Guild Wars 2

I have been told that race and character background influence how each skill functions (i.e. norn elementalists getting damage increase along with the air-attuned staff speed buff while sylvari only get an increase in speed). I’ve also been told that Humans get different elite skills based on which deity they chose for their character’s background. That is to say for engineers one deity gives a mortar elite for 30 points and another gives hellhounds for 30 points. I’m looking for confirmation on this.

There are two 30 point elites, one is class based (for engineer it’s mortar) and one is racial based. The class based elite is the same regardless of race. The racial elites and skills are the same regardless of what class you play. Meaning an asura engineer will always have series 7 golem and mortar, human engineers will always have hounds of balth and mortar. Your personal story options that you select when creating your character do not influence in any way what skills you get, they just change your beginning story line quests a bit.

Choosing your deity does nothing but change personal story quests. Also, races don’t do anything to skills, at least as far as I know; racial choices will only affect aesthetics and racial skills.

deity choice only changes (supposedly) things your character says, and places a priest/ess of that diety in your salma district home instance. and racial choice affects nothing besides what story you go through for lvl 1-30, what you look like, and how you sound. there are no special buffs/nerfs