Guild Wars 2

There is gameplay-lore seperation in several cases. just because I can only summon one flesh golem ingame doesn’t mean I can’t summon several at once in lore.

There is very little lore for the Revenant as it is.

Also, I think Rytlock channels Glint differently then the players do? I may be wrong on that.

morrolan.9608:

What? It was pathetically done. I’d normally have some tears in a moment like that but I had nothing. Faolain had no reason to stab her and then she just gets a non-descript death against a nothing minion. The way it was put together engendered no emotion in me at all.

Faolain is not a good/nice person. In her mind, stabbing Eir would slow the norn down, allowing her to reach safety before the mordrem got her.

Daharahj.1325:

I’m a bit surprised the spike hurt Eir that bad when you consider how strong Norn are, and how weak Sylvari are for that matter.

Eir was already weakened from wounds taken during the fleet’s destruction/fall to the jungle, and being starved. As it is, I don’t see it as actually being a mortal/heavy wound, but more of a “Oh kitten, OUCH.” situation where it caused her to pause/slow down, which the vinetooth took.

Daralii.8940:

The Wyld Hunt thing seems like a really stupid misunderstanding considering it wasn’t mentioned at all until that one line late in the story. So much ultimately pointless drama could have been avoided if her or the Pale Tree had just said something.

In previous times, the egg was in a heavy mordrem area and Caithe basically did the EXACT same thing the commander does in the jungle. Picked up the egg and ran like hell to get it to safety. Look at it, she grabbed the egg and fled the shadow of the dragon and the mordrem cave. We grabbed the egg and fled the Mordrem.

Caithe’s made mistakes, but I have few issues with her.

Gameplay mechanics is a factor…

There is no reason for Zhaitan to refuse corpses. Icebrood would simply have to survive the sons of svanir (If female)

Mike.7263:

Eir Stegalkin, leader of Destiny’s Edge, who bravely battled both Kralkatorrik and Zhaitan, falls to a mere minion with fear on her face and no weapon in her hand.

She deserved so much better.

Fear? I saw no fear. And she had no weapon available. This is directly after she used the spike Faolin stabbed her with as a throwing weapon (IMO, likely severing Faolin’s spine and paralyzing her, based off Norn strength and where the spike landed).

Knox.8462:

Remember that Eir had been starved of food and water for days before we got to her, then badly wounded by Faolain. Even for a Norn, she probably wasn’t in a fit state to fight back.

“To Eir! She’ll break the Fang yet!”

Add in the fact she’d likely have some wounds from fighting the Sylvari on the Glory of Tyria, then the fall to the jungle. And it’s VERY unlikely that the Mordrem took her, destiny’s edge, and Trahearne without a fight (I’ve reached “The Predator’s Path” story mission thus far.)

Wounded, then starved and denied medical attention for however long it took the Commander to find that camp. She was in rough condition. Faolin’s stab seemed more like a “Oh kitten, ouch!” then a crippling blow. But it paused Eir, which is what caused her death.

Shiren.9532:

Then why did she look at Rytlock and engage the mob without the rest of the group? Rytlock went one way, Eir went the other (apparently a starved, weakened Eir also didn’t warrant the support of our entire team because we all went with Rytlock -including Braham). In a later story step a similar scenario happens and we don’t make the weakened people fight, they are effectively out of the fight and have people protecting them.

Eir’s death was scripted to be a dramatic death to motivate Braham, not a logical conclusion to her story.

Um, what? Rytlock was with the group. Eir and Faolin were on a seperate area. Hence the “Run for that bridge, we’ll cut it off there!” That cell they were in lifted with a vine, and flopped across a chasm (IIRC) before opening. Both groups were running for a connecting point, and Rytlock was with the commander and crew.

Way I see it, the Pact is EXCELLENT at field fortifications. The fleet was torn from the sky, yes, but they were able to dig in fairly well the following day/days.

Not a pretty setup, but they make it work. Also, remember that part of the prologue was opening up/keeping open a passage that would allow wounded to escape, and reinforcements to come in.

There is zero reason to think that Revenants can’t use other legendary figures.

For example, ingame I suggested to a player talking about their Norn Revenant being like a “shaman” and using animal spirits to instead be a Revenant who focuses and primarily uses NORN legendary heros, Like Jora.

Argon.1563:

I also disliked the fact 90% of the storyline was “I must save my friends! Help Zojja, Logan and Trehearne!”

You don’t see the leaders of military forces like Smodur and Jennah worrying about individuals, so why would the commander? The 3 captives in question aren’t even that influential. Zojja, the mute Elementalist who can only use Air Magic, Logan, the ship-fodder for RytlockXLogan, and Trehearne, the walking vegetable that 90% of the GW2 community collectively has a vendetta against. What would I get out of rescuing those 3?

edit: I will say, so far though, we seem pretty disconnected from the various pact forces. I do KINDA wish there was something more of a home base (or instanced basecamp) like fort trinity (smaller and more field fort that the Pact seems to excel at though) that players could gather in/sell loot/see pact forces regroup in. At the moment it seemed like my commander freed the one prison camp, waves vaguely in an eastern direct and went “RUN THAT WAY. REACH CAMP.” :P
I would’ve much rathered the Dragon’s Stand instances to be about pushing through Mordremoth’s defences to kill him, himself, rather than focusing just on getting Zojja, Logan and Trehearne back. The Mordremoth battle at the end felt very much like “Oh, well im here now. Might as well kill him.”

Having only just dropped the egg off in the city, it strikes me as more like rescuing heros that could have massively deadly effects if turned against us.

