Guild Wars 2

Lore wise, not balance wise, is there anything about losing the ability to have a second profession from Guild Wars 1? Is it all mentioned in Guild Wars 2?

There wasn’t really a lore element to Secondary professions in GW1 anyway. It was something in game to provide more depth of mechanics, NPC’s were always considered by lore as strictly being of one profession, in terms of mechanics they may have had a secondary profession, but in terms of lore they were of one profession.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

There wasn’t really a lore element to Secondary professions in GW1 anyway. It was something in game to provide more depth of mechanics, NPC’s were always considered by lore as strictly being of one profession, in terms of mechanics they may have had a secondary profession, but in terms of lore they were of one profession.

There were a lot of quests involved. And becoming ascended allowed you to change your second profession.

While it was something in lore to a degree, it hasn’t really been touched upon in GW2. The whole lore behind secondary professions has been people going to study a different school of magic than they typically use, allowing the use of two schools rather than one.

Why the practice stopped is anyone’s guess.

One would think the practise stopped because professions evolved and encompassed a wider range of possibilities. Which I suppose is at least in some ways true → No more monks.

My gut feeling is that people either found that they could be more powerful by sticking to one school of magic, or something shifted in the way the bloodstones operated that made secondary professions no longer possible. As Konig said, though, it’s not something that’s been addressed.

I know that it was addressed by Eric Flannum in an interview. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/04/28/guild-wars-2-interview-part-1-fighting-fires/
It addresses the mechanic reasons for no second profession but not the lore. In the interview he even said that they struggled with not including the second profession mechanic because it was such a large part of GW1.

You would think that they would come up with some sort of lore reason why second professions no longer exist though. I googled it and couldn’t find anything Anet has provided as a lore explanation.

If I were to provide a Lore explanation, I would point out that all characters in GW1 were Chosen and could achieve Ascension (not even Turai Ossa was able to do this). This made them highly unusual. In Prophecies, it was their ability to Ascend that was directly tied to their ability to learn any skill (the Sanyi/Vanyi quest line).

If I were a writer at ANet and looking to provide a Lore explanation, it would be that the Gods have left, so nobody is Chosen anymore. Your characters are highly talented, but not Chosen.

Thing is, there were common NPCs that had secondaries, such as Warmaster Tydus. who was a warrior/elementalist (well, lorewise or until Eye of the North where he was a ranger mechanically).

Furthermore, being Chosen wasn’t related to the gods, but the Flameseeker Prophecies – and the only explanation given is either being the ones who fulfill the prophecies and/or simply having a lot of magical talent.

Ascension, though dealing with the gods in Tyria, did not deal with the gods in Cantha where it was called Weh no Su (it’s actually the same thing, just different names and different means of achieving the status – the Canthan emperors had to become Weh no Su and were thus referred to as “Ascendant Emperor” from the previous “Lord Emperor”) and dealt with the Celestials. Ascension, in the end, is just unlocking the gift of True Sight – which is merely the ability to see things that are not fully part of the world of Tyria (be it the dimensional shifting of mursaat, or the hiding-from-mortal-eyes of spirits; I suspect both are actually the same and that the aspect is revisited in the norn storyline of Defend the Mists where you enter the Mists, but it’s just an alternatively colored Wayfarer/Hoelbrak that has a change of NPCs – perhaps also in A Light in the Darkness where there are some risen, the animals and the Spectral Weapons, which are capable of attacking you when not part of the vision’s purpose).

Bump.

Thought I’d search the forums a bit before creating a new topic by myself, so I found this old thread. I do realize that it’s over one year old, but I think it’s worth it to look into this topic once more.

Secondary professions were certainly integrated into lore in GW1, and I really see no reason why they wouldn’t work any longer in GW2. For all we know, the bloodstone schools of magic had lost a lot of actual influence in Prophecies already, or else we could not have combined just about any profession with a completely different one and use all forms of magic related to it. As for GW2, we know that the bloodstones have lost influence and have fallen out of style (stated in this interview - eventhough I hate large parts of it because of Angel McCoys careless approach towards original GW lore), and that magic is much more widely available to people. Thus, saying that something shifted in the way bloodstones work that made secondary professions impossible makes no sense to me.

Lore-wise, imho, profession names and actual magic schools need to be separated when speaking about magic. Warriors for example are a physical profession, and while they have got signets and it is implied their attacks might be enhanced by crude magic, I don’t think they can be seen as a magic school for themselves.
And then there are professions that have magic related to them that is not implied by their profession name. For example shadow arts (thief/assassin) and nature magic (ranger – though it is implied in the Factions manual that this is a more harmonic approach to elemental magic).

It has also been said in this interview that the reason why we don’t see profession changes and dualclassing in GW2 is that the PC heroes go down a specific path and are too busy doing heroic deeds rather than dabble into another form of magic. Ree and Jeff say that it’s possible to learn two professions equally, but that it is comparable to being a college professor who has studied everything about physics all his life and then goes back to school to learn chemistry.
It is also said that people use spells in everyday life, for example a barkeeper might use cold spells on drinks, but cannot truly be called a real elementalist because of that trick. So access to simple spells appears to be no big deal in Tyria.

