Guild Wars 2

From gw1 we know that shouts do not belong to the four schools of magic.

From both games we can determine that shouts take two forms: those that induce an effect in an enemy and/or ally, and those that are used to cast tangible magics.

Rangers, warriors, and paragons take the first form, and in general guardians, elementalists, and necromancers take the second.

But how do first form perform their shouts since they had no school of of magic in common? And why were they irresistible in gw1? They could be countered but not removed.

It’s made even more apparent with the paragon class which also had chants that stuck with the ally.

I am reminded of dune and the voice and I was wondering if anyone had any explanation for how this control works.

To be honest that is question have asked my self a couple of times.
My theory is that a magical user Enchants their voice to give certain effects
the other theory is that based on the nature of the magic it will give certain effects like for Guardians based on their protective magic will give a more protective effect vs a warrior or subsequently a reaper where the magic is more aggressive based.

I always figured that there was nothing especially remarkable about the shouts. When a Ranger uses a shout, it is just a vocal command to his pet. (Look for “Roll Over!” and “Bring My Slippers!” in the forbidden vault of GW2 skills that were shot down immediately after being proposed and never brought up again.) When a Warrior says “Fear Me!” it is not any kind of mind control. The affected just look at this threatening dude and say “2spooky4me” and skedaddle. When he says “Shake it Off!” his allies hear that as "Get moving or I’ll show you “crippled”." The Guardian seems to be more mixed with “Receive the Light!” being an apparent spell while “Stand your Ground!” and “Hold the Line!” are likely just inspiring words that encourage his allies to perform better. The Reaper never gave me the impression that the words have anything to do with the spell itself. The Reaper has been explained as having a theme or horror and intimidation, so I always got the idea that this elite spec just likes to psychologically and verbally abuse its victims while it casts nasty AOE magic. The Tempest I explain away as a really bad case of anime-move syndrome.

I took the warrior shouts as simply being orders/inspiration (same for some guardian shouts) as Nox Lucis said.

It’s less of an actual magical buff (that’s gameplay mechanics part of the skill), but more of the warrior (or in some cases, squad leader/officer/etc) going “HOLD THE LINE/STAND YOUR GROUND!”

Reaper shouts are probably more of a spell and the necromancer in question yells that kitten to be even scarier. Hey, not only are you being magically poisoned and feeling like you have to puke, but the spellcaster you are fighting is screaming about how you suffering!

:P

There was a theory from GW1 that warriors may have performed superhuman feats of strength and endurance by subconsciously tapping into the magical ability inherent in Tyria. With more recent lore confirming that even toddlers can tap into magical forces this seems probable to me.

In the case of shouts the shouter would be subconsciously tapping into that magical energy to increase their presence on the battlefield.

A Warrior shouts “FEAR ME!” and he radiates an aura of dread around him that makes lesser men buckle in fear temporarily.

A warrior shouts “SHAKE IT OFF!” and his mere presence gives lesser men the strength to fight on as the warrior radiates restorative energies that give the troops a second wind.

The same would be applied to banners. The warrior places the banner into the ground and his strength radiates from it, inspiring and enhancing those that look upon it with the warrior’s energy.

For warriors, shouts are likely just motivational speeches. People don’t really seem to get how much moral can improve situations, or harm it, and people tend to take the mechanics literally.

Rangers is questionable, but most cases seem to be commands to the pet so I would argue the same. Non-magical.

Guardians is most likely magic, given it’s a magical profession.

Reaper and Temptest is definite magic. Most spellcasting is often depicted as saying something – though not necessarily so in GWverse – so it wouldn’t be off.

But none of them are mind control. None of them are even close to such.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

For warriors, shouts are likely just motivational speeches. People don’t really seem to get how much moral can improve situations, or harm it, and people tend to take the mechanics literally.

Rangers is questionable, but most cases seem to be commands to the pet so I would argue the same. Non-magical.

Guardians is most likely magic, given it’s a magical profession.

Reaper and Temptest is definite magic. Most spellcasting is often depicted as saying something – though not necessarily so in GWverse – so it wouldn’t be off.

But none of them are mind control. None of them are even close to such.

Guardian is definite as at least two are monk spells combined with other shouts.

The reason I say mind control is because they can only be countered not removed. I don’t know how to separate certain shouts from verbal hex magic yet their effects cannot be dispelled.

This makes me curious on what mechanics should be taken literally.

We discussed earlier whether paragon and warriors used magic.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Angelic_Bond this skill and
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Divine_Intervention
Have a striking resemblance to each other.

Yet one is called magic and the other falls under leadership.

Would this makes guardians, mesmers, elementalists, necromancers, thieves, revenant, and now rangers practitioners. And likewise warriors, and engineers are not practitioners.

I am not asking for you to confirm my point of view. Just your own opinion on which classes can be evaluated to use magic over technology/morale boosts.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

For warriors, shouts are likely just motivational speeches. People don’t really seem to get how much moral can improve situations, or harm it, and people tend to take the mechanics literally.

^ Moral can play a huge part in combat. Like how sometimes you’d have entire armies fall apart because their king died. Or armies surge back into action because a hero appeared and lead a charge. (An example kinda is the battle of five armies hobbit movie. The Dwarves surged back into action when they saw Thorin charge).

Another factor is adrenaline can allow you to push past your limits. But there is a line between lore and game mechanics, I’ve struggled with it for writing terms based around the necromancer abilities and magic (how to describe their offensive spellcasting effects for example).

Shouts being mind control? I don’t really think so personally. A skilled adventurer/hero/leader shouting orders to teammates and allies? Yeah.

Kalavier.1097:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

For warriors, shouts are likely just motivational speeches. People don’t really seem to get how much moral can improve situations, or harm it, and people tend to take the mechanics literally.

^ Moral can play a huge part in combat. Like how sometimes you’d have entire armies fall apart because their king died. Or armies surge back into action because a hero appeared and lead a charge. (An example kinda is the battle of five armies hobbit movie. The Dwarves surged back into action when they saw Thorin charge).

Another factor is adrenaline can allow you to push past your limits. But there is a line between lore and game mechanics, I’ve struggled with it for writing terms based around the necromancer abilities and magic (how to describe their offensive spellcasting effects for example).

Shouts being mind control? I don’t really think so personally. A skilled adventurer/hero/leader shouting orders to teammates and allies? Yeah.

