Well, if I can post them here. These shouldn’t be related to any spoilers at all hehe.
A: When stated that “Basically everybody learns their first spells from tutoring of their parents.” What does that mean? Human example: does this mean most people learn the “Prayer to Dwayna” style skills, or profession specific. That specific source mentions Charr in Farhars learning their first spells (implying nearly all), yet we have Rytlock who never used magic, that is until his anti-foefire ritual.
B: Part of the “warriors and magic debate” I see a lot. Warrior shouts. Can a warrior use the one shout to actually heal a wound(Like the one skill does ingame)? Or is this a case of “most of the time, it’s just morale.”
C: This one is stupid, but I’m putting it here just to silence it… Warriors do not summon banners from the sky do they? Again, something I see a lot despite how silly it is.
D: In comparison to adventurers/military forces/orders, what kind of spells or power levels do civilian spellcasters have, like the civilian necromancers in Divinity’s Reach.
E: Relating to above slightly, how often (in a generalized statement across all the races), do warriors use magic in a trained manner? How much magic could a Seraph warrior squad be expected to showcase? Obviously some warriors train in magic (asura especially), but how about the other races?Those are the ones that pop into mind immediately.
As Konig stated, warriors and engineers absolutely can use magic. Most of their skills are presented as nonmagical, but they do wield magical or magic-infused weaponry, so the lines get blurred (and the debate you’re describing occurs). Take the warrior’s torch skill Flames of War, for example. It creates a mobile flame field that follows the player around and explodes when it expires. There may be a non-magical weapon that can do those things, but a simple knotty branch with a burning oily rag tied to the end isn’t one of them. Likewise, the engineer’s pistol produces a lot of different effects—poison, burning, bouncy lighting blasts, glue—and it’s pretty hard to say there’s no magic involved in a pistol that serves as a dart gun, flamethrower, arc thrower, and glue bomb (and never needs reloading).
So there is no absolute in this case—i.e., you can’t say “warriors never use magic” any more than you can say “warriors always use magic.” Most warrior and engineer skills generally don’t use magic, but there are some with a clear magical component, be it in the weapon itself or in the skill’s effects.
A:
I’d draw an analogy to a child IRL learning to cook: the child sees their parents doing something, expresses an interest or is told “this is something you need to learn,” and the parent teaches the child how to do it. Once the child learns to grill a burger or mix up some mac & cheese, they may never use that skill again in their entire lives, but their experience includes learning how and, if ever called upon to do it later in life, they have some experience upon which to draw.
In other words, spellcasting in Tyria is a basic life skill like cooking, riding a bike, or swimming—it takes discipline and practice, and each family has its own way of teaching it, but learning how to master that basic life skill starts early. In your Rytlock example, he learned basic spells in the fahrar like every other charr cub, but he doesn’t routinely use spells in his adult life as a soldier (though he does carry a sweet magical flaming sword, so that does balance things out a bit).
B:
Without getting too meta or gamey: a player’s health automatically regenerates outside of combat, and conditions like bleeding or burning eventually wear off even if the player doesn’t administer first aid or stop, drop, and roll.
By the same token, I’d describe a warrior using a shout to heal as psyching themselves up to keep fighting, pressing on despite an injury, and otherwise refusing to let physical damage stop them—in effect, accelerating/activating that natural automatic recovery process that starts once combat is over—but bypassing the normal cooldown/out of combat requirement.
C:
Well, the animation does pretty clearly show the banner slamming down into the ground from above, or at least, blinking in/appearing as a result of the gesture the warrior makes. I could see that interpreted as the warrior had just pulled the banner out of their inventory and planted it (kind of like weapon swapping), but I come down on the side of the warrior magically summoning it from the sky.
D:
The average citizen has basic magic, but people who use magic everyday as a soldier or order operative have had a lot more practice and experience, so they’re able to cast bigger and more powerful spells more regularly. Think of it as a natural talent like singing or athletic ability—if you’re blessed with a lot of that talent, but don’t exercise it/practice it, you won’t be as good at it as someone who does.
E:
Warriors rely on their physical skills more than their magical ones, but as stated above, everyone in Tyria can use magic and almost everyone learns to do basic magic as a part of growing up/learning basic life skills.
Game-wise, one of the first things a new character does is level up their weapon skills by using that weapon; this is analogous to training hard and mastering the basics, which opens up access to the more advanced skills for that weapon. So as a natural consequence of perfecting their warrior abilities, the warrior PC learns some skills that have a magical component, and how to apply magic to some of their basic physical skills to improve the effect.
Anyway, enjoy!