Also, how is Zojja the “mute elementalist who only uses air”? That doesn’t make sense at all. Also, focusing on one area of magic is completely reasonable within lore terms.

And Traehearne… most of the hate against him I see tends to be silly. :P Also ties into this completely irrational, 110% silly, crazy idea that because some players hate Traehearne, the ENTIRE UNIVERSE MUST. “Why would I go rescue him?” Sure, you hate him. But the Pact does NOT. The Commander (the canon one) DOES NOT.

joannarei.4237:

I asked 2 people in-game who were Anet employees with their tag above their head and also submitted a request for the location of the pets but all of them said, they didn’t know or don’t know where they are.

Like seriously!? They made the game and they don’t know where they are!

Been trying to farm Dragons Stand event for the past 3 days and not one group was able to beat it cause the bosses kept respawning, miscommunication, or people just didn’t know what to do and even if people knew what to do, the miscommunication on when to kill the bosses at the same time, failed and one of the bosses would respawn.

Like seriously Anet!? They went too overboard for the Dragons Stand event especially to just obtain a kitten Electric Wyvern!

Different jobs. A person whose job is to test necromancer skills isn’t going to know about ranger stuff.

Not everybody knows where everything is, and IIRC, ALL anet employees have to work to unlock their stuff ingame. They don’t get any free passes.

Course, it’s quite interesting and not surprising to hear complaints of too many rangers. Not in the sense of “OMG RANGERS SUCK.” (Because I don’t follow that mentality at all, it’s stupid), but because lack of diversity in skills. Like in GW1 where you would have 7-8 dervish players all trying to cap avatar of balthazar from the one boss enemy, and getting utterly destroyed. Go out with a standard, diverse group (I did it with heroes, who had fairly good builds), and the guy is not that hard to kill.

I managed to get the smokescales, fire wyvern, and bristlebacks on my two rangers (well, the bristleback is super easy to get, so my main will be able to cap that one.), and it was… ish annoying levels.

Since the smokescales are event locked (I managed to find an instance that had completed the chain and spawned then, so I rushed in and grabbed one, and had my friend come grab the other. Used a teleport to party member device to get my other range from fire wyvern spot to tangled depths SCAR camp).

I kinda wish, after doing this, that ranger pets were account wide unlocked. <_<.

I, and a friend, are peeved (My slightly, unsure how much for my friend) that the Electric Wyvern, and in a sense, the smokescale (both spawn locations. wiki said after the scrap cannon events they spawn near the vine wall) are locked behind group events, large groups for the Electric wyvern apparently.

Hard to find/reach/rare is one thing, but locked behind things that require a group, ranging from 5 to a large number is blah.

edit: Will admit, we are both tired by this point and next to nobody is in the depths zone. :P

Xase.5064:

It’s worth noting that the stock human NPC line when referring to Grenth is “May Grenth shield you.” Meaning Grenth has some protective qualities, or at least viewed on some level as a protective entity by some humans- which you could definitely work in for a guardian!

IIRC, the seventh reaper you encounter in a story mission in Orr bids farewell saying something like

“I will(or grenth) will be with you, in every swing of your enemies blade.”

vanderwolf.7084:

It bothers me. I play just above minimum height human male. So I see him as around 5’8"/5’9". And there are female Norn just barely taller than me

Why would a min-height human be 5’8" in gw2? :P That’s around average height last I checked.

Average height for a norn is 9 feet tall. I imagine that is equal to the center of the height slider. Max would be around 10 feet, and the shortest around 8 feet. (Partly based off my max height norn female guardian being almost exactly the same height as a kodan, in the game). Do note I generally suck at scaling :P.

It’s entirely reasonable that there are “petite” norn who are around 8 feet tall (or a tiny bit shorter).

Honestly, this comes across like me going “What’s with all the super innocent, teenage looking female warriors. guardians, thieves, etc? It’s so out of place and weird, stop being a thing!”

I have/do RP/explain my necromancer’s blindfold as not affecting her sight, because after being blinded (and then healed mostly by monk healing magic, partly another necromancer), her vision returned, but she could mediate and allow herself to see aura’s of living (and partly, undead) things.

I could be that Priests of Kormir, like Ritualists and Revenants now, enter a form of meditation and can ‘see’ fine, even blindfolded. It’s just they see extra things others do not.

In the Winds of Change arch, IIRC, you could repeatedly find Ministry of Purity forces yelling stuff about “Sending you to grenth’s justice/judgement” when fighting the gangs.

Olias, the necromancer hero (I think I got the name right) that you recruit from lion’s arch, was also all about bringing justice to a group of white mantle who were slaughtering krytans on the bloodstone.

So he kinda is, but it’s more of the dead then the living. I THINK I’ve heard Kormir being mentioned in the “trial of zamon” mission, which could mean she is treated as justice for the living, and grenth the dead?

Kuulpb.5412:

I see what you’re saying, But i’m not saying “casting a spell”, I am saying it is a Hindering spell that can be removed, due to immobilise has the obviously purpley chains tying you down, so it’s some form of spell or magic. and if you can shout to remove the chains then you are breaking the spell of somekind.

I also see what you say by me mentioning game mechanic sin lore, but there are Game mechanics related to lore, such as Waypointing is Lore, Taimi created waypoints using less magic, so, Engineers, warriors etc have some form of magic that allows them to use such strange things with ease, such as again, banners form the sky, endless grenades and kits, an endless ammo. Their form of Magic could be they don’t use “Ammo” in the natural sense, but some form of ammo that can be fired multiple times. From what i recall I don’t see any NPCs claiming about lack of ammo to fire their rifle etc, but I may have missed it.

