Guild Wars 2

Seeing there’s a thread on Kasmeer’s portal skills (also I would like to point out that her blink skill is a thing of my mesmer’s envy as well)

What about Marjory’s bone bridge skill? I could ah, avoid many painful moments in Jumping Puzzles, >_>

inb4 Necro/Mesmer JP new meta.

Yeah, I had a bit of a discussion about this skill with Konig. The weird thing is, I introduced the concept of a bone bridge skill back in GW1 with one of my Horrorween trailers, and I was really staggered to now see an npc conjure one up in GW2. I really wonder if it is perhaps a reference, or just a case of sheer coincidence.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbpvKzREwu4

It is nice that the devs when faced with a problem can pull some “new” skill out of their bottoms. It is also fitting that the skill in question makes the necro, in that particular story arch, handy.

Funny how that works.

NPCs, being stupidly overpowered and stupidly underpowered at the same time

CeruleanRevolver.6085:

inb4 Necro/Mesmer JP new meta.

I’d be perfectly fine with that if they give all classes some kind of jump-to or shadow-step utility.

I prefer this to the classic “Asura ex Machina”.

Because when a problem needs solving, who better to pull an invention that does JUST THE THING out of nowhere?

I think this is just an example of story vs gameplay. They gave characters certain skills because they felt it would be balanced and interesting, without overwhelming us with options and to be honest, somewhat useless skills. Conjuring a bone bridge out of nowhere barely has any use in combat and teleporting like that would be unfair for other classes. I think you should look at the characters as something seperate here, there have been characters in the story that can do things no player can. This is purely a result of gameplay restrictions and I’m fine with the way they do it to be honest.

Yeah Lethalvriend is right. We saw this a lot in GW1 actually, Verata for instance was able to create Necromancer minions with an extended/unlimited life span, Duncan the Black was able to summon an incredibly large number of Ritualist spirits etc. It’s no different to how bosses in GW2 have their own skills, different people use magic in different ways – it’s just that the PC’s need to have some standardised and balanced sense of magic. Bone bridges would be pointless/cheap, and a blink teleport for Mesmers would be incredibly OP.

(Also, cool video Mad Queen Malafide)

Also from a lore perspective they explained back during the Tower of Nightmares release that magic in Tyria can do a lot more than what the player skills allow. (In response to people questioning how the tower could have been hidden with magic and how Kasmeer could uncover it.)

There are a lot of things that various NPCs can do that we can’t. The idea is that no one person could ever learn every possible use of magic, even within one profession. Our characters focus on combat-orientated skills, other people focus on other areas and so can do different things.

I think of it as a bit like learning music. There are certain chords that everyone (who plays that instrument) will know, but no one person could learn all of them and it would be ridiculous to try. You learn the ones you need to use and accept that other people might well know others that you don’t.

If that gap was just a bit shorter my Warrior could have Savage Leaped right over it.

By the way, if you try to use the teleport gun to launch yourself to the other side, the game teleports you back automatically. LAME!

Swag Captain.5318:

I prefer this to the classic “Asura ex Machina”.

Because when a problem needs solving, who better to pull an invention that does JUST THE THING out of nowhere?

You mean Deus Ex Asura.

Only correcting because Imma start using it.

:P I use Asura ex Machina because of CinemaSins. If a character SOMEHOW suddenly can solve the problem, “[Character’s Name] ex Machina.”

Look at it this way from an in-world angle – there is probably some skills your character routinely uses, that the NPCs look at and say “How the hell did they do that, that isn’t actually a [class] spell is it?”

Not the first time that happened to be honest.
- Trahearn summoning several Flesh Golems
- Priory Sylvari using air magic to fly over a giant gap
- multiple illusions by Kasmeer
- Teleportbattle by Logan at the queens pavillion
- Kasmeer teleporting over long gaps (we cannot. it is gamebreaking )
- kasmeer placing portals in the distance ( Iam sensing a theme here, Hail mesmer Master race)

are just the ones that immediatly come into my mind of

While we can can contribute this to the fact that these NPCs are able to use magic which is more practicable instead of combat oriented (which, you have to admit, all our characters are able to do with their magic: Fight), i get the feeling that our Characters should at least be able to do something similiar, or be able to do it themselves.
Otherwise we end up with the dredded “wait for NPC to get over ostancle, which should not be an obstancle in the first place” annoyance… like waiting for an NPC to open a simple door for you…

btw. I even suggested including some of these skills at points throughout the world, to get our characters up to par with some things we see in the Story: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Suggestion-Context-sensitive-abilities/first#post4168132

Jaken.6801:

- Priory Sylvari using air magic to fly over a giant gap
- multiple illusions by Kasmeer

Just encountered the first one a few hours ago as I FINALLY did PS (just so I could level through it and skip Orr). In reality, it kinda makes sense.. Elementalists ARE pretty much the Avatar. She also creates a spark path to show you the way to her, which would be a really simple trick for Eles IMO.

