33 replies to this topic

[Hit 'n' Run!]

I was wondering - is there any solid evidence of Saint Victor being a warrior? Is it possible he to have been a guardian, given the effect of the urn containing his ashes?

[Vorpal]

There were no Guardians until GW2 as far as I know, so most likely not.

[Sword Hammer Axe]

As far as I can see, the Guardian is just an improved Wammo lol. So that's pretty much what Saint Victor is :p

[draxynnic]

I claim this thread for the Priory! Although it probably won't last very long, it has to be said...

The impression I get is that the new professions are actually new (at least to the continents we've visited) and represent new training and techniques, rather than cases of "oh, this historical character was actually a *blah* all along". Since Viktor is shown using a sword, according to the rules of his time as we know them that means he's at least part Warrior. Given the protective quality of his urn, chances are he's also got some Monk in him as well - although whether he's a W/Mo or a Mo/W isn't really clear.

[Lyssa]

Well really Saint Victor was alive a good 200 years before Gw1, so the 'rules of the time' may have been completely different than the rules in Gw1 - just as the rules are different now, in Gw2, another 250 years down the line.

I guess pointing this out doesnt get us any closer to our answer but it could mean that Saint Victor was all manor of crazy long-gone professions.

[draxynnic]

That's true. Certainly, the professions would likely have been quite different back before the Exodus. We'd have to learn just what the lore on the changes in professions and profession mechanics actually are in order to judge whether there could have been a similar revolution since the time of the Jade Wind without us having heard of it.

Considering the nature of their magic, it does seem as if the theory that guardians came from monks who got fed up with being ganked and took up martial arms and armour. Most of the other professions that have "donated" to the guardian could be argued to draw their power from the same bloodstone, so there's no conflict with the lore there. However, there's still the question of what happened to healing magic (even as smiting and protection magic has apparently become more powerful) and if there HAS been some universal upheaval to the laws of magic which explains that change - as well as changes to other forms of magic, such as the way elementalist attunements work - then we'd need to look for a similar upheaval for Viktor to be a different profession to what is available in GW1.

Mind you, given that Viktor was empowered by Kuunavang, it is possible that, like Shiro, Viktor had abilities that outstripped what our characters are capable of in Guild Wars 1 - possibly even including abilities that would later be rediscovered by guardians. :p

[Konig Des Todes]

draxynnic said:

I claim this thread for the Priory! Although it probably won't last very long, it has to be said...

The impression I get is that the new professions are actually new (at least to the continents we've visited) and represent new training and techniques, rather than cases of "oh, this historical character was actually a *blah* all along". Since Viktor is shown using a sword, according to the rules of his time as we know them that means he's at least part Warrior. Given the protective quality of his urn, chances are he's also got some Monk in him as well - although whether he's a W/Mo or a Mo/W isn't really clear.

He's also wearing warrior elite kurzick armor and is referred to as a warrior. Just like Archemorus.

Was Archemorus really a paragon because his spirit wields a spear? No.

[Chaosgyro]

Is it alright to say I hate the idea of lore-linking professions to time periods and/or continents?  Every time someone in Tyria turns up as a paragon we have to navel gaze about how and when they made it to Elona.  I mean does it make more sense for the Ebon Vanguard to have assassins because they have a soldier exchange program with Cantha or because the Vanguard utilizes soldiers who are proficient in stealth, infiltration, and quick combat?

Does it make more sense to say that Victor chose /Mo from his drop down box and equipped Mending or that he was a fighter who seemed to have magics he used for protection.  

This really sounds a lot more harsh as I write it than I really mean it, it's just that having levels/classes/professions/skills mucking about in "my lore" has long been a pet peeve of mine.

[Elricht Kaltwind]

Lyssa said:

Well really Saint Victor was alive a good 200 years before Gw1, so the 'rules of the time' may have been completely different than the rules in Gw1 - just as the rules are different now, in Gw2, another 250 years down the line.

I guess pointing this out doesnt get us any closer to our answer but it could mean that Saint Victor was all manor of crazy long-gone professions.

That was my thinking as well. God knows what was going on in the Echovald back then. It's a mysterious place now let alone centuries earlier. We also have to remember that humans haven't even been around that long -- things are changing fast, but we also know that they have been changing fast since day one. Guardian could simply be an adaptation of an ancient lost art that disappeared by the time of Guild Wars, and re-surfaced later.

[draxynnic]

To be honest, I have a suspicion that the Dervish was a lost profession that was rediscovered during the Shattered Dynasty era - Konig doesn't like it, but the presence of Margonite dervishes (formerly human, and thus likely to follow human professions) says to me that the profession existed before the Exodus, and was possibly wiped out deliberately due to being Abaddon's favoured profession.