Slight correction, people seen to be writing moral instead of morale. As for offensive necromancy in writing look no further than https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Marjory%27s_Story:_The_Last_Straw

As it seems necromancy should be described as necromantic to avoid mentioning that word curse which references a mechanic that no longer exists in the game. So touch spells are now “necromantic fury at [your] fingertips” and passive traits correspond to unconscious magical processes.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Kalavier.1097:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

For warriors, shouts are likely just motivational speeches. People don’t really seem to get how much moral can improve situations, or harm it, and people tend to take the mechanics literally.

^ Moral can play a huge part in combat. Like how sometimes you’d have entire armies fall apart because their king died. Or armies surge back into action because a hero appeared and lead a charge. (An example kinda is the battle of five armies hobbit movie. The Dwarves surged back into action when they saw Thorin charge).

Another factor is adrenaline can allow you to push past your limits. But there is a line between lore and game mechanics, I’ve struggled with it for writing terms based around the necromancer abilities and magic (how to describe their offensive spellcasting effects for example).

Shouts being mind control? I don’t really think so personally. A skilled adventurer/hero/leader shouting orders to teammates and allies? Yeah.

Slight correction, people seen to be writing moral instead of morale. As for offensive necromancy in writing look no further than https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Marjory%27s_Story:_The_Last_Straw

As it seems necromancy should be described as necromantic to avoid mentioning that word curse which references a mechanic that no longer exists in the game. So touch spells are now “necromantic fury at [your] fingertips” and passive traits correspond to unconscious magical processes.

My bad on the spelling, tiredness does that. As for the short, it’s not 100% what I was meaning. But it helps.

I believe shouts are simply what they appear to be and always work because of game play.
in a way this is kinda like asking why rangers never run out of arrows/axes.

Nox Lucis.8341:

I always figured that there was nothing especially remarkable about the shouts. When a Ranger uses a shout, it is just a vocal command to his pet. (Look for “Roll Over!” and “Bring My Slippers!” in the forbidden vault of GW2 skills that were shot down immediately after being proposed and never brought up again.) When a Warrior says “Fear Me!” it is not any kind of mind control. The affected just look at this threatening dude and say “2spooky4me” and skedaddle. When he says “Shake it Off!” his allies hear that as "Get moving or I’ll show you “crippled”." The Guardian seems to be more mixed with “Receive the Light!” being an apparent spell while “Stand your Ground!” and “Hold the Line!” are likely just inspiring words that encourage his allies to perform better. The Reaper never gave me the impression that the words have anything to do with the spell itself. The Reaper has been explained as having a theme or horror and intimidation, so I always got the idea that this elite spec just likes to psychologically and verbally abuse its victims while it casts nasty AOE magic. The Tempest I explain away as a really bad case of anime-move syndrome.

funniest thing i have ever read in the lore section of forums.

Daniel Handler.4816:

I am not asking for you to confirm my point of view. Just your own opinion on which classes can be evaluated to use magic over technology/morale boosts.

I think they ALL do. Warriors have been said in an interview to tap into magic, they just do so in a kind of instinctive fashion that means they don’t consciously realise they’re tapping into magic – which is how they perform superhuman feats.

It might have been the TowerTalk on magic and profession lore. It’s too late and I need to be up too early tomorrow morning for me to chase it up right now.

Engineers are unique in that they don’t use magic directly - but they’re happy to use magical substances in their inventions (it’s possible that in many cases they don’t even know if a particular effect they’re using is due to a magical process or what we would consider to be mundane chemistry or physics – they just care about whether it works). Warriors do it instinctively. I’m pretty sure that rangers and thieves know that they’re using magic, but for them it’s more like a toolbox of tricks rather than their primary offensive weapon. And then there are guardians, revenants, and the three scholars, where it’s unambiguous.

Paragons I consider to be on a similar level to rangers and thieves. Some of their skills, even ones that are based on vocalisations, are basically impossible to regard as not involving some magic. Anthem of Flame, for a start.

draxynnic.3719:

Daniel Handler.4816:

I am not asking for you to confirm my point of view. Just your own opinion on which classes can be evaluated to use magic over technology/morale boosts.

I think they ALL do. Warriors have been said in an interview to tap into magic, they just do so in a kind of instinctive fashion that means they don’t consciously realise they’re tapping into magic – which is how they perform superhuman feats.

It might have been the TowerTalk on magic and profession lore. It’s too late and I need to be up too early tomorrow morning for me to chase it up right now.

Engineers are unique in that they don’t use magic directly - but they’re happy to use magical substances in their inventions (it’s possible that in many cases they don’t even know if a particular effect they’re using is due to a magical process or what we would consider to be mundane chemistry or physics – they just care about whether it works). Warriors do it instinctively. I’m pretty sure that rangers and thieves know that they’re using magic, but for them it’s more like a toolbox of tricks rather than their primary offensive weapon. And then there are guardians, revenants, and the three scholars, where it’s unambiguous.

Paragons I consider to be on a similar level to rangers and thieves. Some of their skills, even ones that are based on vocalisations, are basically impossible to regard as not involving some magic. Anthem of Flame, for a start.

Anet has said before that some of energies the ritualist tapped into were not our traditional magic but another powerful energy in the world.

Scott McGough: The alternate magical energy employed by ritualists has fallen out of general usage, as illustrated by the absence of ritualists in Guild Wars 2. The techniques ritualists used for casting spells are still valid, but in the 250 years since Guild Wars, Tyria has learned and mastered more efficient ways of casting spells. It’s analogous to telegraph technology—

It is quite possible that the primal forces that surrounded a warrior are more similar to the dnd concept of ki than true magic.

I would be interested in that interview you speak of.

draxynnic.3719:

I think they ALL do. Warriors have been said in an interview to tap into magic, they just do so in a kind of instinctive fashion that means they don’t consciously realise they’re tapping into magic – which is how they perform superhuman feats.

This is why I believe that all shouts are spells, even if not…necessarily conscious.

Two examples from opposite ends of the spectrum:

Shake If Off!
While it’s easy to say that “the warrior is basically yelling at everyone to keep going in spite of everything,” also bear in mind that, by doing so, the warrior is immediately curing: a heavily-sprained/broken leg (crippled), noxious disease (poisoned), severe bodily trauma (several stacks of bleeding), the fact that you are on FIRE (burned). Not “ignoring until it’s better,” his allies are no longer affected by this. This hints that there is restoration magic being used, even if the warrior himself is not aware of it. Think of it as, along with inspiring allies, the warrior is casting a restoration spell via sheer willpower.

