Guild Wars 2

From playing a human and checking out the lore and RP’ing with a Sylvari I have to say that humans seem to be missing any sort of love whatsoever.

Near extinct, worse at engineering than the Asura and Charr, vastly worse at magic than the Asura

Seemingly less warlike and numerous than the Charr. Vastly physically inferior to the Norn. Less all round intelligent than the Asura and the Sylvari have a hive mind that allows them to share knowledge and be perfectly unified.

(Relevant because i’ve personally killed about a thousand humans that decided to turn on us)

How can humans survive in the GW2 world with no allies, backed into their last city and completely inferior to all other races?

I’m finding it hard to have any rebuttal to other races claims that humans suck, I mean even our Gods don’t want us anymore..

Humans have something called “The Human Spirit”. It’s actually been used as a racial in some games.

Essentially: The worst their situation is, the more dire their predicament becomes, the closer they get to extinction, the harder they fight.

Humans will fight harder and harder for each one of them who falls. They will rally again and again against impossible odds and defeat anything that can be thrown their way.

Humanity can survive being pushed to the brink and recover again and again.

This resiliency, this drive to survive, this ability to come back from next to nothing, is the reason that Humanity can stand toe-to-toe with the likes of the Charr, the Asura, and the Norn.

Humanity exemplifies the saying “Don’t discount an animal backed into a corner”.

The harder you push, the harder they push back. They don’t break, they don’t quit, and they don’t give up.

So all humans have is what amounts to sheer feral desperation to make up for their crushing inferiority in every area. They should be the best at at least -one- thing.

There’s nothing glorious about being the least fit species in every measurable term and winning because your special trait is rigging natural selection on a quantum level.

Alessia.7864:

So all humans have is what amounts to sheer feral desperation to make up for their crushing inferiority in every area. They should be the best at at least -one- thing.

There’s nothing glorious about being the least fit species in every measurable term and winning because your special trait is rigging natural selection on a quantum level.

Humans are, and always have been, average. They reproduce quickly, they learn quickly, and they act quickly.

They’re not the tallest or the strongest or the smartest. But they’re not the shortest or the weakest or the dumbest.

They’re right smack dab in the middle, which is where they usually are. Humans survive because they -don’t- stand out. They’re the jack-of-all-trades race. They can do anything anyone else can do, and often they can innovate where they can’t invent.

They have a unique perspective on the world around them that no one else has. They can see solutions where no one else can because they’re determined to succeed. It ties back to what I said before. They never quit. They never give up.

That drive to succeed is what sets Humans apart. They prevail where others fail.

The humans are the historians and the statesmen. Their culture once dominated the entire continent, and their past litters the world. They have deep links to both the Priory and the Whispers, and they are the only race to have faced down darkness in recent times and survived. It was their choices and actions that laid the foundation for why the races that flourish today are able to do so.

I understand your frustration, though. They are also socially backwards, seeming to retain outdated ways of thinking and prejudices, finding petty biases and social class worthy reasons to trample one another. Many of them hide inside their decadent capital city and try to ignore the wars outside, as if their race is not dying out. They are masters of nothing but the past, clinging to absent gods and the vain hope that they will somehow be delivered from the inevitable.

I can see why you’d be frustrated, OP. The humans are a race whose time has passed, and it often seems like they’re passed over in terms of “interesting” lore. Everything that was ever exciting about them happened in Guild Wars 1 instead, I think.

@Liraz.8062 i wouldn’t say their time have past but i will agree with most part of what you said. the way i see it they still have more to offer and like most have said already, they’re the jack-of-all-trades.

I wouldn’t say that’s true. Humans in the guild wars universe are spectacularly good architects and builders. Their lands are covered in dams, irrigation systems, and especially walls.

In fact, the Wall is a great symbol for humanity in the setting as a whole (and not just for the obvious reasons). They’re a very constructive and creative race, and it can be seen in how they’ve developed – While the Charr have invented most destructive technology, guns, tanks, etc, the humans have spent their time trying to figure out how to get the best crop yield possible, or how to better reinforce their towns and keep the people safe. Almost all doctors you see in game are human. They also seem to have the most rich culture, being leagues ahead in terms of literature or art, and in the liberal sciences. They stick to the basics, and so do them better then anyone else.

The Charr might be the first to discover, say, electricity, but Humans will probably be the ones to invent antibiotics, or the flushable toilet. They care about quality of life above everything else. While the other races seek personal glory, destruction, or knowledge, Humans band together and build.

They also don’t limit themselves, and are very adaptable. Asura consider fighting by stabbing someone with a sharp object uncivilized and stupid. Humans don’t. Charr consider magic to be weak and often refuse to use it. Humans don’t. Norn consider fighting in big armies to be dishonorable and inglorious. Humans don’t. They’ll literally try anything to win, and they’ll gladly make use of the advancements that others have made for their own benefit, and put their own pragmatic spin on them.

