Guild Wars 2

I know magic, and how it relates to Professions, isn’t the most fleshed out area lore-wise in GW2, but I do recall a video or interview prelaunch where Ree danced around the idea that sometimes it just happens. You are so into the idea of defending the weak that you slowly start becoming a guardian. You’re such a good pickpocket that eventually, you learn to just blend so well you’re basically invisible. I think she may have also referred to institutions of learning, like elementalist school or something, but I’ve seen no evidence of this in game. So let’s just say that most of the time, the difference between myself and Farmer Joe is that I was either strong willed enough to develop a capital P Profession, or Grenth decided to bless me (or Raven, or the Eternal Alchemy, or whatever) and gave me some predestined mark to be awesome at stealing.

I think it’s safe to call every profession “magic” to some extent or another, even the more physical ones (engineers have their elixirs, thieves can stealth and shadowstep, warriors can hulk up at the point of near-death). So what if ammo is magic? Not all ammo in Tyria. Farmer Joe still needs to use black powder and a ramrod each time he fires a flintlock, he hasn’t manifested a Profession. My Heroic-brand character however, can pop off 5 shots from his flintlock pistol and never even think about reloading. No one with a bow in this game has a quill, and rangers can rapid fire their bows with the best thief pistols (probably much faster, with barrage). What if that’s because there’s no physical ammo involved? What if my thief, by dint of having a Profession, doesn’t need to worry about these things, and shooting through pistols is just as natural as an elementalist hucking fireballs?

Maybe these topics are well trod by now, but I don’t usually chill in the lore section. So if I missed it, sorry. Thoughts?

Imagine a tangled granite octopus.
Now imagine what it would look like if it was shot full of holes with a .50 cal.

That´s pretty much what lore on gw magic would look like.

Pretty much anything along the lines: “blah blah blah blah, because it´s magic”, works.

Exactly, that’s why I’m trying to fill in some blanks here. That’s why everything is a “what if” and not a “here’s my evidence for”. Just bouncing ideas around. Bouncing them around like magic bullets.

Magic was created by Abaddon early on, and then the other gods contained that magic into bloodstones, limiting its power. This caused Abaddon to get angry, his gift having been supressed, and eventually he was beaten back into his realm, then the events of NF in gw1 happened much later.

Magic is basically another aspect of nature which is imbued into all things, and the learning of it happens most in the form of latent ability, apprenticeship style learning, and military training.

At least, that is what I have gathered from what I’ve read.

Yeah, the nature of magic and how it came to the world, and how the different kinds are distinguished from each other, are actually pretty well fleshed out in the lore – things like the Bloodtsones are integral to it and played a large part in GW1. How people learn magic these days, and how much it’s instinctive vs. taught, it more vague.

I always thought that the ‘adventurer’ professions – thief, engineer, ranger – were pretty non-magical or at least low-magic. They tend to use technology and technique to achieve their effects – with a few grey areas like ranger spirits. ‘Scholar’ or caster professions are obviously all strongly tied to Bloodstone-type magic. Then among the ‘soldier’ or heavy armour classes, we have one very non-magic (the warrior) and one very magical (the guardian).

Really, it all comes from D&D traditions (things like rangers and paladins having small amounts of magic) but that doesn’t help in a lore sense. But magic is kind of all over the place in Tyria – peoples other than the playable races can use it, so it’s unlikely it always requires years of schooling.

Orlando.8192:

Magic was created by Abaddon early on, and then the other gods contained that magic into bloodstones, limiting its power. This caused Abaddon to get angry, his gift having been supressed, and eventually he was beaten back into his realm, then the events of NF in gw1 happened much later.

Abaddon didn’t create magic, nor did the gods create the bloodstones (those were created by the seers). The gods simply split the magic within them into the four schools we know today as Preservation, Aggression, Denial, and Destruction.

Orlando.8192:

Magic is basically another aspect of nature which is imbued into all things, and the learning of it happens most in the form of latent ability, apprenticeship style learning, and military training.

You’re somewhat correct. The way I understand magic, some people have an innate ability to use it from an early age with little training. Others require years of practice and study to become good. The more advanced/powerful the spell, the more time is needed to learn to use it properly. Weapons seem to act as a medium for channeling magic into spells but are not necessarily required to use it.

Curuniel.4830:

I always thought that the ‘adventurer’ professions – thief, engineer, ranger – were pretty non-magical or at least low-magic. They tend to use technology and technique to achieve their effects – with a few grey areas like ranger spirits. ‘Scholar’ or caster professions are obviously all strongly tied to Bloodstone-type magic. Then among the ‘soldier’ or heavy armour classes, we have one very non-magic (the warrior) and one very magical (the guardian).

The adventurer classes are a mix. Rangers’ spirits are magic. The engineer uses more technology than magic and the thief uses a mix of both. The guardian is a blend of the monk and paragon, so it uses both physical power and magic while the warrior is purely physical. The scholars are closer to the schools because they use magic for almost everything.

There is also the case of Orrians use magic as a tool in their everyday lives. So the ability to use magic definately varies from person to person and tends to be more common among those of higher level education.

Curuniel.4830:

I always thought that the ‘adventurer’ professions – thief, engineer, ranger – were pretty non-magical or at least low-magic.

No, only engineers lack magic in the adventurer professions (in total, engineer and warrior are without magic by appearances). Thieves use magic (stealth, shadow stepping – things which originate from Assassins in GW1, which were benefited by blessings from Lyssa)) and rangers do to (nature spirits, being able to create frost/ice, fire, earth effects – they seem to use similar magic to the elementalists, but on a lesser scale) – hence the “Nature Magic” trait line on them.

