Guild Wars 2

Daniel Handler.4816:

Obsidian.1328:

Daniel Handler.4816:

One could say the exact same with the ranger, in gw1 they were able to spawn spirits without using magic. But now come gw2 they can use nature magic. As the ambient level of magic goes up so do they become elevated to spellcaster rank. The fact it was comparatively slower than ritualists is because Rangers don’t bind spirits but rely on being in tune with them. That would mean the Druid is the pinnacle of being in tune with spirits and at this point they can truly have been said to reach spellcaster rank.

Eh…I always thought a GW1 ranger summoning spirits was magical in nature. Is that not true?

The implications I am seeing is that in gw1 spirit summoning was as non magical as the ritualists before the gift of magic. Now after the gift the game refers to what they are doing as true magic, as you can see in the attributes if channeling magic and restoration magic. There are still skills that fell are under simple communing and whether they are true or pseudo magic can go either way, because as we can see in gw2 communing can even be performed by warriors.

Come gw2 the Rangers now have a trait line called nature magic and I assume this means they have raised their communing or whatever to the level that channeling magic was raised. They seem to be able to invoke the power of a spirit without making it corporeal, just as ritualist could in gw2 under some channeling magic.

Hmm, interesting. It’s hard to compare GW1 post-gift ranger spirit summoning to pre-Gift Rit spirit summoning though…as there are no examples of the latter. Or none that I remember, are there some out there? What do we know of the pre-Gift Rit abilities beyond their simple existence?

But you have a good point in that if those old Rits did, in fact, commune with ancestral spirits in the Mists, and if Ranger communion with nature(Tyrian) spirits is a very similar ability, then it follows that Ranger spirit summoning could predate the Gift…and not be considered “true” magic…whatever that means.

Native, Tyrian, or Inherent magic maybe? :-P

Obsidian.1328:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Obsidian.1328:

Daniel Handler.4816:

One could say the exact same with the ranger, in gw1 they were able to spawn spirits without using magic. But now come gw2 they can use nature magic. As the ambient level of magic goes up so do they become elevated to spellcaster rank. The fact it was comparatively slower than ritualists is because Rangers don’t bind spirits but rely on being in tune with them. That would mean the Druid is the pinnacle of being in tune with spirits and at this point they can truly have been said to reach spellcaster rank.

Eh…I always thought a GW1 ranger summoning spirits was magical in nature. Is that not true?

The implications I am seeing is that in gw1 spirit summoning was as non magical as the ritualists before the gift of magic. Now after the gift the game refers to what they are doing as true magic, as you can see in the attributes if channeling magic and restoration magic. There are still skills that fell are under simple communing and whether they are true or pseudo magic can go either way, because as we can see in gw2 communing can even be performed by warriors.

Come gw2 the Rangers now have a trait line called nature magic and I assume this means they have raised their communing or whatever to the level that channeling magic was raised. They seem to be able to invoke the power of a spirit without making it corporeal, just as ritualist could in gw2 under some channeling magic.

Hmm, interesting. It’s hard to compare GW1 post-gift ranger spirit summoning to pre-Gift Rit spirit summoning though…as there are no examples of the latter. Or none that I remember, are there some out there? What do we know of the pre-Gift Rit abilities beyond their simple existence?

But you have a good point in that if those old Rits did, in fact, commune with ancestral spirits in the Mists, and if Ranger communion with nature(Tyrian) spirits is a very similar ability, then it follows that Ranger spirit summoning could predate the Gift…and not be considered “true” magic…whatever that means.

Native, Tyrian, or Inherent magic maybe? :-P

I do not know how accurate the wiki is. But it maintains that:

Where the Ranger lives as one with the spirit world, the Ritualist can and will be its master……….

Before magic, the Ritualists focused on channeling spirits from the Mists. They relied upon the strength and wisdom granted to them by their powerful ancestors whom maintained a connection to their descendants. Through their spirits, the Ritualists were able to practice magic, or something close to it.

Now we have seen that the ritualist can bend to their will the spirits who they are presumably not descended from. But it also seems that you could gain magical strength from strong spirits as long as you could maintain a connection to them, even before the gift of magic.

What I would take from this is that norns becoming bears and rangers summoning spirits was just you reaping the benefits of a strong connection.

So why is the ranger magical progression so slow compared to the ritualist? Well the ritualist binded the spirits to gain more power. The only way for a ranger to gain more power it seems would be to develop an even deeper connection with the spirits. And therefore the deepest connection, that of a druid, would be a specialization.

@Daniel

So, based on your premise and the wiki, is the Ranger —Druid spec-- now to be seen not as living as one with the spirit world, but as its master? And if so, how does this jive with GW1 Druids who were largely seen as non-violent caretakers of the wilds?

I guess all I’m asking is why are they different in both appearance and role?

Obsidian.1328:

@Daniel

So, based on your premise and the wiki, is the Ranger —Druid spec-- now to be seen not as living as one with the spirit world, but as its master? And if so, how does this jive with GW1 Druids who were largely seen as non-violent caretakers of the wilds?

I guess all I’m asking is why are they different in both appearance and role?

No my premise is that now to achieve this level of power from spirits they would have to have an extremely high level of connection to the spirit world, something expected of a druid. And this is why it took so long (250 years) for what rangers have to even be called magic. They simply couldn’t bind spirits they had to learn to connect with them. The ritualist on the other could bind the spirits they held no connection with.

I assume modern rangers perform a type of channeling magic that allows them to summon spirits without ritual.
For example the ritualists can perform
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Channeled_Strike and it was never implied that the spirits they channel for this spell have to be bound.

Rangers now can perform muddy terrain without the use of a ritual, or a spirit. Yet we have a stone spirit that can sacrifice itself to perform an almost identical skill. If the ritualist can channel spirits that are not corporeal the ranger should be able to as well.

Hmm…that still doesn’t really explain why GW2 Druids are different from GW1 Druids. Unless the Ranger Druid-spec is somehow different from the Druids we saw in Maguuma. If so, why not call it a different name to avoid the confusion? It’s more than a little perfunctory of ANet to explain this away with something akin to “well, with the ED’s awakening and all, there’s just more magic floating around now…things change.”

I’m also wondering why, if your premise is true, Rangers suddenly start changing a thousand years after the Exodus to become more magical or something. What’s different about the last 250 years that the preceding 1,000 years didn’t have? It seems so odd a thing.

Obsidian.1328:

Hmm…that still doesn’t really explain why GW2 Druids are different from GW1 Druids. Unless the Ranger Druid-spec is somehow different from the Druids we saw in Maguuma. If so, why not call it a different name to avoid the confusion? It’s more than a little perfunctory of ANet to explain this away with something akin to “well, with the ED’s awakening and all, there’s just more magic floating around now…things change.”

I’m also wondering why, if your premise is true, Rangers suddenly start changing a thousand years after the Exodus to become more magical or something. What’s different about the last 250 years that the preceding 1,000 years didn’t have? It seems so odd a thing.

I agree with all of this.

It seems that the way people want to explain it is that the action of becoming a celestial avatar is something a druid would have done while alive. You perform powers they would have performed before the spiritual transformation that left them in a more passive role. They like to support this by saying that all druids in real life were heavily devoted to astrology. What makes it even more confusing is that the reveal is titled “Closer to the Stars,” which has implications I can’t comprehend at this point.

Obsidian.1328:

That’s not true for GW1 though, NPC’s used exactly the same skills PC’s did. The Maguuma Druids you see in GW1 were actually some of the few NPC exceptions that didn’t use combat skills like the PC did. Whoever at ANet created them simply chose not to give them a skill bar. I realize that in GW2 this isn’t the case. But the comparison is to a GW1 example.

Well yah, but in GW1 there was no druid profession to take their skills from.

Additionally druids in GW1 didn’t NEED to fight anymore. They had transcended mortality and became immortal spirits. Our PC druid in GW2 isn’t an immortal spirit, so he still has to defend himself.

We’ve never seen an enfleshed druid who has a need to fight. Thus we have no idea what sort of skills they would have used.

Daniel Handler.4816:

You perform powers they would have performed before the spiritual transformation that left them in a more passive role. They like to support this by saying that all druids in real life were heavily devoted to astrology.

I guess the old “Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence” comes into play here. ;-)

What makes it even more confusing is that the reveal is titled “Closer to the Stars,” which has implications I can’t comprehend at this point.

ANet likes to throw retro GW1 phrases around like they were marketing soundbites. It makes no sense that I can don the title of “Flameseeker” either, since that’s who Khilbron was. But it’s still there. “Closer to the Stars” and a new Celestial Avatar raining down moonbeams is close enough a match it seems.

Chalk it up to catch-phrasing.

Ehecatl.9172:

Obsidian.1328:

That’s not true for GW1 though, NPC’s used exactly the same skills PC’s did. The Maguuma Druids you see in GW1 were actually some of the few NPC exceptions that didn’t use combat skills like the PC did. Whoever at ANet created them simply chose not to give them a skill bar. I realize that in GW2 this isn’t the case. But the comparison is to a GW1 example.

Well yah, but in GW1 there was no druid profession to take their skills from.

Additionally druids in GW1 didn’t NEED to fight anymore. They had transcended mortality and became immortal spirits. Our PC druid in GW2 isn’t an immortal spirit, so he still has to defend himself.

We’ve never seen an enfleshed druid who has a need to fight. Thus we have no idea what sort of skills they would have used.

Druid Jungle Guardians used ranger skills, and Druid Ravagers used necro skills. That really fits the “typical” fantasy druid ethos of embracing both life and death equally…especially when the Ravagers are using Grenth’s Balance. =D Not really implying GW1 Druids were druid-typical, only that some ancillary evidence is at work there.

Our PC Druid in GW2 isn’t a spirit at all…which again begs the question why are they called Druids??

Obsidian.1328:

Druid Jungle Guardians used ranger skills, and Druid Ravagers used necro skills. That really fits the “typical” fantasy druid ethos of embracing both life and death equally…especially when the Ravagers are using Grenth’s Balance. =D Not really implying GW1 Druids were druid-typical, only that some ancillary evidence is at work there.

Our PC Druid in GW2 isn’t a spirit at all…which again begs the question why are they called Druids??

The druids weren’t always spirits. At one point they were flesh and blood humans who revered nature. Our rangers will clearly be flesh and blood and be using the magic druids had before they gave up their bodies. It’s the easiest explanation.

