Character creation : which gender/race to choose?

So, you have chosen your server and now comes your character's creation step. This is your first character (and probably your favorite) and you don’t want to do it wrong.

The first step in creating a character is the selection of race and gender of your character.

The 5 playable races are:

•  Humans
•  Charrs
•  Norns
•  Asuras
•  Sylvaris

Each character race allows to create male or female characters.

Let’s say this right now:

1. The choice of character race does not have much influence on the gameplay.
2. The choice of the gender has NO influence on the gameplay.

What are the differences between playable races?

Before starting in a comparison, remember that all races have:

• Same movement speed
• They dodge at the same distance
• Same jump height
• They occupy the same space during combat

If we focus on differences, in addition to physics, the character race will give you exclusive access to some minor elements of the game:

• Each race has its own personal history that spans from level 1 to level 30. Starting at level 30, personal stories come together in a single narrative frame.
• Each race has its own starting location/capital. But it is possible to join the starting capitals of all races quickly, once the initial tutorial is completed.
• Each race has its own "cultural armor". These are 9 sets of armor (3 light, 3 intermediate and 3 heavy) that can only be used by members of the corresponding race. These armor sets are very representative of the aesthetics of their races and are quite prestigious because very expensive.
• Each race has its own healing, utility, and elite skills.
  • These skills add to your character’s basic skills and you don’t need to learn them. These skills take up the themes of the race; a charr can call an artillery fire on a position, a sylvari can invoke a druid while a norn will have the ability to metamorphose into a Norn/animal hybrid.
  • These skills are intentionally weaker than the basic skills of the classes to prevent a race from dominating one profession over others.
  • Certain racial skills can be useful in specific situations. When we say "specific situations" it means 0.001% of the time.
  • For more information about these skills see our guide about Race Spells.
• Each race has a very different size, from modest asuras to Norns and Charrs meat bags. Large-sized races are disadvantaged when they are in jumping puzzles because the size of the character (i.e. his big butt) limits the vision of the player. Large races, on the other hand, work better with first-person sight than small ones.

In the end, is one race stronger than another?

NO! Nobody cares about the race you play and your character will never be discriminated against due to his race. The LBM team advises beginners who don’t know what to choose to take a look at the cultural armors' wiki page and choose the race that has the armor they like the most because Guildwars 2 is above all about style and fashion!