flameseeker

I just don't want the armor to be all bright and sparkly.
I need my necro to look dreadful like in that concept art, there's no way i'll dress him to be a fairy.

Also regarding full military group vs small cell unit operations we got enough cases in the real world on how that develops.

Vietnam is a fine example on how a larger, organized  and more technologically advanced military group got their asses kicked no matter how much time passed.
Now in the middle east we're just watching a similar campaign, where it seems they might be "winning" or doing something when it's actually just a black hole of resources with the excuse of war on terrorism and prospects of cheaper oil.

Having the more powerful gun when you can't use it or the largest army when it works against you isn't the best conditions to go on an attrition fight, and that's pretty much why in the long run asura would win.

I found the event boring actually, it was so slow paced i most of the time was checking the achievement tab to know how much longer this would take to be over.
Our team never spoke but we did our work pretty well. We made the "toypocalypse canceled" on 1st try without our dolyaks ever reaching below 50% hp and only 5-7 deaths in total i think.

We had 1 guy mostly running around for upgrades, i was mostly on kill duty with a rifle and the 3 others were juggling between searching for upgrades and killing duty.
With toxx we kinda got lucky with aggroing him before he reached the center (he only made it to dolyaks on last wave) and in terms of buildings we had lots of walls and catapults aimed at their spawn point (2 shots from fully evolved catapults took pretty good care of a lot of waves).

I hope next year instead of this slow paced defense they just make quick recharge skills and 1 kill shots (with more mobs obviously) but keeps us constantly on the move with a bit of delay between spawn so we can catch our breath.
A true apocalypse should feel more like the fast paced "defend the castle" map style of warcraft 3 instead of a "tower defense" style.

Norn Osprey, on 19 December 2012 - 03:20 PM, said:

The megalaser is a long ranged weapon that outranges the charr siege engines, or theoretically should outrange.
For closer range there's an assortement of turrets and other traps, not to mention shields and forcefields that no other race as available.

Norn Osprey, on 19 December 2012 - 03:20 PM, said:

If the charr have evolved can you guess how many light years ahead are the asura?

Norn Osprey, on 19 December 2012 - 03:20 PM, said:

The open camps are poor defended, or not defended at all but look at their hideouts and look how many charr would die if they invaded one the same way as they march on the warfield.
We've never seen rata sum defense system, but i bet there's a lot of hidden defense systems that would make the enemies stay far away from the place. And with their love for explosions the city would come with a self destruct button i guess.

Norn Osprey, on 19 December 2012 - 03:20 PM, said:

I'm not saying they don't move but the way they're built allow for a rather limited mobility. As a siege weapon they're sturdy and pack quite a punch but as a vehicle they suck.

Norn Osprey, on 19 December 2012 - 03:20 PM, said:

Asura aren't cowards. Just because they don't like to fight doesn't mean they aren't good at killing.

Norn Osprey, on 19 December 2012 - 03:20 PM, said:

Besides their capital and their hideouts the asura don't have much ties to land anyway (i think). They just search for places with potential for their investigations and stay there, sometimes hidden for years so nothing bothers them. The charr on the otherhand are in constant expansion because of the resources needed for their militaristic society.

Norn Osprey, on 19 December 2012 - 03:20 PM, said:

They kill each other to develop new technology (and they don't murder each other, just some dangerous lab procedure went wrong, usually). Now if hordes of charr come gladly to be test subjects of asura weaponry can you guess how fast all the asura would turn to weapon research?

Norn Osprey, on 19 December 2012 - 03:20 PM, said:

I have to agree and disagree here.
You're absolutely right on population assessment, for every asura death 20-50 charrs if not more had to die (just making numbers since there's no records of population registration for each race) but asura would be very difficult to find on the open field. The small bastards would probably use traps, ambushes and drones on the open field while staying in their hideouts developing new ways to blow up charr.

Technologically charr are years behind to reach the asura, at bare minimum, and the asura develop new technology way faster so there's no hope for the charr catch up with them.
Their mindset and numbers would be the only thing to keep them moving forward and if by any chance they start burning the forest with searing cauldrons you can bet that the sylvari would join the party.

You got to know that while the flame legion worships primordus the inquest have somewhat of a god complex. To them anything related to magic means that there's a way to control it and dragons aren't an exception, reason why they don't fight the dragons directly.
So if by any chance there's a charr invasion the inquest would most likely band together while the flame legion would just try to seize control of charr homeland.

Also regarding human, norn and sylvari draxynnic explained rather well.
Assuming the war doesn't start due to asura stupidity:
1- Norn won't band together, some might go along and that's it.
2- Even if the queen doesn't want to invade the pressure from the human citizens would most likely make make her give in and eventually ally with asura. Note that no human would stand charr armies walking freely in their lands.
3- Sylvari would only intervene if the forest balance would endanger the pale tree (i think).

About technology there's no way for charr to make air invasion to setup a temporary forward base camp.
They don't have the means and the current asura laser technology would make any charr ship entering their range just a good target practice.
In weaponry the charr got lots of high powered artillery but not much else. They mostly suffer from poor mobility and would be sitting ducks for any experimental weapon designed to demolish and kill those monstrous tanks.
The asura on the other hand have the best mobility of all the races and are experts in demolition, explosives and anything else that might cause end up being adapted to a weapon.

Regarding their vulnerabilities the charr and asura are the polar opposites. Charr distrust magic while asura will (almost) never solve solution through brute force.
If asuras build golem power plants (they just haven't done so far because they like to improve their creations and not make massive amounts of soon to be pieces of junk) they could put up a pretty good army to delay a full power invasion. With that and constant guerrilla fighting techniques (basically ambushes and lots of traps), they could pretty much take on the charr on the same level.
The problem is that they would more quickly try to develop a megadeath cannon to blast the black citadel from rata sum than build an army...