As for the Tyrian druids viewing life and death as a part of nature, that much was pretty clear by this bit:

“Darkness and light, good and evil…all are a part of nature. There is no regrowth without death…without decay. Such is the lesson that I can teach you, stripling.”
~ Dark Oak

Ehecatl.9172:

The druids weren’t always spirits. At one point they were flesh and blood humans who revered nature. Our rangers will clearly be flesh and blood and be using the magic druids had before they gave up their bodies. It’s the easiest explanation

Wait what?? Are you saying there were pre-spirit Druids? They were said to be simply human before becoming Druids, there’s no mention of some intermediary condition between that and spirits. And there’s no mention of the pre-Druid humans having any power above a normal human. Where do you get that from?

Obsidian.1328:

Wait what?? Are you saying there were pre-spirit Druids? They were said to be simply human before becoming Druids, there’s no mention of some intermediary condition between that and spirits. And there’s no mention of the pre-Druid humans having any power above a normal human. Where do you get that from?

So you think the druids of Maguuma didn’t have ANY magic before they shed their mortal body and became spirits? How the heck do you think they did whatever ritual they did to become spirits in the first place?

Of course they had magic while still human. To think otherwise is silly.

The absence of information is no reason to just assume the humans that would go on to become druidic spirits were just normal humans with no magical abilities at all. Especially when magic is so common in Tyria.

But if you want to try to play that game check these guys out.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Warden

Proof that not all druids were spirits. The Wardens were theorized to have been druids before merging with the spirits to become what we see in the game. HUMAN druids. Implying quite strongly that druids are humans before undergoing whatever ritual turned them into Wardens, which in turn would imply there were human druids in Maguuma before they became spirits.

Ehecatl.9172:

Obsidian.1328:

Wait what?? Are you saying there were pre-spirit Druids? They were said to be simply human before becoming Druids, there’s no mention of some intermediary condition between that and spirits. And there’s no mention of the pre-Druid humans having any power above a normal human. Where do you get that from?

So you think the druids of Maguuma didn’t have ANY magic before they shed their mortal body and became spirits? How the heck do you think they did whatever ritual they did to become spirits in the first place?

Of course they had magic while still human. To think otherwise is silly.

The absence of information is no reason to just assume the humans that would go on to become druidic spirits were just normal humans with no magical abilities at all. Especially when magic is so common in Tyria.

But if you want to try to play that game check these guys out.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Warden

Proof that not all druids were spirits. The Wardens were theorized to have been druids before merging with the spirits to become what we see in the game. HUMAN druids. Implying quite strongly that druids are humans before undergoing whatever ritual turned them into Wardens, which in turn would imply there were human druids in Maguuma before they became spirits.

But from your own link some of the wardens were non magic professions. I have also said that not all rituals require magic. Or at least not all rituals require magic on the part of the person performing them, some produce magical effects as the result of what they summon. Alchemy is a clear indication that we should not call every magical effect magic.

By the way, druids didn’t shed their human body into a spirit right away, there definitely IS an intermediary condition: they became willowhearts in the first place, still having a mortal body. So after all they are more or less shapeshifters. They then could choose to leave their willowheart body as an arboreal spirit (or were forced to if it dies, I guess? Or maybe they would’ve died then, too). In Brisban wildlands you can see some lifeless, left-behind treant-bodies. These are former druids. You can see one in the loading screen, too. A sylvari touching a husk to arouse the spirit back into the treant-body.
Also not all druids did the whole spirit thing – the ritual of course had do be discovered first, by a couple of generations of druids after the first came to the jungle, indicating their culture studied various rituals and magic for a long time, before they unvealed this ultimate opportunity to serve the nature.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Druid_(group)#Physiology

Daniel Handler.4816:

But from your own link some of the wardens were non magic professions. I have also said that not all rituals require magic. Or at least not all rituals require magic on the part of the person performing them, some produce magical effects as the result of what they summon. Alchemy is a clear indication that we should not call every magical effect magic.

Some but not all, or even most. Most of them had magical abilities. But my point is that there were definitely human druids before they transformed into Wardens/Spirits.

Show me a ritual that causes the soul to leave the body and transform into a spiritual being that didn’t need magic. Or transform the person physically into a creature like the Wardens.

Daniel Handler.4816:

However for asura.
If they had not had time to get developed to human culture, why do they use the same rangers skills as humans? How is it possible that two races in absolute isolation would practice the exact same way.

Exactly the same way different human societies learned how to make spears.

Also the same way bats and birds developed wings, and that dolphins and fish are adapted to the sea.

Convergent evolution

It’s entirely possible and even very plausible that rangers from different races could have the same skill set, even in complete isolation, because there’s going to be an advantage that those races see in developing ranger skills, and thus converge on those ideas despite isolation.

I didn’t read the whole thread but I agree it doesn’t really make sense. It’s weird as a slyvari warrior I can summon a Druid Spirit ….

Daniel Handler.4816:

“This text is not a work of fiction, but is based on historical fact as interpreted by the author. Historical facts have been revised based upon new information acquired by the author between 1022 AE and 1072 AE.” You will need to show me why this statement is inaccurate.

Are you kittening serious?

I already have.

That piece of lore was written from the in-universe perspective of an individual before the knowledge of both Abaddon and the Elder Dragons, and as such the existence of magic in the world prior to 1 BE, was known. As I’ve already stated.

At the time of its publication, it was accurate. But it isn’t any longer. Just like the History of Tyria from the Prophecies manual.

If you’re not even going to read my posts, don’t bloody reply.

Daniel Handler.4816:

However for asura.
If they had not had time to get developed to human culture, why do they use the same rangers skills as humans? How is it possible that two races in absolute isolation would practice the exact same way. The ability to give racial skills was already in the game, yet absent for these Asura. It really is quite a quandary, but given their staggering intelligence you don’t know for certain what type of magic the asura practice under the ground.

Why do charr use the same skills as humans? Why do norn? Stone Summit? Krait? Mantids? Naga!?

Because it’s mechanics and in GW1 all NPCs utilized the same skills players did.

Norn didn’t use norn racial skills either. Until the Ebon Falcons in War in Kryta, the Ebon Vanguard didn’t use Vanguard skills. Dwarves never used dwarf racial skills. Kurzicks and Luxons didn’t use their PvE skills either.

I mean, for crying out loud, there are charr who used the skill Dwayna’s Kiss despite the race being clearly anti-Five Gods!

Seriously. You’re not that stupid – I hope – so stop acting like you are.

And I mean come on. Like shooting an arrow from a bow is unique to human culture.

Daniel Handler.4816:

You do hide behind the concept of AR. The concept of full caster versus hybrid was not only based on AR but also on whether or not they used spells. Classes that had zero spells were said to be non magical in nature. The whole idea of which profession types can use magic and which not still exists as the scepter limit for the true caster. And now in gw2 the testament to magical ability seems to be the staff.

Technically, only players ever called a profession non-magical.

Lore never did.

Lore not once ever says “warriors and paragons do not use magic.”

Not. Once.

And rangers use magic pre-druid in GW2. But you’ve already been told this. Yet you deny it. So I won’t bother repeating myself there.

Thieves use magic too, by the way – shadow stepping and stealth are magic. But not anywhere do they use magical weapons. Even using staff as daredevil is not using it in a magical manner. Like rangers and guardians, thieves utilize a mixture of magic and physical ability – and like rangers, also mix in tools.

Daniel Handler.4816:

The way they seem to be expressing spell is whether you perform the magic yourself, or you merely act as a conduit for other energies to perform it for you. And as for resurrection, as they showed that it could be performed without using magic yourself, it is moot as to whether it is magic or not.

I never said anything about resurrection being magic or not – but how it’s a case of mechanics versus lore. Mechanics do not always result in lore.

And you’re wrong about the performing magic yourself=spell part. See, again, Forms. Not called spells, but it’s certainly the dervish turning himself into an avatar – it’s certainly magic, and it’s certainly the dervish performing the magic.

Obsidian.1328:

drax don’t be silly. You and I both know that Abaddon was retroactively inserted into Proph and Factions by Nightfall writers. He didn’t even exist until then. They got his name from that last mission in Proph, they could just as easily have called him “Komalie” and nothing would be changed. I thought I knew you better than that. :-(

No, what I know is that you refuse to accept anything that wasn’t written by the original Prophecies writers (although even then, I have it on good authority that the decision to link Prophecies and Factions through the third chapter was made early in Factions’ development at the latest). I can sympathise with your preference of the original lore over more recent revelations, but the fact remains that according to the official canon, any human history written prior to Nightfall contains lies by omission and is therefore suspect. Your personal preference does not override the official canon, and no amount of arguing on your part can change that, no more than I could argue out certain story choices made by ArenaNet that I’ve been disappointed over.

Regarding Apply Poison: It is reasonable for some preparations to be magical in nature and some to be nonmagical. Specifically, poison generated by magic is pretty much exclusive to necromancy in Guild Wars, and the ranger has never been connected to that branch of magic, but would clearly have a knowledge of natural poisons. A few examples that can be pinned down do not resolve the ambiguity of the others, though.

When it comes to GW1 druids: we never saw what skills they might have in combat because they never had to fight. Where the druids manifest, the only things around are us, their guardians of various forms, and jungle creatures that appear to choose not to attack them (although they’ll happily attack us). It appears to take sapient invaders to threaten the druids. While absence of evidence can be considered evidence of absence, this requires there to be a reasonable expectation that we would have seen the evidence if the thing being investigated was not absent. As it currently stands, there’s no reason to think that if the GW1 druids had celestial magic of some form that we would have seen it.

We can, instead, compare to druids and presumed druids in GW2. The projectile used by the Druid Spirit summoned by sylvari is similar to guardian animations, so perhaps the observation that druids are essentially ranger/monks is right on the money in lore as well as in mechanics.