And on the other side of the Wall-centered thematic coin, they’re really, really stubborn. They simply do not give up, especially when backed into a corner, and only become harder and harder to defeat as they are.

The think the best way to look at it is to consider this: The Charr spent the better part of a thousand years trying to take Ascalon back, and they still had to give up on getting all of it because they simply couldn’t break the final city. All their best weapons just couldn’t break through that last wall. Not to mention the fact that, even though the land was utterly destroyed, Aldebern and his soldiers simply refused to leave, even in death.

And what did they do with the land they won? They built more factories and weapons, just so they could continue fighting. They didn’t stop to think about what to do with what they’d won, how it would make their lives better or easier. How to make themselves happy. They just got ready for the next big fight.

I dunno about you, but if I lived in Tyria, I’d much rather be human then anything else. They’re smart enough to know what really matters.

The Charr are a clenched fist, a drawn sword, the Norn are a pack of hunting beasts; Humanity is an ancient oak, hard like stone. Slow, stubborn, and almost unbreakable – most will collapse from exhaustion before they can cut them down. And even if they do, they still slowly regrow, adapt, harder then ever before.

Humanity has an interesting place in GW2. Being so dominant in GW1 it looks like Arenanet has gone out of its way to avoid making them dominant in GW2. However I think Humanity is easily underestimated. There strength is more subtle. Out of all the races, the humans are the most tenacious, most adaptable and most flexable of the races. They are natural survivors and have a amazing talent for countering the strengths of there opponents.

Humans however also have old enemies which is what I think the source of alot of there current woes are at the moment and Im not talking about the Charr.

Human is are better at working together as a race than the Asura and the Norn, they are more experianced and know more than the Sylvari and they are more adaptable and a have a broader range of skills to the Charr.

When it comes to defending or taking a hit from a stronger foe the humans have a better track record than any other race. Just look at the fall of Ascalon, the events of Nightfall, and the 250 year Siege of Ebonhawke.

Humans are also the best builders of the races. Look at the biggest structures in game and most of them will be humans. Ebonhawke’s walls, Divinity’s Reach, The Great Northern Wall and even the structures in Arah.

When Ree Soesbee was asked in an interview to sum up what humans brought to the table she said ternacity and spirit. They dont break, they adapt, they survive and they find a way to make it work. Of all the races the Humans are the ones that have actually killed a god before. Theres a reason for that.

Interesting.

I’d say part of my discontent is how all fantasy races tend to be ‘aspects’ of our real human race and humans in the games are just ‘one’ of those.

So even though our species is by far the most technologically adept that we know of humans in fantasy settings are children with swords compared with the dwarves/gnomes/asura in a given setting. So on for basically everything. We’d win everything going except for maybe the ‘close to nature’ prize, but we tend to have never gone down those ‘paths’ in order for the made up species to have their own superior niche. Leaving game humans without one.

So it can rub me the wrong way when all the things humans are known for are somehow well behind the made up races.

Then the old human vs elf thing. Where even if you can argue that humans are equal/superior the elves just go ‘well we live forevor’ (No-ones seen the end of a Sylvari lifetime)

Humans kind of get all ‘real’ humans flaws (Weaker and less nimble than say a chimpanzee, for example), and usually nothing ‘special’ to differentiate.

If I can claim to have a superior culture though, that’s something I hadn’t considered. Versatility would be good, if there was one prohibited class for all races except humans that would be a good argument. But.. Asura warriors?

Well, there were always going to be Asura warriors. They fit the same ‘Kawaiii!’ memetastic niche as pink haired female gnome main tank or greatsword PvP killing machine did in WoW.

Even if Sylvari are immortal, I think the fact that they can’t breed and also half of them look horrifying seperates them from elves by a good few factors.

Anet has said in the past that they chose to allow every race to play every class since those are just social rules/trends and player characters are, by their very nature, exceptional and special. Still, it exists in the lore.

But if you’re looking for things to feel superior and proud of, I’m happy to help. Here’s some stuff Guild Wars humans apparantly devised and are better at then anyone else:

Pretty much all art forms
Advanced Stonework and Architecture
Democracy
The Orchestra/Music
Agriculture/Irrigation systems
Astronomy
Historical understanding
(Seemingly) Medicine

All of these are just as impressive as crazy steampunk magictech stuff, they’re just less fantastical. Which makes sense, since they are, well, human.

Also, I think you’re probably looking at the whole “dying race” thing the wrong way. It’s not literal truth, more of a call to arms to set things right. To quote the official page:

Humanity’s long and tragic history may lead other races to think of them as a dying race that belongs to another age, but humans know otherwise. Even the youngest sylvari knows about the great human figures of legend—and the time has come for a new hero to walk in their footsteps.