The second.. I can only assume we can’t do that much like Necros can’t have an army of undead like in GW1. It’d be WAY too hard to balance around. We CAN theoretically do it, but the mechanics won’t let us.

Jaken.6801:

Not the first time that happened to be honest.
- Trahearn summoning several Flesh Golems
- Priory Sylvari using air magic to fly over a giant gap
- multiple illusions by Kasmeer
- Teleportbattle by Logan at the queens pavillion
- Kasmeer teleporting over long gaps (we cannot. it is gamebreaking )
- kasmeer placing portals in the distance ( Iam sensing a theme here, Hail mesmer Master race)

You forget there is a human necromancer (well, might’ve missed her, at draethors lair) who summons several flesh golems as well.

In the end, it’s game mechanics and balance only.

Also, Mesmers are the spellcaster class we’ve seen mentioned several times in the lore to perform insane feats, sometimes with physical cost to the caster.

Never said that were all. Just the ones i remembered of the top of my metaphorical hat

It didn’t make much sense, imo. What are the chances that there was a mostly intact half of a giant beast’s ribcage hidden in the rock wall of a canyon? And just in the height they needed it…

But then again, I was never fond of the GW2 necro’s summon minions/bone hands/anything-solid-and-necrotic-related out of thin air. It was a lot more realistic in GW1 where a necromancer had to utilize his or her resources of corpses in proximity to create minions, wells, or explode remains and release nasty diseases, etc. …

If the canyon was a natural graveyard for the many beasts of the Maguuma that journeyed there to die, and Delaqua were to raise enough bones from the bottom to will them into a makeshift bridge… that would’ve been rather believable, actually.

Thalador.4218:

It didn’t make much sense, imo. What are the chances that there was a mostly intact half of a giant beast’s ribcage hidden in the rock wall of a canyon? And just in the height they needed it…

But then again, I was never fond of the GW2 necro’s summon minions/bone hands/anything-solid-and-necrotic-related out of thin air. It was a lot more realistic in GW1 where a necromancer had to utilize his or her resources of corpses in proximity to create minions, wells, or explode remains and release nasty diseases, etc. …

If the canyon was a natural graveyard for the many beasts of the Maguuma that journeyed there to die, and Delaqua were to raise enough bones from the bottom to will them into a makeshift bridge… that would’ve been rather believable, actually.

I really miss the GW1 necromancers. GW2 necromancers don’t feel any different from any other class with the exception of the deathly skill names.

Swag Captain.5318:

I prefer this to the classic “Asura ex Machina”.

Because when a problem needs solving, who better to pull an invention that does JUST THE THING out of nowhere?

In this case they didn’t need an asura, the map was littered with aspect crystals. All we needed was a conveniently placed lightning aspect (which there was for one of the achievements).

:P You’re reading too much into that phrase.

Also, being a Priory member has given me the wonderful look at the toys they have. So Priory ex Machina sounds good too.. >_> it’s like every single thing people need comes from one of those two sources, save for relatively small problems like your gap.

I think it’s swell that the NPCs can use skills that we as players can’t, simply because we can use skills that they can’t.

Marjory, for example, can summon a bone bridge seemingly out of nowhere. It’s not like there were any giant bones coincidentally resting on the floor of the canyon. But how often do you see her turn into a lich? Or go into death shroud?

Kasmeer can summon portals at such a distance and blink across gaps large enough that would make our characters say “nope, not doing that”, and she can summon illusions that never seem to “die”. But how often do you see her meditate on mantras, polymorphing enemies, or granting stealth to everyone?

It’s pretty safe to say that NPC’s, particularly those of the new DE, are more utility-based, whereas our characters are more combat-oriented. And there’s nothing wrong with that; no one can achieve impossible feats without help from someone with a different set of skills as you. That’s what makes a team, a team. And that’s the way I like it.

I like how Danikat puts it; everyone can learn musical chords, but you only need to practice the chords that you need. The chords that you don’t know, someone else is bound to know.

It will be nice thet player can use thet bone bridge but thing about it what will players do wit it,ok 30% will use it for jp but what will other 70% do.And wit thet long range portal it will be much more map breaks so for my its beter for npc to use some cool and unikque skill then player can

I don’t think they want you to be able to circumvent jumping puzzles with abilities and it wouldn’t have much use outside of that so your not likely to get it.

