Guild Wars 2

Is picking a specific race as a Thief important? Are there certain races that you should avoid choosing as Thief?

There are no racial stats.
You get some racial utility/heal/elite skills, but they are mostly fun/fluff stuff and hardly superior than what you get by class (due to efficacy or CD)…

With that in mind,

Assura are nice, they are small, get a retaliation buff and can summon golens. And you are all more ninja jumping around all the time.
Charr are nice with the ash-legion lore/story and all. Plus you get extra pistol, or a bazooca if you just want blow stuff with style.
Sylvary look awesome in the dark with the right collors, and the mushroom head looks like Samurai Jack’s hat. Nice fluff if you are going sword and dress in white robes.
Humans look cool, and you can get the noble/spy story arc that fits nice (My thief is a noble from lions arch, of a family of spies, he is also a jeweler and an active TP broker. I just love it)
Norn get… big boobs/tatoos and pets?

Each race gets 3 or 5 unique racial skills, but none are really that overpowering that picking a race makes a huge difference.

If anyone knows Dwarf Priest from Vanilla WoW you know what I’m talking about.

Thanks for the info I rolled Charr but was thinking of re-rolling as a Human if there was any difference. The Charr storyline is a little boring tbh.

Edit: What about the starting paths when you first create your character, do those matter at all at high levels?

humans got hounds of balthazar , can help you to take an hard skill point or aoe dps for an event
norns got advantage in pvp , for any class except thief , because they can stealth, with elite transformation
asura’s got tactical advantage in small groups cause you cannot know how many they are if they use same armor /dyes

Pleasantly surprised how helpful this forum has been.

Do the starting traits when you create your character have any impact on the end game?

Lasraik.9285:

Is picking a specific race as a Thief important? Are there certain races that you should avoid choosing as Thief?

Yes,

No no to big kitten norn and charr.

Yes yes to tiny asura.

Can’t go wrong with human.