Guild Wars 2

The lack of explanation of magic is getting incredibly frustrating. Yes yes, magic is magic and it’s supposed to be magical but there needs to be explanations to a few things nonetheless!

For starters.. Does my elementalist need to say a spell to do something? Does he just wave his hand? Does he have a mana capacity or energy? If it is a spell, what language is it spoken in?

According to lore written on the GW1 wiki it states that there are five bloodstones, four for each school of magic and one keystone. Yet the schools that seem to exist and are mentioned are Arcane, Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Blood and Death.

And Guardians! They’re even worse!

“With the turmoil in Elona and the spread of the Order of Whispers into other lands, more Paragon teaching showed elsewhere in Tyria. These teachings melded with other traditions, and over time, the guardians and their abilities can be found throughout the world and among all the races. They are not tied to a particular race, philosophy, or group of gods but rather to a larger concept of proactive defense, of taking the fight to a foe and protecting those you fight alongside while appealing equally to humanity’s defensive nature and the charr’s desire to rule the battlefield.”

It explains nothing and is simply a mess of contradictions!

“…rather to a larger concept of proactive defense, of taking the fight to a foe and protecting those you fight alongside while appealing equally to humanity’s defensive nature and the charr’s desire to rule the battlefield.”

How does an Asura Guardian fight then? What fuels them? From what I can gather, a Guardian’s desire to protect is what fuels them..

They can teleport, they can conjure arcane weapons, they call ‘divine flames’, they can summon spellbooks to give them massive defensive or offensive spells and they can summon chains made of holy fire. I don’t get where this power comes from though. Is it just a desire to protect people? There’s not a source for it?

They’re a mix of Paragon / Warrior / Assassin / Dervish / Monk. They breathe fire for gods sake!

I’m not trying to bash, I just want to understand the thought and process behind the magic! Does anyone have ANY explanation for these things?

The schools of magic the Bloodstones separate might not be as binary as Earth, Fire, Air, Water, ect. I would hazard a guess that it’s far more elaborate.
For instance:
A school of magic that is Abyssal – Anything that involves death or the manipulation of lifeforce, so a necromancer can disassociate himself with his own lifeforce and turn it into a weapon creating the deathshroud. (I haven’t played necromancer yet, I might have gotten that example a little wrong)
A school of magic that is Creation – Any point where you make something from nothing: Elementalist summoning large flaming spires of rock, Guardians summoning ethereal chains.
A school of magic that revolves around manipulation – The Mesmer’s bag of tricks as well as any magical side of the thief

It’s not know how evenly the Bloodstones were split so the ability to teleport might lie over multiple stones.

The Bloodstones separate magic into aggression, destruction, preservation, and denial.

Alright! So that’s a few things answered. What about Guardians then? And what about how casting itself works? Mana? Energy? Gestures with your hand? A staff? Mutter a spell? Chanting?

Sajuuk Khar.1509:

The Bloodstones separate magic into aggression, destruction, preservation, and denial.

What does denial magic do? Or.. whatever? What does it mean? :O

Cordayne.9012:

Sajuuk Khar.1509:

The Bloodstones separate magic into aggression, destruction, preservation, and denial.

What does denial magic do? Or.. whatever? What does it mean? :O

That’s probably a mesmer’s main thing.

Cordayne.9012:

Alright! So that’s a few things answered. What about Guardians then? And what about how casting itself works? Mana? Energy? Gestures with your hand? A staff? Mutter a spell? Chanting?

I think it depends how talented the caster is. In some cases it requires training to harness effectively and in other cases it is just inate. Orrians for example seemed to be able to use magic as easily as breathing. I think there are many ways to cast magic though.

Cordayne.9012:

Sajuuk Khar.1509:

The Bloodstones separate magic into aggression, destruction, preservation, and denial.

What does denial magic do? Or.. whatever? What does it mean? :O

From memory I believe destruction and preservation were linked to Elementalists and Monks (Guardians in GW2). Denial I think was mesmers and Aggression was Necromancers though Im not sure. Most profession abilities play off these. For example Thief Shadowsteping is probably Denial.

Sounds possible indeed! I just find it to be a shame that everything is a large “I think” rather than any actual fact!

The main thing about this post is the fact that I am a roleplayer. When there is such a lack of fact about things like magic, it leaves it open to too much wide interpreting which results in 15 players with 15 different ideas about how magic works and then in a roleplaying situation, they’re supposed to get along and work on mutual terms when it comes to magic! It’s a recipe for disaster.

If I recall from the books, when Logan used his guardian magic he didn’t speak any words. A blue light just formed around his hands I think. So my guess is we simply have the ability to pull the power from ourselves. As if every human is born with magic but not everyone feels it. Of not that, then hand motions. Thinking about when my Ele uses a glyph or signet, she waves her hand out in front of her over the rune symbol.

Lutinz.6915:

Cordayne.9012:

Sajuuk Khar.1509:

The Bloodstones separate magic into aggression, destruction, preservation, and denial.

What does denial magic do? Or.. whatever? What does it mean? :O

From memory I believe destruction and preservation were linked to Elementalists and Monks (Guardians in GW2). Denial I think was mesmers and Aggression was Necromancers though Im not sure. Most profession abilities play off these. For example Thief Shadowsteping is probably Denial.

This is pretty much correct – I think somewhere it’s been confirmed that Aggression was necromancers. Shadowstepping is a little unclear, as it could also be Aggression – all the teleports pre-Factions were on the necromancer, and assassins also had some life stealing.

There was another interview on the source of guardian magic that said it was based in faith – it didn’t matter what the person has faith in – it could be gods, animal spirits, the legions, or even themselves – but ultimately the power flowed through faith. Others are still a little up in the air, but if you look up Gwen’s Story in the GW1 wiki, there are a few descriptions of how some mesmer spells from back then work. As a general rule, though:

1) Spellcasters don’t seem to need to chant most spells, although there are rituals, mantras, and other magical effects that do.

2) Certain magic types do seem to attract certain personality types. This could be indicative of a link, or it could be simply that people with a given personality are more likely to choose a magic style that’s compatible.

Pardon not having a source on hand for this, my cousin is borrowing my copy of ‘Edge of Destiny’ but hopefully I can remember enough.

Given that none of these specifically mention words, I think that it’s more of a concept in your mind that you will into reality. Those who use magic are born with the ability to manipulate it, which is why a human mage can start out as a street rat. Now, further on you can use glyphs. Since the character draws these in the air and then activates them, this would be an example of a ‘study’ part of magic. The glyph needs to be learned, hence why you need skill points to unlock it.

Now of course, this is all speculation, but I hope I backed up my ideas sufficiently. I used the spoiler thing twice because it was deleting some of my sentence when I only used one.

Yeah, it sounds very possible. But it’s a shame there’s basically no fact, only speculation about these things

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Magic

That is all we know about magic in the world of Tyria.

It may be that Arenanet is going the same way with their lore, as Bethesda did with Elder Scrolls, or games Workshop did with Warhammer 40,000.

Where lore is essentially “in-universe” and subject to all the misunderstandings, prejudices, and difference in perspective of the race that wrote it. All the lore we’ve seen to date is invariably homocentric, which’d explain many of the errors we see – like how the gods gifted magic to the sentient races, even though the Asura clearly demonstrate magic abides physical rules that can be turned into mechanical devices that anyone (or anything, including non-living golems, or structures) can utilise.

It’d also explain the tendency of the lore to favour the human’s 5/6 gods as an explanation for everything, when most the races don’t even accept humanities interpretation of the “gods”

during one of the last missions in Orr Trehearn I believe maybe someone else, say something about how using magic was very common for the orrians, they used it like they would any other tool. Magic today is reserved for when we can't accomplish things otherwise. Someone else also outright states that their magic was inherent, whereas today you must learn it. please correct me if anythings wrong here.

This might help.

Everything we once knew about magic in the world of Tyria has since changed.

If you get to Arah explorable you will see why.

The Seers made the Bloodstones. Not the Gods.

It was ONCE believed that the schools of magic were separated four ways, as previously stated. 90% of what we know comes from the humans. Who are… well… stupid and consistently lie, more than Glint. I had to laugh seeing the priestess of Grenth ask me to follow what she does in the personal story where you meet the Reaper of Grenth, already doing exactly what she asked, 5 lines alter (kneel at a shrine).

We THOUGHT magic was once uttered as a prayer to a particular God, as stated in certain game Manuscripts. If you see the text relating to Abaddon’s first real worshipper, he prays to Abaddon and absolutely rips the kitten out of the Forgotten.

tl;dr we know sweet kitten all.