I think the lines between professions are much more fluid in lore than the game mechanics allow. One of my primary examples for this is Vallus Smokemane, who is a mesmer, but uses thief skills as well while equipped in medium armor and using a mace and shield in combat.

Agroman.7190:

It has also been said in this interview that the reason why we don’t see profession changes and dualclassing in GW2 is that the PC heroes go down a specific path and are too busy doing heroic deeds rather than dabble into another form of magic. Ree and Jeff say that it’s possible to learn two professions equally, but that it is comparable to being a college professor who has studied everything about physics all his life and then goes back to school to learn chemistry.

Wait, and the GW1 heroes didn’t do heroic deeds and saved the world FOUR times? They somehow found the time to learn 8 professions….

That’s what I found cheesy about that argument as well, admittedly. But you have to consider that our GW1 heroes usually came straight from an academy (Ascalon Army, Sunspears, Shing Jea Monastery) and went through an intense training tutorial before the main storyline actually begins.

“Ree and Jeff say that it’s possible to learn two professions equally, but that it is comparable to being a college professor who has studied everything about physics all his life and then goes back to school to learn chemistry.”

That really bothers me as well. By that token there should be a TON of Asura walking around who are proficient in two professions…

@Mental to be fair, back in GW1 the professions were individually a lot less powerful, and thus, I suppose, simpler. What they can do and how well they can do it has been expanded across the board, and that’s not even accounting for the number of weapons a profession trains in having doubled to sextupled.

@Foxx I get the feeling that the asura in Rata Sum are more concerned with actual chemistry and physics than this adventuring profession nonsense. I mean, it takes quite a lot of dedication to achieve genetic engineering in a mostly fantasy setting.

Pretty much as Aaron said.

There’s a parallel in the historical development of science. A couple of centuries ago, it was possible for one person to know the full sum of human knowledge while also holding down a career and doing their own research on the side. Nowadays, even with improved medicine, the human lifespan just isn’t long enough, particularly if you want to actually make your own contribution rather than just learning about everyone else’s research.

It’s likely that a similar thing occurs here. GW1 secondary professions were never really mastered to begin with (you couldn’t get the primary attribute…) – nowadays, according to lore the professions are more powerful and complex. Take a mesmer, say, and give them the choice between going back to being a student and learning elementalist cantrips versus seeking to master and develop increasingly more powerful mesmer spells, and it is likely that most will choose the latter.

But professions didn’t get more complicated. GW1 had thousands of skills, GW2 forces a handful of skills on you that even a braindead preteen can remember.

Mental Paradox.3845:

But professions didn’t get more complicated. GW1 had thousands of skills, GW2 forces a handful of skills on you that even a braindead preteen can remember.

But most of the GW1 skills were minor variations on a small pool of capabilities, whereas GW2 skills are a smaller pool, true, but covering a larger range. Considering that traits seem to essentially be blanket minor variations, the result is that a GW2 profession does have a lot more to learn.

Even the skill bar is more complex. In GW1 you were capped at 8, GW2 non-engineers have at least 15 available at any given time.

Aaron brings up a really good point. In GW1 you were restricted to 8 abilities at a time and chances are one of those was a resurrection skill. An elementalist in GW1 therefore only had 7-8 abilities at any given time. a GW2 elementalist by contrast has 25 abilities (5×4 for attunements + 5 utility), and on top of that the traits often contain capabilities that would have only been doable in GW1 using skills.

So yeah, it might seem like GW2 professions have more limited abilities, the fact is in GW1 while there was a huge number of spells you didn’t actually have access to any more than 8 of them at a time – meaning that GW2 players are theoretically more powerful given their far larger skill pool.

There are a lot of indications that the skills available in GW2 are more advanced than in GW1. One of the ghosts in the Hall of Monuments says it outright (something about how the skills we have are much more powerful than anything he taught).

Aaron’s point about the skills often being minor variations of the same thing is a valid one – nowadays, that sort of thing is represented by traits. Furthermore, if you compare between skills, the GW2 version is usually stronger by comparable numbers: spells that used to have cooldowns are now spammable (Fireball being one of the clearest examples – you needed close to a whole bar in GW1 to achieve what a GW2 ele can do simply with a staff, fire attunement, and pressing 1), skills that used to be elite are nothing special, and elite skills are (in theory) gamechangers. Now, they might not necessarily feel more powerful in context, but that’s because everything is scaled up likewise. You’ve also got chain skills being represented by a single space on the bar rather than up to pretty much the entire bar for some Assassin builds, and so on.

On top of that, spellcasters have also discovered how to do things they couldn’t before – add healing to water, create illusions with physical form, and so on. While from our perspective as players the system may feel, to be blunt about it, a little restrictive and dumbed down, from the perspective of the characters there’s actually a wider range of spell effects within a school, and those spells are probably more difficult to master.