It does seem, though, that the dervish might be drawing from the same bloodstone as the monk... and the guardian certainly seems to be doing so. It's certainly possible that Viktor was ahead of his time and managed to work out for himself a style of fighting and magic that GW2 characters would recognise as a guardian, although his compatriots may just have regarded him as a particularly accomplished W/Mo.

Really, it depends on whether the guardian is the result of the rules of magic changing, or of monks (and possibly other professions such as dervishes) evolving and pooling their knowledge to become a soldier profession. However, since we have a specific mention of a Warrior/Monk just after the Exodus, my gut feeling is that the way the professions worked hadn't significantly changed between the Exodus and Guild Wars 1.

[Rolin]

Saint Victor was the hero of the Kurzicks. He is now a spirit who inhabits the urn that holds his ashes. It would only make sense that his spirit would want to protect future generations of Kurzicks. Since he is a spirit, he is no longer bound to his life's training, and can do things that he couldn't do in life...such as create a protective aura.

Same with Archemorus. The energy produced by his spear is more similar to an elementalist AoE, but since he is no longer bound by physical constraints, he can easily produce such power.
BTW, the spear was not his weapon. The spear is made of his bones (just thought I'd clear that up)

[BuddhaKeks]

draxynnic said:

Really, it depends on whether the guardian is the result of the rules of magic changing, or of monks (and possibly other professions such as dervishes) evolving and pooling their knowledge to become a soldier profession.

Well according to this interview, the Guardian seems to be more the spiritual successor of the Paragon than the Dervish.

Jeff Grubb said:

The wing on the Seraph shield is an evolution, in a way, of the old Paragons from Elona. [...] As the rest of our professions began taking shape around the Guardian, she started becoming more magical, and we brought in some elements from the protection Monk and Paragon from the first game.

[Konig Des Todes]

That's from a design perspective. What about from a lore perspective?

The Seraph's order certainly wasn't influenced by the Elonian paragon - we saw that order's creation and the reason why it has wings: It's to represent Dwayna.

There does seem to be a lore-background question asked in that interview thought:

Quote

Is there a story behind the Guardian on the lore end of things? Do you have any thoughts on how it came to be?

Jeff Grubb: With the turmoil in Elona and the spread  of the Order of Whispers into other lands, more Paragon teaching showed  elsewhere in Tyria. These teachings melded with other traditions, and  over time, the Guardians and their abilities can be found throughout the  world and among all the races. They are not tied to a particular race,  philosophy, or group of gods but rather to a larger concept of proactive  defense, of taking the fight to a foe and protecting those you fight  alongside while appealing equally to humanity's defensive nature and the  Charr's desire to rule the battlefield.

I think the Guardian is much more of a pragmatic and tactical user of a  magic as opposed to an Elementalist, who is a pure student of magic. The  Elementalist casts discrete spells, and you have the feeling that there  is a heritage and body of knowledge behind those spells. Guardians seem  to use magical energy in the heat of combat, from the front line. That  sense of immediacy sets the Guardian apart from more traditional  spell-casters and allows for a heavily armored magical character.

And it does seem to hold parallels to the dervish in Anet's mind, from a design perspective:

Quote

There is a lot of talk drawing parallels between the Guardian and more than one current Guild Wars  profession. How much of the Guardian profession was pulled from the  current crop, both from an "out-of-character" design standpoint and from  a lore standpoint within the storyline?

Jeff Grubb: I've seen the Guardian compared to the prot  Monk, the Paragon, the Dervish, and the Ritualist, and there are bits  and pieces of all of them in there, plus a lot of new stuff. The virtues  in particular are a neat piece that makes the entire package work. It  is not so much a replacement of any one profession but rather an  evolution that uses the best parts of several earlier classes.

Eric Flannum: I'll add that we didn't purposefully set  out to make most of those connections. They tended to come from the  fact that all of those professions do a little bit of what we wanted the  Guardian to do. For example, we bounced around to a lot of different  profession mechanics for the Guardian before we designed the virtues.  After designing them, I remember that we joked that we'd just put the 55  Monk into the game (just a joke! The Guardian plays nothing like the 55  Monk).

Edited by Konig Des Todes, 01 February 2011 - 04:04 PM.

[bboy]

So he's saying we have a lore version of what happened to the Paragon, and even that the Guardian has some similar things to Dervish...BUT WE STILL DONT KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO THE DERVISH?!

>:(

RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO

Edited by draxynnic, 02 February 2011 - 05:05 AM.
Be nice. -Drax

[Craywulf]

bboy said:

RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO.

This was totally uncalled for.

Edited by draxynnic, 02 February 2011 - 05:06 AM.
I agree entirely.

[Lyssa's Muse]

Get over it. The Guardian is nothing like the Dervish.

[bboy]

Lyssa said:

Get over it. The Guardian is nothing like the Dervish.

Get over it, someone from Anet said it shares similarities. Wtfpwn'd!