Amraston.2846:

By the way, druids didn’t shed their human body into a spirit right away, there definitely IS an intermediary condition: they became willowhearts in the first place, still having a mortal body. So after all they are more or less shapeshifters. They then could choose to leave their willowheart body as an arboreal spirit (or were forced to if it dies, I guess? Or maybe they would’ve died then, too). In Brisban wildlands you can see some lifeless, left-behind treant-bodies. These are former druids. You can see one in the loading screen, too. A sylvari touching a husk to arouse the spirit back into the treant-body.
Also not all druids did the whole spirit thing – the ritual of course had do be discovered first, by a couple of generations of druids after the first came to the jungle, indicating their culture studied various rituals and magic for a long time, before they unvealed this ultimate opportunity to serve the nature.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Druid_(group)#Physiology

It would be interesting to see where Konig got his reference for that entry in the wiki, because that part of the GW2 Druid lore was placed there on May 7 of this year. There’s certainly no mention of it in GW1, they were humans at first, and then Druids second…no intermediate condition is ever mentioned.

There weren’t any treants in GW1.

And that cinematic of the Slyvari awakening a Druid is something never portrayed in-game…it’s an idea ANet never expanded on but left it there cuz it looks kewl.

Ehecatl.9172:

So you think the druids of Maguuma didn’t have ANY magic before they shed their mortal body and became spirits? How the heck do you think they did whatever ritual they did to become spirits in the first place?

No, I’m saying they weren’t Druids until they became spirits. Before that they were just humans like any other, with whatever magical abilities any creature had. Where did I say they didn’t have magic?

But if you want to try to play that game check these guys out.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Warden

Proof that not all druids were spirits. The Wardens were theorized to have been druids before merging with the spirits to become what we see in the game. HUMAN druids. Implying quite strongly that druids are humans before undergoing whatever ritual turned them into Wardens, which in turn would imply there were human druids in Maguuma before they became spirits.

Wardens aren’t druids. The theory they were previously druids is one of many from the wiki.

draxynnic.3719:

No, what I know is that you refuse to accept anything that wasn’t written by the original Prophecies writers (although even then, I have it on good authority that the decision to link Prophecies and Factions through the third chapter was made early in Factions’ development at the latest).

That wasn’t what I was arguing. I agree ANet had an idea to link the 3 games, even during Factions. What they didn’t know back then was how that link would take shape. The idea to specifically make it a god named Abaddon came much later. And as such, it’s still a retroactive lore insertion if it counters earlier lore that was meant to be seen as canon. One can’t take Ermenred’s text as “human whitewashing” back then because one thinks there might possibly be a time in the future where they come up with an idea that disregards it. If that’s true, then everything under the sun is fair game for editing.

Regarding Apply Poison: It is reasonable for some preparations to be magical in nature and some to be nonmagical. Specifically, poison generated by magic is pretty much exclusive to necromancy in Guild Wars, and the ranger has never been connected to that branch of magic, but would clearly have a knowledge of natural poisons. A few examples that can be pinned down do not resolve the ambiguity of the others, though.

The only Preps that could be considered magical are Markman’s Wager and Melandru’s Arrows…which are both, not surprisingly, Elite skills.

When it comes to GW1 druids: we never saw what skills they might have in combat because they never had to fight. Where the druids manifest, the only things around are us, their guardians of various forms, and jungle creatures that appear to choose not to attack them (although they’ll happily attack us). It appears to take sapient invaders to threaten the druids. While absence of evidence can be considered evidence of absence, this requires there to be a reasonable expectation that we would have seen the evidence if the thing being investigated was not absent. As it currently stands, there’s no reason to think that if the GW1 druids had celestial magic of some form that we would have seen it.

If they were supposed to have it back then, why wouldn’t we have seen it?

We can, instead, compare to druids and presumed druids in GW2. The projectile used by the Druid Spirit summoned by sylvari is similar to guardian animations, so perhaps the observation that druids are essentially ranger/monks is right on the money in lore as well as in mechanics.

GW animations have been double used many many times, this certainly wouldn’t be the first.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Daniel Handler.4816:

“This text is not a work of fiction, but is based on historical fact as interpreted by the author. Historical facts have been revised based upon new information acquired by the author between 1022 AE and 1072 AE.” You will need to show me why this statement is inaccurate.

Are you kittening serious?

I already have.

That piece of lore was written from the in-universe perspective of an individual before the knowledge of both Abaddon and the Elder Dragons, and as such the existence of magic in the world prior to 1 BE, was known. As I’ve already stated.

At the time of its publication, it was accurate. But it isn’t any longer. Just like the History of Tyria from the Prophecies manual.

If you’re not even going to read my posts, don’t bloody reply.

Daniel Handler.4816:

However for asura.
If they had not had time to get developed to human culture, why do they use the same rangers skills as humans? How is it possible that two races in absolute isolation would practice the exact same way. The ability to give racial skills was already in the game, yet absent for these Asura. It really is quite a quandary, but given their staggering intelligence you don’t know for certain what type of magic the asura practice under the ground.

Why do charr use the same skills as humans? Why do norn? Stone Summit? Krait? Mantids? Naga!?

Because it’s mechanics and in GW1 all NPCs utilized the same skills players did.

Norn didn’t use norn racial skills either. Until the Ebon Falcons in War in Kryta, the Ebon Vanguard didn’t use Vanguard skills. Dwarves never used dwarf racial skills. Kurzicks and Luxons didn’t use their PvE skills either.

I mean, for crying out loud, there are charr who used the skill Dwayna’s Kiss despite the race being clearly anti-Five Gods!

Seriously. You’re not that stupid – I hope – so stop acting like you are.

And I mean come on. Like shooting an arrow from a bow is unique to human culture.

Daniel Handler.4816:

You do hide behind the concept of AR. The concept of full caster versus hybrid was not only based on AR but also on whether or not they used spells. Classes that had zero spells were said to be non magical in nature. The whole idea of which profession types can use magic and which not still exists as the scepter limit for the true caster. And now in gw2 the testament to magical ability seems to be the staff.

Technically, only players ever called a profession non-magical.

Lore never did.

Lore not once ever says “warriors and paragons do not use magic.”

Not. Once.

And rangers use magic pre-druid in GW2. But you’ve already been told this. Yet you deny it. So I won’t bother repeating myself there.

Thieves use magic too, by the way – shadow stepping and stealth are magic. But not anywhere do they use magical weapons. Even using staff as daredevil is not using it in a magical manner. Like rangers and guardians, thieves utilize a mixture of magic and physical ability – and like rangers, also mix in tools.

Daniel Handler.4816:

The way they seem to be expressing spell is whether you perform the magic yourself, or you merely act as a conduit for other energies to perform it for you. And as for resurrection, as they showed that it could be performed without using magic yourself, it is moot as to whether it is magic or not.

I never said anything about resurrection being magic or not – but how it’s a case of mechanics versus lore. Mechanics do not always result in lore.

And you’re wrong about the performing magic yourself=spell part. See, again, Forms. Not called spells, but it’s certainly the dervish turning himself into an avatar – it’s certainly magic, and it’s certainly the dervish performing the magic.

Please stop assuming that just because there was magic in places his perspective is automatically wrong. The race you constantly bring up as counterexample could literally touch a sleeping primordius. He was a human writing on humans.

Your dervish example holds no ground as the dervish class already used "spells. "

Your charr example has no grounds because preservation magic has been said to work even with just faith in something.

The game called things spells or not. Warriors, Rangers, and Paragons did not have them. This was not the player.

When dervishes used forms they were said to channel divine powers, when rangers do it they are said to borrow them. Ritualists have their channeling magic. Monks are also said to channel.

Literally only the Rangers are described as borrowing magic, and this was on a class with no access to any spells.

It was not just the players saying who did magic and who did not.

Also I have never said rangers don’t use magic in gw2. I was always referring to the first game.

Obsidian.1328:

It would be interesting to see where Konig got his reference for that entry in the wiki, because that part of the GW2 Druid lore was placed there on May 7 of this year. There’s certainly no mention of it in GW1, they were humans at first, and then Druids second…no intermediate condition is ever mentioned.

There weren’t any treants in GW1.

Go visit Brisban Wildlands, there are events near the Priory camp there involved with druid lore. There are “husks” which are called the druids’ bodies.

And there were treants in GW1 – just not called that. Oakhearts are treants.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Please stop assuming that just because there was magic in places his perspective is automatically wrong. The race you constantly bring up as counterexample could literally touch a sleeping primordius. He was a human writing on humans.

His perspective IS wrong, because he was working under the presumption that:

1) there were only five gods
2) they created magic

But we know this isn’t the case. In both cases. Therefore, he was working off of false information.

And hell, the Scriptures even show the gods granting magic before 1 BE.

We have developer statement that 1 BE wasn’t the first time the gods released magic from the Bloodstone.

Primordus wasn’t the only Elder Dragon near civilization. Zhaitan says hello.

There is no assumption made. You just refuse to acknowledge that you’re wrong.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Your dervish example holds no ground as the dervish class already used "spells. "

But they use magic that isn’t called skills, yet you say that magic in GW1 skills only appear in the skill types called “spell”.

You’re contradicting yourself.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Your charr example has no grounds because preservation magic has been said to work even with just faith in something.

Oh, so the charr healers have a faith in Dwayna?

Or are you saying that charr could have healers without human interaction because they held faith, yet asura couldn’t develop how to use a bow and arrow on their own accord without human interaction?

You’re contradicting yourself.

And I’m just going to note that what’s stated to be working on faith is guardian magic, not preservation school of magic.

Daniel Handler.4816:

The game called things spells or not. Warriors, Rangers, and Paragons did not have them. This was not the player.

But paragons used magic too. It’s stated in the lore.

Or are you going to say that ethereal wings appearing isn’t magic?

Daniel Handler.4816:

When dervishes used forms they were said to channel divine powers, when rangers do it they are said to borrow them. Ritualists have their channeling magic. Monks are also said to channel.

You’re now just mixing terminology.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Literally only the Rangers are described as borrowing magic, and this was on a class with no access to any spells.

It was not just the players saying who did magic and who did not.

There’s more to magic than just spells. If you actually paid attention to lore like you claim you’d know this by now.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Also I have never said rangers don’t use magic in gw2. I was always referring to the first game.

Your very premise is the argument that rangers don’t use magic in GW2, prior to the druids, and that this is why rangers using druid magic doesn’t fit the lore.

You’re contradicting yourself.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Obsidian.1328:

It would be interesting to see where Konig got his reference for that entry in the wiki, because that part of the GW2 Druid lore was placed there on May 7 of this year. There’s certainly no mention of it in GW1, they were humans at first, and then Druids second…no intermediate condition is ever mentioned.

There weren’t any treants in GW1.