Feel the Burn!
This one’s a lot closer to a spell. The tempest releases elemental energy in the form of a heat wave. Easy, right?

So what do these have in common? In both cases, it’s not actually the words themselves that trigger the spell. Think of it as a battle cry, like screaming bloody murder while swinging a huge sword. There’s a rush of adrenaline, a release of energy (intentionally in the case of tempest, possibly involuntarily in the case of the warrior), and then a shout. The shout itself isn’t the spell; the shout is a result of the spell being cast.

Apologies for the ramble; I hope that was clear…

I’m with draxynnic and the others that think most (if not all) shouts are at least subconsciously magical in nature. It’s the only way to deal with both mechanics and lore, while keeping things internally realistic for the setting.

I’d go as far as to say even ranger shouts/commands are such, with the magic imbued in them making it easier for the pet to understand and/or comply.

Which would leave only engineers as the non-magical profession, with the possible exception of magitech-focused asura engineers and those that use magical components in otherwise mundane contraptions.

It should perhaps be noted that while physical fighters like warriors can most likely imbue their attacks and shouts with intuitive magic, that doesn’t mean your average soldier out there can do it (or at least doesn’t have the talent/knowledge to tap into it by himself – we know that almost anybody can learn to use magic).

smekras.8203:

I’m with draxynnic and the others that think most (if not all) shouts are at least subconsciously magical in nature. It’s the only way to deal with both mechanics and lore, while keeping things internally realistic for the setting.

I’d go as far as to say even ranger shouts/commands are such, with the magic imbued in them making it easier for the pet to understand and/or comply.

Which would leave only engineers as the non-magical profession, with the possible exception of magitech-focused asura engineers and those that use magical components in otherwise mundane contraptions.

How would they train this ability?

The instinctual magic you refer to seems to be a primal force residing on flame and anger. We see this in paragons, guardians and warriors/berserker.

The Magic of rangers seems to be more emphatic verbal compands.

And the other classes are simply doing magic over sound.

Daniel Handler.4816:

How would they train this ability?

That’s a question you could ask about pretty much any kind of magical ability, since we know little about that overall.

Daniel Handler.4816:

The instinctual magic you refer to seems to be a primal force residing on flame and anger. We see this in paragons, guardians and warriors/berserker.

I don’t see how you connect these three together. The Berserker warrior is the only one of the above to rely on anger for their powers.

Agroman.7190:

Daniel Handler.4816:

How would they train this ability?

That’s a question you could ask about pretty much any kind of magical ability, since we know little about that overall.

Daniel Handler.4816:

The instinctual magic you refer to seems to be a primal force residing on flame and anger. We see this in paragons, guardians and warriors/berserker.

I don’t see how you connect these three together. The Berserker warrior is the only one of the above to rely on anger for their powers.

Paragons used adrenaline. Monk smiting prayers specified anger. Guardians use at least some of paragon magic and some monk’s. If not the adrenaline they at least incorporate the anger. The virtue of justice is link to the concept of wrath. They build its charge like a warrior builds adrenaline.

Adrenaline doesn’t necessarily include the anger theme which berserkers revolve around. While paragons, smiting monks and guardians can certainly be angry while doing what they do, their true powers, as far as we can tell, come from belief. Berserkers use anger as their power resource.

Also:

While the guardian uses magical flames for protection and purging, berserkers use the torch as a reckless weapon of destruction

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/meet-the-berserker-warriors-elite-specialization/

Since you were talking of anger and flame – Guardian flames and and Berserker flames don’t seem to be related.

On the ritualist: The key word is ‘alternate magical energy’. Ritualists, at least prior to the gift of magic, did not use power from the Bloodstones. My personal theory is that they used the small amount of ambient magic that was present at the time to access the Mists, and then used the spirits and energies of the Mists. While Tyria is in a ‘low-magic’ setting, this is an efficient way of multiplying your initial available power, but with Tyria in a high-magic setting, this becomes needlessly complicated unless the reservoir of Mists energy you’re accessing is really strong (hence why revenants channel legends rather than summoning random spirits. However, it’s still magic, just a different type of magic. In Guild Wars 1, it’s explicitly stated that the ritualists blended this energy with Bloodstone magic – probably Preservation, given that we know guardians absorbed some ritualist techniques.

(Also, Agroman makes a good point. Powerful warriors that are comparable to the PCs are probably using subconscious magic (or not so subconscious – remember that Mending used to be a Monk spell, albeit one that was far more commonly used by W/Mos than actual Monks, and the GW2 Mending more closely resembles the GW1 Mending Touch), but this doesn’t mean that every Tom, Richard, and Harry the Destroyer is using magic.)

Agroman.7190:

Adrenaline doesn’t necessarily include the anger theme which berserkers revolve around. While paragons, smiting monks and guardians can certainly be angry while doing what they do, their true powers, as far as we can tell, come from belief. Berserkers use anger as their power resource.

Also:

While the guardian uses magical flames for protection and purging, berserkers use the torch as a reckless weapon of destruction

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/meet-the-berserker-warriors-elite-specialization/

Since you were talking of anger and flame – Guardian flames and and Berserker flames don’t seem to be related.

The paragons used both and adrenaline and fire. Berserkers use both adrenaline and fire. I see less differences between them than mesmer and thief.

The upgrade component to gain adrenaline in gw1 was called furious. To augment it as a paragon you use focused anger. I am not one for skill names but when there are this many the at mention comments like anger/fury I take note.

All I see when I look at Guardian is a paragon that chose light manipulation as a way to have access to flame but with the added defensive ability to form it into constructs under ritualist principles.

It’s a pile of Elonian protection magic, mixed with a little monk training, wrapped up in some crazy ritualist hoo-ha from Cantha. A real grab bag of “you can’t hurt me”. They’re called guardians, and simply put, they mean trouble.

Paragon flames were themed towards holy fire. They were touched by the gods, meant to serve them as emissaries of sorts. Also, fire was more of a secondary thing with paragons, while guardians and berserkers have access to tons of it. The berserker taps into primal bloodlust to channel flames of rage. Even if they both use adrenaline, that’s hardly the same thing. Plus, like you said, guardians gain access to fire via light manipulation. So while the paragon has something in common with the berserker as well as with the guardian, the three of them can’t really be compared based on a single defining trait. Certainly not anger, at least. I don’t deny that there is some crossover, they can’t be put in one category.

kalevinrajo.8360:

This is why I believe that all shouts are spells, even if not…necessarily conscious.