Please tell me if you find one

There is a charr npc, I forget exactly where, but she (I think it’s a she) mentions the fact that they are having difficulties getting supply convoys out to the frontlines of combat against the flame legion and such, meaning those troops are low on ammo, weapons, and other supplies. Especially newer guns and other weapons being built in the black citadel. IIRC, in Edge of Destiny, there is a minor mention of it where the charr fire their axe-rifles once, then switch to using them as axes in close combat.

SOME game mechanics are lore and canon. The waypoints are one example (though all evidence points to you having to be directly under one to access the network), but that purple chains with immobilize is more of a “Hey, this visual is here to quickly show you an immobilized character.” Likewise, my warrior throwing a sword, then swinging said sword at a different enemy with the ability to tear the exact same sword from the guy she threw it at (while engaged in combat with another).

“Banners from the sky, endless ammo, infinite kits and grenades.” are all game mechanics, with little evidence of them being such in the lore at all. Banners are, after all, something that you’d see carried by a dedicated soldier carrying in an army in the bow and sword era of combat.

Because the guardian is NOT a paladin of good and justice and righteousness. There are bandit/separatist guardians out there.

If you really wanted to make that little bit of character selection matter to you (because really, it’s a little bit of fluffy and has zero REAL impact on anything in terms of gameplay), as somebody else said, go the justice route since that is part of Grenth’s domain.

Grenth is NOT an evil person/god. I’ve seen warriors dedicated to him (player RP characters). Heck, remember the fact that GRENTH was the one who brought forth resurrection (alongside undead), where Dhuum banned all of that.

In terms of RPing your character, much of the character creation questions don’t even apply to the bulk of characters. It assumes everybody is from DR and has rarely, if ever, set foot outside of it. It puts you directly into three setups, instead of the huge variety we could find. It’s nice, but at the same time, nobody else can see that you chose to be blessed by grenth or that your character was a commoner or noble or such.

Kuulpb.5412:

I have an idea for what shouts are and do.

Conditions like Cripple and Immobilise, are Hindering Magics. and shouts like Shake it off that remove it are “breaking the spell”, so removing conditions is breaking a hindering spell. A guardian using stand your ground would give their allies a magical ability to stand up against the next few attempts to “crowd control” them like stun or knockdown. and Damaging shouts or ones that debuff an enemy

So my warrior swinging her weapon and crippling somebody is casting a spell?

Like Reaper’s Chilled to the bone, Tempest’s Flash Freeze and Warrior’s On My mark, would possibly be a spell that needs to be heard. but to them having a “range”. you need to within range of the chanting to be affected. such as if you had a deaf character, then it’s highly possible that they wouldn’t be affected by any shouts.

Reaper’s shouts can be assumed to simply be a verbal add-on to an actual spell. Ele shouts it seems are more of them screaming “HA HA, YOU ARE FROZE!”. Warrior’s shouts are morale related/inspirational shouts/commands.

So in my opinion: Shouts are the characters tapping into their own magical energies that we know EVERYTHING has, ( banners from nowhere, endless kits on engie) and utilising it in some way, but the ones that are going to be affected NEED TO HEAR THE WORDS. So far we haven’t met a “Deaf” character in GW2, it’s possible that at some point we meet an enemy race that is deaf, which makes them unaffected by shouts of any kind. But I think Hearing the magic is important. You can dodge or block the spell/shout in some cases. such as you can dodge but not block “Fear me!”, but I believe you can block Flash Freeze ( please correct me if I’m wrong), due to the point at which the shout radiates from. Damaging shouts centre on the caster. while hindering shouts centre on the enemy.

Taking game mechanics too literally. Do note that in lore, most rifles and gunpowder weapons are akin to early RL gunpowder weapons, meaning they do not rapid fire. at all.

To be completely honest, I’ve only read some fo the firts page, so someone may have already said this, and I don’t have any full “proof” of shouts needing to be heard to be in effect other than the “range” indicator.

I think you are taking certain mechanics in the game a bit too literally lore-wise, and applying other aspects too heavily. Warriors tapping into a bit of primal magic to make their hammer smash create a shockwave(without doing it on purpose, intentionally, or actually planning it) is one thing. Them actively ‘casting’ spells by shouting is another.

Historically, they have been shafted many times by other races, especially allied ones.

Look at the “Winds of Change” arch, were the peaceful tribe ended up actively targeted and hunted down by the Purity goons.

We also must consider the fact that being isolationist with semi-limited trade to select people/areas, they may be dark about many things. It’s implied ingame they are dealing with increasing destroyer attacks as well.

I think it’s less of a “Yes, we can trust them to fight the dragons alongside of us.” and more of “Can we trust them to not stab us in the back like we’ve seen in the past?”

draxynnic.3719:

@Kalavier: Re: the commando events: I consider them to be of dubious canonicity. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. Either way, chronomancers do not currently appear to be able to warp time by more than a few minutes: the commando events, if they are canon, simply suggest that this power may be possible to achieve in the future. (And even then it might need to involve some complicated asura technomancy and the like rather than being something that a single ornery mesmer can do on a whim.)

I consider them to be amusing terminator jokes, given the gear of the guy and him standing next to a very modern combat helicopter. Maybe at some point they’ll be able to do it, but I definitely wouldn’t include it in a list of what classes could do.