Go visit Brisban Wildlands, there are events near the Priory camp there involved with druid lore. There are “husks” which are called the druids’ bodies.

And there were treants in GW1 – just not called that. Oakhearts are treants.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Please stop assuming that just because there was magic in places his perspective is automatically wrong. The race you constantly bring up as counterexample could literally touch a sleeping primordius. He was a human writing on humans.

His perspective IS wrong, because he was working under the presumption that:

1) there were only five gods
2) they created magic

But we know this isn’t the case. In both cases. Therefore, he was working off of false information.

And hell, the Scriptures even show the gods granting magic before 1 BE.

We have developer statement that 1 BE wasn’t the first time the gods released magic from the Bloodstone.

Primordus wasn’t the only Elder Dragon near civilization. Zhaitan says hello.

There is no assumption made. You just refuse to acknowledge that you’re wrong.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Your dervish example holds no ground as the dervish class already used "spells. "

But they use magic that isn’t called skills, yet you say that magic in GW1 skills only appear in the skill types called “spell”.

You’re contradicting yourself.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Your charr example has no grounds because preservation magic has been said to work even with just faith in something.

Oh, so the charr healers have a faith in Dwayna?

Or are you saying that charr could have healers without human interaction because they held faith, yet asura couldn’t develop how to use a bow and arrow on their own accord without human interaction?

You’re contradicting yourself.

And I’m just going to note that what’s stated to be working on faith is guardian magic, not preservation school of magic.

Daniel Handler.4816:

The game called things spells or not. Warriors, Rangers, and Paragons did not have them. This was not the player.

But paragons used magic too. It’s stated in the lore.

Or are you going to say that ethereal wings appearing isn’t magic?

Daniel Handler.4816:

When dervishes used forms they were said to channel divine powers, when rangers do it they are said to borrow them. Ritualists have their channeling magic. Monks are also said to channel.

You’re now just mixing terminology.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Literally only the Rangers are described as borrowing magic, and this was on a class with no access to any spells.

It was not just the players saying who did magic and who did not.

There’s more to magic than just spells. If you actually paid attention to lore like you claim you’d know this by now.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Also I have never said rangers don’t use magic in gw2. I was always referring to the first game.

Your very premise is the argument that rangers don’t use magic in GW2, prior to the druids, and that this is why rangers using druid magic doesn’t fit the lore.

You’re contradicting yourself.

My premise was that it took them 250 years to do something called magic and then an inexplicable surge in power.

Your Zhatain example is pointless because the asuran society had a much closer proximity to their dragon. Literally able to touch him.

Show me in lore where it’s stated that paragon used magic. It has already been stated that most skills were given animation to identify them in pvp.

There is more to magic than just spells. I’m saying its pointless to use in your examples professions that have already been said to use magic. Whether or not the form is a spell is irrelevant. I could even say now that it wasn’t magic and the dervish was simply praying really hard to a diety to grant them power. It’s matters whether the ability comes from inside or out.

We can see that engineers have modded prayers to Dwayna to work with their toolbelt. Is this magic?

You should know by now that the names of spells don’t exactly matter because of the numbers of real life references in them. As well as that they change in other languages.

I also dislike the point that if asuran had magic therfore x profession they do is magic. Look at engineers.

every single time you assume that a non spell is magic you need to realise that artist animations and English names are not lore.

Druid lore is no different from reaper lore, tempest lore, or the lore of any other specialization.

At this point, OP comes across as arguing just for the sake of arguing.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Go visit Brisban Wildlands, there are events near the Priory camp there involved with druid lore. There are “husks” which are called the druids’ bodies.

And there were treants in GW1 – just not called that. Oakhearts are treants.

No, there were no treants in GW1, Oakhearts were Oakhearts. Treants come from Tolkien lore which GW2 borrowed simply to add name recognition to the Oakheart idea. Oakheart was actually an original name for these things; Treants, or “Ents”, is the literary equivalent of a re-skin.

We have developer statement that 1 BE wasn’t the first time the gods released magic from the Bloodstone.

The same Angel McCoy that wrote this?
~ “When you think of the history of Tyria from a non-human standpoint or, broader still, from a pan-racial standpoint, you begin to realize that not everything the people of Tyria believed 250 years ago is actually the whole truth. Just like I was taught in grade school (not quite 250 years ago—hehe) that Christopher Columbus discovered America and Thanksgiving was all about the Pilgrims having turkey dinner with the Native Americans. Just like that, the people of Tyria may have had only a partial or biased view of historic events. Some Tyrian historians might have gotten it wrong. Others might have recorded things in a manner that suited their agenda. Thus, when you quote a scholar from that era, it’s not unlike quoting pre-Socratic scholars in the real world who believed the Earth was flat. At some point, a Durmand Priory scholar or an asuran researcher questioned whether these historians were right or not. Sometimes they were; sometimes they weren’t. Sometimes, they only knew part of the story. We want to give you more of the story.”

That is just plain silly. She’s basically giving ANet a free-hand with the lore, and using real-life historic discoveries to justify hand-picked re-writings of a fictional world. The truth of a fictional world doesn’t reside in real-life at all, it resides only the mind’s eye of the author. To say otherwise is wrong on so many levels I don’t even know where to begin. And to try and justify an alternate narrative based on that is sideshow slight-of-hand at best, and literary larceny at worst.

Do you really agree with her reasoning there, Konig?

Vesuvius.9874:

Druid lore is no different from reaper lore, tempest lore, or the lore of any other specialization.

At this point, OP comes across as arguing just for the sake of arguing.

I’m sorry I didn’t make threads for those specs. Maybe because they all bestowed powers we explicitly knew they had?

Obsidian.1328:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Go visit Brisban Wildlands, there are events near the Priory camp there involved with druid lore. There are “husks” which are called the druids’ bodies.

And there were treants in GW1 – just not called that. Oakhearts are treants.

No, there were no treants in GW1, Oakhearts were Oakhearts. Treants come from Tolkien lore which GW2 borrowed simply to add name recognition to the Oakheart idea. Oakheart was actually an original name for these things; Treants, or “Ents”, is the literary equivalent of a re-skin.

We have developer statement that 1 BE wasn’t the first time the gods released magic from the Bloodstone.

The same Angel McCoy that wrote this?
~ “When you think of the history of Tyria from a non-human standpoint or, broader still, from a pan-racial standpoint, you begin to realize that not everything the people of Tyria believed 250 years ago is actually the whole truth. Just like I was taught in grade school (not quite 250 years ago—hehe) that Christopher Columbus discovered America and Thanksgiving was all about the Pilgrims having turkey dinner with the Native Americans. Just like that, the people of Tyria may have had only a partial or biased view of historic events. Some Tyrian historians might have gotten it wrong. Others might have recorded things in a manner that suited their agenda. Thus, when you quote a scholar from that era, it’s not unlike quoting pre-Socratic scholars in the real world who believed the Earth was flat. At some point, a Durmand Priory scholar or an asuran researcher questioned whether these historians were right or not. Sometimes they were; sometimes they weren’t. Sometimes, they only knew part of the story. We want to give you more of the story.”

That is just plain silly. She’s basically giving ANet a free-hand with the lore, and using real-life historic discoveries to justify hand-picked re-writings of a fictional world. The truth of a fictional world doesn’t reside in real-life at all, it resides only the mind’s eye of the author. To say otherwise is wrong on so many levels I don’t even know where to begin. And to try and justify an alternate narrative based on that is sideshow slight-of-hand at best, and literary larceny at worst.

Do you really agree with her reasoning there, Konig?

We have already had this debate. Please assume that all gw2 is fan fiction of gw1. This discussion is over a recent batch of gw2 fan fiction. But you do bring up an interesting point.

When gw2 wants to retcons they usually do it explicitly.

As angel said they would have been asuran scholars somewhere saying that the historical text we quote is inaccurate beyond knowing only part of the story?

Where are these gw2 priory scholars espousing true ritualist lore?

Daniel Handler.4816:

My premise was that it took them 250 years to do something called magic and then an inexplicable surge in power.

By your arguments, so has every other profession gotten that “inexplicable surge in power.”

Or were warriors always capable of lighting themselves on fire and getting stronger from that fact?

Daniel Handler.4816:

Your Zhatain example is pointless because the asuran society had a much closer proximity to their dragon. Literally able to touch him.

Says what?

How old, exactly, is the Central Transfer Chamber? How long has it existed? How long have asura been near Primordus?

You can’t say. We don’t know.

Orr was always a magical kingdom – the lore says so – and that reason is Zhaitan and the Artesian Waters.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Show me in lore where it’s stated that paragon used magic. It has already been stated that most skills were given animation to identify them in pvp.

So you’re saying that ethereal wings are not magic because they’re mechanics, but you’re saying that it’s not mechanics for a skill to never possibly be magic if it isn’t given the skill type “spell”.

Gotcha.

Daniel Handler.4816:

There is more to magic than just spells. I’m saying its pointless to use in your examples professions that have already been said to use magic. Whether or not the form is a spell is irrelevant. I could even say now that it wasn’t magic and the dervish was simply praying really hard to a diety to grant them power. It’s matters whether the ability comes from inside or out.

And my entire point is that NOTHING states rangers, paragons, or warriors never used magic. Nothing, except for players.

Sure, they don’t use spell skill types, but like you said: there is more to magic than just spells. And that has been my point the entire time.

Daniel Handler.4816:

We can see that engineers have modded prayers to Dwayna to work with their toolbelt. Is this magic?

I would argue yes. Because while that’s called a “toolbelt” in mechanics it’s just a second set of skills. And some are, indeed, magic.

Daniel Handler.4816:

You should know by now that the names of spells don’t exactly matter because of the numbers of real life references in them. As well as that they change in other languages.

My. Entire. Point.

NPCs using player spell names is purely mechanics. So asura rangers using players’ skills is mechanics. Not lore. So your argument that asura learned the ranger profession from humans has no support.

Daniel Handler.4816:

I also dislike the point that if asuran had magic therfore x profession they do is magic. Look at engineers.

No one said that.

Daniel Handler.4816:

every single time you assume that a non spell is magic you need to realise that artist animations and English names are not lore.

Animations are, actually, lore. Names, not entirely so.

But you need to realize the same. Just because an NPC is using a skill named “Dwayna’s Kiss” doesn’t mean that the NPC is a follower of Dwayna. In the same light, just because an NPC is using the same skills as what’s available to players doesn’t mean that the NPC learned their skills from the player character’s culture/civilization.

