draxynnic.3719

ArenaNet doesn't need clairvoyance (or, more accurately, precognition). It was in there all along.

It was in the lore, right from the Prophecies manual, that there were four schools of magic, each deriving from a Bloodstone. Originally it was possible for a single spellcaster to employ the full spectrum of magic, but the point of splitting the bloodstones was to make it so that people had to cooperate in order to benefit from the full spectrum of magic. Nowadays, enough magic has re-entered Tyria's ecosystem that the bloodstones are no longer the primary source of magical power and thus the rules they enforced are no longer in play, but most spellcasters still loosely fit into one of the four schools because that's what people are used to teaching... but those schools have been growing broader over time.

Four bloodstones and four schools of magic in the Prophecies lore, right at the beginning. For core spellcaster professions in Prophecies. The origin of monk magic, all the way back in Prophecies, was always intended to be the same as the origin of mesmer, necromancer, and elementalist magic. Each of the four branches of magic comes from a Bloodstone.

(The Ritualist, when it was introduced, was incorporated as an older form of magic that predated the "gift of magic", drawing its power mostly from the Mists rather than the bloodstones.)

The _only_ change is that in Guild Wars 1, humans believed that the gods created magic and the bloodstones, and thus _all_ magic was a gift from the gods. Monk magic, mesmer magic, necromancer magic, elementalist magic... all different branches of the same magic, sourced from the bloodstones, which in turn were created and empowered by the gods. Now, we know better: the bloodstones are/were essentially giant magic batteries, created by the Seers to soak up and regulate the world's magic (and hide it from the Elder Dragons so they'd go into hibernation before they consumed _everything_). Which means, in turn, that monk/guardian magic is coming from Tyria's own magic. No different to mesmers, necromancers, and elementalists... all of which humans once believed were empowered by the gods.

On the 'holy and light are the same thing' question: It's actually pretty obvious if you compare between the games. Many of the skills in GW1 that did 'holy' damage mention light in their name (Spear of Light) or have graphics in the form of a beam of light (Ray of Judgement). Several guardian skills in GW2 have the same name as monk skills in GW1, often doing similar things, so the energy is likely the same, and the skills in that category that generate fields (Symbol of Wrath, for instance) produce light fields. "Light" and "holy" are synonymous. They genuinely were so on the early years of GW1, but ArenaNet replaced instances of 'light damage' with 'holy damage' instead, likely to remove confusion. Now, they've switched back to 'light' in order to secularise it. It's the same energy.

Regarding the 'why doesn't anyone specifically point out that the charr have monks'...

...Why would they? ArenaNet isn't in the habit of spelling every little thing out. Even during presearing the Ascalonians had been fighting the charr for a while, so any "Wait, they have monks, HOW?!" surprise would have long since dissipated and replaced with a practical attitude of dealing with it. Describing charr monks by more specific names, some of which _are_ used by NPCs, is more useful.

Besides, now that you come to mention it, a little bit of irony: that skale example? There is a quest in GW1 where a group of skale elementalists are specifically described as being elementalists by an NPC. Of course, there's also a quest where an NPC talks about map travel mechanics, so it's likely that some NPC conversations are not entirely canon and we might still be having this argument even if we did have an NPC in Guild Wars 1 pointing at a Charr Shaman and shouting "That charr over there is somehow a monk despite not worshiping our gods! Obviously it's possible for our enemies to be monks even if they hate our gods!"

Regarding the appearance:

Monk/guardian/paragon magic (and, incidentally, Macha isn't our only source on that connection) - or Preservation magic for convenience - has the appearance that it does simply because that's the way it manifests. Ghostly wings are a pretty clear visual indicator for 'flight spell', and doesn't have to represent Dwayna or any god - the norn, for instance, could regard them as the wings of Raven or some other bird spirit, or a practical asura or charr could simply shrug and go "giant ghostly wings for a short flight, makes sense" and not worry about it. The visual effect of symbols, likewise, has no iconography that relates them to any specific divine entity or pantheon: at most, they reflect the effect of the symbol.

Sure, it's blue/white, and that matches Dwayna's colour. Mesmers similarly match Lyssa, and Necromancers, Grenth. Nobody is claiming now that mesmer power and necromancer power comes from Lyssa and Grenth respectively, and if you don't worship those gods you're not a real mesmer or necromancer (even if the spells used are exactly the same). In fact, it's entirely possible that the gods chose their colours to match the branch(es) of magic they most favoured. Magical effects have to have _some_ colour in which they manifest, and ArenaNet's policy has been for each profession to have one or two colours that its magical effects are associated with if there's not a reason to have some other colour (this is true even for elementalists, although it's obscured through most elementalist effects naturally having the colour of the element).

The only thing in there that's _strictly_ religious is the terminology... and ArenaNet stated a long time ago that different races and groups might have different names for the various skills, the names we see in the interface are just the most commonly used.

Just lost a game because the game crashed right after we'd secured Tranq, and when I got back in, it turned out that two other members of my team were also out, so I'm pretty sure the issue was on ArenaNet's end rather than just coincidence. Basically, the match was evidently decided based on who's team managed to log back in faster.

Nevertheless, I got a big loss of ranking, AND dishonour just to add insult to injury.

Is ArenaNet coming under DDOS attack like it was a few months ago? If there's a particular time of the day I should avoid playing ranked to prevent this garbage from reoccuring, it would be good to know.

> @"Loesh.4697" said:

> I didn't claim that being religious is the same as religious extremism? but religious extremism fits Guardian the __best__ the whole thing revolves around zealotry, to be a zealot, and being a zealot can mean you are a zealot of football but it's not really an aesthetic that quite compares in the vast majority of cases with modern crusaders.

And the only association with zealotry is a few skill names that were probably made up by humans? Faith may be required to be a guardian, but extremism is not.

>

> Secondly, I don't think i'm grossly underestimating the importance of the elements at all. Sure wind and lightning are thematic of Dwayna, as well as light in general for that matter, but the gods are not defined by the elements they are associated with. They are defined by the core concepts they embody, and for Dwayna that was compassion, protection, defense, so on and so forth. Likewise while Monks definitely have association with Dwayna and Balthazar the most strongly in terms of theme(Hence the iconic monk being of both Balthazar and Dwayna.) the gods in general were associate with helping and protecting humanity, hell in Lyssa's scriptures one of her primary stories is about seeing the beauty in someone who was sick and infirm, this general sense of benevolence towards humanity is what grounds monks. In the game it's not even subtle about this, their primary attribute is divine favor which boosts and heals their allies beyond the norm. Her Cathedral might be wind theme'd but that is not the same thing as being a goddess of wind.