Vlad.1739:

In most of Tyrian history mesmers are respected members in the theatrical community. pre-searing GW1 you see mesmer trainer near an amphitheater. Norgu is a respected actor. These examples show mesmers are never feared for what they can do but loved. There was no historical reason in general to fear mesmers. When we compare historical social hate towards necromancers who pull souls unwillingly into undead and constructs they get a lot of hate. I can cite Verata’s cult which used forbidden practices to further minion research. There not many easily cite able cases of mesmers doing activities such as political manipulation and puppeteering.

A: I’d say the mesmers who perform plays use their magic and illusions to help set the scenes/mood (or an off-screen one does so).

B: There may be some dislike of necromancers, but not masses of outright hate.

Besides, Mesmers typically end up as attractive, well dressed and spoken people (in human culture at least). Of course people are going to like them better :P.

Agroman.7190:

Kalavier.1097:

Well, isn’t air magic under Dwayna’s domain anyway? Easy to see some being air elementalists.

Course, my viewpoint revolves around all the priests in the salma district hospital and at the post-tutorial house being monks due to their role as healers. I see monks as still being around, just not as prominent outside of humanity, and not playable.

Actually, especially the ones in salma district hospital are the ones I was referring to. During personal story, they use water magic to put out fires and later air magic to aid the PC and Seraph in the fight against the bandits. Which, of course, is also fitting for a priest of Dwayna.

Hm. Well, gameplay mechanics will play a part in it. For example, the “Ascalon monks” in fractals don’t really use any monk like skills that I remember.

But hey, I did say it’s my head-canon/personal belief that monks are still around, just to a lesser extent. Because honestly, the type of magic monks used/the role they filled in society wouldn’t go away (even if the gameplay reason for it has).
edit: I simply don’t see the monk, so heavily tied to Dwayna, being removed and all priests/priestesses of Dwayna being eles now :P.

draxynnic.3719:

About the rest: No, we don’t “know full well evidence of the opposite”. A mesmer can certainly influence a society quite effectively. They can’t create a kingdom of undead in their image like a powerful necromancer can, though, or start an industrial revolution like an engineer can. Their ability to alter reality seems to have fairly strict limits, at least for now: the chronomancer’s time magic, for instance, seems to only allow a few minutes at most: the commando events in GW1 indicates that this may develop in the future, but at the here and now, it’s not possible.

The commando events were april fools jokes, not canon at all.

At the bottom line, two of the most powerful mesmers we know of, combined, can’t even keep their own society united behind them. This may be based on morality rather than capability, but we’ve seen no evidence that mesmers can mind control on the level required to personally control a society. If that was possible, I suspect some rogue mesmer would have at least tried, and the closest we’ve seen to that is Faolain.

If the mesmer collective that Kasmeer/Marjory reference behaves anything like the Necromancer order (which had elementalists in it as well, so it might be a general magic user order, and not necromancer specific), they may very well combat or remove somebody who tries to rule over others purely through mind control.

So, in that theory’s line of thought, it may be nobody tries/does so because it makes them a very big target and their fellows will hunt them down.

The most powerful necromancer we know of is currently the dictator of Elona based purely on his own power and necromancy.

Also the fact there is no known way to kill Joko. :P

Vlad.1739:

I will address and quash a few points.

1) Mesmer’s can not do all the stuff people say they could potentially do mass scale stuff=death as someone said quoting books. To be honest even though some mesmer stuff is canon its poorly written. the fact that gw2 world is not run by mesmer puppeteers proves you are wrong. Even if it is implied some things as possible does not mean they are.

Extreme high end mesmer magic runs into infinite power loop arguments. However, as I noted, there is a minor possibility (at least in my head, unsure if anybody else thought of it) mesmers self-police each other to prevent mad ruling through mind control. Yes, extremely powerful illusions or spells cast by mesmers are indicated to drain their lifeforce, or at least harm them temporarily. Even in the PS we encounter a few cases that show what mesmers can do. Like turning a huge vigil force returning to camp into risen (in the eyes of the mortar team). Or making an ancient ruined manor look like it’s lively and in the middle of a party.

2) Liches are not your average necromancers. Liches in gw2 are made by magic rituals and certain situations and artifacts. (liches are super rare) So using liches to boast necromancer capabilities is wrong. Khilborn became a lich after reading scroll in arah that caused a cataclysm nuked the place killed the charr turned him into lich. He also got more powerful when he got the scepter of orr (controls undead and titans). They are also hard to kill. in prophecies you had to kill the lich on the bloodstone to suck his soul into the soul batteries. Ossa did not kill joko after defeating him because probably hes also a powerful lich and hard to kill.

Bar the “Lich form” spell, we have never been told how liches come about, period.

Khilborn was turned into a lich, but it’s unsure if that was related to Abbadon or the sheer cataclysmic power he unleashed from the scroll. Joko we don’t have a history for his turning into a lich. We’ve seen several others (including under Zhaitan) that don’t really have any lore around them.

Liches are, in a general sense (IMO), the high end of necromancer power for the most part.

draxynnic.3719:

Agroman is correct. While it would have been a nice touch for priestesses of Dwayna to behave as lightly-armoured guardians in combat, in practice, every priestess of Dwayna I’ve seen in combat uses elementalist effects.

A good way to observe this is when one of the wasps in the Fields of Ruin delegation event goes too close to the healing tents, and the priestess of Dwayna starts throwing lightning spheres at it. (Which isn’t actually a skill available to PC elementalists either – it might have been in an earlier iteration of what became air scepter – but it’s certainly not a monk-esque skill.)

