. The Undead Lich controlled the Titans. He seeked to conquer Tyria in the first Guild Wars game but failed needless to say. Later in the Eye of the North expansion, the Charr are realized to have “New Gods” AKA the Destroyers. The Charr used them to give their soliders the morale to fight, but the destroyers actually killed the Charr who thought they could control them in the one mission. That is where Pyre (A Hero in GW1) said that the charr should pass this message on “The Charr have no gods” because the leaders used that to control their troops and give them morale.

Someone else also said that the Humans would because they overcame crsis after crsis. I would have to disagree because they ALWAYS had help from other races or beings. I covered Pho. already. In Factions you had the help of the two factions (Kurzick and Luxon [Both Human] but you also had assistance by supernatural beings (Kirin anyone? He helped cleanse the one mission in Shing Jea, showed up later too) and Kuunavang (The second dragon ever meant [Not the Saltspray dragons even though she is one too, they are not counted because they were not friendly and not a major NPC or character.] She helped defeat Shiro but giving the human heros celestial skills. The Tengu also helped but were not a MAJOR story factor later.

In Nightfall we had the aid of the centaur, Joko who showed us how to cross the desert, and Dehjah who helped defeat the drought. Can’t forget we also had the aid of the Gods in the Realm of Torment defeating the Lich Lord and Shiro again (Statues that when cleansed, the Gods gave you buffs, but you had to do it while fighting the Lich and Shiro! The Lich was easy, Shiro always got you and was HARD without those buffs in HM.)

In Eye of the North we had the help of the Dwarves again who turned themselves to Stone to help repel the Destroyer forces so you could face the Great Destroyer. We also had the aid of the Asura, Norn, and one Charr (Hero Pyre) to defeat him and to even advance to him.

I missed A LOT OF other lore in game that shows humans always had help with their tasks, but I got the main squeeze of it.

So in topic of this thread, The Humans would have a HARD time fighting any other race without their Gods. They could put up a good fight (Let’s hope there’s not another Foefire somehow lol) but in the end, without aid somewhere, it’s only a matter of time for them.

Going on the past, The Charr would have a rough time getting their troops to bid their will perfectly. There are no Gods anymore to keep them fighting, so there has to be another motivation. But the Charr could probably come up with something.

The Asura would have a ROUGH time getting together based on their Guild Wars 1 traits and modern traits. They tend to disagree a lot, only Bookahs seem to get them straight lol (GW1 reference to your playable character). If the Asura did manage to agree, there would be a tough line of technology to get through, and from the 250 years from GW1, I’m sure they have a lot more to offer to the battle field if pushed.

The Norn would have the roughest time gathering a military force. As seen in Guild Wars 1, it toke an almost armageddon to rally the Norn to fight the Destroyers. But once they get going they fight to the death. One of the Norn’s greatest hero’s toke out Jormag’s tooth with a single attack and it is now in Hoelbrek. That’s a little scary right? They’re biggest problem is rallying because they are normadic by nature.

The Sylvari would probably not get involved unless it was a threat the Pale Tree. From their teaching and the centaur who orignally planted the Pale Tree, they are not fighters and avoid conflict unless they are in danger or the Pale tree is. But from some hearts quests, this seems to only apply to plant life so they might be more willing then I said above.

All in all, each race faces great problems to wage an effcient war.

“Many expected the initial Charr expansion through northern Tyria to become a tide of blood that would crash upon the Shiverpeaks, drowning Charr and Norn alike. The reality proved different. When the Charr reached the foothills, the Norn drove them back with a single crushing blow, completely decimating every warband sent against them.”

“Although it is certain the Charr could have destroyed the Norn resistance if they but turned their entire army—or even one full legion—to the cause, warbands and smaller raiding parties could not overcome the individual strength of the Norn. These initial skirmishes taught both sides to respect the strength of the other.”
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Movement_of_the_World

This sadly says without really any doubt that the norn would most certainly lose as the charr have only advanced in technology since this time but the norn haven’t really moved forwards in terms of technology

I think it’s more likely that the asura would ally with the humans, so that the humans and the charr would fight a war of attrition. I think this is likely because the charr are the closest to the asuran level of advancement, so it would be in the asura best interest to have them trapped in war with someone else while they worked on an offensive.