Two examples from opposite ends of the spectrum:

Shake If Off!
While it’s easy to say that “the warrior is basically yelling at everyone to keep going in spite of everything,” also bear in mind that, by doing so, the warrior is immediately curing: a heavily-sprained/broken leg (crippled), noxious disease (poisoned), severe bodily trauma (several stacks of bleeding), the fact that you are on FIRE (burned). Not “ignoring until it’s better,” his allies are no longer affected by this. This hints that there is restoration magic being used, even if the warrior himself is not aware of it. Think of it as, along with inspiring allies, the warrior is casting a restoration spell via sheer willpower.

Eh. I’m going to say you are tying in heavily into the game mechanics as being all canon.

Because a broken leg or a crippling wound is not going to just vanish. And if a warrior can simply remove such an injury by yelling, we kinda invalidate the healing magic of the priests/priestesses of dwayna (who I see as all being monks), or the healers/field medics we see in places like Gendarren fields or Orr. (Field hospital in the forest north of Fort Trinity, medics around Nebo Terrace).

Mind you, if we were in combat and you had your leg broken, you would not be able to effectively continue fighting, if at all depending on how well you deal with pain. You would be on the ground or out of the main fighting. Also depends on how the leg was broken/crippled. A Son of Svanir smashing a human’s leg with a mace or axe (or sword, unsure which weapons give cripple for warrior in game mechanics), I’m fairly sure that human will be on the ground and completely out of the fight.

Yeah, a broken leg is probably downed, if not defeated. Crippled is more along the lines of something that gives you a limp.

Regarding guardian and paragon flames: I think you’re forgetting that monks (and dervishes, which may be included in that grab-bag of Elonian protective magic) also had access to fire, particularly through Smiting Prayers. The blue-white of guardian flames probably takes more from the monk than it does from the two paragon skills that use Adrenaline and that inflict burning.

The passive effect of Justice may well be the descendant of those skills, particularly since it has an adrenaline-like mechanic (triggering every five strikes, four with a trait) – however, I think that’s as far as it goes.

I always think it kinda like how the cheer leaders or coaches get people pull it together.

draxynnic.3719:

Yeah, a broken leg is probably downed, if not defeated. Crippled is more along the lines of something that gives you a limp.

Regarding guardian and paragon flames: I think you’re forgetting that monks (and dervishes, which may be included in that grab-bag of Elonian protective magic) also had access to fire, particularly through Smiting Prayers. The blue-white of guardian flames probably takes more from the monk than it does from the two paragon skills that use Adrenaline and that inflict burning.

The passive effect of Justice may well be the descendant of those skills, particularly since it has an adrenaline-like mechanic (triggering every five strikes, four with a trait) – however, I think that’s as far as it goes.

There are two monk spells that can damage people with fire. There are twelve paragon. The dragon hunter spear of justice, the ability to cause burning on blocks, these were paragon abilities. Dervish had access to fire through Balthazar.

Kalavier.1097:

[…]the healing magic of the priests/priestesses of dwayna (who I see as all being monks)[…]

This is wrong, just a sidenote. While I agree that most likely many of them are monks/unarmored guardians, in GW2 we see elementalist priests of Dwayna on several occasions, using water and air magic.

Agroman.7190:

Kalavier.1097:

[…]the healing magic of the priests/priestesses of dwayna (who I see as all being monks)[…]

This is wrong, just a sidenote. While I agree that most likely many of them are monks/unarmored guardians, in GW2 we see elementalist priests of Dwayna on several occasions, using water and air magic.

Eh, I haven’t noticed them. Though in general if I see a npcs named “priest of dwayna” I assume it’s a monk.

Agroman is correct. While it would have been a nice touch for priestesses of Dwayna to behave as lightly-armoured guardians in combat, in practice, every priestess of Dwayna I’ve seen in combat uses elementalist effects.

A good way to observe this is when one of the wasps in the Fields of Ruin delegation event goes too close to the healing tents, and the priestess of Dwayna starts throwing lightning spheres at it. (Which isn’t actually a skill available to PC elementalists either – it might have been in an earlier iteration of what became air scepter – but it’s certainly not a monk-esque skill.)

Daniel Handler.4816:

draxynnic.3719:

Yeah, a broken leg is probably downed, if not defeated. Crippled is more along the lines of something that gives you a limp.

Regarding guardian and paragon flames: I think you’re forgetting that monks (and dervishes, which may be included in that grab-bag of Elonian protective magic) also had access to fire, particularly through Smiting Prayers. The blue-white of guardian flames probably takes more from the monk than it does from the two paragon skills that use Adrenaline and that inflict burning.

The passive effect of Justice may well be the descendant of those skills, particularly since it has an adrenaline-like mechanic (triggering every five strikes, four with a trait) – however, I think that’s as far as it goes.

There are two monk spells that can damage people with fire. There are twelve paragon. The dragon hunter spear of justice, the ability to cause burning on blocks, these were paragon abilities. Dervish had access to fire through Balthazar.

There are twenty-two monk skills that inflict holy damage – and Ray of Judgement gives the precedent that holy damage can inflict the Burning condition. As does Heart of Holy Flame and Holy Spear.

Said skills typically manifest in the form of blue-white energy, including Spear of Light, which takes the form of a roughly spear-shaped bolt of blue energy (a more direct analogue to the dragonhunter’s Spear of Justice). So, what colour are guardian effects, including fire, associated with again?

Paragon certainly contributed to guardian, but this is in the form of shouts, martial weapons, the ability to imbue magic into a weapon (including the Burning Shield skill you mention, although I’ll note that the trait actually functions quite differently, since it will usually be triggering off Aegis or a magical shielding effect rather than directly off a shield block – and I also note that skill used energy rather than adrenaline) and the active forms of the virtues. When you’re creating blue energy that acts at a distance from a physical weapon, you’re in monk or ritualist territory.

Now, there is a potential connection between guardian and anger in the form of wrath-type skills, but we’ve been told that guardians are (primarily) powered by faith. While I consider the paladin comparison to be simplistic, I think in this case it’s an accurate one: a paladin may feel a righteous anger (“wrath” being the commonly used term), but it’s usually channeled in a controlled fashion rather than being allowed to build into a berserk rage.

At the bottom line, there’s the difference in appearance. Berserker flames are the warm colours of regular fire – guardian flames are blue. Even the initial burst of flame from an active Justice proc is blue. Now, believe me, I’m well aware of how the colour of flame can be affected by temperature or chemical additives, but in this case, I think it’s indicating that it’s a different type of energy and therefor likely comes from a different source.

draxynnic.3719:

Agroman is correct. While it would have been a nice touch for priestesses of Dwayna to behave as lightly-armoured guardians in combat, in practice, every priestess of Dwayna I’ve seen in combat uses elementalist effects.

A good way to observe this is when one of the wasps in the Fields of Ruin delegation event goes too close to the healing tents, and the priestess of Dwayna starts throwing lightning spheres at it. (Which isn’t actually a skill available to PC elementalists either – it might have been in an earlier iteration of what became air scepter – but it’s certainly not a monk-esque skill.)

Daniel Handler.4816:

draxynnic.3719:

Yeah, a broken leg is probably downed, if not defeated. Crippled is more along the lines of something that gives you a limp.

Regarding guardian and paragon flames: I think you’re forgetting that monks (and dervishes, which may be included in that grab-bag of Elonian protective magic) also had access to fire, particularly through Smiting Prayers. The blue-white of guardian flames probably takes more from the monk than it does from the two paragon skills that use Adrenaline and that inflict burning.

The passive effect of Justice may well be the descendant of those skills, particularly since it has an adrenaline-like mechanic (triggering every five strikes, four with a trait) – however, I think that’s as far as it goes.

There are two monk spells that can damage people with fire. There are twelve paragon. The dragon hunter spear of justice, the ability to cause burning on blocks, these were paragon abilities. Dervish had access to fire through Balthazar.

There are twenty-two monk skills that inflict holy damage – and Ray of Judgement gives the precedent that holy damage can inflict the Burning condition. As does Heart of Holy Flame and Holy Spear.

Said skills typically manifest in the form of blue-white energy, including Spear of Light, which takes the form of a roughly spear-shaped bolt of blue energy (a more direct analogue to the dragonhunter’s Spear of Justice). So, what colour are guardian effects, including fire, associated with again?

Paragon certainly contributed to guardian, but this is in the form of shouts, martial weapons, the ability to imbue magic into a weapon (including the Burning Shield skill you mention, although I’ll note that the trait actually functions quite differently, since it will usually be triggering off Aegis or a magical shielding effect rather than directly off a shield block – and I also note that skill used energy rather than adrenaline) and the active forms of the virtues. When you’re creating blue energy that acts at a distance from a physical weapon, you’re in monk or ritualist territory.

Now, there is a potential connection between guardian and anger in the form of wrath-type skills, but we’ve been told that guardians are (primarily) powered by faith. While I consider the paladin comparison to be simplistic, I think in this case it’s an accurate one: a paladin may feel a righteous anger (“wrath” being the commonly used term), but it’s usually channeled in a controlled fashion rather than being allowed to build into a berserk rage.

At the bottom line, there’s the difference in appearance. Berserker flames are the warm colours of regular fire – guardian flames are blue. Even the initial burst of flame from an active Justice proc is blue. Now, believe me, I’m well aware of how the colour of flame can be affected by temperature or chemical additives, but in this case, I think it’s indicating that it’s a different type of energy and therefor likely comes from a different source.

I already made the point you seem to think I I did not make.

“All I see when I look at Guardian is a paragon that chose light manipulation as a way to have access to flame but with the added defensive ability to form it into constructs under ritualist principles.”

The fire they use now is the blue white of light manipulation, a skill created by monks. However it is not monks who bear relation to warriors it is paragons.

Flame and anger, paragon and warrior. The energy behind adrenaline is directly tied to anger and flame.

I have no problems agreeing with parts of what you have said. The paragons focused their anger to make it more palatable to the wrath needed in monk spells. It became anger and faith and flame. The blazing spear is now a spear of justice.

This does not change the fact that adrenaline is part of a primal force powered by flame and anger.

I don’t see any proof for what you claim. Once again – how is the paragon explicitly tied to anger? And how is adrenaline powered by flame? I’d rather say it’s the other way round, and that flames can be powered by adrenaline/anger, if a person (the berserker warrior) specializes into utilizing magic in that way – or purely by adrenaline in case of the paragon, though I’d really say that’s mechanics rather than lore, since paragon fire, like I said, has a holy theme tied to the gods (of course in case of humans that connection could be at least nominally made for berserkers as well, which is btw. exactly what I do in RP with my priest of Balthazar, who will be a berserker in HoT, but the paragon was explicitly themed towards this).

Agroman.7190:

I don’t see any proof for what you claim. Once again – how is the paragon explicitly tied to anger? And how is adrenaline powered by flame? I’d rather say it’s the other way round, and that flames can be powered by adrenaline/anger, if a person (the berserker warrior) specializes into utilizing magic in that way – or purely by adrenaline in case of the paragon, though I’d really say that’s mechanics rather than lore, since paragon fire, like I said, has a holy theme tied to the gods (of course in case of humans that connection could be at least nominally made for berserkers as well, which is btw. exactly what I do in RP with my priest of Balthazar, who will be a berserker in HoT, but the paragon was explicitly themed towards this).

Adrenaline is anger. There is no escaping that lorewise given the vast amount of material that refer to it as such in gw1. For example focused anger the paragon trait. The flames and protective magic were powered by in part by anger. Whether the anger is shown as adrenaline or wrath is dependent on which class you pick. Anger builds and then bursts the or serves as wick to a fire.

If I had to do magic families I would do.

• Guardian/warrior= preservation
• mesmer/thief= denial
• ranger/revenant = link based magic
• elementalist = destruction
• necromancer = aggression
• engie n/a

That’s nonesense. Adrenaline is not anger. It can be (and is, in many cases) tied to anger, but not necessarily so. Anger is, however, the same thing as wrath.

Agroman.7190:

That’s nonesense. Adrenaline is not anger. It can be (and is, in many cases) tied to anger, but not necessarily so. Anger is, however, the same thing as wrath.

How does this not make sense to you.

Show me where it isn’t tied to anger.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Furious
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Rage_of_the_Ntouka
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Balthazar%27s_Rage
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Avatar_of_Balthazar
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Focused_Anger

Because the concept of adrenaline is directly linked to fury and rage. Bathalazar isn’t based in joyful song.

Anger builds adrenaline or it serves as wick to a flame. It is possible that the two are correlated but given the existence of wrath I would say anger is the source of both. The rage skills even build adrenaline come on dude.

