Guild Wars 2

Hello, everyone! I’ve often been curious about this particular subject, and had several debates with friends. We’ve often wondered how it is that armor and shields, etc, stand up against magic in the world. One of the most frequent arguments brought up is how malleable the energy could be considered to be, where fire would find its way between cracks, or even electricity would just downright cripple an armor wearer (being giant tin cans of metal).

I often brought up the idea that it was possible in a world filled with magic that the armor and weapons have been designed with that in mind, where magic dampening runes or signets are engraved directly into the armor to help mediate casters damage (probably for a pretty penny, or perhaps so common it’s seen as standard), and explain why they don’t get just blown up in a few hits, given the conceivable great strength of the casters ability.

But of course, we don’t see any exact basis for this in lore. Once upon a time we saw in early GW1 development that signets were engravings that could be tapped into as spells, but that lore has since been put aside (never brought into canon, they changed what signets were before launch.)

So I was hoping for some input in on this! And if anyone has any further information regarding the lore (With links to official pages!) or if perhaps a Dev might thumbs up or thumbs down the concept! Thank you so much for your time!

I don’t know that they changed what signets are- they just never implemented the description. And there is this. But I digress.

I can think of two possible explanations: there’s the idea that you had, that there’s some in-built magical protection, which is backed by the fact that practically every armor piece in the game has a magical inscription (the flavoring behind the different stat sets.) Alternatively, is was mentioned a long time ago that gold is magically conductive- which implies that there are other metals that aren’t. Maybe those are employed in the forging process, and have a dampening effect.

Thank you very much! That thread did help me speak on one point to a friend.

Idk about in GW2, but in GW1 rangers armor provided the most protection to elemental effects (for what I feel is for obvious reasons) where warriors armor wasn’t NEARLY as effective vs spells as a rangers.

I’d imagine in a lore standpoint it’s still like this, plate armor is great vs martial weapons, and it’s decent vs magical attacks, but armor designed to resist the elements would be more effective vs the elements themselves.

It’s an interesting idea! Thank you!

Armor provides cushioning against various elemental conditions often simply due to padding. It is not simply iron or steel on flesh, but rather several layers of different types of material laid on top of each other.

An example that the OP gave himself, " electricity would just downright cripple an armor wearer", is down right wrong. A full plate suit of armor would function like a faraday cage, leaving the wearer unharmed.

In GW1 there were certain sets of necromancer armor that made the necromancer more resilient to melee damage, but more vulnerable to holy damage. This seems to imply that necromancers are considered as something unholy in game mechanics (or at least when they wear certain armors).

Blighter’s – Armor +20 (while affected by a Hex Spell)
Bloodstained – Reduces casting time of spells that exploit corpses by 25% (Non-stacking)
Bonelace – Armor +15 (vs. Piercing damage)
Minion Master’s – Armor +5 (while you control 1 or more minions)
Tormentor’s – Holy damage you receive increased by 6 (on chest armor)
Undertaker’s – Armor +5 (while health is below 80%)