I think the asura really become a massive danger to themselves when they are pushed they will become less and less regulated in their experiments which they have very little of to begin with i see many more Thaumanova Reactor type situations not to mention that they are probably the least able to organize as one unit they may be able to make krews but working together on a grand scale they seem to be worse then the norn, generally only looking out for themselves or those in the immediate vicinity I could see many of them attempting to use the mursatt magic to just leave the world and abandon the rest of their spieces to die, like the inquest tried to do.

I don’t see why the Asura would even be involved at all. They’re not a unified group, they have no reason to war as one, let alone agree on one subject. But let’s be hypothetical. Say they did.

They’d win against most races indefinitely. They’re solving all the world’s problems separate and fragmented as it is whilst warring amongst themselves. Unified and focusing on a single problem, I get the idea that it would be something like a one-billion skritt hive deciding they were going to defeat a single foe. The only ones I can see putting up a fight are the Charr. The humans would be mowed down by Megalasers, turrets and mines before they even reached the Asura defenses, which would be manned by golems that would crush anyone that slipped through the hellfire. If they were on the offensive, the Asura could literally teleport into that area by reactivating waypoints and/or Asura gates previously deactivated for the war and overrun them with hundreds of golems and soldiers equipped with deadly magitech weapons.

Charr v. Asura, I don’t know who’d win for certain. My money is on a horribly bloody draw. Both races are resourceful and ridiculously resilient. It’s hard to say for sure given all the technological elements and tactics of both.

I think we’d eventually be seeing a Charr-Asura confederacy. Then Tyria would be effectively conquered.

Okay there are some very flawed debates here that are solely based on bias. First of all for this to happen the Charr would have to defeated the humans in a fair fight. The Charr were only able to defeat Ascalon with a weapon of mass destruction and if you want to be technical they still have yet to completely defeat Ascalon. The ghost of Ascalon constantly engage them, human bandits harass their lands, and Ebonhawke Stronghold has consistently defeated Charr forces for decades without falling once.

The Charr do not want to admit it but their Army is stretched thin dealing with the Flame Legion and the rebel humans. If they ever tried to move their army out of their homeland the Black Citadel would fall in a matter of days. Not to mention for this actually to happen the Charr would have to defeat Ebonhawke which would probably cost them at least 1/3 of their total forces. Then they would have to march through the cold subject guerrilla warfare from the humans.

And IF the Charr were able to reach Kryta they would have to come through the Gendarran Fields which is technically Human territory. You could not expect the Lion Guard to just sit idle while this is happening and if they did that they would risk war with the humans if the humans won the war. And yet again IF they Charr somehow managed to get through the Gendarran Fields they would be under constant Guerrilla attacks in Queensdale.

This whole scenario is assuming that the Norn just let the Charr pass through their homeland. Which is unlikely in itself.

But yeah a Charr military offensive just has a low chance of succeed due to the location of all the races now. Like I said before defeating Ebonhawke would be no simply task for the Charr especially if Kyrta sent in reinforcements. By the time the time the Charr breached the gate they would have had heavy losses by human archers and catapults. Then the humans would simply retreat to Kyrta.

Then the Charr would be forced to march through mountains where the humans would have certainly allied with the Norn to kick them out of the Norn homelands.

The Charr would never be able to reach Kyrta unless they somehow built a massive Navy.

In our current timespan, 1327 AE, Charr have already defeated the major threat of Flame Legion, being Gaheron and Burntclaw. There are only Ghosts to go, to be honest.

After that, they would nearly be free of dangers, Sure, there’s The Scar, but it doesn’t seem like a constant war, more like protecting a border.

Who would fall first? Many say that it would be Humans and looking at the map, it would be true. When Divinity’s Reach is surrounded by water and fortified, the rest of Kryta could be conquered in matter of days. Also, almost no advanced weaponry.

But for the first “to go” I’d say Sylvari. Sorry, but their weaknesses are patheticly obvious. Burn down the Pale Tree and there you go.

Charr would win every war with mortal race. It’s a military-centred society of deadly hellcats. Who would stand against them, their weaponry, numbers, and tactics ?