Congratulations, you just completely countered yourself in your attempt to counter me.

Obsidian.1328:

No, there were no treants in GW1, Oakhearts were Oakhearts. Treants come from Tolkien lore which GW2 borrowed simply to add name recognition to the Oakheart idea. Oakheart was actually an original name for these things; Treants, or “Ents”, is the literary equivalent of a re-skin.

Oakhearts are treants.

Ergo, treants existed in GW1. But we never saw them by that name. In lore, the term “treant” could be newly made in the past 250 years. It wouldn’t be odd in the least, given how fast languages develop and evolve.

And oakheart was only the name of some of these creatures. Did you forget Pinesouls?

Their group classification in GW1 was just simply “plants”.

Obsidian.1328:

Do you really agree with her reasoning there, Konig?

No. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a part of lore.

Whether I like it or not. Whether you like it or not.

And why are you even here, Obsidian? To continue your argument that GW2 lore and GW1 lore are of two completely different universes while arguing crap like how different artists in comicbook universes write for the same story universe despite retconning each other?

You’re only here to kitten and moan, Obsidian. So kindly stop.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Daniel Handler.4816:

My premise was that it took them 250 years to do something called magic and then an inexplicable surge in power.

By your arguments, so has every other profession gotten that “inexplicable surge in power.”

Or were warriors always capable of lighting themselves on fire and getting stronger from that fact?

Daniel Handler.4816:

Your Zhatain example is pointless because the asuran society had a much closer proximity to their dragon. Literally able to touch him.

Says what?

How old, exactly, is the Central Transfer Chamber? How long has it existed? How long have asura been near Primordus?

You can’t say. We don’t know.

Orr was always a magical kingdom – the lore says so – and that reason is Zhaitan and the Artesian Waters.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Show me in lore where it’s stated that paragon used magic. It has already been stated that most skills were given animation to identify them in pvp.

So you’re saying that ethereal wings are not magic because they’re mechanics, but you’re saying that it’s not mechanics for a skill to never possibly be magic if it isn’t given the skill type “spell”.

Gotcha.

Daniel Handler.4816:

There is more to magic than just spells. I’m saying its pointless to use in your examples professions that have already been said to use magic. Whether or not the form is a spell is irrelevant. I could even say now that it wasn’t magic and the dervish was simply praying really hard to a diety to grant them power. It’s matters whether the ability comes from inside or out.

And my entire point is that NOTHING states rangers, paragons, or warriors never used magic. Nothing, except for players.

Sure, they don’t use spell skill types, but like you said: there is more to magic than just spells. And that has been my point the entire time.

Daniel Handler.4816:

We can see that engineers have modded prayers to Dwayna to work with their toolbelt. Is this magic?

I would argue yes. Because while that’s called a “toolbelt” in mechanics it’s just a second set of skills. And some are, indeed, magic.

Daniel Handler.4816:

You should know by now that the names of spells don’t exactly matter because of the numbers of real life references in them. As well as that they change in other languages.

My. Entire. Point.

NPCs using player spell names is purely mechanics. So asura rangers using players’ skills is mechanics. Not lore. So your argument that asura learned the ranger profession from humans has no support.

Daniel Handler.4816:

I also dislike the point that if asuran had magic therfore x profession they do is magic. Look at engineers.

No one said that.

Daniel Handler.4816:

every single time you assume that a non spell is magic you need to realise that artist animations and English names are not lore.

Animations are, actually, lore. Names, not entirely so.

But you need to realize the same. Just because an NPC is using a skill named “Dwayna’s Kiss” doesn’t mean that the NPC is a follower of Dwayna. In the same light, just because an NPC is using the same skills as what’s available to players doesn’t mean that the NPC learned their skills from the player character’s culture/civilization.

Congratulations, you just completely countered yourself in your attempt to counter me.

Obsidian.1328:

No, there were no treants in GW1, Oakhearts were Oakhearts. Treants come from Tolkien lore which GW2 borrowed simply to add name recognition to the Oakheart idea. Oakheart was actually an original name for these things; Treants, or “Ents”, is the literary equivalent of a re-skin.

Oakhearts are treants.

Ergo, treants existed in GW1. But we never saw them by that name. In lore, the term “treant” could be newly made in the past 250 years. It wouldn’t be odd in the least, given how fast languages develop and evolve.

And oakheart was only the name of some of these creatures. Did you forget Pinesouls?

Their group classification in GW1 was just simply “plants”.

Obsidian.1328:

Do you really agree with her reasoning there, Konig?

No. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a part of lore.

Whether I like it or not. Whether you like it or not.

And why are you even here, Obsidian? To continue your argument that GW2 lore and GW1 lore are of two completely different universes while arguing crap like how different artists in comicbook universes write for the same story universe despite retconning each other?

You’re only here to kitten and moan, Obsidian. So kindly stop.

A surge in power but not a unusual surge in comparison to what they can accomplish in gw2.

The text of the skill is more important than its animation. . Not the artists subjective decision to make berserkers summon rocks from the ground. Not the name that changed per each game. Those aren’t mechanics and they certainly aren’t lore. Or else the phantasm that we have now make no sense to gw1.

When the freaking game tells you what is and is not a spell. You listen. It is the game not the player. Beyond that it is up to interpretation what is magic. And this is what we are trying to accomplish.

This has become a debate over whether there were asuran Rangers.

I do not know why.

Say I am wrong and that there were asuran Rangers. What changes the overall debate.

This debate progressed down a line when we debated whether asura were a magical society. We debated this because it somehow meant that pre gift of magi ritualists were magic users. Or that somehow Rangers were also magic users.

The reason I mention spell is because it was constant in all languages that game was translated. And all times the animations changed.

I apologize if I do not argue as effectively as you would want. But though all these talks the core discussion is unchanged.

Were pre gift of magic rangers practicing what we consider to be magic?

Were gw1 Rangers performaning magic?

You keep roundabout trying to get me to admit that nature rituals were magic. The binding rituals yes don’t have the skill type spell but many fall under the attribute channeling magic. The Dervishes are said to channel. And already have a diverse access to spells.

You frame this debate around whether casters must use spells. A portion I still hold.

But you neglect in your justification that non spells are magic what qualities they hold to be so. Or is everything magic?

@Daniel Handler.4816: I’ve been following this thread for a few days, and at this point I’m really trying to figure out whether or not you’re trolling, here and on the other thread you created (for reasons I seem to not be able to grasp, since it is so similar to this one). If it is, it really is well done.
If you’re not, then all I have to say is that I agree with Konig. Really feels like you’re trying to make your arguments fit where they shouldn’t. Like trying to make a triangle fit in a circular hole.

Really if gw1 game mechanics was taken as lore. that would mean Grub Lance somehow
learned to become monks in a monastery XD

Obsidian.1328:

No, I’m saying they weren’t Druids until they became spirits. Before that they were just humans like any other, with whatever magical abilities any creature had. Where did I say they didn’t have magic?

Wardens aren’t druids. The theory they were previously druids is one of many from the wiki.

Do you have any proof to support that? Because it’s a pretty strange statement. Druids are not a type of spirit, they are a group of religious humans. Sometimes with nature powers.

And no, that isn’t a wiki theory. What you read was a quote from the Guild Wars: Factions Manuscript. A player guide. Therefore it is official lore that Wardens were either human druids or monks before they transformed. Therefore druids were, in fact, humans before undergoing their transformations. Canthan druids became Wardens and Tyrian druids became spirits.

Unless you have lore that proves this outright wrong.

Even then let’s look at your argument. One of phrasing.

“The Druids were a group of Krytan humans that long ago moved to the Maguuma Jungle in order to live with nature. It is said that they are devout followers of Melandru, though this is only rumors. According to the History of Tyria, they were forced out of jungles in the long distant past by other humans. They were last seen by others sometime before 982 AE and mysteriously vanished decades before 1072 AE. Although generally believed to have been killed off by the jungle’s predatory plants and animals, the Druids actually shed their physical bodies to become one with nature. The Druids now exist as spirits, appearing similar to Oakhearts.”

From the wiki. Reading this it seems pretty clear that the word druid refers to the group of humans that moved to Maguuma. Not ONLY to the form they took after they became spirits. Even the use of past tense makes it quite clear they were druids before the act of becoming spirits.

Do you have any lore that contradicts this explicitly?

Im sorry but this is just getting to the point that its just stupid, Daniel, you dont like druid lore thats fine, dont use the elite spec, PROBLEM SOLVED, Konig, i mean no disrespect but at this point the arguing is making both of you look petty so,maybe, its time to stop and have the forums mods close this thread

Djahlat.9610:

@Daniel Handler.4816: I’ve been following this thread for a few days, and at this point I’m really trying to figure out whether or not you’re trolling, here and on the other thread you created (for reasons I seem to not be able to grasp, since it is so similar to this one). If it is, it really is well done.
If you’re not, then all I have to say is that I agree with Konig. Really feels like you’re trying to make your arguments fit where they shouldn’t. Like trying to make a triangle fit in a circular hole.

The other thread was suppose to discuss a specific theory. This thread was just to point out general flaws.

The ultimately annoying thing is that when people like you and Konig disagree with something you find to be bothersome or erroneous you attack the specifics of the argument but you never truly respond to the whole of the argument.

I may be trying to prove that rectangles are quadrilaterals.
From that I would say that rectangles are squares, and squares are quadrilaterals, so rectangles must be quadrilaterals right?
This is where you swoop in and say that rectangles aren’t always squares. Never seeming to truly touch that much upon the premise.

I apologise that it took so long for my formalize my argument.

All spells in gw1 were magic.

From that we have some options.
All non spell skills are magic.
Not all non spell skills are magic.
Not non spell skill is magic.

I will not accept animations as they change. If all animations cannot be said to be lore, then one must individually look at each animation. After all one would not say that all smokescreens are rectangular.

I will not accept names of skills as the game can be translated. Therefore one must look at them one by one.

I will accept the text for skills that explains what is happening because that at least shows intent.

For me, when the text speaks of magic it must be magic. If the text implies magic and we look at the animation, and the lore, then it is magic.

Otherwise we assume to much. After all they have said that the act of shadowstep is not solely magic.

Rangers could cast no spells in gw1.

