Guild Wars 2

Yea, I know…“play what you want”.
But, starting out a new Ranger and wanted to get perspective of those currently playing the Ranger class as to which race is preferred.
I’ve narrowed it down to asura or human.
I’m actually looking for nuances of the asura or human race that you like or enjoy, playing the Ranger class.

(by the way, going PvE while leveling and heavy WvW)

thanks in advance.

The human racials suck.

Asura of GTFO!

I created mine as a human, but this was purely because I have created my main as a spitting image of a real life person.. And since I don’t know that many asura in real life..

I would go human definitivly. I am just not a big fan of the asura ranger animation, I tried all races in the mists and find myself liking sylvari and human best in both animation and looks. Human male looks really good with the WvWvW armor.

Asura. Sword animation on the asura makes me feel faster than I really am. Hahaha.

I vote human. They have stronger looking attacks, and their movements while fighting just look / feel more fluid. Asuras have a certain….animation whackyness to them that I just don’t buy (except when they’re Mesmers lol.)

i would say Asura however i have never tried a human and am stuck between a Charr / Asura ranger for one of my alts, now i have to try human.

for now : Asura, nothing better than a Yoda on steroids on the battlefield.

Setun.4368:

I vote human. They have stronger looking attacks, and their movements while fighting just look / feel more fluid. Asuras have a certain….animation whackyness to them that I just don’t buy (except when they’re Mesmers lol.)

This wacky animation is what actually sold me on the asura ranger. I think its the small legs… makes us look like a flea on steroids when using S/D.

Asura!
You get underestimated all the time. Great thing

Acura, for the animation value. If human, then female gunslinger theme.

Asura, mine is a human and wish I had gone asura…not enough to remake the character although if the option for a paid change ever comes up I will in a heart beat.

I don’t like too much medium armors on Asura… Humans have some great medium armors.
With the Asura you are going to get a very biiiiiiig pet (bigger than your character, cause Asura are so little)!

Go HUMAN, the only reason people go ASURA is for Pain Inverter but from what I hear it’s been nerfed so, GO HUMAN!

pain inverter was nerfed for around 50% but it is still superior in small scale group fights.

Mechanics wise there isn’t much of a difference. Asuran racials were brought in line so you won’t miss much there. From that point on it’s cosmetics. There is deffinitely a bias in armour design which favours humans. I guess ArenaNet’s imaginations are limited to being humans and thus it’s not surprising that they designed armours that look better on humans than they do on asura.

Odokuro.5049:

Go HUMAN, the only reason people go ASURA is for Pain Inverter but from what I hear it’s been nerfed so, GO HUMAN!

people go Asura cause they’re cute…

I have a human ranger myself. I’ve been thinking about pouring some of my infinite supply of tomes of knowledge into an asuran ranger, but I have to imagine that as far as aesthetics go, the humans just look better in medium armors.

Honestly, it really depends. Gameplay benefit wise, I’d say humans tend to have a more “natural” field of view, however, there is a reason why PvP pushed for a generic display setting for competitive environments and up until then tried to ban asura models from every tournament possible (animations don’t always match effect ranges in the most beneficial possible way for the asura player you can imagine).

Theme wise, I’ve always personally felt that Asura are the least likely race to embrace the idea of being a ranger, or any sort of primarily martial class, but that is entirely dependent on how much that sort of thing matters to you when you play (I personally just want to have the coolest looking character I can make, regardless of race, except for saladvaris, who are pretty all around lame imo).

If you plan on doing WvW, I actually suggest Norn, as the racial skills Become the Snow Leopard: Prowl > Dash are useful at times. For example, they make it very easy to get into a tower/keep that’s under attack at the gate, right through the enemy zerg. Combined with a longbow, you’ve got 8 seconds of stealth.

Aren’t they removing racial skills when HoT drops? I’ve seen that tidbit of information being passed around but never bothered confirming.

I asked in the main discussion area on whether they were being removed and nobody seemed to think so, there was no dev response though, ofc, but I cannot find any info anywhere that says that they will go. I’m hoping they get a skill type instead of being removed. If they made “Battle Roar” – the charr racial – a shout, I would be very happy indeed.

You guys do realize, this thread is 2 years old, right?

Is that a problem?

The fact that none of you, except Slingblade, are suggesting Norn shows that you are not to be trusted :-p

Norn are the best. Of your two choices the option is obvious … throw the Asura and Human in the trash and go Norn ;-)

Norn are the best.

Noooorn feeeeeels soooooo slooooooow.
well Asura has a fun troll build with it’s racial Technobabble and Moment of Clarity.
But armors are and will always be designed for human characters
Go Sylvari. we glow in the dark

Pffft, take your Ritalin you darn non-Norn :-p

Long strides for the win … we don’t have to move spastic-ally to keep up with other races.

