Guild Wars 2

Mostly talking about stealth and shadow abilities like shadow return… Does GW2 thieves learn some shadow magic or something? Just bored and wondering…

Well I’ve not seen much exact lore about it but yeah thieves do utilize magic to some extent to travel through shadows and hide themselves in plain sight etc.

The most obvious way to see this is looking at some of the shadow arts trait lines, stuff like infusion of shadow and shadow’s rejuvenation clearly hint towards them manipulating shadows beyond just hiding in them.

I don’t know where shadow abilities come. In original Guild Wars assassins had those too.

I think thiefs are “Mo Zing” assassins: Mo Zing is an Old Canthan term for people who have no master, or guild, that they follow. Mo Zing either choose to be unaffiliated from the start as a mercenary or bandit, or have defected from a group they no longer support. Zenmai is a Mo Zing, having left the Am Fah when they began treating the Canthan Plague like a “gift of the gods”.

Here is what original Guild Wars has to say about assassins:
The Assassin, called Tahkayun in Old Canthan, is a profession that is unique to Cantha which is looked down upon by many individuals. They are viewed as simple mercenaries or coldblooded killers, and while some are like that, the Assassins on a whole are not. Similar to the Canthan view of Rangers, which protect the balance in nature, the Assassins’ purpose is to protect the balance in society, taking out justice against those who view themselves above the laws. Because of this, many Assassins take their job very seriously.

Despite this overarching purpose, some Assassins are hired simply to eliminate a rival of their employer. Most Assassins answer to an employer – be it a noble, a guild leader, or the emperor himself. Originally, most Assassins worked for a single client but as time moved on, and as the demand for Assassins rose, they began to organize themselves into guilds and now work for multiple clients; those who do work for a single employer now often work for the highest of Canthan nobility.

Thieves do in fact use magic, The same magic as mesmers, its called denial magic. Can look it up in both wiki’s though its more clearly explained in the gw1 wiki

The Thief is likely the replacement for the Assassin because under NCSoft’s world view, they did not want Cantha in the game as they were an Asian representation. Then they jammed a Steal skill into F1 to call it a thief instead of assassin, which we basically are.

It’s basically as LordSlack said. And Assassins did indeed use magic.
You might be able to justify it by imagining that Thieves are the result of Assassins migrated from Cantha during the events of Guild Wars 1 causing their techniques to become more common knowledge, so Thieves use the old Assassin magics.
There was no great depth of thought put into it though.
The giant chasm in Divinity Reach was the result of a last minute decision to remove the Canthan district from it, which was likely when they decided as well to rename the Assassin class to Thief and jumble together a last minute class mechanic.

I don’t use magic as much as believe REALLY hard!

"If this doesn’t work, I’m gonna die..."

We use Denial magic, like mesmers. But we’re cooler <.< cuz…..well cuz thats why.

RedSpectrum.1975:

We use Denial magic...

Denial is a river in Egypt full of the tears of our victims sharing their feelings on the forum!

Go thieves! Woo!