Well, isn’t air magic under Dwayna’s domain anyway? Easy to see some being air elementalists.

Course, my viewpoint revolves around all the priests in the salma district hospital and at the post-tutorial house being monks due to their role as healers. I see monks as still being around, just not as prominent outside of humanity, and not playable.

draxynnic.3719:

We do actually have a case of a necromancer doing something like that – Naku, the necromancer in Tahnnakai Temple, sacrificed his life to summon an overly large army of minions and send them into the enemy.

Jennah’s illusion in Edge of Destiny is a pretty powerful example of what a mesmer can do without causing self-harm.

I’d say Jennah and Annise’s illusion (as both cast it IIRC), shows how the magic is situational.

Her example simply froze the defenders/living people of ebonhawke and made them look like branded with an illusion of Kralk flying past. It had no ill effects stated for Jennah and Annise.

However the lady in the Ebon Falcons summoned a full illusionary army/legion that charged into combat (and assumable maintained combat for a good while, maybe a day) with Charr, When she stumbled back to friendly lines, she was blind, and fell over dead.

Zuko.7132:

So in actual gameplay no class is supposed to be more powerful than another, but what about in lore? What professions are most powerful and which are weakest?

It’s entirely situational.

For example, we have some pretty powerful feats for mesmers, but IIRC, almost every single case resulted in the mesmer self-harming themselves or outright killing themselves with the magic. The Mesmer in the Ebon Falcons blinded herself for a good while after summoning an illusion the size of the Eye of the North. Later on, she basically killed herself by summoning and maintaining an army of illusions.

We don’t really have similar feats for necromancers of Elementalistics (at least in scale), but we have the necromancer from the Ebon Falcons summoning minions from every dead person from the original ebonhawke settlement/mine. Eve ones summoned a graveyard full of minions.

Cynn IIRC brought down a firestorm on the ruins of her house, completely destroying the Charr threatening her.

Honestly, it’s seemed to me that your average spellcaster has a certain ‘power level’. Some can spike it very, very high, but at great risk to themselves. So it’s not very common.

Agroman.7190:

Kalavier.1097:

[…]the healing magic of the priests/priestesses of dwayna (who I see as all being monks)[…]

This is wrong, just a sidenote. While I agree that most likely many of them are monks/unarmored guardians, in GW2 we see elementalist priests of Dwayna on several occasions, using water and air magic.

Eh, I haven’t noticed them. Though in general if I see a npcs named “priest of dwayna” I assume it’s a monk.

kalevinrajo.8360:

This is why I believe that all shouts are spells, even if not…necessarily conscious.

Two examples from opposite ends of the spectrum:

Shake If Off!
While it’s easy to say that “the warrior is basically yelling at everyone to keep going in spite of everything,” also bear in mind that, by doing so, the warrior is immediately curing: a heavily-sprained/broken leg (crippled), noxious disease (poisoned), severe bodily trauma (several stacks of bleeding), the fact that you are on FIRE (burned). Not “ignoring until it’s better,” his allies are no longer affected by this. This hints that there is restoration magic being used, even if the warrior himself is not aware of it. Think of it as, along with inspiring allies, the warrior is casting a restoration spell via sheer willpower.

Eh. I’m going to say you are tying in heavily into the game mechanics as being all canon.

Because a broken leg or a crippling wound is not going to just vanish. And if a warrior can simply remove such an injury by yelling, we kinda invalidate the healing magic of the priests/priestesses of dwayna (who I see as all being monks), or the healers/field medics we see in places like Gendarren fields or Orr. (Field hospital in the forest north of Fort Trinity, medics around Nebo Terrace).

Mind you, if we were in combat and you had your leg broken, you would not be able to effectively continue fighting, if at all depending on how well you deal with pain. You would be on the ground or out of the main fighting. Also depends on how the leg was broken/crippled. A Son of Svanir smashing a human’s leg with a mace or axe (or sword, unsure which weapons give cripple for warrior in game mechanics), I’m fairly sure that human will be on the ground and completely out of the fight.

Reminds me of how I prefer the GW1 world map to the Gw2 world map. Gw1 lets you get a rough feel for the terrain and rivers/lakes. Gw2 map… doesn’t.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Kalavier.1097:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

For warriors, shouts are likely just motivational speeches. People don’t really seem to get how much moral can improve situations, or harm it, and people tend to take the mechanics literally.

^ Moral can play a huge part in combat. Like how sometimes you’d have entire armies fall apart because their king died. Or armies surge back into action because a hero appeared and lead a charge. (An example kinda is the battle of five armies hobbit movie. The Dwarves surged back into action when they saw Thorin charge).

Another factor is adrenaline can allow you to push past your limits. But there is a line between lore and game mechanics, I’ve struggled with it for writing terms based around the necromancer abilities and magic (how to describe their offensive spellcasting effects for example).

Shouts being mind control? I don’t really think so personally. A skilled adventurer/hero/leader shouting orders to teammates and allies? Yeah.

Slight correction, people seen to be writing moral instead of morale. As for offensive necromancy in writing look no further than https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Marjory%27s_Story:_The_Last_Straw

As it seems necromancy should be described as necromantic to avoid mentioning that word curse which references a mechanic that no longer exists in the game. So touch spells are now “necromantic fury at [your] fingertips” and passive traits correspond to unconscious magical processes.

My bad on the spelling, tiredness does that. As for the short, it’s not 100% what I was meaning. But it helps.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

For warriors, shouts are likely just motivational speeches. People don’t really seem to get how much moral can improve situations, or harm it, and people tend to take the mechanics literally.

