Choosing a class/race combo

[Cheshire Rabbid.7430]

I liked to plan my stories for each character and set the path so no two are the same, like no charr in the same legions or asura in the same collages and no one of the same Race in the same order. So I'm having trouble setting up for each class to different paths, and since they're only nine, I won't be able to play all races or get all the cultural armor. I'm not saying I would use them for some transmog, but I would like the option. I have a headcanon of what class would fit into each order; I Will also list classes by favorite form, most like to less the specs I'm planning on going with them and what Race I think would go great with them. Open to hearing your thoughts on what combos you like. Also looking for any information on what the Asura collages are about and what their first creations would fit in which collage.

Engginers (Mechanist) : Charr or Asura. Durmand Priory or Vigil.

Necromancer (Reaper): Charr, Asura, Norn, or Human. Durmand Priory, Vigil, or Order of Whisper

Revenant (Herald): Charr, Asura, Norn, Human, or Sylvari. Durmand Priory, Vigil, or Order of Whisper

Mesmer (Mirage): Charr, Asura, or Human. Order of Whisper

Warrior (Spellbreaker): Charr or Norn. Vigil

Ranger (Soulbeast): Charr, Norn, Human, or Sylvari. Durmand Priory, Vigil, or Order of Whisper

Guardian (Willbender): Asura, Norn, or Human. Durmand Priory or Vigil

Elementalist (Tempest): Charr, Asura, Norn, Human or Sylvari. Durmand Priory or Vigil.

Thife (Daredevil): Charr, Asura, Human, or Sylvari. Durmand Priory, Vigil, or Order of Whisper

[Danikat.8537]

The game is designed so any combination of race, profession and biography choices can work, there are no wrong choices, just ones you prefer.

You might want to consider 'details' like which weapons they'll use or what armour weight you'd like them to wear early on as that can make a big difference. For example I was making a necromancer, revenant and a holosmith engineer all at the same time. Originally I was going to make the revenant a norn and had a whole raven theme worked out for him where he'd devoted his life to understanding the Mists. But I wanted him to use Nevermore and didn't like the staff skills on revenant (I also don't think they make the best use of the legendaries effects) and didn't like that revenants can't use racial elites, I know they're not actually useful but when messing around in PvE I want the option for him to turn into a raven. Around the same time I got reminded that the idea of an asuran necromancer seeking to merge necromancy and golemancy wasn't actually that original (Oola and Gadd, two GW1 characters who are referenced in GW2 focused on the same thing) and I didn't have a good race choice for a holosmith.

I ended up remaking the raven themed norn as a necromancer and made the asura a holosmith with the idea that he was inspired by Snaff's experiments with using novel materials (like the sand golem in Edge of Destiny), which also explains Zojja's interest in his work. Then I brought back a HoT beta character concept I'd had - a charr revenant with the Blood Legion and Sorcerous Shaman father biography choices. She's disavowed her father and joined her mother's legion but refuses to deny her own affinity for magic and is instead determined to prove it's a tool which can be useful to the Legions. But that helps explain her own warbands aggression towards her which had otherwise put me off picking the Blood Legion.

Order choices I typically do based on personality rather than profession or race since you'll see all of them in all the Orders.

• The Vigil are more direct - they see a problem and they want to tackle it head on, quickly and efficiently. They're tactical of course, but will use what's to hand rather than side-tracking to find a solution.
• The Order of Whispers are almost the opposite, their ideal solution is one where no one knows they were involved at all and when they can they'll spend years getting agents established and carefully manipulating events to get the outcome they want with everyone else believing it was their idea.
• The Priory are somewhere in the middle. They operate openly and are more welcoming and open to collaboration than the other two Orders and are generally solution focused but their priority is making informed decisions and they're more open to experimenting with novel solutions than the Vigil.

If I'm not sure then I make the choice organically during the story - I pick whichever plan I think the character would prefer at each step, then pick the Order they sided with most often.

Asuran colleges are similar. Statics are practical and cautious, they want to build thing they know will work and be needed. Dynamics are almost purely experimental, they do things because they don't know if it will work and want to find out, while Synergetics are more interesting in wide-ranging theories and abstract understandings of magic. If anyone ever does discover the unified theory for the Eternal Alchemy it will almost certainly be someone from Synergetics, but then Dynamics will find out how to use it and Statics will put that learning into practice.

My asuran guardian picked Synagetics (and then the Priory) because she wants to understand the Elder Dragons and how they fit into Tyria and the cycle of magic and use that to control them. My asuran holosmith picked Dynamics (and then the Vigil) because his priority is creating an experimenting with new forms of magic and the Dragons are almost a secondary concern - they're just a big, unknown problem to apply his inventions to solving.

Finally if you want more than 9 characters at some point consider choosing different elite specs and weapons. It can make a character play very differently (especially when combined with a theme or backstory). My norn scrapper is almost nothing like my asuran holosmith even though they're both engineers and my charr harbinger feels more like an engineer than another necromancer (except that I never liked engineer elixirs very much).

Edited July 4, 2023 by Danikat.8537

[Urud.4925]

Why do you say that you won't be able to get all the cultural armors? You can buy them all even if it's not a weight that you can equip. You just need 1 character per race. I also have 9 characters and I decided to leave out the male sylvari (that I often create as my 10th temporary character).

Among your selections, probably the Charr Necro is the most uncommon (it's at the position #82 in the list of the most common "race x gender x profession", according to gw2efficiency).

[Luthan.5236]

For the core personal story - this helps: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Personal_story

If you really want to experience every story mission you'd need 30 chars. (Shown at the bottom at the notes.) 6 per race. The first 2 chapters have one of the 3 options you selected at char creation. Multiplied by 2 for the 2 different mission choices sometimes.