Nope, Smodur directly states in the current LS release that they have to deal with DRagonbrand, ghosts, and even Flame legion.

Flame Legion wasn’t gutted, the super high top leadership was taken out.

edit: Also not reading the topic yet at all, Charr would have a HELL of a time trying to get an army and siege weapons across the shiverpeaks and into Kryta. IIRC, there is a few npcs who mention they have enough trouble trying to get ammo and new weapons to the frontline warbands… IN ASCALON.

Now combine that with across the shiverpeaks (dealing with Norn, dredge, etc)… it wouldn’t work. Not effectively at least.

Rym.1469:

In our current timespan, 1327 AE, Charr have already defeated the major threat of Flame Legion, being Gaheron and Burntclaw. There are only Ghosts to go, to be honest.

After that, they would nearly be free of dangers, Sure, there’s The Scar, but it doesn’t seem like a constant war, more like protecting a border.

Who would fall first? Many say that it would be Humans and looking at the map, it would be true. When Divinity’s Reach is surrounded by water and fortified, the rest of Kryta could be conquered in matter of days. Also, almost no advanced weaponry.

But for the first “to go” I’d say Sylvari. Sorry, but their weaknesses are patheticly obvious. Burn down the Pale Tree and there you go.

Charr would win every war with mortal race. It’s a military-centred society of deadly hellcats. Who would stand against them, their weaponry, numbers, and tactics ?

1) Flame Legion was defeated by pact forces; Up until their assistance, the united legions didn’t hold a candle against them.
2)The Brand IS a constant war. It is specifically stated by the NPCs all through it that the only way they can survive against it is by constantly pitching resources at it.

3)While the setting provides its differences(I.E scattered magic user charr, and playable ones), it is easy to assume charr have no proper management against magic given their complete denial of its usage and overall distaste towards the subject.
Taking in mind non-technologically advanced humans have been able to hold them off and keep them at bay, as far as defeating them in the sieges of Ebonhawke, both human capabilities for pulling a Jennah’s City-sized phantasm or asuran arcane technology (plus their surplus of golems) would easily stand a chance regardless of the military devotion of their resources. As it stands, charr territory is the one with the worst chances of actually holding a war and winning; too many things would have fun killing them. Ghosts, branded, human, already-in-territory Ascalonians, ogres (which are labeled a -major- threat to charr despite the setting only showing it halfishly), still-present Flame Legion and then some newly arrived, scattered mordrem.

Rym, your still ignoring the concrete facts. From a militaristic standpoint the Charr are in the absolute worst position in Tyria to lauch a major offensive. You can’t pick and choose which strengths and weaknesses you want.

For the Charr to even move their army they would have to defeat Ebonhawke which has proven to be impossible for 250 years. Read that again, the Charr have been attacking for 250 years and have still not taken it and now it’s backed by Kryta. And after the heavy losses the Charr would have in the Fields of Ruin you seems to act like the Ghost would just sit idle while all this is happening.

Then you also seem to ignore the Human bandits, the dragon minions, and Orges who are engaging the Charr. They may be able to defeat the humans in their homeland with a full unified military effort but there is not way more than 20% of their forces could even make it to the Gendarran Fields.

I’m not debating that if you have the Charr army on a field and the Human army on the opposite that the humans would not be easily routed. I’m debating the the humans even in the weakened state have a 70% chance to repel a Charr invasion due to the location of human military points.

The only race with a weak capital city and weak military is the Slyvari.

From what I remember, Ebonhawke haven’t ever faced the 3 Legions united. One can guess the outcome…

When you place an army of men with clear lidership and discipline, raised to fight against people splitted among two fronts (guess what, Ebonhawke wouldn’t recive many supplies from DR this time, during all-around war. Kryta is more important, I assume), never as organised and disciplined…

As for Charr being “vunerable” to magic, I don’t think so. With organised hierarchy in army and good leaders knowing tactics, you can overcome almost every barrier. Also not using, doesn’t mean not knowing how magic works.

Not only Charr would fight with bandits, dragons and other local threats. Everyone would have to face them.

