Guild Wars 2

Asura or Charr?

More specifically: I’ve tried humans to around level 20. It was meh (to me, please correct me if it gets awesome).

I’m not ever going to play Sylvari, even if it’s fun/good/well-written. I just don’t like them.

I’m currently playing my Norn Elementalist and I’m loving it! I love the areas, I love the stories (especially because they involve the main antagonist so much – through the Sons of Svanir especially). So yeah, I’m pretty good there!

Now, that leaves Charr & Asura. I’ve tried none of them. I’ve heard many people say Charr areas are great and looks great. Don’t know about the story.
I know nothing about Asura and their story/areas.

I want to know which race I should pick, based (mainly) on…

Areas and their looks (Are they well-designed?)
The general story (Is it well-written, or does it leave much to be desired? What’s the atmosphere? What is each race fighting? …Like Norns are fighting Sons of Svanir and humans are fighting Centaurs)
The personal story (now, I know it changes depending on what you picked during creation, but there’s a main story that doesn’t change no matter what you pick. Afaik the picks you make in beginning only changes the main storyline slightly – correct me if I’m wrong! but I don’t think choosing “Poor” to “Noble” if you’re human changes the main story).

Tell me your up’s and down’s of these races, their environment, their story and so on and so forth & I’ll be grateful!

Please leave out stuff like “Asura are ugly” or “charr got pelts” or whatever. Aesthetics don’t bother me.

Charr are all about fighting the Flame Legion. This was this “religion” faction that used power from an artificial deity source of lead the Charr to victory, but also brutalized the other Charr legions / factions. Once the pseudo-gods of the Flame Legion were killed, the rest of the Charr legions turned on them and exiled them (with the end goal of killing every last one of them).

Every general plot line in the beginning Charr stories has to do with fighting the Flame Legion. To be honest, I’ve played through all x3 factions of Charr and the whole Flame Legion stuff got to be a bit old. Or if you’re not fighting Flame fanatics, you’re wading through an almost infinite supply of ghost mobs. However the Charr storylines do really get into their whole military industrial complex train of thought. From a flavor point of view, the Charr city and the surrounding really do have their own unique identity and it’s probably worth making a Charr at some point.

The Asura have their own internal factions and are always engaged in shadow wars with the Inquest faction. Basically the Inquest is the end result of a mega corporation (in our own modern society) that has become so ethically challenged that they will create unthinkable attrocities if the ends justify the means. Between dynamic events and personal stories, we see that the Inquest loves to rip out the souls of living beings and use them up as the ultimate battery sources. They’ll do this to any kind of non-Inquest personal (including Asura) and don’t see what the big deal is.

I love the Asura starting zone area. While the Inquest is a reoccuring theme, these enemies are sometimes sneaky and subversive (as opposed to the Flame Legion being as subtle as a sledgehammer). Thanks to the variety of mobs and scenery of the jungle area, there’s a lot of different situations to encounter.

However the part that I love most about the Asura is the general attitude. One of the NPC quotes from my story quests says it all. “If we refused to invent anything that might potentially kill someone, then we’d never invent anything at all.” The whole Asura species is basically a society of mad scientist inventors. Even their more “moral” factions still consider death to be a natural part of innovation. When you combine this with their playful and snarky dialogue, it’s really quite entertaining.

From a game mechanics perspective, the Asura play differently. The camera angle is much lower than a Human (or much lower than a Charr / Norn). As a result, I feel like I don’t have the same long distance view as a standard race. Also the Asura’s dodge animation is unique to that race. While I prefer their leaping flip through the air since it lets me visually predict where each dodge roll will exactly land, other people hate it for those exact same reasons.

EDIT

One other thing that I forgot is that the Asura females have no curves on their body. As a result, female Asura use the male armor graphics. While I personally like having a full set of plate armor on my female Warrior and not some kind of chain bikini, there have been some people complaining because they wanted a girly dress for their female Asura.

Asura have the coolest culture armor too, imo.

But i also think that most other armor sets look better on the other races. The small stature of the Asuras make the armor sets look “reduced” and seem to lack the detail that the other races would have.

Just my opinion though

Thanks so far guys.

@ Wiser with Age: Thanks man, that’s really a great and helpful post! It’s basically got everything I wanted in a response. Thanks again.

@ Vitu: Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate your response and it definately has something to consider if you’re into aesthetics. But I’m not. However, your point about the lack of detail on Asura gear is a good one, which I might consider, but probably not.. hehe

Thanks again =)

The Asuran starting zone has Rikkiti.

JumpingWarfish.1674:

Thanks so far guys.

After some thought, I realized that I didn’t give the Charr a fair presentation because of one key factor. This is a Background question about who’s your Warband “BFF”. You can pick between x6 different characters, each of whom is a different character class. Unlike the throw away Human question about Gods, the Charr question actually matters because your chosen Warband pal will actually help you out. For those early Charr personal story missions, you’ll be accompanied by a NPC pet (aka your Warband pal) who will help you complete the mission.

All things considered, the Charr missions really made me feel like I was part of a disfunctional family. That feeling hasn’t really translated in the Human and Asura races that I’ve played. Your NPC will fight using all of their associated profession’s abilities, can draw / hold aggro, and will even make verbal comments on the fly.

From the Charr forum, it seems clear that most of us like two specific choices (which were my favorite NPCs as well). Choice #1 is Dinky the Guardian and Choice #2 is Reeva the Engineer. For my Warrior, I felt that Reeva’s skills really helped to give me the support that I was missing. Then for my Engineer, I really appreciated shooting through Dinky’s combo fields and his tanking abilities. Both of them even have interesting personalities. Reeva likes to crack jokes and make verbal quips like she was in some kind of action movie. Dinky seems to be channeling the spirit of Minsk from the Baldur’s Gate game, meaning that he’s an amusing idiot savant who has surprising moments of insight.

When you finish up your Charr story line part and enter the phase where you are sent to Lion’s Arch, it was kind of sad. I’d grown fond of my NPC pals, yet I was now told that I’d never see them again (unless I stopped by my Home Instance). While it may have been ArenaNet’s way of foreshadowing how they would treat you throughout the story line, it still kind of stung a bit.