[Lyssa's Muse]

Then why the need to tell Anet to go to hell?

Does the Guardian wield a scythe, wear robes, or assume avatars of the gods? Because really, that's all the Dervish really had that was particulary original or notible.

[bboy]

Lyssa said:

Then why the need to tell Anet to go to hell?

Does the Guardian wield a scythe, wear robes, or assume avatars of the gods? Because really, that's all the Dervish really had that was particulary original or notible.

No it doesn't, but it is a "holy" warrior similar to the Dervish. While it is not physically a copy, playstyle shares similarlities as mentioned by Anet themselves.

You're leaving out PbAoE spells, which the Guardian does excel in. A Guardian with a greatsword= AoE melee similar to a scythe.

No it is not a Dervish but JUST as Anet said, it shares some similarlities in playstyle. Appearance is completely different, obviously, but having to plan your PbAoE spells and positioning when using them harkens straight to the Dervish playstyle of AoE spell/melee mix.

[Lyssa's Muse]

I'm judging it purely on appearance, because Monks, Ritualists and Paragons have direct lore and aesthetic links to the Guardian while the Dervish does not. So you could say there are similarities in playstyle, but they are negligible at best considering the Guardian is so much more than PbAoE (which a lot of classes have access to btw)

[bboy]

Lyssa said:

I'm judging it purely on appearance

Don't judge a book by its cover.

Lyssa said:

because Monks, Ritualists and Paragons have direct lore and aesthetic links to the Guardian while the Dervish does not.

If you are going to judge a book by its' cover, you're wrong. Based on appearance, Monks have no connection to the Guardian, however someone of its' skill names are identical to monk names. Ritualists have no connection to Guardians. I don't know where people thought spirit weapons = Ritualist weapon skills. They aren't the same. Ritualists have no physicality in common with Guardians

So not only do you only judge something by appearance, but the method you're doing it by is flawed.

What really matters is how it plays, and it looks to play like a Dervish. PbAoE skills aren't shared by all classes in Gw2. Get over it already.

[Lyssa's Muse]

I don't really need to get over anything, you are the one who is being stubborn and insulting Anet staff. If you want to believe in a flimsy connection between Dervishes and Guardians be my guest.

Oh and aesthetic is everything when it comes to profession flavours. You'll find that out when you realise that you're the only one who thinks "Dervish!" when you see a Guardian's PbAoE.

[Ramei Arashi]

On the contrary, guardians spirit weapons are very much like ritualist weapons skills.

[Konig Des Todes]

bboy said:

Get over it, someone from Anet said it shares similarities. Wtfpwn'd!

Only in miniscule mechanics, which the Guardian also takes stuff from monks, paragons, and ritualists.

Lyssa said:

I'm judging it purely on appearance, because  Monks, Ritualists and Paragons have direct lore and aesthetic links to  the Guardian while the Dervish does not. So you could say there are  similarities in playstyle, but they are negligible at best considering  the Guardian is so much more than PbAoE (which a lot of classes have  access to btw)

I do not think that it was said that the ritualist has a lore link. That one's a mechanic link.

[bboy]

Lyssa said:

I don't really need to get over anything, you are the one who is being stubborn and insulting Anet staff. If you want to believe in a flimsy connection between Dervishes and Guardians be my guest.

Oh and aesthetic is everything when it comes to profession flavours. You'll find that out when you realise that you're the only one who thinks "Dervish!" when you see a Guardian's PbAoE.

Yes you do need to get over it. Aesthetic isn't everything especially since armor isn't bound by profession but by heavy/medium/light. I'm not the only one who sees the Guardian-Dervish connection and Anet acknowledged so. So get over it.

[ShadowedSin]

bboy said:

Yes you do need to get over it. Aesthetic isn't everything especially since armor isn't bound by profession but by heavy/medium/light. I'm not the only one who sees the Guardian-Dervish connection and Anet acknowledged so. So get over it.

You both need to calm down mate. Seriously it's just a game no reason to insult the staff or each other over it.

[Maldeus]

Personally, I don't even like how Dervishes play that much.  They just look awesome.  Here's to hoping that one of the Adventurer armor styles will have an awesome hooded look, and (even more distantly) that a scythe will be released in a future expansion pack, usable by Assassins or the mysterious Gunner profession.

[Konig Des Todes]

Hoods will be returning in GW2. We've seen both various concept art images (link1; 2) and in-game footage (from the first trailer even for the footage) showing hoods.

They're just attached to a variety of different kinds of armor, rather than solely being attached to dresses. :p

[Maldeus]

Pfft.  Screw the "ranger's hood" look.  I want my dress.

[Zungx]

What if every monk/dervish/Ritualist in GW1 were really guardians, but on separate paths of Magic, only to have the Dragon's awakening combine their mystical powers to the single path?! :eek:

Its a thought...