Guild Wars 2

How does a thief gain stealth? It’s suggested a thief can manipulate shadows around him, so does that imply that thieves are capable of using magic, even if only “shadow magic”? Or it is some sort of cloaking device?

Same goes for Deception skills. Some can be easily explained with smoke bombs, but what about Shadowstep, that is basically a teleport? And what happens when a thief uses Shadow Refuge? Why does that “house” pops up over the aoe and why does the thief wield a scythe when he performs Shadow Refuge?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bloodstone

They use denial magic, same magic as mesmers.

Refuge – shelter or protection from danger or distress (explains house)

thats all I have

Daecollo.9578:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bloodstone

They use denial magic, same magic as mesmers.

Oh nice one Daecollo never knew this myself time to read up

Great, thanks for clearing this up for me! ^^

Thieves are basicly mages

Makes sense, really. In a world where magic is as prevalent as Tyria, wouldn’t everyone be using it in some form or other?

The scholars are all obviously magical. Rangers summon spirits and Guardians clearly have magical effects. Thieves teleport as well as disappear from plain sight.

That leaves Warriors and Engineers.

Warriors use Signets, which are apparently magical rings going back in the lore. A lot of their abilities blur the line between extreme ability and magic. Sure, there’s a kind of sense in buffing allies with banners and shouts. It’s all about morale and tactics…. but the results are pretty spectacular. Could just chalk it up to game mechanics representing something fairly intangible IRL, or it could be a subtle use of battle magic.

Engineers are the seemingly most non-magical profession. Their tech, however, contains a lot of randomness and unscientific results. One elixir can randomly do wildly different things. For all the lore about the engineer profession emerging from the Charr, their tech is reminiscent of Asura techno-magic in it’s flashy, but unreliable, style.

Unlike other fantasy worlds where there are “magic users” and “non-magic users” Tyria seems to be pretty saturated with magic.

Or maybe thieves just work really, really hard and have developed natural agility and sneakiness(?) throughout the course of their lives? Shadow step only looks like a teleport since you are a normal person. You know like in DBZ where everyone would look like they are teleporting and moving at the speed of light to us normal humans, but the other Z-fighters who were trained could follow the fight clearly like it was a normal boxing match. And shadow refuge might be a thief saying to an area “Guys sit still. Thier vision is based on movement…”

:P

Jonny.9370:

Or maybe thieves just work really, really hard and have developed natural agility and sneakiness(?) throughout the course of their lives? Shadow step only looks like a teleport since you are a normal person. You know like in DBZ where everyone would look like they are teleporting and moving at the speed of light to us normal humans, but the other Z-fighters who were trained could follow the fight clearly like it was a normal boxing match. And shadow refuge might be a thief saying to an area “Guys sit still. Thier vision is based on movement…”

:P

Nope, its magic, thats what the lore says, they use denial magic just like mesmers, Canthan Assassins were pretty much mage ninjas.

Jonny.9370:

Or maybe thieves just work really, really hard and have developed natural agility and sneakiness(?) throughout the course of their lives? Shadow step only looks like a teleport since you are a normal person. You know like in DBZ where everyone would look like they are teleporting and moving at the speed of light to us normal humans, but the other Z-fighters who were trained could follow the fight clearly like it was a normal boxing match. And shadow refuge might be a thief saying to an area “Guys sit still. Thier vision is based on movement…”

:P

Shadowstepping is magic.

You see this

:P <—

That means I’m not serious. Hence the reference to friggin dragonbaII z and Family Guy lmao. Thanks for the incredible facts that I TOTALLY care about like how shadowstepping is magic.

But here, for the sake of argument, I’ll engage you in some debate. If thieves use magic, then what is the point of all the tangible, “real” tools like traps, applied weapon poisons, smoke bombs, throwing weapons, etc.? The majority of abilities suggest they use no magic at all. It does not say shadow magic. All it says is they use surprise and shadows to sneak to their enemies. There are many games out there where the protagonist does exactly this, without any supernatural help.

The Warrior’s signets could also be explained as little hierlooms/trophies whose power only comes from the warrior’s attachment to them. Similar to how some people believe listening to music makes them play better or work out harder. Or religious people see thier religions charms as good luck.

Also, Canthan Assassin afaik is a thief only in that their abilities are similar. I believe Thief was advertised as a completely new profession.

There’s many ways to look at this, and unless ANet comes out and directly states, “Thieves use magic”, there’s nothing I see that proves it.