Sylvari are not inherently more nature themed just because they’re plants instead of animals.
But they do have some cool racial medium armour, including some of the only short coats (tier 1 and 2 on female, 2 and 3 on male). And many people seem to think the only male characters who can look good using Kudzu are sylvari.
I agree with Kalendraf that the norns racial themes fit best with both the ranger and the druid. But I also think any race can fit any profession.
As it happens I have both a human druid (on my main account) and a sylvari ranger (on my free account). The human is because I wanted her to be descended from my GW1 characters, and the sylvari is because they’re my favourite race and ranger is my favourite profession. I don’t play my free account often so I wanted it to be fun when I do.
Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).
So the results are 92% for sylvari, with the mention of norn being more tuned with nature, pets animals and hunting.
Heres a few aftermath questions if you dont mind.
1) Dont norn lose their pets when they shapeshift trough their elite skills?
2) Has anyone tried to combine "normal leather " armor with sylvari cultural homegrown armor?
3) Besides kudzu, heritage shortbow, TA and cultural weapons. any other honrable mentions for a sylvari ranger/druid?
Sylvari are actually more attuned to nature(not just because plant people), Norns are more attuned with animal spirits/hunting/weps. Considering that they have the ability to command plants, grow plants with several of the racial abilities and have also been shown to commune with nature spirits like oakhearts. All races fit with the professions, it just depends on how you want your character to be.
I wish I could answer the question about Norn and pets,but I don’t play them often. I don’t think they do at least. It is also possible to combine “leather” and cultural,but it mostly depends on what your tastes are with armour looks.
I don’t think that any race “fits” better than any other, unless …that’s the story you tell for your own toon. Given your personal preference, I’d recommend you roll human and live with him/her as ranger until you can start druid — I expect that, like most players, once you get there, you’ll be unlikely to swap back to plain druid any time soon.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
I played a sylvari ranger back in beta and didn’t like it. I’ve never rolled a sylvari anything since then. I made a human ranger and used tomes to blast him to 80 before realizing that if I wanted to make him a Druid, Norns were the way to go because of shapeshifting lore/flavor (not necessarily the best elites to use). So I rerolled to Norn and leveled the slow way. So if you’re making a female character, I recommend Norn. If it’s a male character, Human.
Nothing to do here with shapeshifting, unless you count shedding your mortal physical body to become one with nature permanently shapeshifting.
This is another reason why im considering human ranger/druid…cause originally and lore wise they are humans. Tho unfortunately i dont see much similarities between the gw2 ranger druids and the original lore druids :/
I mean cmon… asral wisps, celestial forms,cosmic rays, lunar impacts?
I did wish for a more supportive/healing specialization for rangers…
PS: Sylvari count went down to 76% on the poll.. human rangers showing up?
I do not think it really matters which race you use to create your ranger. Personally, I have one Sylvari and one Asura. With two rangers at 80 I can play whichever race I am inclined to. But I have actually geared and set their abilities differently….for instance, my Sylvari is my power ranger and my Asura is my condition bleed ranger.
Both builds are fun to play and I am hoping that one day Anet will set up build save options because it is a pain to swap all the time, which is why I did this.
Ranger is my main…and I really love both of them. Although I have to admit I laugh more using my Asura…the puns shouted and the conversations provided for them are hilarious.
Nothing to do here with shapeshifting, unless you count shedding your mortal physical body to become one with nature permanently shapeshifting.
Yes, you’re right. GW druids are different from most other fantasy worlds. But I play druid in many settings, not just WoW (Pathfinder, DnD, etc), and most of them include shapeshifting as a druid feature, so personally, my GW druid also includes shapeshifting.
Heres a few aftermath questions if you dont mind.
1) Dont norn lose their pets when they shapeshift trough their elite skills?
Using a norn shape-shifting elite skill will deactivate the ranger pet, but that shouldn’t be much of a concern. Most of the Norn racial skills seem rather weak. Of course that applies to nearly all racial skills. I rarely ever see anyone using them. In a way, GW2 racial skills are akin to class starting headgear – your character choice gives you access to something with some flavor, but you’ll quickly replace it with something better. As a result, choice of racial skills shouldn’t be much of a factor when choosing your character.
The first part of the personal story is also affected by the race, but that’s a relatively minor part of the game. The major impacts of character race are their appearance, and which racial armors they will be able to wear.