Look at the ground you’re covering as opposed to the fact that your character isn’t frantically moving and it doesn’t feel slow. Then you get used to your character not having to pump their arms and legs and all is well.

At that point, you can enjoy being the biggest, sexiest race in the game.

My opponents don’t have to zoom in on me to know what I look like … which is hilarious when you kill the same person/people a few times and then see them coming your way again, recognize you, and then turn and run.

Asura for wvw hands down. Human if you plan on being highly competitive in sPvP.

Tough choice. I have a Asura ranger. I like the “feeling” of moving faster vs the larger races. My one complaint is there are a lot of armor and weapon clipping issues with them that I don’t see on human characters.

I have an asura ranger and wish i’d made a human, one you get to a certain point in the game it’s all about looks and the human models look way better than the asurans.

Eurantien.4632:

Asura for wvw hands down. Human if you plan on being highly competitive in sPvP.

There is an option in sPvP that sets everyone’s model as a human … so I don’t see the advantage here for “highly competitive sPvP”.

I’ve always felt that picking a race in order to gain an edge of any sort for PvP in any form was a crutch.

Whenever “The Charr Triumphant” or “March of the Legions” play in-game, I’m so glad I have a Charr Ranger. Plus, the racial skills are pretty good too, Hidden Pistol is amazing and Battle Roar may just become a shout in HoT (hoping) so will work with Resounding Timbre, I use it all the time in PvE. I loved my Pyre Fierceshot everlasting tonic in GW1 too

Sebrent.3625:

Eurantien.4632:

Asura for wvw hands down. Human if you plan on being highly competitive in sPvP.

There is an option in sPvP that sets everyone’s model as a human … so I don’t see the advantage here for “highly competitive sPvP”.

I’ve always felt that picking a race in order to gain an edge of any sort for PvP in any form was a crutch.

Maybe it’s just me or my perception, however, there is a trend for me where it is easier to perform certain swoop maneuvers to move around the maps using a male over a female. Moreover, it is also significantly easier when the character is a human. This might be because I can judge where my character is actually standing better than I can with a Norn, a Charr, or an Asura. My only evidence is having attempted multiple swoop jumps with different characters of varying genders and races and finding my most successful to always be the human male despite playing a male norn for about 4k hours, followed by about 500 on asura male, and about 100 on human female before I did my testing. I wouldn’t have had the confidence to jump from clock tower to windmill vs the Chinese without playing on a human male give my lack of consistency with other races.

@Heimskarl:
Battle Roar is that one Charr racial that I look at from time to time and get a little jealous :-p

@Eurantien:
Fair enough. In the end, what personally works for a player can not be discounted. It can definitely be odd getting used to the different sizes. My first GW2 character at release was an Asuran Mesmer. When I replaced him with my Norn Mesmer, it took me probably a month to get used to the huge size difference so that I was back to easily completing jumping puzzles again.

Wow… I can’t believe everyone in this thread got the answer wrong.
Clearly the only correct answer is to have one of every race.

But if you’re going to be a weirdo and only have 1 ranger you should go with Asuran for the option of running the technobabble/moment of clarity build.

I agree with Jim entirely.
Am deleting other lvl 80 professions to make room for more Rangers.

Just started my 4th Ranger. Making a melee-only Norn this time. Having a time adjusting from faster Asura, Sylvari and Human animations.

I really like char personally, seeing as the ascetic fits so well. Don’t pick based on racial abilities, rampage as one is pretty much the greatest elite anyways

Sebrent.3625:

My opponents don’t have to zoom in on me to know what I look like … which is hilarious when you kill the same person/people a few times and then see them coming your way again, recognize you, and then turn and run.

Mine just wp ;-(

jcbroe.4329:

Aren’t they removing racial skills when HoT drops? I’ve seen that tidbit of information being passed around but never bothered confirming.

That’s the first I’ve heard of it. I hope not. But I do hope all the racials get rebalanced to be more fun and practical.

Not so much that they outshine the base class skills or make any one race a superior pick because of it, but… I dunno. Something more than they are now.

Norn racial transformations need to last longer as a general rule and work better than they do now, I can say that much.

A human male holds the greatsword in a really boring fashion that’s impractical for fighting. Behind their back, pointed upward.

Human females hold their greatswords in a much more awesome way, dragging it behind them. Just as impractical as the male stance, but looks so much cooler.

Asurans look awesome, they hold their greatsword over their shoulder. It seems they never intended to make the Greatsword a practical looking weapon. Asurans are also smaller than their pet, so unlike a Norn or Charr, an Asura is constantly reminded of their pet.

For an actual mechanical reason, there’s one ranger build that uses racial skills. Well, two but I think pain inverter got nerfed. That’s the technobabble Moment of Clarity build, which requires you play an Asura. All three Ranger Elites are really good, or at least Entangle and Rampage as One are really good, while Spirit of Nature has been nerfed to the point where it’s just decent. No need to pick a Racial elite over a ranger one.