^ Moral can play a huge part in combat. Like how sometimes you’d have entire armies fall apart because their king died. Or armies surge back into action because a hero appeared and lead a charge. (An example kinda is the battle of five armies hobbit movie. The Dwarves surged back into action when they saw Thorin charge).

Another factor is adrenaline can allow you to push past your limits. But there is a line between lore and game mechanics, I’ve struggled with it for writing terms based around the necromancer abilities and magic (how to describe their offensive spellcasting effects for example).

Shouts being mind control? I don’t really think so personally. A skilled adventurer/hero/leader shouting orders to teammates and allies? Yeah.

I took the warrior shouts as simply being orders/inspiration (same for some guardian shouts) as Nox Lucis said.

It’s less of an actual magical buff (that’s gameplay mechanics part of the skill), but more of the warrior (or in some cases, squad leader/officer/etc) going “HOLD THE LINE/STAND YOUR GROUND!”

Reaper shouts are probably more of a spell and the necromancer in question yells that kitten to be even scarier. Hey, not only are you being magically poisoned and feeling like you have to puke, but the spellcaster you are fighting is screaming about how you suffering!

:P

If you look in the orphanage in the human home instance, there is a number of desks and a blackboard with some writing on it (also some silly stuff like a catapult launching somebody :P). I take it as there is probably some schooling for the lower tiers of human culture, but it’s not as advanced or in-depth. Covering the basics they’d need but little else.

For magic, probably a lot of mentoring involved.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Now Waypoints are a different beast. Actually at first when the game launched many people saw them as a pure gameplay function, with not connection to the lore, as previous lore never mentioned them. It was all about Asura Gates. That changed with the Living World Season 2 and Mordremoths attack on the Waypoint-network (maybe they were mentiond in lore before, but I can’t remember an earlier point).

You can physically see npcs using waypoints (coming out of at least) in at least one camp in Orr.

As for Grenth, I don’t know if “darkness” is part of his official thing. It was justice, ice, and death before.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Kalavier.1097:

In GW1, there was one bounty on a norn necromancer alongside other ‘legendary’ beasts or foes as I recall.

Worth clarifying here that that norn was declared a ‘notorious foe’ (not quite a bounty) because he “fought without honor” and “poisoned, cheated, and murdered” as much or more than because he reanimated his victims.

Yeah. Was meaning it more as a “That’s the one case of norn being against necromancers offhand I can think of.”

Zakhelm.4618:

My question is how do some necrosmancers interact with other classes in lore. For example a Necromancer viewing a Guardian as too zealous or devoted or vise versa Guardian views Necromancer as something vile and must be exterminated. if that is the case where have there been peaceful interactions, like chase of pursued goal (outside the destiny edge 1 and 2).

Monks and necromancers were implied to have some tension, but for the most part got along fine if they were on the same team. :P

Guardians, I’ll note are NOT paladin equivalents. Some people think of them as such, but they are not. It’s a mix of paragon, monk, and ritualist as I recall. While they are defensive and protective focused for the most part(hence name lol), it’s not like they have a code of honor. I’ve seen separatist/bandit guardians :P.

Mhenlo and Eve got along fine, and for the most part everybody in that specific group got along fine with Eve (though it probably helped the method by which she joined the party was literally saving their kitten from a brand of charr chasing them). I’ll note that Eve got kicked out of a school for wayward girls which was run by a monk (IIRC) though. That was more of her getting at forbidden books and (IIRC at that point), having a pet skull she talked to. Knowing GW necromancers, I find it completely believable that Adam talked back to Eve.

Hell, in the battle of gandara, when the second sunspear assault point is cleared of the flamethrowers and the reinforcements arrive, Kormir casually orders the necromancer that was in the second squad to “make some reinforcements” out of the fallen Kournans. So I’d say this about necromancer interactions with other professions. It depends on the situation and individuals (duh), but also the nature.

Everybody seems perfectly fine with necromancers as part of a joint military force, see sunspears and the necromancer in the Ebon Falcon squad (or Devona’s team). On a casual basis outside of combat, it varies. I remember reading the pre-searing trainers had a variaty of reactions or interactions, but that was true for all professions. I think the mesmer and monks reacted the worst to necromancers (and same in response other way around), but then again two of the three necromancer trainers in pre-searing went crazy during it and we had to kill them post searing. Not the best example of necromancers :P.

castlemanic.3198:

I have a question regarding shades. Are shades created from corpses or are they summoned from the underworld like there are portals they come out of in queensdale?

As for the idea that binding the souls to the body’s of the dead being taboo, why are ritualists accepted in GW1 if the following is true:

“Ritualists channel other-worldly energies that summon allies from the void and employ mystic binding rituals that bend those allies to the Ritualist’s will.…..Where the Ranger lives as one with the spirit world, the Ritualist can and will be its master.”

For the most part, ritualists used spirits tied to specific emotions. “Spirit of rage.” or “spirit of sorrow” and such. They didn’t explicitly yoink somebodys soul from their body (or from the underworld) and use it. I kinda view it as if it’s like… the demons from dragon age? It’s more of a specific emotion/aspect that is given a form by the mists.

Course, ritualists were from cantha and were a part of it’s culture and lore for a long, long time, so there may have been some general acceptance of that part there.