The core concepts might be the most important part of their identity, but that doesn't mean that the elemental part is unimportant. Look at Balthazar: Fire _everywhere_. Grenth's realm has the Frozen Wastes, and that's actually the portion of his realm closest to his seat of power. We haven't seen Dwayna or her realm directly, but the stories talk about her sending storms and lightning against those who offend her, and we have no reason to believe that Dwayna is less storm-based than Balthazar is fire-based.

If the power was coming directly from Dwayna, why wouldn't she extend power over storms to her priests? Because she can't, because Tyrian magic is independent of the powers of the gods.

>

> When it comes to Balthazar, yes the monks are definitely more broad that's because they're the conduit of all the gods, not just a god. Their skills of protection, healing, and Resurrection fall under others. To say the monks smiting abilities aren't 'Balthazar theme'd because the monk has other stuff in there and it doesn't manifest as a burst of flame doesn't mean it's not Balthazar theme'd since, as you mention in fact, monk skills are associated with Balthazar despite not doing fire damage. Instead they inflict holy which is a unique damage type that in modern Tyria doesn't seem to exist anymore. because it's...well...holy. Again, this is probably why there is no order of monks anymore even though old fashioned ring signets and necromancer Hex's seem to be perfectly functional As far as Guardians go, well Elementilists don't really share that distinct orange blue flame, where yes, the Guardian seems like he's spewing the foefire out of his mouth whenever he uses the torch skill. And, mind you, the Foefire was generated by one of Balthazar's swords.

Humans associate those skills with Balthazar. Humans also associate monk skills with the gods in general. My whole argument rests on those human assumptions being wrong, so trying to prove that the assumption is right by assuming that the assumption is right is circular reasoning.

Even the GW1 game mechanics didn't support the connection of Protection and Smiting Prayers with Balthazar. The blessing that boosted Monk skills came entirely from Dwayna. (And before you say "a-hah, that's evidence that monk skills come from Dwayna!", note that Lyssa's blessing also boosted mesmer skills, Grenth necromancer, and so on, so if you're going to make that claim, you're claiming by extension that _every Guild Wars 1 profession only has its power because of the gods... including warriors._)

Holy still exists. "Light" and "holy" were interchangeable in Guild Wars 1, to the point where for the first few years, weapons that inflicted holy damage were described as dealing light damage instead. All those guardian symbols that produce light fields? Those are the same energy as 'holy' in GW1. They've just been renamed to something more... secular.

And you know what none of the Forged, avatars of Balthazar, or the like seem to have? Anything that looks even vaguely like it's a light field.

(As for why there are no monks around any more: when the guardian was announced, it was explained that, basically, the monks got fed up with being targeted first because they wore light armour and were poor at defending themselves and started training in heavy armour and martial weapons instead. Guardian magic and monk magic is the same branch of magic (although guardian also has some contributions from other professions which most likely drew from the same bloodstone, back when bloodstones mattered). That's why I keep referring to them together.)

>

> In that bit about the flame legion, in this regard, it's pretty obvious from the outset of GW1 that Skale probably shouldn't be vomiting necromantic magic at you but it's the best way to represent their abilities inside the gameplay mechanics. Creatures were occasionally given monster skills but with the notable exception of some Nightfall bosses they never felt smooth within the system. So to represent all the various kinds of magic that people used, they turned to using the profession class mechanics to represent what they might be like. Lorewise Charr monks are never commented on, or pushed in any way(And you'd think that someone would say something about that.)because, well, they weren't monks. Monk skills in combination with Elementalist skills just happened to be the best way to represent them. Making monsters skills that work takes a lot of time and energy, and more often then not they came off as janky at best.

That argument only goes so far. When you have a magical animal using magical skills, sure, you can call it a 'less bad fit'. When you have sapient beings which are explicitly mentioned in the lore as using magical spells, though, the argument gets weaker. When you're talking about _other humans that don't worship the gods and yet still have monk skills,_ that blows the argument out of the water. (Particularly since ArenaNet was careful in GW1 that skills that absolutely WERE connected to the gods, namely the dervish avatar skills, were only given to enemies that could plausibly still be worshipers of that god. For instance, Grenth dervish enemies in War in Kryta were from the so-called Peacekeeper auxiliaries, not the White Mantle themselves.)

You also seem to be claiming that all charr 'shamans' were combinations of elementalist and monk, when in fact we saw charr monks that were pure monk, monk/mesmer, or monk/paragon as well as elementalist/monks.

They behaved pretty much identically to human monks, and they did not worship the gods. A White Mantle Abbott behaved pretty much identically to a priest of Dwayna, and they did not worship the gods.

The reasonable conclusion to make is that _monk magic does not require worshiping the gods._

>

> And yes Resurrection magic exists outside the gods, just look at the Eternal Flame, but what i'm saying is pretty much what you said. Easy Resurrection no longer exists, the gods were way more active in our mortal affairs to the point that a significant number of people could be brought back from death. In that particular case my arguement isn't that ressurection is unique, it's that it's much easier and just hammers in that with the gods divine will seeping into Tria, even after the Exodus, they were doing some crazy stuff. Hence blessings.

Except that the power to fuel the spell doesn't need to be coming from the gods. At most, it needs to be _permitted_ by the gods.

As an example, consider the following:

A resurrection spell combines powerful healing with a call to the Mists to pull the spirit of the deceased back to the mortal world. Grenth has set up the rules of the Underworld to allow this. However, he has no direct control over who can be returned in this way, so both the followers of the gods and their enemies are able to do it. At the time, the gods feel that this tradeoff is still a net win.

Then Zhaitan rises, and takes advantage of this to steal a whole bunch of souls from the realm of the gods and stuff those souls into Risen. This infuriates Grenth, so he seals the Underworld so that souls can no longer be pulled from the Underworld as easily.

The resurrection spell, from the Tyrian side, is still doing _exactly what it used to do._ However, when previously it was successful at returning the soul of the deceased from the more permissive Underworld, now it no longer has the power to break the more stringent safeguards the gods have put in place to prevent more souls from being stolen from their realms, so the only effect of the spell is that the body it's cast on is maybe in slightly better condition.