In gw2 it uses nature magic. The skills of survival are implied in text and animation to be magic, but they are not listed under this traitline. I assume it is magic because it performs the ability that spirit could do in gw1.

Is the summoning of spirits magic? The text implies, the animation does not. The lore is unclear. And the trait that affects spirits under nature magic enhance their ability, but has nothing to do with their summoning. The trait lingering magic seems to imply that nature magic has to do with boons. Backing this up is that the way we can seemingly enhance the spirits ability to give boons. Before we could make them walk. Now they cannot walk. Everything is muddled.

Every other spec gets an increase in abilities they are unambiguously said to have. The only exception is the ranger.

shadowfanatik.5160:

Im sorry but this is just getting to the point that its just stupid, Daniel, you dont like druid lore thats fine, dont use the elite spec, PROBLEM SOLVED, Konig, i mean no disrespect but at this point the arguing is making both of you look petty so,maybe, its time to stop and have the forums mods close this thread

….

I have no problem with how I appear to you. I do have a problem when you get self-righteous. You chose whether or not to read this.

You mean no disrespect. But the fact you feel the need to shut down a discussion you don’t have to be a part of is immensely rude.

And the fact you think that because someone has problems with lore they should simply not use a spec is as offensive as telling people who main ele to simply switch classes if they don’t like the spec. You don’t main this forum. And this thread is far less permanent in comparison to the lore of the game or whatever the tempest spec is.

yes you are right, I did choose to read this thread and respond in admittedly not a totally clear state of mind, but still as a fellow player i have just as much right to voice my opinion as you do. you choose to view me as self righteous, such was not my intent to be such but oh well.

All I mean to say is that you have both been arguing for days over something that may well be retconned within the next few months, until the devs decide whether to change it or not the druid is what it is lore wise, not everyone is going to like it, does that mean the devs will change it, not necessarily, in fact they seem to very rarely comment on lore issues unless blatant contradictions arise. even should they change it there is no guarantee that the will change it in a way that supports your view on the specialization’s lore.

as a side note I apologize if I personally offended you, such was not my intent. i simply believe that this arguement has gone past the point of theoretical debate and to the point of arguing for the sake of arguing.

shadowfanatik.5160:

yes you are right, I did choose to read this thread and respond in admittedly not a totally clear state of mind, but still as a fellow player i have just as much right to voice my opinion as you do. you choose to view me as self righteous, such was not my intent to be such but oh well.

All I mean to say is that you have both been arguing for days over something that may well be retconned within the next few months, until the devs decide whether to change it or not the druid is what it is lore wise, not everyone is going to like it, does that mean the devs will change it, not necessarily, in fact they seem to very rarely comment on lore issues unless blatant contradictions arise. even should they change it there is no guarantee that the will change it in a way that supports your view on the specialization’s lore.

as a side note I apologize if I personally offended you, such was not my intent. i simply believe that this arguement has gone past the point of theoretical debate and to the point of arguing for the sake of arguing.

I wish they commented. I never wanted them to change to my perspective. I just wanted them to comment. And I wanted them to know that this concern existed. So they can at least make sure their explanations alleviate some concerns.

I am thankful this discussion took place because it allowed the community to express their opinions on some lore. Stuff we have not talked about in a while. Such as what is magic.

Daniel Handler.4816:

All spells in gw1 were magic.

From that we have some options.
All non spell skills are magic.
Not all non spell skills are magic.
No non spell skill is magic.

I will not accept animations as they change. If all animations cannot be said to be lore, then one must individually look at each animation. After all one would not say that all smokescreens are rectangular.

I will not accept names of skills as the game can be translated. Therefore one must look at them one by one.

I will accept the text for skills that explains what is happening because that at least shows intent.

For me, when the text speaks of magic it must be magic. If the text implies magic and we look at the animation, and the lore, then it is magic.

Otherwise we assume to much. After all they have said that the act of shadowstep is not solely magic.

Rangers could cast no spells in gw1.

In gw2 it uses nature magic. The skills of survival are implied in text and animation to be magic, but they are not listed under this traitline. I assume it is magic because it performs the ability that spirit could do in gw1.

Is the summoning of spirits magic? The text implies, the animation does not. The lore is unclear. And the trait that affects spirits under nature magic enhance their ability, but has nothing to do with their summoning. The trait lingering magic seems to imply that nature magic has to do with boons. Backing this up is that the way we can seemingly enhance the spirits ability to give boons. Before we could make them walk. Now they cannot walk. Everything is muddled.

Every other spec gets an increase in abilities they are unambiguously said to have. The only exception is the ranger.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Spear_of_Lightning “Spear Attack. If this attack hits, it deals +8…18…20 lightning damage. This attack has 25% armor penetration.”

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Holy_Spear “Spear Attack. If this attack hits, you deal +5…17…20 damage. If it hits a summoned creature, all nearby foes take 15…75…90 holy damage, and are set on fire for 3 seconds.”

two examples of non-spell skills that quite definitely use magic. Both from the paragon. So clearly there are some non-spell skills that use magic. going off of that, it’s entirely possible that rituals are indeed magical in nature. to follow up on ‘rangers don’t use magic’, here’s a ranger skill that is CLEARLY magical in nature

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Heal_as_One “Elite Skill. For 15 seconds, your animal companion steals 1…16…20 Health whenever it hits with an attack. You and your companion are both healed for 20…87…104 Health. If your companion is dead, it’s resurrected with 50% Health. If you have this skill equipped, your companion will travel with you.”

pretty much the name, description and intent of that skill is one of healing, which in most cases in gw1 was magical in nature. Here’s another:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Symbiotic_Bond “Shout. For 120…264…300 seconds, your animal companion gains 1…3…3 Health regeneration, and half of all damage dealt to your animal companion is redirected to you.”

Now correct me if i’m wrong, but is there a non-magical way of redirecting the damage that an animal takes to you by simply shouting at it really hard? (also the name and text very much imply magical in nature)

one more

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Storm_Chaser “Stance. For 8…18…20 seconds, you move 25% faster, and you gain 1…4…5 Energy whenever you take elemental damage.”

so this is perhaps the least convincing of the three in my opinion, but all three of these skills point to a clearly magical nature of the rangers skillset. It’s entirely possible and even likely that ALL nature rituals that the ranger used are of a magical nature inherent to the ranger.

What’s more, you’ve CLEARLY stated that you certainly see that rangers DO use magic in GW2, even if it’s not the spirits they summon. So it’s not even in the slightest bit possible that rangers can somehow focus and hone in on that magic and become magic casters?

In fact, from your argument, the berserker is even MORE absurd than the druid, because a berserker can set fire to everything around them every time they use a rage skill, even if they don’t have a torch on them. they can also set themselves on fire and not take damage from that. they can even summon a gigantic rock that comes out of the earth for them to shatter with their own fist.

Let’s take a look at a couple of berserker skills.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rupturing_Smash “Jump to the targeted location and slam your hammer down, creating a deadly chain of earthen shock waves that knock back foes.” and the animation clearly supports this.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blaze_Breaker “Smash your torch into the ground, creating a deadly shock wave that conditions foes.”

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shattering_Blow “Summon a rock in front of you, and then shatter it to gain adrenaline and send rock fragments at all foes in front of you. Foes bleed based on how close they are to the rock. The shock wave produced by this attack reflects projectiles.”

warriors had NO magical capability before the berserker was introduced, and by your outlook on the druid, you should be downright furious that the berserker doesn’t make any sense lorewise.

yet as you’ve stated:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Every other spec gets an increase in abilities they are unambiguously said to have. The only exception is the ranger.

When, with the above three examples, it turns out that the exception is NOT the ranger, it turns out it’s the berserker. one skill even unambiguously uses the word ‘summon’ in it’s description. the very animation of the skill supports it and the name of the skill supports it too.

so i’d suggest that you take a darn hard look at what you’re arguing, because what you say does not line up.

What is even the point in discussing wether or not the ranger skills are magical in nature? We know for sure the ranger doesn’t manipulate elements himself, the spirits do it for him. Wether or not there is magic energy involved when a spirit is bond to the physical realm or lend its power to the ranger doesn’t seem very important to me, since magic in GW universe can be something very intuitional. The important thing is that rangers don’t use elemental magic.
The druid does. And I have no problem with the druid being a spellcaster. Its absolutely plausible for me that their culture taps into magic and bother with learning to control magic flows and maybe learn some or another elementalist-esque spell (which they seem to do with some of the glyphs), as long they keep in touch with the spirits and use it in their interest. It makes sense. We could’ve see it coming.
Just the whole celestial thing seems out of place. One or two “sun-themed” skills would be plausible for me, since sunlight is very important to the wildlife and serve the jungle/the spirits. But whats up with the celestial cycles, the moon, the stars, the gravity? These things just don’t matter much, especially there in the jungle (= no tides, no seasons, no change in day-night-cycle over the course of the year, no meaningful respond of the nature to the moon). Yes, it can be put very vaguely under the term of nature, but thats also true for, well, everything. Thats not an argument. They don’t built their skills around everything, they focus on celestial bodies. I just hope we get an (good) explanation from where the heavy obsession with astrology came so suddenly. If they had great interest in it BEFORE they left human realms, they wouldn’t have head to the jungles, because a jungle is after the underground the absolute worst place to study these movements in the sky. No clear sight to the sky (emergent jungle layer covers everything up, cloud cover every day), not really the ability to craft fine-tuned mathematical instruments, and if, they erode very quick due to the humidity and warmth, get fogged all the time, their documentations also have a very low durability, the enviroment is too hostile to just sit somewhere for weeks, watch something and document small changes, etc.pp.. If they developed the interest AFTER arriving to the jungle – why? From pure nature observation they maybe would’ve adapt to the religion of Hylek, which worship the sun. There has to be another reason for the other celestial bodies.
It made perfect sense for canthans to study astronomy, for a trible in the jungle becoming one with the enviroment (! not the universe/skysphere/whatever) not so much. I really hope they have a reasoning behind all this other than.. “well, the moon is kind of part of nature, y’know”.

Ehecatl.9172:

Obsidian.1328:

No, I’m saying they weren’t Druids until they became spirits. Before that they were just humans like any other, with whatever magical abilities any creature had. Where did I say they didn’t have magic?

Wardens aren’t druids. The theory they were previously druids is one of many from the wiki.

