Races of Tyria: Charr Do It With Steel, Not Spells

I take it we're not going to talk about the other possible worlds we saw at PAX then?


Maybe if we find time, but it's been a few weeks so we should move on. Besides, that Firefall one (not sure what the actual planet's name was - Urth or something like that) we looked at is supposedly letting other people get more hands-on time in the next couple months, so I might as well wait for that. As for the other one, I'm reluctant to talk about it.

Didn't care for it?


No, I liked what I saw. The problem is I didn't see enough. You and I got to check out Tyria and the WildStar world for 40 minutes. In that 40 minutes we had time to check out combat, questing, gear itemization - pretty much enough time to get a feel for everything we care about. Here I only got 20 minutes and half of that was talking. Don't get me wrong - the quality of the talking was good. I was interested in what everyone had to say. Unfortunately I was also interested in doing non-talky things and there wasn't really enough time for both. I could comment on what I tried, but I feel that would be unfair with the little I was able to see.

Understandable. Where does that leave us for today's post then? I know Lokaja hasn't finished his Ranger profession post because neither of us has seen him for a while.


Actually got the idea from the guys that have been giving out all of the details about Tyria. They're doing a week of posts about one of the five races we get to choose from in Tyria, seeing as how the bulk of us can't just hop over there and expect to fit in.

Ah yes, I'd been wondering when we would get to discussing that. Will we be focusing on the same race everyone else is talking about at the moment?


Where's the fun in being topical? Nah, we're gonna do this the way we talked about the professions: we'll talk about the ones that we've picked out for ourselves. It just works out here because I know you and I are planning on the same race.

Correct. I cannot speak for the remainder of the team, but the two of us at the very least will be adventuring through Tyria in the guise of a Charr.

Seems a little more intimidating than Med as a Blood Elf, huh?

That's right, though I assume for different reasons. I'll be going with the Charr partly because, well, they're the closest match I have to being a Tauren. They're big, they have horns, they're fuzzy - seems kinda obvious to me. They're a bit more warlike than my people, though that's probably going to shift some because of Garrosh (I'm not bitter, no...). To be honest though the bulk of their fighting is retaliatory since this Ascalon place did apparently take their land first and this Flame Legion group of Charr was apparently subjugating the whole race for a while there. When you listen to some of them talk though and hear how much they enjoy their work, you can't really mistake them for peaceful folks. Really though, I think that's the main reason I like them.

As much as I consider myself a Tauren, we're a race of druids, hunters and shamans with some outliers. I'm respected, sure, but you know you're always on the edge of society to some extent when you take up the blade. With the Charr though, everything that makes me who I am is considered a virtue. They value strength in battle and fearlessness. They strive for discipline in everything they do. Most important to an old smith like me though, they honor being industrious, particularly when it comes to working with metal.

Ah, now you're getting to the good part. Sure they value skill in combat and discipline, but most importantly they strive for technological advancement. It just so happens that being in a constant state of war is a great way to make said progress. The Charr have made great advances in engineering and metallurgy over the years, making them militarily and technologically superior to the other races of Tyria.


I'm sure those Asura guys might question us on this.

I know a warrior should prolly be Blood Legion, but I like the attitude of these Iron Legion guys

Bah! Let them argue the point! It doesn't change the fact that they're behind. While they waste their efforts on technomagical constructs like those golems they all have, the Charr have proven their dominance not only with their war machines, but with their finest work: the Black Citadel. The entire city is a vast foundry and haven for crafting and engineering work. While some members of the Charr do practice magic, the bulk of the race places their faith in steel rather than spells. Honestly after reading what you sent me about them, I couldn't find any compelling evidence to choose one of the alternatives.


Yeah. I'm gonna have to find volunteers for the other races. We'll all be able to work on the same stuff, but it's always good to try and spread resources in case we're missing something. Might have to ask one of the gnomes to be our Asura rep though; I can't think of any of the regular crew that would want the assignment. I could be wrong though. For the next post we'll ask Sol which way he's leaning. I'll be the one doing the asking though, not you. Pretty sure he's still sore about the whole "transforming him into a Tauren" thing.

Sigh... It's been months. Sometimes scientific progress has a few side effects. Nobody died, so it's not like anything that bad happened. Besides he'd just have to change for Tyria, so really I gave him practice. He should be thanking me.


Yep, I'll definitely be the one talking to him instead of you.