>

> I understand the reasoning, but the reasoning when you actually look at what the guardian does and how he does it, seems nonsensical in non-human cultures. The thrust of my original comment was essentially the idea of replacing faith in the gods, with faith in football and friendship, is way weaker basis for a class and especially one with the sort of divine aesthetic thhat the guardian has. I understand the mechanics completely, I just think it looks __very__ silly and in-congruent with the races it's attached to. But as Aaron had said, it's something that Anet likely kitten up becase actually explaining the vague powers of the guardian and it's magic for every race would probably take until the end of time, or maybe not very much time at all, but it'd take a lot of work and least core game Anet wasn't willing to put that much thought into the class design yet.

It's only nonsensical if you assume the power comes from the human gods, which it doesn't.

You can continue making increasingly convoluted arguments to justify that belief, or you can accept that it was ArenaNet's intention all along that the power comes from Tyria's magic and human belief that the power came from the gods was just a misunderstanding by humans... a misunderstanding that is easy to make when the power seems to flow most effectively for people who have faith in the gods.

GW1 lore had four schools of magic, and four bloodstones (and the keystone). This is not a coincidence - the whole point of the bloodstone lore was to explain why magic was divided into four schools. Monk magic, now guardian magic, was one of those schools, most likely being linked to the Preservation bloodstone. Now the four schools of magic are more a matter of tradition rather than being bound by the Bloodstones, but the source of monk magic, and therefore guardian magic, has been firmly established as being Tyrian in origin, just like necromancer, mesmer, and elemental magic, right from the beginning.

> @"kasoki.5180" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

>

> > The observation that it would have only taken one legion to conquer the norn was referring to pre-GW1 days, before the charr were industrialised.

> >

> > The lack of norn infrastructure is actually an advantage for the norn in a guerilla war. The norn have nothing that they _have_ to defend, which the charr can attack to force them to battle. Meanwhile, the charr have nothing that they can take in order to support themselves. This means that the charr invasion force would need to rely on supplies shipped in from their own territory or on sending out hunting parties - all of which would be vulnerable to being picked off by norn hunting parties hiding out in the mountains. Over time, the charr would be starved out, _unless_ they had a sufficiently large numerical advantage to be stronger than the norn _everywhere._

>

> Guerilla warfare is usually centered around infrastructure. The fact that norn have none goes in favour of charr, as supply chain would be established by Charr in pathways that are potentially foregin to norn. But even more, proximity of Black Citadel to Hoelbrak makes supplying an easier

Guerilla warfare doesn't need to be centered around anything at all.

It just needs to have something you can attack where the enemy is weak.

Supply lines, hunting parties, and other small groups are, if anything, _more_ vulnerable to guerilla attacks. Fixed infrastructure you can just put a garrison on. An attack on supply lines could happen anywhere along the line.

If you're outnumbered by people who can outfight your troops one on one, good luck putting enough guards on supply convoys without leaving yourself vulnerable somewhere else.

_More importantly,_ the current proximity from the Black Citadel to Hoelbrak is irrelevant. The source was talking about _before the Norn were forced south by Jormag._

>

> Again, Charr do not have to over rely on supplies coming from Ascalon beacuse Shiverpeaks seems to be rich in resources. There is actually right now a charr dolyak herder in Wayfarer Foothills.

You still need to gather those resources. That means sending out hunting parties, unless you're really going to try sending your entire armies to gather food.

>

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> Over time, the charr would be starved out, _unless_ they had a sufficiently large numerical advantage to be stronger than the norn _everywhere._

> >

>

> You are ignoring the role of technology. With superior technology and ability to hold points you don't have to be anywhere. You have to be in key places. Warfere isn't about two big guys clashing it out on the road. Or about people fighting wherever. Its about controlling key strategic points.

First, technology is irrelevant, because YOU are ignoring that the source referred to pre-GW1 times, when charr didn't have that technology.

Second, go look up a history book. Partisan warfare in WW2, the Vietnam War, more recent asymmetric warfare. A guerilla force absolutely _can_ make itself a real pain in the rear even when the enemy has both numerical and technological superiority.

Now, imagine a guerilla force which outnumbers you AND which has a qualitative edge (since everything we've been told indicates that the average norn beats the average charr on an individual basis). Imagine how the Vietnam War would have gone if the Viet Cong outnumbered the forces of the US and all its allies and the average Viet Cong soldier took a hit from a 20mm cannon to bring down. That's pretty much the scenario you're trying to argue here.

>

> There are countless example in the history where smaller nation defeated larger. I don't remember I have ever heard about a war that was decided by population numbers. I have heard by those that were determined by ability to continuously support the war effert, or providing a more professional army.

I've heard of several. Every time somebody tried to invade Russia (as opposed to simply stalemate until Russia defeated itself through a revolution, as Germany did in WW1), for instance.

>

> Airship are of Charr design initially. Other races have contributed to newer designs since Pact formed. But any hypothetical attack from charr on the norn would definitely not go by just one route of deployment but multiple.

Trahearne: These airships are the Pact's crowning achievement: a combination of asura, charr, and human technology.

Trahearne: The Pact developed these airships so that we might fight Zhaitan from every possible angle: land, sea, and now air.

From the What the Eye Beholds story arc. Airships are a collaboration.

>

> I agree. But that's not how the game presents it. There is abundance of creatures and wildlife in Shiverpeaks. There is nothing in the game that would suggest that Shiverpeaks can't sustain its wildlife on the level of lets say Ascalon.

>

The conversion of the world of Tyria into a game has likely resulted in denser wildlife than is actually present, _particularly_ when it comes to carnivores.

As a comparison, in the Ghosts of Ascalon book, crossing the Fields of Ruin takes a day. It takes a lot less than an hour to cross that distance ingame. Distances get compressed, but interesting locations are retained and enough wildlife (particularly hostile wildlife) is retained to keep the zones interesting, but you can bet that what you see in game is not an exact representation of what's present in the lore.

> @"Yannir.4132" said:

> > @"Lily.1935" said:

> On the topic, a big factor to consider was the classes that can wield 2 swords simultaneously, because if you've ever tried dualwielding you know it's bloody hard. So it came down to warrior, mesmer or revenant. I just think Revenant has the coolest sword skills, hence why I chose it.