Do you have any proof to support that? Because it’s a pretty strange statement. Druids are not a type of spirit, they are a group of religious humans. Sometimes with nature powers.

And no, that isn’t a wiki theory. What you read was a quote from the Guild Wars: Factions Manuscript. A player guide. Therefore it is official lore that Wardens were either human druids or monks before they transformed. Therefore druids were, in fact, humans before undergoing their transformations. Canthan druids became Wardens and Tyrian druids became spirits.

Unless you have lore that proves this outright wrong.

Even then let’s look at your argument. One of phrasing.

“The Druids were a group of Krytan humans that long ago moved to the Maguuma Jungle in order to live with nature. It is said that they are devout followers of Melandru, though this is only rumors. According to the History of Tyria, they were forced out of jungles in the long distant past by other humans. They were last seen by others sometime before 982 AE and mysteriously vanished decades before 1072 AE. Although generally believed to have been killed off by the jungle’s predatory plants and animals, the Druids actually shed their physical bodies to become one with nature. The Druids now exist as spirits, appearing similar to Oakhearts.”

From the wiki. Reading this it seems pretty clear that the word druid refers to the group of humans that moved to Maguuma. Not ONLY to the form they took after they became spirits. Even the use of past tense makes it quite clear they were druids before the act of becoming spirits.

Do you have any lore that contradicts this explicitly?

“They may have once been human, perhaps powerful druids or holy men…”

Not only is the player guide guessing at the Warden class origin, it’s also guessing at their race. As such, it’s still a wiki theory as to where or who they came from.

As for the rest, you’re right. I apologize. Druids were tribes of humans at first, and later taking on spectral form.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Oakhearts are treants.

Ergo, treants existed in GW1. But we never saw them by that name. In lore, the term “treant” could be newly made in the past 250 years. It wouldn’t be odd in the least, given how fast languages develop and evolve.

And oakheart was only the name of some of these creatures. Did you forget Pinesouls?

Their group classification in GW1 was just simply “plants”.

Didn’t forget about Pinesouls, there’s also Redwood Shepherds and Singed Oaks for example. They all had slightly different abilities depending on where you found them. “Treant” is just a blanket term GW2 uses to encapsulate all of them into one classification. Languages evolve…sure thing. My point was not only did the name “treant” not exist in GW1, it’s also a blatant out-of-verse reference that was entirely unneeded. Why not just call all Sylvari elves and Asura gnomes if they are going to do that?

No. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a part of lore.

Whether I like it or not. Whether you like it or not.

If you don’t like it, why do you even bother then? By accepting what you don’t like, you’re enabling it.

And why are you even here, Obsidian? To continue your argument that GW2 lore and GW1 lore are of two completely different universes while arguing crap like how different artists in comicbook universes write for the same story universe despite retconning each other?

I’m here to troll…it’s right there under my name, good sir. Also why I do it is right there under my name. Is that against the rules?

Are willowhearts/oakhearts/pinesouls/… even referenced ingame with the term “treant” at any time? I don’t play with the english client, never saw something other than their orignal names in the german one. I guess the term treant ist just used by the playerbase to don’t have to differentiate between them when its unnecessary for the current discussion – as in this case. Don’t see a problem with it, since its a portmanteau of ‘tree’ and ‘giant’, whats pretty accurate for them. Why do you have to make a point out of minor nomenclaturial issues which don’t add something useful to the discussion? The druids became willowhearts (as indicated by the GW2 lore, e.g. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Return_the_arboreal_spirit_to_its_husk,_and_drive_away_the_hylek), if you call them by that name or simplify it with treants. The point remains the same.

Obsidian.1328:

“They may have once been human, perhaps powerful druids or holy men…”

Not only is the player guide guessing at the Warden class origin, it’s also guessing at their race. As such, it’s still a wiki theory as to where or who they came from.

As for the rest, you’re right. I apologize. Druids were tribes of humans at first, and later taking on spectral form.

Technically calling it a wiki theory implies the wiki editors invented and subscribe to the theory, which is what I thought you meant.

I’d call this more of an in-universe theory.

I accept your apology.

castlemanic.3198:

Daniel Handler.4816:

All spells in gw1 were magic.

From that we have some options.
All non spell skills are magic.
Not all non spell skills are magic.
No non spell skill is magic.

I will not accept animations as they change. If all animations cannot be said to be lore, then one must individually look at each animation. After all one would not say that all smokescreens are rectangular.

I will not accept names of skills as the game can be translated. Therefore one must look at them one by one.

I will accept the text for skills that explains what is happening because that at least shows intent.

For me, when the text speaks of magic it must be magic. If the text implies magic and we look at the animation, and the lore, then it is magic.

Otherwise we assume to much. After all they have said that the act of shadowstep is not solely magic.

Rangers could cast no spells in gw1.

In gw2 it uses nature magic. The skills of survival are implied in text and animation to be magic, but they are not listed under this traitline. I assume it is magic because it performs the ability that spirit could do in gw1.

Is the summoning of spirits magic? The text implies, the animation does not. The lore is unclear. And the trait that affects spirits under nature magic enhance their ability, but has nothing to do with their summoning. The trait lingering magic seems to imply that nature magic has to do with boons. Backing this up is that the way we can seemingly enhance the spirits ability to give boons. Before we could make them walk. Now they cannot walk. Everything is muddled.

Every other spec gets an increase in abilities they are unambiguously said to have. The only exception is the ranger.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Spear_of_Lightning “Spear Attack. If this attack hits, it deals +8…18…20 lightning damage. This attack has 25% armor penetration.”

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Holy_Spear “Spear Attack. If this attack hits, you deal +5…17…20 damage. If it hits a summoned creature, all nearby foes take 15…75…90 holy damage, and are set on fire for 3 seconds.”

two examples of non-spell skills that quite definitely use magic. Both from the paragon. So clearly there are some non-spell skills that use magic. going off of that, it’s entirely possible that rituals are indeed magical in nature. to follow up on ‘rangers don’t use magic’, here’s a ranger skill that is CLEARLY magical in nature

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Heal_as_One “Elite Skill. For 15 seconds, your animal companion steals 1…16…20 Health whenever it hits with an attack. You and your companion are both healed for 20…87…104 Health. If your companion is dead, it’s resurrected with 50% Health. If you have this skill equipped, your companion will travel with you.”

pretty much the name, description and intent of that skill is one of healing, which in most cases in gw1 was magical in nature. Here’s another:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Symbiotic_Bond “Shout. For 120…264…300 seconds, your animal companion gains 1…3…3 Health regeneration, and half of all damage dealt to your animal companion is redirected to you.”

Now correct me if i’m wrong, but is there a non-magical way of redirecting the damage that an animal takes to you by simply shouting at it really hard? (also the name and text very much imply magical in nature)

one more

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Storm_Chaser “Stance. For 8…18…20 seconds, you move 25% faster, and you gain 1…4…5 Energy whenever you take elemental damage.”

so this is perhaps the least convincing of the three in my opinion, but all three of these skills point to a clearly magical nature of the rangers skillset. It’s entirely possible and even likely that ALL nature rituals that the ranger used are of a magical nature inherent to the ranger.

What’s more, you’ve CLEARLY stated that you certainly see that rangers DO use magic in GW2, even if it’s not the spirits they summon. So it’s not even in the slightest bit possible that rangers can somehow focus and hone in on that magic and become magic casters?

In fact, from your argument, the berserker is even MORE absurd than the druid, because a berserker can set fire to everything around them every time they use a rage skill, even if they don’t have a torch on them. they can also set themselves on fire and not take damage from that. they can even summon a gigantic rock that comes out of the earth for them to shatter with their own fist.

Let’s take a look at a couple of berserker skills.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rupturing_Smash “Jump to the targeted location and slam your hammer down, creating a deadly chain of earthen shock waves that knock back foes.” and the animation clearly supports this.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blaze_Breaker “Smash your torch into the ground, creating a deadly shock wave that conditions foes.”

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shattering_Blow “Summon a rock in front of you, and then shatter it to gain adrenaline and send rock fragments at all foes in front of you. Foes bleed based on how close they are to the rock. The shock wave produced by this attack reflects projectiles.”

warriors had NO magical capability before the berserker was introduced, and by your outlook on the druid, you should be downright furious that the berserker doesn’t make any sense lorewise.

yet as you’ve stated:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Every other spec gets an increase in abilities they are unambiguously said to have. The only exception is the ranger.

When, with the above three examples, it turns out that the exception is NOT the ranger, it turns out it’s the berserker. one skill even unambiguously uses the word ‘summon’ in it’s description. the very animation of the skill supports it and the name of the skill supports it too.

so i’d suggest that you take a darn hard look at what you’re arguing, because what you say does not line up.

I am going to stop you right there if you think this discussion is going to continuing being on whether the ranger uses magic at all. It is about whether rituals were magic.

A spear of lightning is no more magical than a flame arrow. For as you know in gw2 we have air and fire sigils. Is there a holy sigil? This is an example of assuming too much.

Your claiming the magical foundations behind beastmastery does not exactly lend to a case where every other slightly magical thing must be magic. It just causes more irritation because they don’t explain what ranger magic is. Some magic does not mean all magic.

Is nature magic emphatic connections to animal and spirits?
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Empathic_Bond they are so strange in gw2 the way they discuss the “magic” that rangers perform, versus the other classes. For instance this skill seems magical but it is placed in wilderness survival, not in nature magic.

Here is another “bond” skill.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Angelic_Bond This skill had the attribute leadership.
Are they implying that paragon and ranger magic is the same? Is this related to shouting? There are all these bond skills that seem to be related but should be separate in lore.

I am quite annoyed that berserker’s are summoning. However their ability to perform this action is an extension of their rage. And it feeds into a mechanic they have alway used. Adrenaline. So nothing is made more unusual. The only irritating skill is the one that says summon.