By the way, on this subject, I swear Liandri the concealing dark is a necromancer/mesmer. :P

Vilenia.3081:

Someone told me there was a dynamic event during the GW2 bêta involving the repression of a norn performing necromancy… Never found evidence it actualy existed :/

Concerning Humans, I heard NPCs express their dislike of necromancers a few times in DR. You have to spend some time in the Grenth Low Road to hear some of their dialogues.

Bonus:
During a Personal Story mission a lionguard said:

Trahearne, the necromancer? Comes through here every few months on his way to Orr. That guy creeps me out.

concerning humans, you also hear a few npcs openly and completely casually talking about necromancy.

Aka, the dad trying to get his son to follow in his footsteps. The Sylvari graveyard worker finds it weird how some humans act around corpses, but that’s a normal “Ew dead person.”

IIRC, there was another case where a civilian woman was complaining about grenth being icky or something, and a guy nearby replies (without any disgust, disapproval, or any real tone to his voice) “Maybe you should rethink your profession.” Said lady was a necromancer (or it’s heavily implied as such). edit: Kinda like somebody complaining about idiots, but being in a help desk/public services job.

In GW1, there was one bounty on a norn necromancer alongside other ‘legendary’ beasts or foes as I recall.

So really, some people are creeped out by it, others simply don’t care. Somebody being creeped out by Trahearne isn’t that odd. He is a firstborn sylvari necromancer..

Daniel Handler.4816:

Kalavier.1097:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Not exactly. It is the use of avatars. It was a magical ability of the dervish, and now in revenants, which are the baby of ritualists and dervish.

Actually, I’d say they are unrelated because the Dervish was directly tapping into the power of the gods to become avatars, while the Revenant is using the mists and isn’t becoming an avatar at all.

It is assumed that a revenant is simply a dervish that is forced to use ritualist magic when the gods go silent. They become avatar of spirits instead of gods.

They said it’s not, given how the first known Revenant is Rytlock, who was not a dervish :P.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Not exactly. It is the use of avatars. It was a magical ability of the dervish, and now in revenants, which are the baby of ritualists and dervish.

Actually, I’d say they are unrelated because the Dervish was directly tapping into the power of the gods to become avatars, while the Revenant is using the mists and isn’t becoming an avatar at all.

As konig says, we wouldn’t know until we get more lore.

Which is my problem with a chunk of the legendaries is that without any story, they just look very weird/conflicting with the rest of the world. The pistol, mace, and the unicorn bow spring to mind easily.

The axe and shield fit nicely into the lore, former because it’s obviously an icebrood weapon, the latter because GW prophecies. The rifle is a little over the top for me, but I don’t mind it, and the dagger… we have welders in LA and camp resolve, though I’m not a fan of the dagger.

IIRC, the torch is named after several GW1 fire skills.

Daniel Handler.4816:

But wait. So when a minion is created it uses no life force. But you can reap life force from its death. Where is the necro getting the souls from? And when we gain life force from the ambient death of allies aren’t we rending their souls? And we should lose life force in wvw when enemies resurrect.

We aren’t messing with the souls at all. I see it as more of the flash of energy at the moment of death, and not that we are sucking out souls from the dying. Likewise, in terms of WvW (which is a nebulous area to poke into in the first place with the respawning), if I harvest energy from a golem exploding, and then the golem is rebuilt/reactivated, the original energy isn’t taken back.

HappyDale.5398:

In GW 1 Necromancers “‘(exploit)’ the corpse, in essence using it up” in order to make a minion, and they would “exploit” any dead: even dead allies / friends. Minions were only raised from a corpse, and never created from “nothing” with one exception. You could gain a minion without a corpse by using the elite skill “Aura of the Lich.”

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Minion

There was a bit of a story that has been referenced before. Verata was guilty of “unethical practices.” He was not guilty for trying to expand necromancy, but for kidnapping Ascalonian citizens and experimenting on them.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Renegade_Necromancer

Yep! The order only went after him because he was literally murdering his fellow refugees. The idea of making minions last longer (which was Verata’s research, IIRC), was perfectly fine to them, if not something they’d love. The methods of researching it was what they hated.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The “immortal” Mordrem Lurcher was still around too, don’t forget.

Though to be honest, that cinematic has bugged me from the beginning. Not so much the Caithe taking the egg part, but the fact that the dialogue and animation do not line up.

To me, it feels like originally they were going to have that cinematic at the beginning of the boss fight, but for some reason moved it later and which made it not line up properly.

Would’ve made sense too, she suddenly goes “No time to explain”, poofs, and THEN a powerful mordrem shows up.

No norn spirit is linked explicitly to a profession.

Also, the whole “No necromancer users sentient corpses” is false. In an event in Kessex hills (I think), to fight a centaur necromancer who was murdering merchants and travelers, you collect the remains of the humans. The necromancer human ally then raises those remains into a group of flesh golems.

It’s not popular, and the TYPICAL line of seperation we see in gw1 between good and evil necromancers is that evil ones tend to use zombies, skeletons, fully humanoid undead, and good ones tend to use the more unidentifiable minions that are more a creation of bones and flesh then somebody making a dead human stand up and fight.

However, as many have said, necromancy is viewed as a dark art, not an evil one. Human necromancers in GW1 policed themselves in the form of a mostly unseen order, and took out those that went evil (experimenting on fellow refugees for example, put a death warrant on that necromancer). It’s a refreshing thing compared to other settings honestly. I once praised a guy because he understood that grenth was a dark fellow, but wasn’t an EVIL one.

spartan.9421:

Well Kalavier, the first time she flees with the egg isn’t really a “life or death must leave NOOOW” situation. when she first swipes the egg there is currently NO danger to the PC the party or the egg since you just killed the mordrem troll that was in the area with the master of peace and the egg. She had plenty of time to say “oh hey commander i’m going to take the egg to a safe spot so you can focus on commander stuff” instead of just taking it.