Yes, Balthazar is a lot about rage. But that isn’t the point in this discussion at all.

You seemingly don’t understand that while anger is in many cases linked to adrenaline, that does in no way mean that adrenaline itself is synonymous to anger. Clinging to that in order to proclaim that paragons and berserkers use the identical form of magic doesn’t make it any more true. They perhaps have a very similar source. But not the same.

Agroman.7190:

Yes, Balthazar is a lot about rage. But that isn’t the point in this discussion at all.

You seemingly don’t understand that while anger is in many cases linked to adrenaline, that does in no way mean that adrenaline itself is synonymous to anger. Clinging to that in order to proclaim that paragons and berserkers use the identical form of magic doesn’t make it any more true. They perhaps have a very similar source. But not the same.

You have produced no evidence to the contrary. Only your assumption that a biological process which occurs in reality is the same as the fantasy world. Which clearly isn’t true since only warriors can build adrenaline.

When anger and adrenaline have a 100% correlation the distinction is almost irrelevant.

You mentioned bathalazar but that was two of the links.

You refuse to explain why furious was the upgrade that gave adrenaline. Or why paragons had to focus their anger to stack more adrenaline.

Yes, I take the warrior’s way of building adrenaline as mechanics rather than lore.

It appears to me that you try to explain every bit of game mechanics as lore. There is no 100% correlation – they are simply often connected to one another. Because that’s logical. Also, I did say before that I have no doubts that guardians and paragons can utilize anger as well. But, once more, that doesn’t mean that it is their primary source of power. They don’t use it for everything they do – unlike berserkers.

Agroman.7190:

Yes, I take the warrior’s way of building adrenaline as mechanics rather than lore.

It appears to me that you try to explain every bit of game mechanics as lore. There is no 100% correlation – they are simply often connected to one another. Because that’s logical. Also, I did say before that I have no doubts that guardians and paragons can utilize anger as well. But, once more, that doesn’t mean that it is their primary source of power. They don’t use it for everything they do – unlike berserkers.

But that wasn’t the warrior. Furious was a generic upgrade. And focused anger was a paragon skill. One can make the comparison between warriors and guardians as between mesmers and thieves. Yes they are not exact but something clearly is there.

It could be easier to say that the smiting prayers were powered by faith and anger, while the healing prayers were perhaps faith and love. The guardians seem to truly evoke emotive qualities .

I wasn’t talking about the ‘Furious’ upgrade, because I, unlike you, do not equate mechanics and lore. And concerning the paragon skill, let me quote myself:

Also, I did say before that I have no doubts that guardians and paragons can utilize anger as well.

Monk prayers were powered by faith and by invoking the gods. Of course smiting prayers are more aggressively themed, but the important part in my argument is about what’s the primary source of accessing magic. Which isn’t anger – neither for the smiting monk, nor for the paragon and the guardian.

Agroman.7190:

I wasn’t talking about the ‘Furious’ upgrade, because I, unlike you, do not equate mechanics and lore. And concerning the paragon skill, let me quote myself:

Also, I did say before that I have no doubts that guardians and paragons can utilize anger as well.

Monk prayers were powered by faith and by invoking the gods. Of course smiting prayers are more aggressively themed, but the important part in my argument is about what’s the primary source of accessing magic. Which isn’t anger – neither for the smiting monk, nor for the paragon and the guardian.

You are equating game mechanics and lore. Because I don’t believe we are shown adrenaline outside of the game. I don’t even think we are told that paragons can perform magic outside of the mechanics. Do they even tell us that Paragons use fire?

draxynnic.3719:

Agroman is correct. While it would have been a nice touch for priestesses of Dwayna to behave as lightly-armoured guardians in combat, in practice, every priestess of Dwayna I’ve seen in combat uses elementalist effects.

A good way to observe this is when one of the wasps in the Fields of Ruin delegation event goes too close to the healing tents, and the priestess of Dwayna starts throwing lightning spheres at it. (Which isn’t actually a skill available to PC elementalists either – it might have been in an earlier iteration of what became air scepter – but it’s certainly not a monk-esque skill.)

Well, isn’t air magic under Dwayna’s domain anyway? Easy to see some being air elementalists.

Course, my viewpoint revolves around all the priests in the salma district hospital and at the post-tutorial house being monks due to their role as healers. I see monks as still being around, just not as prominent outside of humanity, and not playable.

If you’re going to focus on names, what about the basic one? ArenaNet could have gone with ‘rage’ or ‘fury’ or something like that as the name for the mechanic, as with WoW warriors and D3 Barbarians. They didn’t, instead going with the more neutral term, leaving adrenaline as something more neutral. It’s… something that builds up through physical exertion and combat, and just like in real life, getting angry can help get the adrenaline flowing faster… but anger having the potential to feed adrenaline does not been that adrenaline is anger.

There are a lot of skills that build adrenaline in GW1 that are not anger-related (Dragon Slash being the most obvious), although admittedly in those cases they could be and it simply isn’t called out.

Daniel Handler.4816:

I already made the point you seem to think I I did not make.

“All I see when I look at Guardian is a paragon that chose light manipulation as a way to have access to flame but with the added defensive ability to form it into constructs under ritualist principles.”

I don’t think that refutes my point. ArenaNet could have made the guardian torch skills a more normal flame colour instead of blue. They could have made the berserker skills blue flame if they’re intended to be using the same energy. They did, initially, make the mesmer skill The Prestige generate a burst of ordinary-coloured flame, and then they shifted it to purple.

The colour of a magical effect – when not overridden by the physical manifestation of the effect producing its own colour, such as most elementalist skills – does seem to be an indication of the nature of the magic being used. Even elementalists have an associated colour when you pay close attention to the arcane skills, which is close to the green-gold effects

The fire used by guardians and berserkers being so different in appearance, to me, seems a strong indication that they are in fact different in nature. Furthermore, when you look at the berserker, as well as fire you see them using skills that move into earth manipulation: summoning a rock and punching it, causing ruptures in the earth by slamming it with a hammer, and so on. That’s a distinct difference from the guardian, which never breaks the ground in this way. When you compare to the other analogues, such as thief to mesmer – the things that the thief does that are clearly magic are also things that the mesmer can do, although the thief is more specialised in certain areas and can do better in those areas than the mesmer. Since these earth-based effects are not possessed by the guardian, I’m inclined to think that warriors are not simply guardians that are a few points towards Might on the Might versus Magic scale.

