Guild Wars 2

I was killing some time on the GW2 wiki the other day when I came across this blurb on the Engineer page:

“Engineer technology really developed with the Charr first and foremost. And its [sic] one of the specialties developed by the Charr Iron Legion. When we talk about the Engineer he is very much a Combat-Engineer and good in inventing things that are useful in a combat situation. The Iron Legion is the start of all of this, and the Engineer profession has spread to the other races from there. The People of Tyria have seen it in combat over the past few years and have seen the effectiveness of an engineer. And so you are going to see Engineers of all races although it is a little bit more common to see a Charr Engineer than anybody else. So it all started with the Charr and their technological development”

From that quote, it seems that the Engineer profession (at least in A-net’s eyes) is very “Charr” at its core. This got me thinking… Are there any professions that are very “human” in feel?

For me I’d say there are two. The obvious one is the Guardian Profession. With the Human’s stalwart faith in the Gods and their vigilance and perseverance to stand tall in a world that has long ceased showing them favor, the defensive nature of the Guardian seems like a perfect fit. Plus the wiki ties the profession back to the Paragon arts of GW1, which originated in the Human land of Elona.

The second profession that I feel has a distinctly Human feel about it is the Thief. Take a look at what each race has to its advantage. The Norn are giants with the strength to match even the mightiest of beasts. The Charr are vicious battle cats whose combat prowess and war-centered society have bred them to be incredibly lethal on the battle field. The Asura? Obviously they’re the most intelligent. The entire continent of Tyria uses their inventions and they achieve what was previously thought to be impossible everyday. Even the Sylvari, as new as they are to the world, seem to have an innate connection with nature that sets them apart. What’s more, The Dream grants them knowledge and experience, leaving them wiser than most even at birth.
When you look at all the other races, it can be hard to see what allows the Human race to compete in this world. The answer, at least in my eyes, is their cunning and versatility. Even without all of the advantages the other races have, Humans have adapted and maintained their society through wit and clever tactics (As well as no small amount of determination, of course). When I think about those things, the first profession that comes to mind is the Thief. The Thief also feels a lot like the Assassins of Cantha in GW1, solidifying its “Human” feel even more for me.

Now obviously this is all opinion and since any race can be any profession, its really what you make of it. That said, do you feel there are any professions that are distinctly human? If so, which ones and why do yo feel that way?

Guardian and Mesmer. I personally feel Guardians are inherent to Dwayna and Mesmers to Lyssa.
Thieves represent the Ash Legion, so I wouln’t consider it inherently human.

lerak.5286:

Guardian and Mesmer. I personally feel Guardians are inherent to Dwayna and Mesmers to Lyssa.
Thieves represent the Ash Legion, so I wouln’t consider it inherently human.

True. I actually regret not initially including Mesmers as well, given the cunning nature of their magic and the apparent prevalence of Mesmers in human society being greater than what we see in any of the other races. I mean, we’ve got races like the Sylvari praising Queen Jennah as an accomplished Mesmer.

I have to disagree with you on the Thief point though. Again, Thieves seem to have a closer connection to the Assassins of Cantha than anything else. What’s more, Ash Legion is, at its heart, just an army. I know everyone thinks of them as being the sneaky backstabbing type, and they have very good reason to do so. But they also have a huge number of other classes within their ranks, including Necromancers, Engineers and even Warriors (And those are just the NPCs I’ve come across roaming Ascalon). At the end of the day, the only thing that sets an Ash Legion soldier apart is the way they choose to deal with problems; Espionage and subterfuge. Would Thieves excel at such things? Of course. I hardly think that makes them inherently Ash Legion though.

Again, its all opinion. That’s just my two cents on the matter.

I don’t think there really is an inherent race for each class. yes, the charr started the engineer proffession but it has proven so effective that all the other races have taken it up. Same with the guardian. A-net says that it is equaly appealing to both humanity and charr for diffrent reasons.

Who would get warriors? The warrior norn? The war like charr? The humans who basically conquered most of the world? i’d say every one would since there really is no inherency in the classes. Only history. And every society would have a need of some type of warrior to fight their enemies.

Dustfinger.9510:

I don’t think there really is an inherent race for each class. yes, the charr started the engineer proffession but it has proven so effective that all the other races have taken it up. Same with the guardian. A-net says that it is equaly appealing to both humanity and charr for diffrent reasons.

Who would get warriors? The warrior norn? The war like charr? The humans who basically conquered most of the world? i’d say every one would since there really is no inherency in the classes. Only history. And every society would have a need of some type of warrior to fight their enemies.

Yes, I am aware of that. However, I wasn’t talking from the perspective of “This race owns this profession”. Obviously, all of the races have seen the effectiveness of each of the professions and use them to meet their own ends. I was talking more about the feel of each profession and which race best embodies that feeling. Yes, A-Net specifically said that the Engineer profession has spread to all of the races. However, they also said that it started with the Charr, and looking at the skill-set and weapons the profession uses, I can totally believe that. From the Bomb kit, to the Grenade kit, to the Flamethrower and the turrets, everything about the Engineer feels like it was filtered through the lens of war. And since the Charr race was “forged in the merciless crucible of war” and their entire society has a very industrial, modern military feel to it, I think that the Charr best embody the “spirit” (if you want to call it that) of the profession. Does that mean that other races can’t also excel at being engineers? No. Will that stop a twisted Sylvari (who I feel fit the profession the least) from not only excelling at being an Engineer, but destroying an entire city, waking an Elder Dragon and becoming quite possibly the most infamous Engineer of all time? Of course not. None of this is law. I’m just voicing my opinion and seeing what other people think.

That said, I want to move on to your Warrior comment. While I will admit that the Warrior (as well as some other professions) are a bit harder for me to place (I feel an argument could be made for all three of the races you mentioned), let’s not make having a military force synonymous with embodying the feel of the Warrior profession. They aren’t the same thing. By that logic, the Asura would embody the spirit of the Warrior just because they have the Peacekeepers. Are they a military force? Sure. Does make the Asura, who are highly intellectual and take pride in solving problems with the mind rather than the sword, the perfect embodiment of a warrior culture? Absolutely not. (Heck, even the Asura view the Peacekeepers as largely useless) What’s more, having a military doesn’t mean that it’s stocked with warriors. All of the races have warriors in the ranks of their military. But the Asura and the Sylvari also have Elementalists, the Norn and Humans also have Rangers, and the Charr (who are the most war-like race of all) have three different branches of their military, each specializing in a different field and enlisting a litany of different professions into their ranks. With such diversity, can you really use the fact that every race has some form of fighting force as evidence that they all feel like they “fit” the Warrior profession?

I get what you’re saying about all the races being capable of utilizing each of the professions to their fullest potential. I just disagree that they all fully embody the nature of each of the professions equally because of that fact.

Hmmm, I think I can appreciate this thread a bit more.

I think it’s a bit harder to pin down the “feel” of each profession because each profession doesn’t have the same “feel” when it’s applied to each race or even each individual. For example, A thief could be an assassin, a street rat, etc. A ranger is the perfect example. A beast trainer for the charr could be a huntsman for the humans and an animal behaviorist (insert any imaginary scientific field of study involving animals) for the asura. And it would fit the feel of each race to a T.

Dustfinger.9510:

Hmmm, I think I can appreciate this thread a bit more.

I think it’s a bit harder to pin down the “feel” of each profession because each profession doesn’t have the same “feel” when it’s applied to each race or even each individual. For example, A thief could be an assassin, a street rat, etc. A ranger is the perfect example. A beast trainer for the charr could be a huntsman for the humans and an animal behaviorist (insert any imaginary scientific field of study involving animals) for the asura. And it would fit the feel of each race to a T.

I suppose I can see the validity in that point of view. I guess it all really depends on where you begin in your reasoning. If you take the starting point I took, you’re essentially working from the profession outward. From this standpoint, you’re looking at the class as a whole (its strengths and weaknesses, its virtues and combat style, etc.) and creating a mold that represents the class in your mind. You can then attempt to “fit” each of the races into this mold, with varying levels of success. From that perspective, a Norn, whose culture generally seems to value courage, valor and bravado, wouldn’t fit the subtle and cunning intricacies of the Thief as well as some of the other races.

However, if you take your position and start with the race, it essentially reverses everything. Then it is the values, strengths and weaknesses of the culture that create the mold, and it is the profession that is forced to adapt and fit into the context of the particular race, in a way, becoming something completely unique. When looking at it from that perspective, it kinda makes you wonder if the archetypes we’re given during character creation even still exist in that context.

Interesting stuff…

I like you

It seems to me that a-net works real hard not to really make the classes a hard archtype. The into descriptions are pretty generalized and when a-net goes into depth, the class lore is pretty open.

If we look at the guardian, we see a-net really made it all inclusive. So humans can be the protective paladin while charr can still be aggressive warmongers. While a sylvari or asura can be a battlemage.

“Jeff Grubb: With the turmoil in Elona and the spread of the Order of Whispers into other lands, more Paragon teaching showed elsewhere in Tyria. These teachings melded with other traditions, and over time, the Guardians and their abilities can be found throughout the world and among all the races. They are not tied to a particular race, philosophy, or group of gods but rather to a larger concept of proactive defense, of taking the fight to a foe and protecting those you fight alongside while appealing equally to humanity’s defensive nature and the Charr’s desire to rule the battlefield.

I think the Guardian is much more of a pragmatic and tactical user of a magic as opposed to an Elementalist, who is a pure student of magic. The Elementalist casts discrete spells, and you have the feeling that there is a heritage and body of knowledge behind those spells. Guardians seem to use magical energy in the heat of combat, from the front line. That sense of immediacy sets the Guardian apart from more traditional spell-casters and allows for a heavily armored magical character."

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/01/31/behind-the-scenes-with-the-guild-wars-2-guardian-massivelys-in/

actually similar tune was in guardians description – can’t provide any exact quotation but guardians are told to be descendand of paragons that leaved elona time ago and mixed with tyirans monks and warriors – and other races found the concept usefull – similar like engineers for chars human have their gurdians

but this way sylvari and asurans are in quite disadvantage – cause from all professions available there is no profession that went out clearly from those races – let head back 250 years in tyrian history:
before mess with great destroyer, nightfall and all the rest – when ascalonian wall was falling: there were only humans and chars races that was “a matter” in the world
both had elementalists, warriors, rangers, necromancers, even monks – mesmer were only human specialisation (ok ok and some plants also – or at least I’ve never met any char mesmer)
when we’ve meth cantha’s there were not only who knew in the craft of assasinations – other races living there also had own assasins. same with rytualists
when nightfall came we’ve met dervishes and paragons – and as I don’t recall actuall “race” that had own dervishes except humans (demons don’t count) actually quite similar with paragons

@Dustfinger yeah I agree in case that ANet don’t want any class to stick with some archtype – we are here about origins not current state :P

Ah, in that case I don’t think we really know the origins of any of the current classes beyond engineer and guardian. Though im sure classes like thief and warrior would have developed independently in multiple societies.

The charr did have mesmers in gw1 though. They were called chaots.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Charr_Chaot

edit: Any of the classes that depend on the 6 gods would have developed from humanity. Dervish and priest.

lerak.5286:

Guardian and Mesmer. I personally feel Guardians are inherent to Dwayna and Mesmers to Lyssa.
Thieves represent the Ash Legion, so I wouln’t consider it inherently human.

Hey just a few things to touch on here. For starters the guardian in gw2 is supposed to be deity free. Essentially they are the most pro race profession out there. Through the centuries with more and more races working together the guardian formed! Picture a sunspear paragon, a canthan ritualist, and an ascalonion monk all sitting together around a fire. They share their skills and beliefs, and then share their SHARED beliefs with other races and after a hundred years the guardian was born!! Guardian became a symbol of protection, not worship. When you think guardian you should think unity, all the races and all ethnicity’s of tyria with a combined ideology of protecting one another.

Thieves, are actually pretty pro human too! They don’t “represent” ash legion, the ash legion is just prone to producing and acquiring thieves, in nature! Thief actually descended from the Canthan Assassin. In Cantha politics were pretty crazy, specifically the dragon empire (which was a human nation) lots of people hated one another, and because of this the assassin was born. Assassins specialized in killing one target with out making a mess. Assassins became a very prevalent profession in Cantha, often banding together and forming guilds to ensure equal pay! The guild wars 2 thief is the creation of these traditional swift killers spreading their techniques across the world! Thief definitely isn’t “pro human”, but its not a specific charr profession for sure.

With the exception of the Engineer which feels very Charr-ish to me, I think the rest have their basis in humanity purely from a GW1 perspective.

The Guardian represents the monk in many ways (different, but similar) as well as Dwayna. The Warrior is the warrior and represents Balthazar. The Ranger, Melandru. The Mesmer, Lyssa. Necromancers, Grenth. Elementalists are kinda weird in that I don’t think you can tie them to a specific god unless I am having a brainfart, but they were in GW1 as a human profession. And the thief is highly reminiscent of the Assassins of Cantha.

So I think they are all inherently human.

Stramatus.5219:

Elementalists are kinda weird in that I don’t think you can tie them to a specific god.

Different attunements represented different Gods: Fire magic for Balthazar, Air magic for Dwayna, Water magic for Grenth, Earth magic for Melandru, and Arcane magic for Lyssa.

ryan.6217:

Thief definitely isn’t “pro human”, but its not a specific charr profession for sure.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean thieves are specific for charrs, only that in lore the Ash legion is known for its warbands of assassins, stalkers and spies. In that way assassins aren’t pro human, as the Ash legion was founded by the son of the First Khan-Ur, close to the arrival of the first humans on Tyria.

Guardian and Mesmer have deep roots in Humanity. Charr has the Engineer. Asura have Golemancers, but they have yet to be released. Norn are so individualized I think they have an equal stake in all, though a shaman profession would be cool. The Sylvari are simply too young to have their own profession, though something in plant-crafting would be interesting.

Dustfinger.9510:

Ah, in that case I don’t think we really know the origins of any of the current classes beyond engineer and guardian. Though im sure classes like thief and warrior would have developed independently in multiple societies.

The charr did have mesmers in gw1 though. They were called chaots.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Charr_Chaot

edit: Any of the classes that depend on the 6 gods would have developed from humanity. Dervish and priest.

I have no idea how I’ve managed to mis out those

still I have strange feeling that most folks here are missing the point – we are not talking about which class actually “belongs” to human race but which originated form it – like engineers originated from charr.
so I believe we can say that guardians have their origins within human race (paragons-monks-warriors hybrid) and also we can say same about some old gw1 classes (monk, dervish maybe mesmer and/or rytualists) but for all the rest they were – even back in gw2 very common through all the races

and history of Tyrian World was not developped enought to say which race was first in idea – lets take a stick and hit with it our opponents – which would suggest origin of – in this case warrior

I think thief is the class that belongs to anyone that’s a thieving kitten!

As has been stated above, the only professions whose origins are known for sure are guardians (human) and engineers (charr). Thieves have assassin-like tendencies, but it’s worth noting that there were assassins among the charr in GW1 – thieves are something that I think are reasonably common among charr, humans, and asura.

Beyond that, Arenanet have said there are some professions that they view as fitting for each race, some they view as being disfavoured by each race (and which map and event designers are encouraged to eschew unless they have a good reason to put them in) and some as being in between. The exact matrix is something they’ve kept under wraps, though.

To get some grip on the first category, though, it’s probably worth looking at what professions significant characters are, as long as such characters are presented as being archetypical. For humans, then, we get guardians and mesmers by this method, charr give us warriors and engineers, and so on.

Another consideration is what professions you tend to see as a bunch of random members of the race, particularly enemy factions when those enemy factions are drawing from a representative cross-section of the population (such as Nightmare Court, Inquest, and possibly Sons of Svanir) as opposed to specifically recruiting specific sections (bandits, Flame Legion). A lot of asura seem to be thieves, mesmers, elementalists or engineers, for instance. Sylvari tend to be rangers, mesmers, elementalists or warriors, while norn are predominantly rangers or warriors, with a roughly even spread of spellcasters among the shamans (apart from Svanir shamans, who are unsurprisingly mostly ice specialists).

For charr, though, I think this is somewhat confused because each legion has its own generics. For instance, the Iron Legion Soldier is a guardian, IIRC – but is this saying that the Iron Legion has lots of guardians, or is it just saying that they have more than Blood or Ash?

On the whole, though, if I had to make guesses:
Warrior: Pretty much universal, but less common among sylvari, and rare among asura.
Guardian: Guardians seem to be rare in general, but if I had to guess, I’d go with humans, norn, and sylvari.
Thief: Human, charr, asura.
Ranger: Sylvari and norn primarily, followed by humans and charr.
Engineer: Charr and asura.
Elementalist: Asura, sylvari, human
Mesmer: Human, asura, sylvari
Necromancer: Seem to be most common among Ash Legion and Nightmare Court.