The dualwielding we see in this respect is all fairly 'practical' dualwielding, however: we don't see anyone trying to strike with both swords simultaneously. Most offhand sword skills are blocks (iRiposte, actual Riposte), reflecting standard practice of using one weapon for defence, being used essentially as a focus for a magical attacks (iSwordsman, Shackling Wave) or simply _throwing_ it (Impale). Sword/axe on Warrior is probably technically more difficult because it not only involves using both weapons offensively, it involves doing so _simultaneously_.

> @"Loesh.4697" said:

> I think Khorne is a perfectly appropriate way to judge the __religious extreme__ as in real life, there have been people who have done...let's just say a lot of killing in the name of their god or gods and leave it at that.

I... really don't think that "religious" and "religious extremist" are necessarily the same thing.

>

> I'd also point out that I think this over emphasizes how important elemental skills are to Dwayna, because we have to remember that Balthazar of all the gods is the only one who is really depicted to be into fire the absolute extreme aesthetically. Dwayna first and foremost is associated with healing, compassion, protection of the meek and innocent, so on and so forth. Saying that the guardian specialization isn't a great fit for her is a _really_ big stretch to me, everything about their aesthetic, including the god rays of light, the wings which have always been associated with Dwayna, and sharing one of her two primary colors is very Dwayna-esque.

Dwayna is probably the closest fit, but I think you're grossly underestimating how important Dwayna's sky goddess identity is.

The cathedral of Dwayna in Orr is called the Cathedral of Zephyrs, not the Cathedral of Mercy or Healing or anything like that. Her statues in Guild Wars 1, when activated by the Favour of the Gods, are signified in their activation by a lightning strike. Dwayna is the patron of Air Magic and Wind Prayers (even though some specific skills in the latter are more Grenth-oriented) as well as all Monk branches despite Smiting and Protection being associated with Balthazar elsewhere in the lore. When angry, she expresses her anger through lightning and storms, as seen in her GW1 lore (where she sends lightning to strike those who threaten her followers) and in her parable.

Dwayna is certainly the _least bad fit_, but if monks really were being granted her powers, you would think that a) you wouldn't be able to be a monk unless you followed Dwayna, and b) that monks would also have the lightning and storm aspect as their offensive option in lieu of Smiting.

Meanwhile, mesmer and necromancer, which are generally regarded as secular spellcasters, are pretty much _perfect_ fits for Lyssa (at least in GW1) and Grenth (the cold slant of necromancers in GW1 was relatively weak, but it was certainly there) respectively. Those professions are actually better candidates to be conduits for the power of their patron deities than monks are.

>

> I'd also argue on the little bit of fire part, if you really want to you can just coat everything with blue and orange flames. Blue/orange fire also has the distinction of being uniquely associated with Balthazar, to the point that the foefire is often depicted as manifesting as waves of blue flame washing over people. In Path of Fire the orange pops more but you can see the trails and tendrils of blue, If you want to go heavy into the zeal and radiance trees you can vomit out so much fire that for all intents and purposes you may as well be a forged at that point.

Except that's the thing - fire and use of weapons (which only applies to guardians, not monks) is pretty much all they have in common.

Apart from a smithing aspect, Balthazar is a bit of a two-track mind. Virtually all of his magic is fire - we see this in his avatars, in Balthazar himself, and in his GW1 blessings. What isn't fire is related to handling weapons in some manner - if you consider chains to be a weapon, that's pretty much what he has. The Forged are a _little_ more varied, but that probably comes from some of them retaining skills they had while they were alive, and they're still mostly 'fire' and 'handling weapons'. There's nothing among the Forged that I would consider guardian-like or monk-like (the War Mage is possibly the closest, but...). Guardians, on the other hand, have a much broader range of skills. It's hard to argue that they're empowered by Balthazar when their range of capabilities are so much broader.

Even when they do throw fire around, the appearance is noticeably different. Guardian flame is pretty much always blue (the only exception is Firebrand stuff, and the elite specialisations are somewhat replacing secondary professions anyway, so that might not be pure guardian magic to begin with). Balthazar's flames, on the other hand, are natural fire colours: the hottest portions burn blue because that's true of regular flames as well.

>

> You also say you'd expect them to have different powers but by the looks of things, they sort of did? In GW1 a flame legion Shaman would be distinct from a regular old monk by pairing him with an elementalist and emphasizing his fire skills, the devs back then got around things in the games system by shifting and shuffling the classes together. This extended even down to the animals, which is why there's no real fluff pieces about Flame Shamans have monk like traits, but the monk class's abilities felt like a good way to represent their toolkit when paired with fire elementlists as a spec.

I really don't see what you're trying to argue here? Some charr monks had secondary professions? So did PCs. The magic worked exactly the same - you could even learn spells off a charr through capture signets if you were so inclined. Pre-EOTN charr rarely had secondary profession skills, and post-EOTN, the monk profession was paired with mesmer and paragon in addition to elementalist.

Furthermore, the titan gods of the charr really shouldn't be able to grant that sort of magic - the only titans that had such magic was one of the subtypes of Frost Titans. The Destroyers which they worshipped in EOTN, furthermore, were noteworthy in not having monks at all. Where was the Flame Legion's monk magic coming from if it HAS to come from a patron?

>

> GW1 was especially obvious with this using things like ressurection shrines, the gods interference in mortal affairs and their meddling with people extended to the point of bringing back the dead. Which is probably why there aren't any monks anymore as those gods are no longer around to make people into direct conduits, so as per 'Natural Healing: Gift of the Monk' people went into a process of taking bits of Monk discipline and applying it to Ritualism and Elonian protection magic. The origin is completely human and very obviously rooted in belief of the gods, but in order for them to be playable by other races you've gotta toss some ambiguity in there, even though the ambiguity makes no sense.

There's actually nothing that says that even resurrection magic came from the gods. Plenty of beings who would be regarded as enemies of the gods, including the aforementioned charr, managed it just fine.

Sure, easy resurrection magic is no longer available, and that change happened around the time the gods disappeared. But they may not be connected. Or they may be connected, but more in a 'the gods changed the way that the Mists worked so that it was no longer so easy to call spirits back from the Mists' way than in a 'resurrection was divine intervention' way.

>

> I should clarify i'm not arguing it's lorebreaking for Anet to do this, they _write_ the lore. But it is mildly hilarious to see a Charr wandering around with that aesthetic even though it makes no sense. Dinky's quotes with us and his overall personality don't help, I guess I just assume Charr guardians _really_ like thumbtacks.