Bonus points: Over the last 250 years, Charrs have progressed more than anyone else. And they’re still inventing new things. Tanks, helicopters. Technology during World Wars was the biggest factor. Who has better tech, wins. Who knows, maybe in next year Charr will invent nuclear bombs. And Humans have swords, bows and walls + Gods gone long ago .

I dont think anyone would win such a war it is more likely that they then would kill each other and nobody would be left.

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.

Interesting, and just who did the Roman Empire fall to?

Charr society and chain of command is not absolute. One entire Legion has rejected it. Others have rejected the Treaty. We have Lions Arch and other Charr going a merchant direction, or mercenary, or Pact, as individuals without War Bands, no longer part of the Charr chain of command. The society is crumbling from what it was. Evon Gnashblade would sell munitions to all sides if he could get away with it.. that is the “new” charr demographic. More individuals, less Legionnaires.

Less Legionnaires to do the only thing the Charr leadership has shown it can do in the past. Send them out to die. Over and over. All that muscle, supposedly, and they barely managed to take Ascalon with Titan magic, and could not take Ebonhawke at all. Thrown out of Norn land, and then destroyed by Mursatt in Kryta.. the same Mursatt humans drove from Tyria. Laughable track record for an “Empire”.

Charr are weaker now. Messing with the Norn isn’t something they want to do, ever. They still recall the first time.

In spite of the snowflake status given them, the Charr aren’t much more than the arrogant, mouthy, filthy beasts they have always been.

It would be hard to find a clear winner, all of the races seem pretty adapt at holding their own. They all have the ability to prolong a war to last for generations.

Humans have done it against the char for much longer than 250 years. They actually have technology (watchwork knights anyone?) and exceptionally gifted magic users such as Queen Jennah+Countess Anise (who casted a spell that petrified an entire army). Plus the whole magical nukes should also be taken into account (cataclysm/foefire).

The charr have their own problems and have the industry to back them up. That and they are built for war.

The sylvari’s only weakness is that they have a vulnerable capital, the pale tree. But if they were able to hold and keep the tree alive, they seem to have a HUGE supply of fully grown and trained soldiers pouring in. In time, they’d be a major threat.

As many have stated, the norn are in a really hostile environment that will deter any invading forces, as for them expanding and conquering, I don’t see that happening at all. Unless they change their culture.

Asura’s have their technology. They are capable of great magical destruction with their lasers and golems. If they were at war with the other races, they could possibly create a wmd.

In the end, the war would last for a LONG time and pretty much anyone can be a victor aside from the norns (there are too few to actually hold and expand their territories).

Holy Necro, lol but I’m glad to see this thread come back.

The charr definitely was a declining empire since pre Guild Wars 1 times, during guild wars 1, the charr species became more united and had some resurgence in power. All this being said in the current timeline the Charr are getting in a much better position, diminishing (destroying) the threat of the Ascalonian ghosts, giving up some land in the treaty with ebonhawk allowing them to consolidate more of their forces while having to deal with less of the dragonbrand shifting part of that burden on the ascalonian humans, Ogre kralls being destroyed by both Charr and Ebonhawk forces, and finally loss of flame legion leadership and assistance from the pact in removing the flame legion as a threat.

Another boon for the Charr has been their major innovations in technology throughout the time of Guild wars 2, they have created helicopters and submarines allowing them to be the first race with the ability to attack from land, sea, and air. This ability combined with the charr ability to make heavy cannons and having the best manufacturing of any race shows them possibly becoming a great empire again. (the heavy cannons could make ebonhawks mighty walls nearly antiquated, for more information on this idea see how the turks conquered Constantinople here ).

The charr still have some very major obstacles in their way though,
1) their inability to have lasting consolidated leadership/power.
2) Being carnivores and needing to eat meat that spoils quickly, they would need some means of quickly transporting meat to the front lines (much easier to do with vegetables, fruits, nuts, ect.).
3) Seem to as a race to be rather lacking in magical knowledge compared to other major races (excluding the flame legion).

Rym.1469:

Bonus points: Over the last 250 years, Charrs have progressed more than anyone else. And they’re still inventing new things. Tanks, helicopters. Technology during World Wars was the biggest factor. Who has better tech, wins. Who knows, maybe in next year Charr will invent nuclear bombs. And Humans have swords, bows and walls + Gods gone long ago .