Personally I also made 9 chars - one for each profession. More (just to have different combinations for roleplay and the looks) would be too much. I think I did not pay attention to the race-order preference you stated. (Not having chars of the same race in the same order.) More like I made sure I had 3 in each order at the end. Not having tied this to race or armor weight class. (Have 2 medium armor in the whispers and 1 light armor profession.)

If you want to get the most diversity I'd simply try to make 5 male, 4 female (or vice versa) for the 9 chars. Usinge 5 different races for one gender. For the other one only 4. (I have only one male char. From the other one I have male/female. Char were just too ugly. :D) Or if you want only male or only female: Do it similar. One for each ... the remaining onse ... select freely.

Use the char you might want to play most (if you have a bit of a clue about the professions and which you might like) first. There use the most preferred options. For the other chars (profession you think you might want to play less) ... try to full up with other options.

 

[Danikat.8537]

I'm impressed by people who can stick to a sensible number of characters.

I made 4 at launch, then a 5th a few months later and told myself I had 1 of each race so that was it. Not long after HoT came out it went up to 9 - one of each profession, then 11 because I wanted a holosmith and weaver in addition to my existing engineer and elementalist and so I could have all the race/gender combinations (plus an extra female sylvari because I wanted to keep her). Soon it's going to be 13 because I've got another two elite specs I want which don't fit my existing characters and concepts I like to go along with them.

I suspect the next 'cut off point' will be one of each armour weight for each race. My sylvari mesmer still won't fit, but she's survived two reshuffles so far so I'm not likely to delete her now, even to re-make her as something else. (She was an elementalist originally, when she was a temporary character, but mesmer fits her much better.)

I really don't need all these characters, but I like making themes and personalities for them and then it doesn't fit new elite specs I want to play, or I have more ideas I want to use and it keeps escalating. 😄

[Luthan.5236]

Well ... it's pretty easy to stick to a lower amount of chars when you mainly try to complete achievements and other stuff. (I still have a lot of stuff to do. Did not play fully since release. I had a "break" between 2013 and 2019.) I am actually mainly at my one main. The other 8 chars not even been played that much by me. (Though I plan to go for full world/map completion everywhere + doing every story step. And the specialization collections. 3rd char I'll play soon to get those back items from HoT/PoF where you have to play 3 times to get each one.)

Another thing is the cluttered log in screen. I realize that other games probably are not better (or even worse). And we had a lot of discussions about this. Not only the icons for crafting are annoying. (I split the crafting to 4 chars - 2 crafting profssions each, the scribing to the 5th char. Accidentally clicked cooking on that char and it shows that symbol as well.)

So ... the cosmetics really is the least relevant thing. (I just don't have enough time. Maybe once they stop releasing content upgades and expansions and I have caught up on everything. :D) Would just lead to more chars on the char selection and them always chancing order when the one I logged in to ... appears at first (left). If I could group my 9 main (fixed order and only showing them) ... I'd to more than those maybe. 😄 (And if it is only for experiencing core personal story steps I never tried out before.)

Fitting for elite spec: I don't need that. I thought about core profession + race combo before I made it. And that profession switches elite spec as needed and I only make their look once (rarely making small adaptions) - not needed to make different looks for different elite specs. Just too much "work".

[Buran.3796]

  Since the game only has 10 main character voices (male and female of each race, and even then, some grunts at skill animations do repeat) I thinbk that is important to try to make your characters as different as possible to prevent having always the same voice with entirely different characters, unles you plan to make evey too an avatar of youself as odes Lord Hizen or Mukluk.

   My recomendations:

* Male Charr: Warrior, Thief or Elementalist. Blood, Ashes or Flame Legion. Charr culture evolves around war, those fit well their interest.

* Female Charr: Engineer or Thief, Iron or Ashes Legion. I think that size isn't as important for a Engineer or Thief as for a Warrior, so they fit better a female charr. Also, charr usually disdain magic so spell casting is unusual unles you're in the Flame Legion, which is a bit a pariah faction.

 

* Male Norn: Warrior or Revenant. Norn are individualistic, so no Guardians here please. Norn are connected to the world of spirits and the mist so Revs fill well them, the same as warrior archetype due their size. Necromancer fist well corrupted male Norns, since Sons of Svanir don't like females amongst their peers.

* Female Norn: Ranger (specially druids) and Revenant. Norn are also shapeshifters so they are very close to animism,  nature magic and survival abilities.

 

* Male Human: either Guardian or Thief. Seraphim and The Shinning Blade orders are very close to the concepts of Orders of Knights, and cooperation is their main trait, so Guradian fits perfectly. And human thief is paramount outside a skritt.

* Female Human: Mesmer or Thief. Guardian can also work.

 

* Silvari: they are very new in Tyria and along Norn probably the least technically advanced race. So no Engineers or highly evolved cooperative clases as Guardians. Rangers and Elemenrtalist make sense due they are closer to the forces of nature, and Warriors and Thieves make also sense since they are fairly basic professions. Necro or Mesmer would make sense for corrupted members of the Nightmare Court.

* Asura: Engineers, Elementalist, Mesmers and Necromancers. Everything else makes 0 sense for them.

[Puffer Fish.1796]

My personal favorites that I've leveled are:

Sylvari Engineer

Pretty much any race with Ranger

Charr Elementalist

Asura Warrior

Charr Guardian (or as my brain forever calls her, Charrdian)

I'm struggling to figure out which race I like best with mesmer. Currently playing a Charr mesmer and really enjoying it though.

[kharmin.7683]

43 minutes ago, Puffer Fish.1796 said:

Pretty much any race with Ranger

As a Ranger main, I approve of this.