Because the magic is only associated with religion because of who people see using it.

(Which is, granted, why charr often distrust it - at some level the charr know that a guardian is not necessarily religious, but on another level, the fact that they often _are_ makes them suspect.)

The concept of magic of various types being attracted to different personalities is not unique to ArenaNet. Your reference indicates that you're familiar with Warhammer - part of the fluff for the lores of magic there (which included the Lore of Light, which could also easily be mistaken for "holy" magic just like the Monk and Guardian) is that the lores of magic each have a distinct personality and tend to work best for those who match that personality. Light Wizards are philosophical, Amethyst Wizards are reverent, Gold Wizards are logical, and so on.

The schools of Tyrian magic seem to follow a similar rule, when you pay attention to the personalities of NPCs of the various professions. Monks/guardians are faithful. Mesmers are creative. Elementalists are often flamboyant, while necromancers are often dour. Now, it's hard to say how much is cause, how much is effect, and how much is a spiral effect, but it does seem to have been ArenaNet's intention all along that any magic that doesn't _explicitly_ involve communing with a third party (spirit summoning, revenant legends, etc) can be performed completely independently.

If you have faith, you can channel the power of the guardian. It doesn't matter what you have faith in, because the actual power is coming from the interaction of your inner faith with Tyria's magical field.

> @"kasoki.5180" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

>

> > It's possible that the benefits of centralised military control and organisation that the charr could beat the norn despite being outnumbered, even if on a smaller scale the norn can win despite being significantly outnumbered. However, there's a point at which if your enemy is both stronger than you on an individual basis _and_ has a numerical advantage, it's difficult to believe that being better organised would make the difference. The norn might not be able to win in a battle between armies, but they might not have to - guerilla warfare from an enemy that outnumbers you and beats your soldiers one-on-one is difficult to counter. If the Movement of the World was so sure that just one legion could beat the norn, I think this strongly suggests that just one legion outnumbers the norn.

>

> Superior logistics and chain of supplies play detrimental role in wars. Not to mention ability to properly deploy troops that are well trained and equipped. For example, recent war game sstimulations made by NATO suggest that Russia has advantage simply because NATO is less integrated and by the time to deploy anything of substance Russian army can advance beyond repair. Systemic and competent chain of command is far more important than people think.

>

> Honestly I cant imagine what kind of guerilla warfere would Norn do since there is basically no infrastructure in "Norn lands" and charr can deploy via choppers everywhere they want. Charr are known to erect metal fortifications and its questionable how much experience Norn have in besieging those.

> We know that norn can be killed by stabbing, shooting, magic etc... Fact that norn are stronger physically means little if they are assaulted by tanks and choppers. Fact that norn is stronger than a warband means little if steading can be leveled by bombing. The only advantage that I see that Norn have is Shiverpeak mountains which are hard to invade.

The observation that it would have only taken one legion to conquer the norn was referring to pre-GW1 days, before the charr were industrialised.

The lack of norn infrastructure is actually an advantage for the norn in a guerilla war. The norn have nothing that they _have_ to defend, which the charr can attack to force them to battle. Meanwhile, the charr have nothing that they can take in order to support themselves. This means that the charr invasion force would need to rely on supplies shipped in from their own territory or on sending out hunting parties - all of which would be vulnerable to being picked off by norn hunting parties hiding out in the mountains. Over time, the charr would be starved out, _unless_ they had a sufficiently large numerical advantage to be stronger than the norn _everywhere._

Even if we were assuming modern industrial charr... that just adds to their supply requirements in the form of fuel. Theoretically supply by charrcopter could work, but supplying a large force purely through air is _hard_ - the Berlin Airlift was impressive in part because most people thought it was impossible until the RAF did the numbers and figured out that it was only _just_ within the realms of possibility. And helicopters are going to be a lot less suitable for that sort of thing. Airships might work, but at that point you're getting into technology that is beyond what the charr alone have (I think there's an indication somewhere that it was contributions from other races that made charrcopters actually viable - airships are explicitly stated to be a collaboration).

> @"kasoki.5180" said:

>

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

>

> > The carrying capacity of the land also argues against a large norn population. They're supposed to get most of their nutrition from hunting - that should mean that a considerable amount more land is needed to support a single norn, even a human-sized one, than a human who gets most of their nutrition from grain farming, or even a charr or human getting most of their nutrition from herding animals. Norn being bigger aggravates that, and the Shiverpeaks likely being less fertile on the whole than Kryta or Ascalon likely exacerbates it further.

> >

> > Pretty much any way you look at it suggests that the norn have a smaller population than humans or charr.

>

> Norn herd dolyaks which they use for food. Also, food system in GW isnt really comparable to real world because of existance of fantasy creatures that live in harsh environments and are used as nutrients by locals. For example, if I remember correctly Norn eat ice wurms.

>

Ice wurms still need to eat something - such considerations are taken into account when looking at the carrying capacity of the land versus different means of gathering sustenance. It pretty much boils down to the fact that _ultimately_ your nutrition comes from plants, and the more steps you go through, the more plants there needed to be in the first place to sustain your nutrition. Eating ice worms means that you needed to have the animals that the ice worms ate, and _then_ you needed to have the plants that were eaten by the animals that the ice worms ate: each step you go through, it's roughly a factor of ten increase in the amount of vegetation you needed to have in the first place.

And the Shiverpeaks are less fertile than the lowlands.

Unless you're just going to wave your hands and say 'fantasy'... but even fantastical settings need to be internally consistent to be believable. Maybe it doesn't matter that the surface of the Shiverpeaks is relatively infertile because there's a lot of food growing in volcanic regions underground and/or there's a lot of magic underground for people to eat anyway. But we have no evidence of that, and really, when you think more about it... if it's such a paradise underground, why would creatures like wurms bother to come to the surface where norn hunting parties can catch them in the first place?

> @"Aaron Ansari.1604" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

>

> > Honestly, I think this is what Smodur is going for. The negotiations have been going on for a while now despite Smodur having already made significant territorial concessions pretty early on in the negotiation process, so it's likely that the ongoing negotiations are for something a bit deeper than agreeing on borders and to stop fighting.

>

> It's a minor thing, but according to the recent weapon current event/quest chain, [they've finally gotten around to signing the 'Treaty of Ebonhawke'.](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Xeniph) Not as much fanfare as I would've liked, but... not the first time they've realized they've left a thread hanging too long and cleared it out of the way, and it _is_ about time we got out of negotiation limbo.