Germany had jets (England did too, but they weren’t as good) and crude strategic and tactical guided missiles, their top-of-the-line piston-powered aircraft were on par with those of the Allies, and their top-of-the-line tanks were superior to anything that the West had before 1945, and roughly on par with the Soviets (let’s not start that argument again – it’s close enough to be arguable whose were better, so let’s call it ‘roughly on par’ and leave it at that). In purely technological terms, the Allies had a few innovations the Germans lacked, but it was mostly strategic bombers and numbers. Who won that one again?

There’s also a lack of a clear technological advantage in WW1 (the Allies had tanks, but the Germans had practical SMGs, which arguably had the potential to make at least as much difference as the early and highly unreliable tanks). On that matter, who won Vietnam?

Technology helps, but its a force multiplier. Other force multipliers and just plain numbers can offset it.

Also, magic was not exactly a factor in the world wars. Humans don’t have the powerful magical artifacts that they used to (that we know of…) but human magic, in lore if not in game characters, is still more powerful than that of the charr. We still have references to humans pulling off things like Jennah’s mass illusion – not even asura can pull that off without their magitech, and the only instances of charr using magic at a level much higher than that of the PCs is from the Flame Legion.

Lorewise, the trump card is that Ebonhawke did in fact stand for centuries – and there were in fact periods when humans went back on the offensive from Ebonhawke (some are mentioned in Sea of Sorrows). It may not have been the top priority for all that time, but that’s because the charr had other problems to deal with. Arguably, a charr assault directly on Kryta would make it harder for Kryta to continue sending supplies… but on the other hand, it might actually make Ebonhawke a higher priority, as intensified operations from Ebonhawke would provide a distraction and potentially be able to hit some of the charr manufacturing facilities.

Supplying an army through the Shiverpeaks is also not an inconsiderable challenge. Modern armies generally don’t go through alpine territory if they can reasonably avoid it, for good reason. Even if the norn let them through (there is precedent for that) there’s dredge, jotun, icebrood, and other threats to consider. The terrain is also unfavourable for moving heavy equipment through – the main route through Snowden involves crossing some pretty narrow and rickety bridges. There are detours, but it’s still rough terrain, terrain in which more magic-reliant humans would have an advantage over tanks (and we see how fragile the charr tanks actually are in Orr…)

(ArenaNet, your forums need to allow longer posts. Seriously.)

Once they reach Gendarran, they’d need to get their heavy equipment through tunnels to get out of the foothills (or over said foothills, which is more rough terrain). Then they need to get past the lakes, which will require crossing a bridge that the defenders could possibly blow (I have a feeling Applenook technically belongs to Lion’s Arch rather than Kryta, but if there’s a charr invasion coming through, I don’t think the Shining Blade will let that stop them from destroying the bridge). If they navigate that, there’s the walled settlement of Ascalon, and another bunch of bridges that can potentially be blown – an alliance with the centaurs might allow them access to the north bridge (but if charr can have allies, so can Kryta…) although that’s the least solid bridge of the lot.

Once they get into the Bloodfields, they can possibly employ the same attack paths as centaurs, except backed with more heavy equipment – but to be perfectly honest, I suspect that the centaurs had as much success as they did due both to collaboration from within Kryta, and through using routes so rough that they aren’t traversible in-game, possibly shown to them by bandits (bypassing Stoneguard by traversing the Stonebore Vaults, and crossing from Heartwood Pass Camp to Earthlord’s Gap). Such routes would probably be unsuitable for charr heavy equipment like tanks, and unlike the centaurs, a charr invasion would probably be taken seriously enough by all human factions, possibly even including the White Mantle, that they’d stop sabotaging each other and focus on keeping the charr out. And in Queensdale, there are more rivers, including the potential that the eastern and western dams could be opened to make Divinity’s Reach effectively an island citadel. If Divinity’s Reach is able to find an ally who’s willing to supply food through the gate, DR could well prove to be an even tougher nut to crack than Ebonhawke.

tl;dr: The charr reliance on industry can also be a weakness – there are a lot of places between the Black Citadel and Divinity’s Reach where a force relying on heavy equipment could be stalled.