The second time was directly before an attack, the first right after the mordrem beast had died.

Either way, the first time we were sitting into an underground maze filled with mordrem vines and creatures. Not the safest place in general. Also the high chance that keeping the egg there might have triggered another attack.

Besides, if she had said that, it would have raised questions and then we’d have people complaining about that.

Kossage.9072:

Yeah, Caithe fleeing twice without even bothering to give a proper explanation for her actions to my sylvari despite everything we’d been through together seemed way off to me. She probably has a good reason for what she’s doing and not letting Trahearne know the truth about the sylvari, but we won’t find out until later, sadly.

Both times being to get the egg as far away from the mordrem as she can as quickly as possible.

Makes perfect sense really. It’s a good case of “I don’t have time to explain!” situation. Would you take time to explain to others why you are running away when you are holding an insanely valuable object and the bad guys are getting closer and closer? I wouldn’t want to risk the escape route being cut off.

As for letting Trahearne know… couple points one already touched on by others.

A: She may not have known that the weak willed sylvari would all mass betray the pact.
B: Maybe she didn’t want to reveal that bombshell directly before Trahearne went off to try to murder an elder dragon before it fully woke up?

I mean, that kind of revelation could possibly shatter Trahearne. Or make him start double-guessing himself or his tactics in this case. All “MAYBEs” extremely, but would you want to run that risk directly on the eve of a major assault? (Or the start of a campaign).

The player character and Laranthir take it rather well, but Laranthir is kinda in the middle of a battlefield and can’t dwell on that. Who knows how they’d take that news in a non-hostile environment with no crisis.

As stated, a chunk of the time Caithe’s actions are “wtf are you doing?” when they are done, but looking back with more information it’s a “Oh, that’s why. Okay.”

Nilkemia.8507:

she couldn’t be bothered to warn Trehearne at least so he’d be cautious and maybe not send the sylvari in to get taken over. And the only thing preventing her potential fall is her main character status still, and seeing as we’ve seen a future where she chooses Nightmare, it’s not too hard to imagine Mordremoth trying to corrupt her.

A: She didn’t know that. Nothing implies she knew the sylvari would suddenly turn against everybody and join the dragon.
B: That future where she joins nightmare was only because of Faolin tempting her and destiny’s edge completely falling apart and never healing.

We see some lionguard medium armor guys with pistol/warhorn IIRC.

Game mechanics do not = lore.

Otherwise one could argue that an asura is capable of physically overpowering a norn.

SirDrygan.1823:

Let’s assume that Modremoth had a plan when it wants to invade Brisban Wildlands, Kessex Hills, Dieasa Plateau…etc..
If it can just spawn it’s Spawners anywhere and anytime, why it didn’t just attack Divinity’s Reach?

Zhaitan attacked Claw Island because it knows that Claw Island is the gateway into Kryta for being near Orr. But it’s problem with it’s army is that they have to be transported via bone ships and Dragon’s champion. And it already know that it can’t rely on just Dragon Champion because the heroes whoop Teq good and proper.

Like in an RTS, you don’t attack the main base as an opener unless you can steamroll every single foe in that single rush. Because it’s either going to be the best defended/has the most forces, or because then you have to try to hunt down the surviving towns.

Honestly, note that “Teq being whooped good and proper” Isn’t some random kitten five heroes dealing it. It’s an entire army with turret, golem, and a megalaser supporting it. IMO, if a dragon champion landed inside DR, it could do massive damage. But would it be worth it? I don’t know.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Tybalt said he had a bomb to blow them up. Sadly, we saw no evidence of this bomb that would supposedly make a huge crater in the fort.

Forgal’s the one I don’t really get, being a warrior. Even as a norn.

Forgal is actually one of the easiest to get. I mean, he’s a norn for one detail. So many seem to underestimate, if not try to rob norn of the insane strength, durability, and other abilities they have.

I remember something about norn and charr finding Risen foes rather ‘squishy’. My headcanon however, is that what actually happened was a combo. All three mentors being there and fighting the Risen off.

Diovid.9506:

People say that about Faolin a lot, but if you actually look at the trailer then this seems not be the case. The corrupted enemies in that trailer glow red-ish. Faolin does not glow in this way, but the pact soldier she kills does (slightly).

Actually, rewatching it. The sylvari’s WEAPONS glowed red. They personally did not(for most of them at least). The mordrem troll did glow red across it’s body however.

The order of whispers warrior she kills has no glow, beside the red gem in the hilt of the sword.

Honestly, that was before the conversion to mordrem guard, and the way the scene is shown implies she was at a pact vs Sylvari and Mordrem fight.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see her as one of the mentioned commanders.

Diovid.9506:

wouw.5837:

Why don’t we use the Dredge tunnel to Cantha?

Several reasons, I’d assume:

1. The dredge won’t let us.
2. Primordus.
3. We have enough to deal with in the continent of Tyria as it is.

Possibly more reasons beyond those.

I’ll throw in reason 4: It’s likely collasped due to natural or purposeful reasons.

I’d see them destroying the tunnels after leaving to keep the stone summit from following them possibly. Or that they’d use the tunnels to escape the “anti everything that isn’t human” movement that Cantha went through, and collaspe the tunnels to safeguard their kitten.