Back from PAX: Guild Wars 2

Well, that was a fun trip and we finally got to try some Tyrian combat.

Correction: you got to try Tyrian combat. I got to do the rest of the work since there was a bit of a line and you called 'dibs' on going first.

Oh come on, that's not fair! We were both at PAX to check out some possibilities for places to move after we leave Azeroth. We had to hit everything we could, so it just made sense to split up the tasks and not have both of us trying the same thing at the same time. It would've been nice if you could've had a little hands-on time, but unfortunately it felt like every other adventurer in Azeroth was in line with me there.

I would have an easier time believing the sincerity of your words if not for your attitude after you finished trying it out. The sight of a giddy Tauren gushing over combat techniques and dodging is not a pretty one.

What? I had fun. It's important to enjoy one's work after all and I was certainly enjoying my time in Tyria.

I take it that means it was everything we've been hoping for?

Well, I wasn't able to try everything I wanted since I only had about 40 minutes before I got sent back, but what I was able to try was great. I chose to go in as a Charr warrior for obvious reasons. In that 40 minutes, I got to help fight back a ghost that possessed a giant statue (at level 1 no less!), help out at a forge and a junkyard by gathering tools and defending it from invaders, and help out at this lake thing by slaying giant lizards. There was also some giant thing that hurt like a truck that I took down with the help of some other adventurers wandering about. The last eight minutes or so centered around myself and a group of three or four other adventurers, all below level 4, trying to push our way into a cavern filled with fire turrets and level 6 Flame Legion Charr. It didn't end up going in our favor, but we managed to hold our own for quite a while.

Sounds thrilling. What about the weapons themselves? How did the new mechanics you mentioned work out?

They felt great. Switching weapons on the fly was quick and learning new techniques went fairly quickly. I think it was something like three or four minutes with my starter sword skill until I learned my second one and maybe six or seven for the next one. I didn't test the fourth and fifth techniques because I was trying other weapons, particularly the rifle. It's still not entirely natural to me to fight at ranged, but I was starting to get the hang of it during our epic struggle to enter the cavern.

Dodging is going to take some getting used to. It's easy enough to do, but you can only dodge so often until you need to let your energy regenerate. It's fairly quick, but it does mean that you need to pick those moments when you need to move.

Since you mentioned swapping weapons, did you get the chance to look at equipment?

Indeed and compared to what we've been working with all these years in Azeroth, it'll be a nice change of pace. You've got four attributes to work with: Power makes all of your attacks hit harder, Precision increases your chance of getting a critical hit, Toughness reduces the damage you take from physical and magical attacks, and Vitality gives you more health. No haste or hit rating to cap, no dodge or parry to balance against one another - just four numbers to work with.

There were upgrade slots in most of the equipment I found, but I didn't have anything to put there so I can't give a first-hand impression, but I don't believe anything's changed since last week's crafting post so that should still be valid. I also didn't have any procs to play with, but since I was in the Charr starting area, that's to be expected. An associate of mine got the chance to try an Asura engineer in one of the later zones, so I might ask him if he can write something up when he's not busy.

Really? An Asura? He seriously chose one of those overglorified technomages over the Charr, the proven masters of engineering and war machines?

I know, I know, it's weird but it's what he wanted to try out. I certainly wasn't going to follow him in his madness, but to each their own. Now lemme think if I've forgotten anything...

Oh yeah! All those public quests I was working on? Pretty much every time I did something to further the goal, whether it was killing Flame Legion or just gathering tools for the forge, I earned some Karma. Now we already knew that there was going to be a currency for the events, but I didn't realize it was the same currency. I got quite a bit of karma from doing that event and the one with the lizards, then found my way over to the karma vendor by the forge. There was also one out in the fields that sold some armor I would've liked, but the one by the forge had all of the different weapons and honestly that was more important to me. I had to try out the rifle after all.

I think that's about everything from my short excursion into Tyria. Definitely looking forward to spending some more time there though. I did find a few other contenders that we'll be considering though, but those are for a later post. You have any luck, Med?

Indeed I did. While I may not have been able to try engineering in Tyria, I was able to get some time in with two other worlds that suited my tastes for all things technological.

Sounds good. We'll save those for next time since we've already run a bit long. Well, that and nobody's gonna want to ready about two different worlds in the same post. You want to tease people with something before we head out?

I believe I may have something to pique their interest until next time: