Guild Wars 2

The other night, I was thinking and realized that theres large themes of Alchemy and Potioncraft within GW2, but its never been elaborated or spoken about, so this made me think, do actual characters with skills of Alchemy or Brewing exist within Tyria, even though its not present as a crafting skill, and no characters speak of it specifically.

Think about it, we have the Engineer’s 4th traitline, “Alchemy”, which improves the use of “Elixirs”, liquid substances designed to induce certain effects, if you also think about the combustion fluid within the Engineer’s flamethrower, that must’ve been brewed and made by someone as well.

Thieves as well, have access to a set of utility skills called “Venoms”, which are supposedly the venoms of certain creatures found within Tyria. For someone to aquire these venoms from different creatures, and to know the exact effects of each different one, must have some kind of skill in Alchemy to distinguish these effects, or the venoms may just be artificial substances to emulate the effects of these creatures.

There are plenty of different references to liquid-like substances that would logically be brewed by an alchemist of some sort, however its never been referred to in Tyria, let alone regarded as some kind of a skill. Im sure there are odd little references in the lore, however its never seen within the game.

and of course theres the whole condition of Poison. and Poisons are generally brewed from plants, herbs or flowers, or some forms of magic can induce poison I guess, which is likely the source of the poison from weapon sigils, however im referring to things like the Theif’s Dagger skill “Lotus Strike” which induces poison, those blades must have been spiked with poison to induce such an effect without magic, so where does that poison come from?

Sometimes I like to think of my Engineer as being a seasoned alchemist, who brewed her own combustion fluid for her flamethrower, or sometimes I like to think the arrows used by Warriors, contain the same combustion fluid as the flamethrower, beacuse they can ignite/explode when exposed to the air, however thats just my take on the concept of Alchemy within Tyria.

Just because magic exist does it not rule out chemical or physical laws.

Creating electricy or flammable objects in our world does not mean we are using magic, but knowledge.
So i ask you? is it weird for the people of Tyria to create things that rival magic, by applying the laws of physics or chemical knowledge?

Think about it. Magic needs time and knowledge to master. A fireball could take some years of studying to light a candle on fire.
Using a tool like a lighter is much easier.

Furthermore it allows people who are not so proficient with magic to use similiar feats.

Cutting to Scarlet and look at the Aetherblades. They are having electric shielding and electric whips.
They are bending electricy to their will, without showing magic abilities. All we see is technology.

The dredge use steam and sound.

So yeah. Why should there no “Alchemy” in the world?

About your qustion: Maybe it is not talked about as much, because it is comon knowledge to the world and subsequently supposedly for us as well.
You raise a good question, though.
I mean, we see how the world does develope, don`t we?

The Artificer crafting profession is your Alchemist and Wandmaker rolled into one. Artificers also brew numerous potions, they don’t just make staves all day. Alchemy and chemistry seem to be one and the same to the people of Tyria. Every major race, as well as some of the minor ones like the hylek and skritt, have at least a few members who show a high proficiency for producing liquids with various effects, and most of it is done through very mundane, “real world” means.

All hylek are immune to the poison condition, for example, because as a species their knowledge of alchemy vastly outshines our own. Their whole species has a general knowledge of antidotes and antitoxins to nullify any sort of ‘poison’ their enemies might throw at them.

I suspect that most player engineers are also alchemists in their down time, brewing up their own elixirs, flamer fuel, explosive compounds, and all the other various substances they use as unusual ammunition.