Amraston.2846:

What is even the point in discussing wether or not the ranger skills are magical in nature? We know for sure the ranger doesn’t manipulate elements himself, the spirits do it for him. Wether or not there is magic energy involved when a spirit is bond to the physical realm or lend its power to the ranger doesn’t seem very important to me, since magic in GW universe can be something very intuitional. The important thing is that rangers don’t use elemental magic.
The druid does. And I have no problem with the druid being a spellcaster. Its absolutely plausible for me that their culture taps into magic and bother with learning to control magic flows and maybe learn some or another elementalist-esque spell (which they seem to do with some of the glyphs), as long they keep in touch with the spirits and use it in their interest. It makes sense. We could’ve see it coming.
Just the whole celestial thing seems out of place. One or two “sun-themed” skills would be plausible for me, since sunlight is very important to the wildlife and serve the jungle/the spirits. But whats up with the celestial cycles, the moon, the stars, the gravity? These things just don’t matter much, especially there in the jungle (= no tides, no seasons, no change in day-night-cycle over the course of the year, no meaningful respond of the nature to the moon). Yes, it can be put very vaguely under the term of nature, but thats also true for, well, everything. Thats not an argument. They don’t built their skills around everything, they focus on celestial bodies. I just hope we get an (good) explanation from where the heavy obsession with astrology came so suddenly. If they had great interest in it BEFORE they left human realms, they wouldn’t have head to the jungles, because a jungle is after the underground the absolute worst place to study these movements in the sky. No clear sight to the sky (emergent jungle layer covers everything up, cloud cover every day), not really the ability to craft fine-tuned mathematical instruments, and if, they erode very quick due to the humidity and warmth, get fogged all the time, their documentations also have a very low durability, the enviroment is too hostile to just sit somewhere for weeks, watch something and document small changes, etc.pp.. If they developed the interest AFTER arriving to the jungle – why? From pure nature observation they maybe would’ve adapt to the religion of Hylek, which worship the sun. There has to be another reason for the other celestial bodies.
It made perfect sense for canthans to study astronomy, for a trible in the jungle becoming one with the enviroment (! not the universe/skysphere/whatever) not so much. I really hope they have a reasoning behind all this other than.. “well, the moon is kind of part of nature, y’know”.

I do apologise. The topic of whether rituals are magic is simply to tie into how much magic did the ranger use in gw1. How much magic did they use in gw2. And can they be said to be a full blown caster if they have always been having others do the magic for them. I maintained that only recently were rangers apply to practice channeling magics on the levels a of ritualist.

I also maintained, and I think this was lost in the debate of the former, that rangers have always had to be in tune with the spirit world, not to master it. As a result how they would be in tune with celestials became a question.

You bring up a good point.

The black hole. This is an act of gravity manipulation that is so out of sync with what we see the druids devoted their lives too. And I am surprised I did not notice it before.

A black hole is caused by a dead star. The game has you make one by channeling your celestial powers. It is listed as a natural convergence.

But would druids who revere nature created magics that gathers the energy of stars only to destroy them? This has gone beyond summoning spirits of pestilence. This has moved into the realm where the druid would be causing death. Sure the creation of black holes is a natural process, but as we know this is not elemental magic where something is conjured from nothing. This is actual energy from the universe that they gather to either cause a star to die, or they waste the energy into creating a mock dead star.

“Darkness and light, good and evil…all are a part of nature. There is no regrowth without death…without decay. Such is the lesson that I can teach you, stripling.”

Quote from a druid in GW1.

They viewed death, decay, and evil as all facets of nature. Using their magic to mimic the death of a star is well in line with their belief structure that destruction is a necessary part of life.

It really does feel like you’re just fishing for reasons that the new elite spec breaks lore.

Edit: Actually I just remembered what quest that NPC was from. He asks you to go out and bring him the heart of a centaur warlord and bring it back so he can use divination for you. Pretty dark.

Daniel Handler.4816:

I am going to stop you right there if you think this discussion is going to continuing being on whether the ranger uses magic at all. It is about whether rituals were magic.

You’re saying that it’s entirely impossible that rituals can be magic? For what reason? If you acknowledge that the ranger DOES use magic, how is it a stretch to believe that rituals are magical?

Daniel Handler.4816:

A spear of lightning is no more magical than a flame arrow. For as you know in gw2 we have air and fire sigils. Is there a holy sigil? This is an example of assuming too much.

I’m pretty sure that it’s most definitely magical, but your opinion is your own.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Your claiming the magical foundations behind beastmastery does not exactly lend to a case where every other slightly magical thing must be magic. It just causes more irritation because they don’t explain what ranger magic is. Some magic does not mean all magic.

let me quote you again.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Your claiming the magical foundations behind beastmastery does not exactly lend to a case where every other slightly magical thing must be magic.

Slightly magical is still MAGIC.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Is nature magic emphatic connections to animal and spirits?
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Empathic_Bond they are so strange in gw2 the way they discuss the “magic” that rangers perform, versus the other classes. For instance this skill seems magical but it is placed in wilderness survival, not in nature magic.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Survival

we have clear examples in this specific category of skills of both magic and non-magic skills. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lightning_Reflexes vs https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sharpening_Stone for example. lightning reflexes isn’t categorised as nature magic but it most definitely is magic, in fact all survival skills are enhanced by https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wilderness_Knowledge which falls under wilderness survival.

to extrapolate from that, wilderness survival means using whatever means necessary to survive in the wild, and in a world full of magic, there’s an extra and very powerful tool at rangers disposal: magic.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Here is another “bond” skill.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Angelic_Bond This skill had the attribute leadership.
Are they implying that paragon and ranger magic is the same? Is this related to shouting? There are all these bond skills that seem to be related but should be separate in lore.

You’re contradicting yourself

I will not accept names of skills as the game can be translated. Therefore one must look at them one by one.

Daniel Handler.4816:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Empathic_BondI am quite annoyed that berserker’s are summoning. However their ability to perform this action is an extension of their rage. And it feeds into a mechanic they have alway used. Adrenaline. So nothing is made more unusual. The only irritating skill is the one that says summon.

Actually each of those skills creates some sort of either molten or earthen activity. one of the other skills actually uses the word “earthen” in the skills description and that’s NOT the one that has the word ‘summon’ in it.

three more for you from the berserker:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flames_of_War “Cleanse conditions and become a mobile fire field that burns nearby foes. When the field expires, it explodes, damaging foes and burning them again.”

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Last_Blaze “When you use a rage skill, set nearby foes on fire.”

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/King_of_Fires “Increase the duration of burning you apply. Critical hits against burning foes spread the burning to nearby foes.”

again, the berserker is CLEARLY using magic. animations, skill names and skill descriptions all line up with the berserker using magic.

Warriors never used magic and now berserkers do, so why are you not claiming that warriors break lore worse than druids?

castlemanic.3198:

Daniel Handler.4816:

I am going to stop you right there if you think this discussion is going to continuing being on whether the ranger uses magic at all. It is about whether rituals were magic.

You’re saying that it’s entirely impossible that rituals can be magic? For what reason? If you acknowledge that the ranger DOES use magic, how is it a stretch to believe that rituals are magical?

Daniel Handler.4816:

A spear of lightning is no more magical than a flame arrow. For as you know in gw2 we have air and fire sigils. Is there a holy sigil? This is an example of assuming too much.

I’m pretty sure that it’s most definitely magical, but your opinion is your own.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Your claiming the magical foundations behind beastmastery does not exactly lend to a case where every other slightly magical thing must be magic. It just causes more irritation because they don’t explain what ranger magic is. Some magic does not mean all magic.

let me quote you again.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Your claiming the magical foundations behind beastmastery does not exactly lend to a case where every other slightly magical thing must be magic.

Slightly magical is still MAGIC.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Is nature magic emphatic connections to animal and spirits?
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Empathic_Bond they are so strange in gw2 the way they discuss the “magic” that rangers perform, versus the other classes. For instance this skill seems magical but it is placed in wilderness survival, not in nature magic.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Survival

we have clear examples in this specific category of skills of both magic and non-magic skills. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lightning_Reflexes vs https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sharpening_Stone for example. lightning reflexes isn’t categorised as nature magic but it most definitely is magic, in fact all survival skills are enhanced by https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wilderness_Knowledge which falls under wilderness survival.

to extrapolate from that, wilderness survival means using whatever means necessary to survive in the wild, and in a world full of magic, there’s an extra and very powerful tool at rangers disposal: magic.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Here is another “bond” skill.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Angelic_Bond This skill had the attribute leadership.
Are they implying that paragon and ranger magic is the same? Is this related to shouting? There are all these bond skills that seem to be related but should be separate in lore.

You’re contradicting yourself

I will not accept names of skills as the game can be translated. Therefore one must look at them one by one.

Daniel Handler.4816:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Empathic_BondI am quite annoyed that berserker’s are summoning. However their ability to perform this action is an extension of their rage. And it feeds into a mechanic they have alway used. Adrenaline. So nothing is made more unusual. The only irritating skill is the one that says summon.

Actually each of those skills creates some sort of either molten or earthen activity. one of the other skills actually uses the word “earthen” in the skills description and that’s NOT the one that has the word ‘summon’ in it.

three more for you from the berserker:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flames_of_War “Cleanse conditions and become a mobile fire field that burns nearby foes. When the field expires, it explodes, damaging foes and burning them again.”

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Last_Blaze “When you use a rage skill, set nearby foes on fire.”

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/King_of_Fires “Increase the duration of burning you apply. Critical hits against burning foes spread the burning to nearby foes.”

again, the berserker is CLEARLY using magic. animations, skill names and skill descriptions all line up with the berserker using magic.

Warriors never used magic and now berserkers do, so why are you not claiming that warriors break lore worse than druids?

I don’t jump out of my seat when I see the word earth. After all
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Earthshaker
Again the only surprising one is the one that say summon.

I don’t say rituals are magic because there is nothing that says they have to be. No indication has been given the that the ranger is the caster. All that has been implied is that he is calling forth another supernatural entity to do it for him.

Your right I shouldn’t compare any of the bond skills to each other so lets take them as they are.

A magical redirecting of damage called forth by a shout that can have no non magical equivalence.
Because shouts that deal with damage movement must be magical.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/%22Protect_Me!%22

I need to find the line where they mentioned that berserkers also did untapped human potential.

edit:
“The torch is the berserker’s weapon of choice, and it embodies the powerful flames of war. While the guardian uses magical flames for protection and purging, berserkers use the torch as a reckless weapon of destruction, slamming it into the ground and even lighting themselves ablaze to become mobile fire fields.”

“The berserker’s utility skills are a new type of skill known as rage skills. This skill type is similar to the warrior’s physical skill type in that they involve feats of strength but have the added bonus of granting bonus adrenaline when used.”

“Berserkers are warriors that have tapped into a primal bloodlust to unleash their rage in the form of powerful new burst skills.”