>

Ah, yes. I saw that, now that you mention it, but I think I brushed it off as being from the PC's perspective (who cares that the _ceasefire_ treaty was signed, and negotiations beyond that are Somebody Else's Problem) rather than being a strong indication that the negotiations have concluded.

> @"Loesh.4697" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > > @"Loesh.4697" said:

> > > Oh I completely understand the Anet explanation, or rather what they are trying to explain. It comes off as total nonsense though, while there are plenty of people zealous about their friends and family the fact that it manifests as rays of judgement and sanctified areas is....eh, form and function, don't match that whatsoever and that an entire order would manifest their power this way across nations, even with their human origins, don't make a whole lot of sense.

> >

> > Not really. Consider: In the context of Tyria, why are things like beams of light that can distinguish between friend and foe associated with religion? Because that's something that guardians (and, formerly, monks) do, and _they_ are associated with religion because they are often religious themselves. Guardian and monk powers certainly don't line up nicely to any of the gods - Dwayna and Balthazar (and, considering nonhumans, Zintl, although I don't think we've seen hylek guardians...) are probably closest, but any powers that _did_ come directly from any of the gods or godlike beings in the setting would look quite different to the powers of a monk or guardian.

> >

> > What's actually happening is that guardian/monk magic is a branch of magic just like the magic of necromancers, mesmers, and elementalists, but for some unknown reason, it appears to be drawn to, and function best for, people with faith. The names are just names, reflecting the fact that most people with that degree of faith, and hence most guardians, _are_ religious in some manner or another, with most of the original guardians likely being priests of Dwayna or Balthazar.

> >

> > And, believe me, there are people who get that obsessed with their sport(s) of choice. I don't understand it either myself, but it happens nonetheless.

>

> Close is a drastic understatement, those powers look __exactly__ like something that would come from Dwayna or Balthazar, in no small part because whenthe gods were still messing around with mortals 200 years ago that's pretty much their go to of choice. Beams of light, cooling healing mist, massive explosions of fire, their aesthetic colors even even orange and blue respectively. In their depictions. I mean back in the days of monks it wasn't even subtle, you were a direct conduit to the gods through which their power was flowing and you even had absurd things like Resurrection shrines that brought back the dead and bestow blessings

>

> Let's not even talk about the angel and seraph imagery from wings of resolve, cause yeah. Why would a Charr manifest his comradeship in something that looks so distinctly godlike is beyond me, but there you go.

>

> And yes I have seen some crazy sports fans, but few of them have come at me with a chain-axe...yet. :P

I don't think Khorne is exactly an appropriate basis for judging whether behaviour is religious or not...

With regards to Dwayna or Balthazar: Sure, there are _aspects_ of monks and guardians that can be associated with the two, which is why in GW1 monks were most associated with those two rather than, say, Lyssa, who was associated with mesmers and Grenth with necromancers (even though there was no requirement to be a follower of Lyssa or Grenth to be a mesmer or necromancer respectively).

However, the monk and guardian isn't a particularly great fit to _either._

In Dwayna's case... yes, she's a goddess of healing, but she's also a goddess of wind and lightning and storms. Sure, there's a _little_ bit of this in the monk/guardian, but not nearly as much as you'd expect if the power was coming directly from Dwayna. With healing now present in the Elementalist, a better match for power coming from Dwayna would be an air/water elementalist (which is what most Priest(ess) of Dwayna NPCs we see in GW2 are), or perhaps a composite with the air skills of the Elementalist with the healing of a Monk.

In Balthazar's case, associating Protection and Smiting always felt a bit like a least bad fit - 'it doesn't really fit anywhere else and it's magic used in battle, so we'll associate it with Balthazar'. In practice, we know what power coming from Balthazar looks like - the Avatar of Balthazar, the various Forged, and Balthazar himself. None of it looks anything like a Monk or even the somewhat more militant Guardian, except that the guardian employs a little bit of fire, and there's not really anything among the Forged that behaves like a Guardian. Of the playable professions, a Warrior with the Berserker specialisation looks much more like you'd expect a holy warrior of Balthazar to behave than a guardian does.

And that's just those two. Tahlkora is a Monk priestess of Lyssa, for instance, and monk skills are _well_ outside of her domain. Same for Margonite worshipers of Abaddon. White Mantle and Charr shamans worshiped the Mursaat and Titans respectively, and they still got to have monks (and guardians in the case of the GW2 White Mantle). The mursaat themselves don't seem to recognise any higher powers than themselves (in the same way as the charr today - beings called gods exist, but they don't worship them), and they still get to have monks. I guess you could try to argue that the mursaat are in fact semi-divine and thus inherently have access to such powers... but then you get grawl monks. Who worship rocks.

It's pretty clear, even just from GW1, that while that branch of magic is _associated_ with religion, it is not actually derived directly from the object of worship. Otherwise, you'd expect a priest of one deity to have different powers to the priest of another, depending on the powers of the deity in question, while those who worship things that are not genuine deities would have no power at all. Instead, if you have faith, you have power, and it doesn't matter what that faith is in. That seems to have been ArenaNet's concept of the monk (and later guardian) all the way through.

Sure, these powers and effects are associated with religion, because they tend to be in the hands of religious people. But it's magic of Tyrian origin, unconnected to any divine being, which anyone can access regardless of what they believe, just that through some weird quirk it's attracted to people who have faith. It's no different in this regard to the other schools of magic, which likely have their own quirks as well (each branch of magic tends to be associated with a particular personality, although it's hard to say whether it's because the magic is drawn to that personality or that people of that personality are drawn to the magic).

> @"Loesh.4697" said:

> That kind of nation can't have a peaceful transition.

Spain managed it in the transition away from Francoism. That was pretty much a case of the 'change from the top' that Castigator was talking about.

A lot depends on motivation. Smodur wanted the Claw to solidify his power base, but there are two basic motivations to want power within a nation: to strengthen yourself, or to strengthen the nation. If Smodur's motivation is more towards the latter, it's entirely possible that he's recognised that the historical charr way of living is unsustainable and he's gathering power so that he can push the Iron Legion through such a transition. (While what he gets out of doing so is essentially recognition from the historians of the future.)