Me tinks people are selling humans a bit short here, no?

Humans did manage to make mesmer robots that can not only duplicate someone’s personality, but also mimic all of their habilities.
I would call that quite a technological advantage in this day and age.

Not from scratch, though – it turned out that the basic technology came from reverse-engineering steam creatures. The mimicking qualities, though, were added by humans – and humans are fairly decent at enchanting objects (another distinction between human and asura magic items here – in asura stuff it’s magic being treated as a science and the appearance of an item is determined by what it needs to do. Human magic is able to take any random object and enchant it).

Mind you, this is a necromancing of a thread that’s over a year old – the Watchknights weren’t around for much of this thread.

Charr helicopters annoy the everloving hell out of me. It blows my mind that the Asura technology makes more sense than some of the stuff the Charr run around with.

Also, of note with WW2 German designs, they let their engineers run rampant without the slightest thought of the intended users. For example, this is the turret traverse mechanism on the Tiger. That’s some Rube Goldbergian insanity, you actually had to rev the engine up to turn the turret. Compare to the M4A3’s traverse mechanism which worked independently. That’s pretty indicative of the design problems the Germans afflicted themselves with and for the most part when I look at the insanity of Charr weapons that’s what I see. A bunch of overcomplicated and often malfunctioning material littering as much of Ascalon as there are human ruins.

draxynnic.3719:

Mind you, this is a necromancing of a thread that’s over a year old – the Watchknights weren’t around for much of this thread.

Well, we still had Uzolan. It just depends on how much of an outlier he is. I think the biggest separation between the Asura and everyone else is that Asura have mandatory education. A thousand engineers will let you develop more breakthroughs than a dozen.

I’d place my bets on the only race that had 3 kingdoms on Tyria.

Lostwingman.5034:

I think the biggest separation between the Asura and everyone else is that Asura have mandatory education. A thousand engineers will let you develop more breakthroughs than a dozen.

To me this seems to make it a contest between the charr and the asura. They both focus on engineering. The advantage I see the charr have though is that their projects are almost uniformly geared toward war while the asura can have a practicle application .. or not. And when the charr make something that works, it is generally actively distributed through charr society and altered to different situations. while asura inventions can get lost in archive or they are jealously guarded secrets kept from other krewes. And the strength of the charr isn’t limited to their inventions.

of course, so much would actually depend on who attacked who first, and what the responses to those initial movements would be.

Trixie: Technically speaking, the charr have three nations on Tyria now. Four if you count the Flame.

Lostwingman.5034:

draxynnic.3719:

Mind you, this is a necromancing of a thread that’s over a year old – the Watchknights weren’t around for much of this thread.

Well, we still had Uzolan. It just depends on how much of an outlier he is. I think the biggest separation between the Asura and everyone else is that Asura have mandatory education. A thousand engineers will let you develop more breakthroughs than a dozen.

Not a huge one, is the impression I get. Humans have their own technology, both in GW2 and GW1 (the first cannons we ever saw were used by the Luxons, for instance – the dwarves had powder, but they used it for enhanced ammunition rather than as the propellant) it’s just that in the present day they’re not at the same level as charr mass-production or asura magitech (but OTOH, neither charr nor asura seem to have super-mages like humans do – asura have a lot of magical knowledge, but seem to be more limited on what a single mage can do without their golems and megalasers and other gizmos). Uzolan’s robot seems to have been made by reverse-engineering asuran tech, while the Watchknights came from reverse-engineering steam creatures – however, that implies that Jennah’s currently unnamed chief engineer is roughly on par with Uzolan.

We can’t say that just because Norns are relatively anti-authoritarian and are focused on individual glory, they would fail at warfare.
You know who else was like them? Vikings. Can you honestly say that Vikings weren’t good at warfare with the ammount of land they conquered?

The thing is, Norns, just like Vikings would use this as their advantage. Not being a classic “army”, and not having set tactics would make them unpredictable in the battlefield. No one would be able to study their behavior in combat, because each battle would be different.