I don’t mind NPC’s having skills the PC’s don’t. I would assume my characters can do more than actually have as skills. With NPC’s you don’t have to worry about balance, breaking the maps or skills that are just hard to implement in a way that would be useful in game-play. I would also assume NPC’s are also not locked in set classes.

It would be cool if you occasionally had things play out differently in the story depending on what class you play because of special skills like what the NPC’s have but that would take a lot of work on ANets Part.

Although it seems weird to me that necromancers can summon bones and undead out of nothing now. My necromancer doesn’t feel like a necromancer, they’re a summoner with an undead bent. It would have been less random if there was actually the skeleton of something there for her to manipulate.

I wish normal necro could have such dodging and teleporting skills Marjory has. (She dodges into the air and leaves dark aura surrounding her, then she teleports away with a blast of dirt)

Sublimatio.6981:

I wish normal necro could have such dodging and teleporting skills Marjory has. (She dodges into the air and leaves dark aura surrounding her, then she teleports away with a blast of dirt)

Her backwards dodge is a leap finisher too, I think. A bit like the Mesmer staff backwards leap.

Not to mention the various other abilities NPCs have used in the lore, such as Anise making a Queen Jenna clone, Queen Jenna creating a Kralkatorik clone, Jenna Warden Bonding Logan, Marjory summoning up a ghost to talk to, etc.

Ohoni.6057:

Not to mention the various other abilities NPCs have used in the lore, such as Anise making a Queen Jenna clone, Queen Jenna creating a Kralkatorik clone, Jenna Warden Bonding Logan, Marjory summoning up a ghost to talk to, etc.

A lot of these are probably supposed to be the types of things that take a lot of time and dedicated practice to learn.

As illustrated in one of my favourite screen shots. (This is from the sylvari personal story where a Mesmer turns you into a human bandit.)

Jenna could have a lot of uses for creating large illusions (like making her own special effects at public events) and so put the time and effort into learning it. Whereas our characters would very rarely have any use for that and chose to learn something else instead. As someone said above we very rarely see NPCs use Moa Morph (one of my personal favourite Mesmer skills) and it could be that they look at our characters using it and wonder how we ever learned it.

Ohoni.6057:

Marjory summoning up a ghost to talk to, etc.

This is one power that I would love to see play into the story more. It would be great if necromancers are able to get extra information from the dead, by talking to a ghost. I’m surprised they haven’t made use of this yet in the Living Story.

The game does not recognize if the player is playing a necromancer. I wish it did.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Ohoni.6057:

Marjory summoning up a ghost to talk to, etc.

This is one power that I would love to see play into the story more. It would be great if necromancers are able to get extra information from the dead, by talking to a ghost. I’m surprised they haven’t made use of this yet in the Living Story.

The game does not recognize if the player is playing a necromancer. I wish it did.

I think the game can tell what profession you’re playing, it’s just not used very often. For example engineers apparently get some extra dialogue with Taimi about Scarlet’s machines.

The problem would be they’d either have to give necromancers one story and everyone else a different one or they’d have to give everyone else a way to get the same information. Which they could do. Maybe rangers could summon a nature spirit (one of the maguuma druids?), guardians could use some sort of divination, warriors could…threaten a local? etc. but that might make it seem less special.

Demented Sheep.1642:

Although it seems weird to me that necromancers can summon bones and undead out of nothing now. My necromancer doesn’t feel like a necromancer, they’re a summoner with an undead bent. It would have been less random if there was actually the skeleton of something there for her to manipulate.

This can be explained away in one of two ways..

• In the past 250 years, Necromancy has advanced to the point where you don’t need raw materials with you to create an undead minion.. the spell now summons the materials to you and then creates the minion at the same time… So.. every time a necromancer summons a bone minion.. somewhere in the world, a buried corpse disappears..

• You will note, that when a necromancer summons an undead minion, there is a black aura on the ground around where the minion comes from.. This is the necromancer drawing the life force from the surrounding plants, animals, and even people in order to create a minion.

That is how I look at it.. Anyhow..

Profession skills have evolved over the years since GW1 era.

As mentioned by Micah Fergson in the Hall of Monuments, the skills of GW2 profession are far more advance than how they were back in GW1.

(Note: Micah Fergson was once a skill trainer in GW1 back when he was alive)

The ability to create bone objects and minions without the sacrifices is part of the advancement Necromencers have developed over the years.