One elephant in the room that we haven’t addressed when regarding fire magic, as well, is the elementalist. We haven’t been told much directly about what the psychology of elementalists is (while we have been told explicitly that guardians are empowered by faith, not anger), except that they take a more scholarly attitude to magic. However, without having any adrenaline mechanic at all, it is worth noting that a lot of fire-specialised NPC elementalists in Guild Wars 1 tended to be mercurial in temperament and easily angered. The connection between anger and fire magic might actually be there, with the modern elementalist shifting emotional states as they shift attunements.

draxynnic.3719:

If you’re going to focus on names, what about the basic one? ArenaNet could have gone with ‘rage’ or ‘fury’ or something like that as the name for the mechanic, as with WoW warriors and D3 Barbarians. They didn’t, instead going with the more neutral term, leaving adrenaline as something more neutral. It’s… something that builds up through physical exertion and combat, and just like in real life, getting angry can help get the adrenaline flowing faster… but anger having the potential to feed adrenaline does not been that adrenaline is anger.

There are a lot of skills that build adrenaline in GW1 that are not anger-related (Dragon Slash being the most obvious), although admittedly in those cases they could be and it simply isn’t called out.

Daniel Handler.4816:

I already made the point you seem to think I I did not make.

“All I see when I look at Guardian is a paragon that chose light manipulation as a way to have access to flame but with the added defensive ability to form it into constructs under ritualist principles.”

I don’t think that refutes my point. ArenaNet could have made the guardian torch skills a more normal flame colour instead of blue. They could have made the berserker skills blue flame if they’re intended to be using the same energy. They did, initially, make the mesmer skill The Prestige generate a burst of ordinary-coloured flame, and then they shifted it to purple.

The colour of a magical effect – when not overridden by the physical manifestation of the effect producing its own colour, such as most elementalist skills – does seem to be an indication of the nature of the magic being used. Even elementalists have an associated colour when you pay close attention to the arcane skills, which is close to the green-gold effects

The fire used by guardians and berserkers being so different in appearance, to me, seems a strong indication that they are in fact different in nature. Furthermore, when you look at the berserker, as well as fire you see them using skills that move into earth manipulation: summoning a rock and punching it, causing ruptures in the earth by slamming it with a hammer, and so on. That’s a distinct difference from the guardian, which never breaks the ground in this way. When you compare to the other analogues, such as thief to mesmer – the things that the thief does that are clearly magic are also things that the mesmer can do, although the thief is more specialised in certain areas and can do better in those areas than the mesmer. Since these earth-based effects are not possessed by the guardian, I’m inclined to think that warriors are not simply guardians that are a few points towards Might on the Might versus Magic scale.

One elephant in the room that we haven’t addressed when regarding fire magic, as well, is the elementalist. We haven’t been told much directly about what the psychology of elementalists is (while we have been told explicitly that guardians are empowered by faith, not anger), except that they take a more scholarly attitude to magic. However, without having any adrenaline mechanic at all, it is worth noting that a lot of fire-specialised NPC elementalists in Guild Wars 1 tended to be mercurial in temperament and easily angered. The connection between anger and fire magic might actually be there, with the modern elementalist shifting emotional states as they shift attunements.

Fire magic cannot be added to the discussion because of the bloodstones. The possibility that elementalist and paragons drew from the same source is more than unlikely.

As to another point you made. The ritualist spirits were made from lightning. Guardians have zero access to lightning. Guardians make everything they do out of a blue white or flame.

The analogies you make to Guardian don’t work because we know it synthesizes professions from at least two separate magic sources.

The comparison of mesmer and thief is comparable to paragon and warrior. Whatever light manipulation of monks you wish to refer to bears no relation to that comparison.

Kalavier.1097:

Well, isn’t air magic under Dwayna’s domain anyway? Easy to see some being air elementalists.

Course, my viewpoint revolves around all the priests in the salma district hospital and at the post-tutorial house being monks due to their role as healers. I see monks as still being around, just not as prominent outside of humanity, and not playable.

Actually, especially the ones in salma district hospital are the ones I was referring to. During personal story, they use water magic to put out fires and later air magic to aid the PC and Seraph in the fight against the bandits. Which, of course, is also fitting for a priest of Dwayna.

Daniel Handler.4816:

You are equating game mechanics and lore. Because I don’t believe we are shown adrenaline outside of the game. I don’t even think we are told that paragons can perform magic outside of the mechanics. Do they even tell us that Paragons use fire?

I equate lore and mechanics in some cases, where I deem it to be reasonable. Looking at visual skill effects and atmosphere is most important to me. Which is, of course, a biased method, I won’t deny.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fire magic cannot be added to the discussion because of the bloodstones.

Bloodstone distinction of magical schools is mostly ‘artificial’ and also less important in modern times.

Daniel Handler.4816:

The possibility that elementalist and paragons drew from the same source is more than unlikely.

True. Could the same thing be said about elementalists and berserkers? Certainly not.

Daniel Handler.4816:

The ritualist spirits were made from lightning.

Where do you take that from?

Daniel Handler.4816:

Guardians have zero access to lightning. Guardians make everything they do out of a blue white or flame.

Actually, Osh Moran (a guardian) used a lightning-related spell in Sea of Sorrows, if I remember correctly.

Daniel Handler.4816:

The comparison of mesmer and thief is comparable to paragon and warrior.

I believe that nobody here had any doubts about warriors and paragons being comparable to one another.

Your logic is starting to get at least ellipsoid here – you appear to be making arguments to support your theory based on assumptions that only apply if your theory is correct.

Part of my point is that I think berserker fire is more related to elementalist magic, specifically fire magic (more broadly, I think that some of the elite specialisations are essentially the GW2 equivalent of secondary professions and may involve bringing in things from other professions), and thus it is highly relevant whether elementalist fire magic is related to anger.

Most paragon skills related to fire at all are fuelled by Energy rather than adrenaline (or are signets), so your entire argument is basically resting on the two exceptions: Blazing Spear and Holy Spear. At this point, it’s worth remembering that the splitting of magic into four parts through the Bloodstones is an artificially created state of affairs, and that magic was originally a single spectrum. In both games, there are skills that blur the lines between the schools of magic, where one profession is able to generate an effect that is more commonly associated with another. Between the games, we’ve also been told that there’s been a significant increase in the level of ‘ambient’ magic that is not limited by the Bloodstones, so while they remain strongest in their own discipline, they have a greater level of versatility and potential overlap among their less powerful effects. So any parts of guardian-related professions that involve the channeling of anger could well be coming from this ambient region – however, it is not the defining characteristic the way berserk rage is for the berserker. In fact, if we were to include anything anger-based under the same banner, you’d also need to include the necromancer in there as well (Dark Fury, Mark of Fury), and the necromancer has little association with fire.