With that being said, Charrs would have the upper hand in the war, no matter what. Not only are they born soldiers, they also have the technology, physical prowess, numbers and discipline.

Tomas.5029:

We can’t say that just because Norns are relatively anti-authoritarian and are focused on individual glory, they would fail at warfare.
You know who else was like them? Vikings. Can you honestly say that Vikings weren’t good at warfare with the ammount of land they conquered?

The thing is, Norns, just like Vikings would use this as their advantage. Not being a classic “army”, and not having set tactics would make them unpredictable in the battlefield. No one would be able to study their behavior in combat, because each battle would be different.

With that being said, Charrs would have the upper hand in the war, no matter what. Not only are they born soldiers, they also have the technology, physical prowess, numbers and discipline.

From the movement of the world document (lore)
“Although it is certain the Charr could have destroyed the Norn resistance if they but turned their entire army—or even one full legion—to the cause, warbands and smaller raiding parties could not overcome the individual strength of the Norn. These initial skirmishes taught both sides to respect the strength of the other.”
This basically says that the Norn as a species, that their total fighting force is weaker than 1/4 of the Charrs, on top of it since that time, the Charr area of influence/land has grown, while the norn have been pushed back and lost land meaning in current times I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that 1/2 of a legion’s fighting force could annihilate the Norn.

Tomas.5029:

We can’t say that just because Norns are relatively anti-authoritarian and are focused on individual glory, they would fail at warfare.
You know who else was like them? Vikings. Can you honestly say that Vikings weren’t good at warfare with the ammount of land they conquered?

The thing is, Norns, just like Vikings would use this as their advantage. Not being a classic “army”, and not having set tactics would make them unpredictable in the battlefield. No one would be able to study their behavior in combat, because each battle would be different.

With that being said, Charrs would have the upper hand in the war, no matter what. Not only are they born soldiers, they also have the technology, physical prowess, numbers and discipline.

lol….

That’s so wrong…The Vikings had Kings and leaders and were organized into kingdoms and states. You’re projecting the invented qualities of the Norn as a race onto the vikings just because the Norn are modeled superficially on them.

jul.7602:

BuddhaKeks.4857:

jul.7602:

Must make sense lorewise without cannon information

Wut?

You cannot use cannon information.

What about mortars?

Oglaf.1074:

Lore-wise, Norn characters would be at least ten times as powerful as a character of any other race.

Poison, a knife in their sleep, a shot from the snowy knoll… they can be killed just as easily as any mortal.

People seem to have this weird idea that physical strength and ability in single combat means anything in an era of gunpowder and airships.

The Norn are relics.

Oglaf.1074:

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

Trying going Mano a Mano with an omega siege golem. I dare you.

I know from experience that a single Norn warrior can’t easily beat a golem.

Tomas.5029:

We can’t say that just because Norns are relatively anti-authoritarian and are focused on individual glory, they would fail at warfare.
You know who else was like them? Vikings. Can you honestly say that Vikings weren’t good at warfare with the ammount of land they conquered?

The height of Viking power was hundreds of years before the development of gunpowder, or even the pike square. Lightly armoured spear men, archers and swordsmen would have been no match for forces of later eras.

All this talk of technology is non sense. This is a video game that has dragons and magic…..The laws of our world to not apply to the world in this game. Zombies could kick a Charr tank enough times in this game and destroy it.

Just looking at tactical situations the Humans have the best chance to actually win any war based on current land holdings. The Charr have no viable way to attack DR they would literally have to march through mountains and other armies just to even reach the outlying human territories. And it’s not like the Charr could go around the mountains because it would because they would have to cross even more dangerous territory.

But once again and you even hear this in game. The moment the majority of the Charr army leaves Ascalon the ghosts will sack that territory if the branded, orges, or human bandits don’t beat them to it.

Well, we haven’t seen the big tanks (the ones with the massive rear wheel at the back) in action, although they seem, at best, unsuited to anything but a siege (armament fixed forward, and that big rear wheel that from the design seems to be carrying most of the weight probably bogs down at the drop of a hat).

The small ones technically aren’t even tanks, but primitive armoured cars armed with light howitzers. Far from invulnerable, particularly when there are prople around who can throw fireballs and lightning bolts.