Of the four schools of magic, the respective profession which utilizes them, both old and new, seem to be:

Preservation: Monk, Paragon, Guardian
Denial: Mesmer, Assassin, Thief
Destruction: Elementalist, Dervish, GW2 Ranger (GW1 Ranger was likely without innate magic, only using spirits which isn’t tied to a school)
Aggression: Necromancers, Ritualists
“Spiritual”: Rangers, Ritualists, Mursaat
None: Warriors, Engineer

(side-note: I consider “Spiritual” a kind of magic as it’s the act of using magic through spiritual mediums – that is, it’s the spirits themselves using magic. This is why ritualists can use such a wide variety of abilities – mimicking all four schools (particularly destruction and preservation); mursaat are highly implied in GW1 to use magic which affects spirits, but their magic seems to predate the original bloodstone created by the seers; though this is all fairly speculative in nature)

WarriorOfAsgard.3705:

There is also the case of Orrians use magic as a tool in their everyday lives. So the ability to use magic definately varies from person to person and tends to be more common among those of higher level education.

Orrians’ ability for magic seems to be due to where they lived more than anything else – and Zhaitan wasn’t the only magic in the area, nor were the bloodstone shards scattered through Arah when the gods broke it into five pieces. The Artesian Waters themselves, where the gods first arrived on Tyria, is magical.

So being near magical hotspots allows an easier use of magic. Though it does seem that most magic users must train for it in years, with some exceptions being magically talented.

I do remember allusions to some kind of institutionalized learning for Professions in GW1, but those seem all but gone .Some of the cooler MM skills were from a necro who “went rogue” iirc. However in GW2, my street rat human sure didn’t train at thief school. That’s why I’m into the magic-as-force-of-nature train of thought. Warriors might not be as overtly magical as elementalists, but magic could be what separates a guy who can preform hundred blades and the special shouts from a civilian flailing a sword around and screaming “For great justice!” Bullseye’s super powers might not be as flashy as Wolverine’s but they’re still powers.

So no one’s up for the magic ammo theory? Anyone? Ah well.

Magic ammo seems to be given a little too much lore credibility to what is probably mechanical convenience – although some professions do seem to be able to load firearms supernaturally fast!

From my viewpoint, everyone who isn’t a warrior or an engineer wields (or at least has the potential to use) magic at some level. Warriors and engineers don’t use it directly, but there’s nothing stopping them from using tangible objects that contain magic within them – elixirs at least seem to have magic in them on the engineer line, for instance. A warrior’s equipment is just as magical as a guardian’s – however, where a guardian uses a weapon as a magical focus, for a warrior it is likely all going into making it easier for the warrior to use the weapon to full effect. A thief, engineer or warrior using a volley-like skill, for instance, may be making use of an enchanted firearm capable of self-loading… possibly made in a similar manner to an engineer’s self-loading-and-aiming turrets.

Of course, it is possible that warriors like other professions do have a connection to magic, but their use of that magic is instinctively turned entirely inwards, making them stronger, tougher and faster than they would otherwise be able to be. Such a scenario would provide a simple explanation as to why smaller PC warriors are a match for larger ones – magical affinity among the playable races seems to be roughly inversely proportional to size, so the asura warrior might be getting a large magical boost to strength to offset their lack of physical size, while a norn or charr has (and needs) less of such benefits.

There are class trainers in game. I know mechanicly it’s more like “here, read this book. it’ll tell you everything you need to know” but lore wise it would seem to imply that you usually train under someone to perfect your craft.

I like your theory, even if it isn’t canon lore, its a nice idea.

From Gwen’s Story in GW1, she learns how to become a mesmer simply from reading books describing mesmer skills.

I’d probably guess that when push comes to shove, learning magic is like any other skill – it’s easier if you have teachers and/or instruction manuals, but someone had to be the first to figure out what to put in those instruction manuals.

I would argue that Gwen was one of the magically gifted individuals. There is an Orrian History Scroll in Malchor’s Leap which has the account of an Ascalonian merchant traveling to Orr for the first time, talking about how in Ascalon magic users have to train for years to be able to use simple spells and thus only using magic when other tools don’t cut it (with Orrians being vastly different).

I recall reading somewhere on the forums that someone found mention of the bloodstones having weakened over time, so it could be that magic became easier to use since that merchant’s time, and even since GW1’s time.

That still holds with my analogy, though – with pretty much any skill, there are people who are naturally talented and can achieve results with relatively little effort, while others require considerably more work to get the same results.

I also wonder if the march of time has anything to do with ease of magic use. Just a half century ago playing the guitar solo from Hard Day’s Night was an advanced guitar technique, now any 14 year old with just a bit of dedication can bust out sweep arpeggios to their heart’s content. Hell, 200 years ago, the only way you could be bothered to learn an instrument at all in western culture was to be among the very privileged.

Maybe 250 years ago magic was a much more regimented discipline, but now anyone with a a bit of spare time and a few coins to spend on books can learn a Profession. The knowledge may have just disseminated that far in that much time.

I recall hearing somewhere in the eastern portion of LA of a boy whose mother taught a simple boon so that he would be able to run home in time for dinner.
Personally I think that magic is out there and people have to develop for ability to use it. How they do it, be it trial and error or structured instruction are just different means to the same end.

I like this idea a lot. I always wondered why ammo was never a thing in the Guild Wars universe. I think this applies a neat spin on the existing lore, and could explain things like the rangers in GW1 having their skills like “Apply Poison”, even without having any actual ammo.