The fundamental characteristic of the guardian – and the monk, dervish, paragon, and to a lesser degree (probably because their primary domain is Mists magic), ritualist – is not anger, but faith. (There’s a piece of lore in the Nightfall preorder pack that talks about how every paragon had a moment in their lives where they should have died but didn’t, which they attribute to divine intervention and thereby devote themselves to be a champion of the gods. This is probably relating to Sunspear paragons specifically rather than all paragons everywhere, especially those of other races, but it does establish the link between paragons and faith).

The guardian was able to combine monk and paragon because in Guild Wars 1, paragon was to monk as thief is to mesmer in Guild Wars 2: using the same power source, but one uses the magic along with martial techniques while the other focuses on magic. The guardian took the enhanced knowledge of magic from the monk and combined it with the martial training of paragons in an effort to get the best of both worlds.

Regarding guardian and ritualist: I made basically the same argument you did before Sea of Sorrows. I lost that one when Sea of Sorrows released, and it was unambiguously stated that ritualist magic was in the mixup that formed the guardian (which is allowed, because a) it was unclear what form of ‘true magic’ ritualists used but it’s reasonable to presume it was the same as monks due to similarities between ritualist spells that don’t involve channeling mist energies and monk spells, and b) because Mists magic is not directly associated with the Bloodstones and thus can likely be combined freely). To summarise what I recall of the arguments that were made to me during that time:

1) Ritualist channeling spells often didn’t take the form of traditional lightning bolts, but orbs of Mists energy that manifested as lightning. This orb aesthetic appears in most guardian ranged attacks, but was rare in the then-known components of the guardian (paragons had a couple of skills that transformed spears into orbs, including Spear of Lightning, which was my main counterargument at the time).

2) Ritualists also had the ‘chains’ aesthetic, which we see a lot of in the guardian, but not in the monk or paragon.

3) Wave of Wrath plays the ‘electrocuted’ death animation when you kill a humanoid.

As another couple of comments on other issues that may or may not come up:

Warriors I’m inclined to think tap into ambient magic by default rather than being attuned to any form of bloodstone magic. This allows them to potentially do anything… but between the lack of magical training and ambient magic alone providing less power than ambient magic supported by a bloodstone, they really are master of none. Berserker, as discussed above, I think is essentially a W/E primary/secondary combination a la Guild Wars 1 – the specialisation skills are based in elemental magic, specifically fire and a little earth. Future warrior elite specialisations may branch into other magic types, but since elite specialisations can’t be mixed, the separation of the schools remains intact.

Dervish is still a bit of an unknown. Since they were always the profession most directly associated with the gods (and very rarely seen among sapient nonhumans outside the Realm of Torment, where the rules are different), I’ve generally assumed that the gods allowed them to cheat the rules somewhere, possibly by channelling them in a similar fashion to revenants channelling legends, which may or may not be coupled with a bloodstone school. Either way, it’s unclear at this point whether the dervish went into the guardian or not (the ‘Elonian protective magic’ line could be taken as referring to both or to the paragon alone), so we’re not going to come to a definitive conclusion using the dervish as evidence either way.

Daniel Handler.4816:

As to another point you made. The ritualist spirits were made from lightning. Guardians have zero access to lightning. Guardians make everything they do out of a blue white or flame.

Oh. My. Kitten. God
I’m sorry but after that i just can’t take anything you say seriously
Props for making me spit out my tea while reading though

Djahlat.9610:

Daniel Handler.4816:

As to another point you made. The ritualist spirits were made from lightning. Guardians have zero access to lightning. Guardians make everything they do out of a blue white or flame.

Oh. My. Kitten. God
I’m sorry but after that i just can’t take anything you say seriously
Props for making me spit out my tea while reading though

Your derision adds nothing to the conversation.

In gw1 ritualists used lighting and the spirits were composed of lightning. We know the later because when they ruptured they cause lightning damage.

We know guardians make everything out of bluewhite light/flame because that is what they do in the game and in the books. And thats what monks did in the game and the books. They are clearly able to synthesize the ability of other magic bases with the light manipulations of monks.

@dra "It’s a pile of Elonian protection magic, mixed with a little monk training, wrapped up in some crazy ritualist hoo-ha from Cantha. A real grab bag of “you can’t hurt me”. They’re called guardians, and simply put, they mean trouble." is how the game describes the Guardian mix. The berserker also has skills that produce adrenaline and fire but don’t consume it. And the paragon is closer to zerker than to elementalist. The only thing we can see in the current guardians of monks is the light manipulation. We keep coming back to faith as the presiding force yet we know that anger adds to all three.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Djahlat.9610:

Daniel Handler.4816:

As to another point you made. The ritualist spirits were made from lightning. Guardians have zero access to lightning. Guardians make everything they do out of a blue white or flame.

Oh. My. Kitten. God
I’m sorry but after that i just can’t take anything you say seriously
Props for making me spit out my tea while reading though

Your derision adds nothing to the conversation.

In gw1 ritualists used lighting and the spirits were composed of lightning. We know the later because when they ruptured they cause lightning damage.

We know guardians make everything out of bluewhite light/flame because that is what they do in the game and in the books. And thats what monks did in the game and the books. They are clearly able to synthesize the ability of other magic bases with the light manipulations of monks.

No they were not. Lightning was there only because it was the only way Ritualist could be directly offensive (as opposed to offensive through spirits or weapon spells). It’s also to mention that the closest profession in GW2 to Rit is Ranger.
I also don’t remember Ranger spirits vanishing away with lightning emanating from them when commanding them to sacrifice themselves. The Destruction spirit, or the Storm Spirit for GW2 Rangers are the only ones who inflict lightning-based damage by themselves.
Sure Rupture inflicts Lightning damage, but that’s just to make it fit with all other offensive Ritualist skills. I don’t know where you got the idea that the spirit itself was composed of lightning.
Again, basing yourself off Game Mechanics to establish false lore is totally flawed.
Also Monks don’t manipulate light, that’s more of the field of Mesmers and illusion-making. They afflicted Holy damage, which is completely different from Guardian (unless speaking about a Human Guardian whose faith resides in the Gods)