It's worth noting that the Iron Legion's industry means that they have a clear alternative way of sustaining themselves that not only benefits from, but _requires_ maintaining good relations with their neighbours: namely, exporting the products of their industry. The Ash Legion, in turn, seems to have decent potential to turn to mercantile arrangements (Evon Gnashblade is Ash Legion, for instance). Blood seems to be the legion that has the least potential to transition into a less militaristic outlook on life, which possibly goes some way to expanding why Smodur and Malice were in favour of the treaty, while Bangar is against it.

> @"Genesis.8572" said:

> Imagine the possibility, for example, of the Iron Legion looking to a military alliance with the humans of Kryta rather than a volatile Blood Legion. In this respect, Smodur appears to be contemplating what Iron Legion-held Ascalon would look like in a modern post-Khan-Ur world.

Honestly, I think this is what Smodur is going for. The negotiations have been going on for a while now despite Smodur having already made significant territorial concessions pretty early on in the negotiation process, so it's likely that the ongoing negotiations are for something a bit deeper than agreeing on borders and to stop fighting.

> @"Loesh.4697" said:

> Oh I completely understand the Anet explanation, or rather what they are trying to explain. It comes off as total nonsense though, while there are plenty of people zealous about their friends and family the fact that it manifests as rays of judgement and sanctified areas is....eh, form and function, don't match that whatsoever and that an entire order would manifest their power this way across nations, even with their human origins, don't make a whole lot of sense.

Not really. Consider: In the context of Tyria, why are things like beams of light that can distinguish between friend and foe associated with religion? Because that's something that guardians (and, formerly, monks) do, and _they_ are associated with religion because they are often religious themselves. Guardian and monk powers certainly don't line up nicely to any of the gods - Dwayna and Balthazar (and, considering nonhumans, Zintl, although I don't think we've seen hylek guardians...) are probably closest, but any powers that _did_ come directly from any of the gods or godlike beings in the setting would look quite different to the powers of a monk or guardian.

What's actually happening is that guardian/monk magic is a branch of magic just like the magic of necromancers, mesmers, and elementalists, but for some unknown reason, it appears to be drawn to, and function best for, people with faith. The names are just names, reflecting the fact that most people with that degree of faith, and hence most guardians, _are_ religious in some manner or another, with most of the original guardians likely being priests of Dwayna or Balthazar.

And, believe me, there are people who get that obsessed with their sport(s) of choice. I don't understand it either myself, but it happens nonetheless.

> @"kasoki.5180" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

>

> > The best indication, though, is probably the statement made by ArenaNet a while back that despite the average norn being considerably more formidable than the average charr, it would probably only have taken a single charr legion to overwhelm the norn. While population demographics may have shifted since then, they probably haven't shifted so much that conclusions drawn from this observation would be wildly off. On this basis, it's probably reasonable to conclude that the entire norn population is less than that of the Iron Legion, and by extension, Kryta.

>

> Population size doesn't mean military prowess. Anet comment likely referred to the fact that Charr have centralized government and military, norn don't. Charr have speialized military technology, norn don't. Complete organization of Charr society is centered around supporting war effort. Norn isn't.

> All of these play much larger factor in military prowess than population size

>

>

> Also, considering Norn are the longest living species in the game its safe to assume they have population that stay fertile for longer periods. This means higher birth rates. Existance of healing magic and general scientific state of the world suggest a period with low mortality rate. By this alone, Norn should be most populous race in the game.

> It is possible that Norn culture (adventure time) serves as a detriment to their population growth as its safe to assume that most Norn pick their "legend building" over starting a family, and thus radically postpone reproduction or keep it to the minimum.

>

>

That's true, but the sources also talked about how warbands could not overcome the individual strength of the norn. That implies a pretty big gap between the average norn and the average charr.

It's possible that the benefits of centralised military control and organisation that the charr could beat the norn despite being outnumbered, even if on a smaller scale the norn can win despite being significantly outnumbered. However, there's a point at which if your enemy is both stronger than you on an individual basis _and_ has a numerical advantage, it's difficult to believe that being better organised would make the difference. The norn might not be able to win in a battle between armies, but they might not have to - guerilla warfare from an enemy that outnumbers you and beats your soldiers one-on-one is difficult to counter. If the Movement of the World was so sure that just one legion could beat the norn, I think this strongly suggests that just one legion outnumbers the norn.

Regarding the longevity question: that can be answered in much the same way as with elves in most fantasy, namely lower fertility. Norn women in general seem to be uninterested in spending significant periods of their life pregnant when they could be building a legend, and norn tradition is that norn should only partner with other norn of similar reputation, which also reduces the opportunity. It's also noted that the most common last words for norn tend to be something like "Hey, watch this!", "Hold my beer!", or some other set of words indicating that the speaker is about to make a bid for a Darwin Award.

On top of that, what we observe of the norn indicates that they're pretty sparsely populated. The Great Lodge Hoelbrak is more of a, well, _lodge_ than a city: there's lots of space to gather, but residential areas are fairly limited (now, residential areas are under-represented in the game in general, but Hoelbrak takes it to extremes unless you assume that the norn are just lying out on the floors of those massive lodges, and I doubt the individualistic norn would consider sleeping in the main rooms of those giant lodges to be suitable long-term accommodations). Out in the wilds, the typical norn outpost is a single steading, or maybe two or three in close proximity, and the number of norn in a single steading is probably measured in the dozens _at most._

The carrying capacity of the land also argues against a large norn population. They're supposed to get most of their nutrition from hunting - that should mean that a considerable amount more land is needed to support a single norn, even a human-sized one, than a human who gets most of their nutrition from grain farming, or even a charr or human getting most of their nutrition from herding animals. Norn being bigger aggravates that, and the Shiverpeaks likely being less fertile on the whole than Kryta or Ascalon likely exacerbates it further.

Pretty much any way you look at it suggests that the norn have a smaller population than humans or charr.

There was a mention in the interviews around the time that guardians were announced that what empowers guardians (and monks by extension) is _faith_.

However, it just matters that the guardian/monk _has_ faith. The magic doesn't care what your faith is _in_.

Do you have a religion? Great! No religion, but you're so patriotic it might as well be? That works too! Or do you place your faith in your friends? Not a weakness!

This explains why monks in GW1 were usually associated with religions, but were no less powerful if they were worshiping something that really _shouldn't_ be able to grant healing, protection, and/or light powers.

A lot of the skill names have religious tones because the guardian profession _was_ invented by humans.

(I would note, mind you, that a lot of people probably would treat football as a religion, including having their own rituals that could be regarded as consecration rituals...)