The current state of human affairs is also pretty directly related to the fact they got wrecked by Flame Legion-led charr and were reduced to a fraction of their former glory. They’ve lost a lot of their ability to produce and innovate on technology due to having almost no resources. They’re deadlocked on pretty much all fronts, either by norn territory, frail charr treaties, insurgents, or dragon shenanigans. They have to rely on bootleg charr technology for their weapons, and hand-me-down research from asura. They’re in dire straits, but I think that makes for a more interesting point for them to be instead of “on top of the world” or “right in the middle” for their story.

Incidentally, I’d prefer to see them succeed in spite of the gods’ abandonment rather than have the gods return in some kind of literal deus ex machina.

Maybe the Gods are dead and we could collectively absorb their power to be better, faster, stronger. Instead of having one chick hog the lot for her greedy self.

The main issue for me is that every other human appears to be Ascalonian in appearance despite the simple fact that Kryta is meant to be a melting pot. You’re lucky if you find more than a handful of NPC’s in each settlement in Queensdale that look Krytan. Ascalonians in particular are meant to be endangered, yet make up the majority of Tyria’s human populace. I’m not going to bring up how that seems more like a way to appeal to western audiences, though.

Aside from that, I do enjoy the human race the most out of the playable races. A first for me, since I usually despise playing a human in a fantasy game. I put a lot of it down to the other races having their strengths overplayed at times, though.

It’s a shame that one of the most intriguing aspects of the human race – the Six – currently play such a minor part in their affairs, especially when their resolve, religion and spirit is meant to be one of the major themes at play.

I’m also a little dissapointed that the charr are painted as so successful. Are there no real consequences to their actions? It seems a little silly that not one, but two human nations destroyed themselves out of fear for the charr. When exactly are the charr going to take a major blow that doesn’t involve one sect running off to be villains?

For what it’s worth, though, I’d like to commend the lore team on Countess Anise and Minister Caudecus. They’re very intriguing and I’d love to see more of them in the future, especially if political intrigue is going to be one of the main aspects of the human race. Not a bad thing, assuming both sides of the ‘Jennah vs Caudecus’ power struggle are allowed to exist.

I tried to read every post, so I’m not sure if someone mentioned this already, but humans are by far the most magical race.

I know what you’re thinking, “What about Sylvari?” Despite being made of magic, or birthed from magic, or whatever the canon is on Sylvari, they are not nearly as proficient at magic as humans are. There are many, many mages from Kryta who have been practicing magic longer than the Sylvari have even existed as a race.

On top of that, if some sources are to be believed, the human gods were the original source of all magic to the other races. Now, I do find this hard to believe when you take into account ancient races like the Jotun, Mursaat, and Seers, but I’m willing to ignore that. If the human gods are powerful enough to create the bloodstones and limit /everyone’s/ magic, then they are the strongest.

Think about Orr. Who are the most powerful servants of Zhaitan? The risen priests of the human gods. This is because the human gods have favored humanity with the strongest magic. Even Queen Jennah is arguably one of the strongest, if not the strongest mesmer in the game, Logan practically invented guardians, and humans were the first necromancers (based on Dhuum not allowing any to really exist until Grenth took his place).

There’s also the fact that every human god, as far as we know, was once human themselves. That means that humans are so powerful that they can ascend unto godhood and affect every race. Grenth, for instance, affects death everywhere, not just among humans.

So, in my opinion, humans have magic as their greatest strength, with their ability to defend territories (making walls like Ebonhawke or the Northern Great Wall) coming as a close second.

The link between the humans and their gods is definately a powerful one and a major part of their race. When looking at humans its worth remembering what the Muse of Lyssa said at the end of Nightfall. Humanity carries in it aspects of all the gods and it reflects in their nature and in their society.

The Majority of GW2 players are playing Human :P

In pretty much every multi-racial fantasy setting I’ve come across, the virtue that humans have is diversity. We may not be as good at one thing – not as magically adept as elves, or in this case as technologically advanced as asura and charr – but we can turn our hands to many different things. Humans think outside the box, we combine virtues and perspectives, and come up with things that no other race can. We’re flexible. We’re jacks of all trades, masters of none.

This same idea is reflected in what Lutinz says about the Muse of Lyssa. Humanity embodies the virtues of six very different gods, all in one people. Despite adversity, we adapt and survive. Oh, we mustn’t forget that other pervasive human virtue – we’re very, very stubborn!

I will add I would have liked to see humanity a bit more involved in the events of GW2 story so far. My only thought is that with Orr being so heavy in human lore they thought that having notable humans play a major role might have made things too human heavy in Orr.