Ranger: human, why? Melandru. You summon ghost of nature with are – I think – connected to god of nature

Thief, Necromancer and Guardian.
Guardians because lololololpaladinsololol.
Thief and Necromancer+ Mesmer cus their looks fit the 18 and 19th century vibe ,humans have in this game.

Lore wise , don’t know, still too new to the game to judge.

Lorewise, necromancers are in fact distrusted among most humans (there’s an explanation of this in Ghosts of Ascalon). They’re not explicitly discriminated against, but they do make humans uncomfortable and other races favour and accept necromancers more than humans do.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure elementalism was brought by the Jotun before they went on a civil war before the last rise of the Elder Dragons.

draxynnic.3719:

Lorewise, necromancers are in fact distrusted among most humans (there’s an explanation of this in Ghosts of Ascalon). They’re not explicitly discriminated against, but they do make humans uncomfortable and other races favour and accept necromancers more than humans do.

I’m new to the in-depth lore of Tyria, so I’m really just trying to understand. It was explained to me on the GW2 roleplaying forums that Grenth made necromancy an accepted profession when he overthrew Dhuum and ascended to godhood. So is it that they’re accepted and OK, but even after all this time, humans just aren’t comfortable with them?

They are accepted unlike in other fantasy universes where necromancers signify evil powers at work. But even being accepted, being confronted with constant reminders of death and mortality are uncomfortable for most people. let alone when dead things are reanimated.

@Djahlet: You’re wrong. :P

You’re probably thinking of Thruln the Lost’s story, where he describes humans as having primitive magic of “fire, air, earth, water” in the days when the jotun were ascendant – which kind of implies that the jotun looked down on elemental magic (which fits in with GW1 spellcaster jotun, which were usually mesmers and necromancers). However, the entire story he gives is a case of ‘unreliable narrator’ – he claims that the jotun were once the favourites of the gods while humans were ignored until after the founding of Ascalon: “Humans collected on the high plains. Tribes became settlements. Settlements became a kingdom. And that was when the gods noticed them and betrayed the jotun.” (Ascalon being the ‘high plains’ in question, the region having been referred to as high plains as far back as the Prophecies timeline) when we know that humans were brought to Tyria by the gods in the first place and had their favour before even coming close to jotun territory.

@SilasLews: Pretty much as Dustfinger says. They’re accepted, but people are uncomfortable around them, especially in areas and times where undead present a threat. From Dougal’s explanation in GoA, it basically boils down to humans having an intellectual awareness that necromancy is just a branch of magic no more inherently good or evil than others – but from an emotional perspective, that doesn’t stop them being wigged out by it (particularly if they’ve had an encounter with hostile undead such as Risen) or wondering about the types of personalities that choose to learn death magic rather than less morbid forms of magic like mesmerism or elementalism.

EDIT: And what you were told on the roleplaying forum is, to put it bluntly, wrong. The first known human necromancer was, indeed, a disciple of Grenth, but we have no knowledge of what status it might have had beforehand except that Dhuum did not tolerate undead at all. Most likely, humans just didn’t realise that mesmerism and necromancy were branches of magic that were available to mortals at all until Grenth and Lyssa took their disciples around 50BE.

draxynnic.3719:

@SilasLews: Pretty much as Dustfinger says. They’re accepted, but people are uncomfortable around them, especially in areas and times where undead present a threat. From Dougal’s explanation in GoA, it basically boils down to humans having an intellectual awareness that necromancy is just a branch of magic no more inherently good or evil than others – but from an emotional perspective, that doesn’t stop them being wigged out by it (particularly if they’ve had an encounter with hostile undead such as Risen) or wondering about the types of personalities that choose to learn death magic rather than less morbid forms of magic like mesmerism or elementalism.

EDIT: And what you were told on the roleplaying forum is, to put it bluntly, wrong. The first known human necromancer was, indeed, a disciple of Grenth, but we have no knowledge of what status it might have had beforehand except that Dhuum did not tolerate undead at all. Most likely, humans just didn’t realise that mesmerism and necromancy were branches of magic that were available to mortals at all until Grenth and Lyssa took their disciples around 50BE.

Thank you for the detailed reply! Being as new as I am to the lore (I haven’t even finished playing through GW1 yet), responses like yours and Dustfinger’s are always helpful. Your explanations make a lot of sense. Thanks again!