> @"Reusterr.6982" said:

> So it would take a great invasion of holbruk to get them to unite.

Possibly not even that. Their belief in the power of the individual might have taken a hit when Jormag pushed them all south, but it's still a defining characteristic.

The dervish lore is from Nightfall prerelease information. It's not practical for me to do so right at the moment, but I'm pretty sure I can put my hands on the source, so I might be able to verify it as requested on the wiki.

> @"Castigator.3470" said:

> I have no idea how many Norn exist. They are larger than charr and they live in a harsh environment. This indicates low population density, which is fitting, considering that they are actually a giant subrace and not related to humans. Even worse, Norn likely resent any census as a violation of their free spirit. So I will refrain from counting norn, for now.

Yeah. I considered attempting a similar analysis on them, since they also have a large claimed territory (asura and sylvari are mostly confined to the Tarnished Coast - they have outposts elsewhere, but they're usually labs and military encampments rather than conventional settlements) but norn culture makes the analysis (even) less straightforward. While I think there is reason to believe that a charr settlement of equivalent size to a human settlement on the map still has a smaller number of actual individuals, it's at least likely that a charr village and a human village are each in the low thousands, or at least a few hundred.

Norn homesteads, on the other hand, likely generally represent extended family or friendship groups of maybe a few dozen. Hoelbrak itself is also probably quite a bit smaller in population than any of the other racial capitals, probably in the thousands. To be fair, on a similar principle to 'settlements are larger than they appear ingame', there may well be _more_ steadings dotted around the place that we actually see in the game.

The best indication, though, is probably the statement made by ArenaNet a while back that despite the average norn being considerably more formidable than the average charr, it would probably only have taken a single charr legion to overwhelm the norn. While population demographics may have shifted since then, they probably haven't shifted so much that conclusions drawn from this observation would be wildly off. On this basis, it's probably reasonable to conclude that the entire norn population is less than that of the Iron Legion, and by extension, Kryta.

Another possibility is that the Khan-Ur assigned territories to the Imperators before his death, and Ascalon was assigned to the Iron Imperator.

> @"Loesh.4697" said:

> Rather the really big issue, and the one Konig addressed, is all that scrap metal. You talk to Wade Samuelson about his farming and he mentions that he's been finding Charr skulls and bits of armor in the land two hundred and fifty years later. Debris, especially from the industrial weapons the Charr used takes forever to pick up. Ascalon as a whole will be picking out landmines, unexploded bombs, sharp pieces of scrap metal, and removing massive structures like Sappers Delve or that Outpost along the Brand for _centuries_ in all likelihood. you don't have to go much farther then Halkor's Meadows to see the after effects of all that. What appears to be a portion of a Charr base has sunk into the lake and killed all the skelks, contaminating the water to the point that it'll likely have to be completely flushed and refilled before any kind of life inhabits it again.

As I recall, the skale of Gillscale Pond only died off when the rifts started appearing in the area, so that one doesn't appear to be on the charr.

> @"Loesh.4697" said:

>And a lot of these changes detract from GW1's presentation of humanity, in the back of my mind I can't help but think that Anets commitment to diversity and seeing 'all perspectives' only leads to seeing one particular perspective of Tyria.

Honestly, there's a degree of that. What could have been a nuanced picture where every race's viewpoints form some part of the bigger picture has instead been largely a stream of the asura and occasionally the charr being right every time, with the sylvari being the star of the story up until the end of HoT. Humans have been getting the spotlight largely because they are so established in the lore that they can't really be ignored without it being obvious that ArenaNet is bending over backwards to ignore them - even now, it does feel a bit like ArenaNet is overcompensating for humans being central to GW1. And as for the norn... well. Poor norn.

To put in my own 2c, although I haven't read the thread as a whole...

I recall ArenaNet commenting about the final boss of A Kindness Repaid that they put in the Olmakhan resurrection because the thing wasn't supposed to be the climax of the episode, so they wanted to make it easier. I immediately felt that what they'd actually achieved was to have the worst of both worlds (there's no challenge, because you could really just resurrection-rush it without even having much risk of armour damage to slow you down, but the first time or two you hit it there's still the frustration of being downed over and over again without feeling that there's much you can do to stop it and that you're only getting through because the game is handholding you). The third time I went through I had no problems of note (the trick is to stay in melee range as much as possible - most of its attacks are easier to dodge when in melee, and the most dangerous attack (the bouncing ball attack, which combines high damage, a wide area of effect, and a short telegraph) has a minimum range within which it can't hit you. However, if they want something to be easier, they really should make that happen by toning it down, giving more useful allies, or otherwise actually reduce the difficulty, rather than putting in a mechanic that means you literally can't lose and it's just a matter of how time-consuming and frustrating it is before you inevitably win.

Broadly speaking, though, I'd like to see more boss fights where it actually feels like you're fighting the boss rather than some convoluted mechanics puzzle. If I wanted convoluted mechanics puzzles, I'd raid more.

Pretty sure that the devs have explicitly stated that the whole point of the Joko finale was to give you enough to make you think, but in a situation where you can't get the _full_ story out of the person speaking. Was he telling the truth, or was he just saying what he thought would hurt you the most? If there is any truth in what he's saying, what does he know that might be useful? You don't know and will never get the chance to get it out of him because now he's Palawa Scrumptious Snacko.

Regarding the rest:

I see the charr as being a society in transition from what they were - which was, honestly, pretty monstrous - into something that can actually play nice with others. Humans and norn both played an important part in this transformation: humans represented a strong enemy that the charr weren't able to simply roll over the way they were used to doing to anybody that got in their way. With the humans occupying most of their attention, they weren't able to spare the forces to roll over the norn... but because the norn, as a race, are forgiving to a fault*, the initial charr assaults on norn land didn't result in a second front, but in an uneasy peace with another race that wasn't worth the effort of conquering _right now_ - those dastardly humans were more important! But by the time those pesky humans were dealt with (which they actually never _entirely_ pulled off), that "they're not important enough to conquer _right now_" turned into "you know, we've had those big guys on our border for centuries and they've never done any real harm to us and they're good for a party, do we really need to conquer them _at all?_"

...and the charr learned that they could actually coexist with a sapient species that isn't charr without subjugating them first.

In the period between the games, peaceful contact with the norn lead to peaceful contact with other races, primarily the asura, ultimately leading to a situation where the norn, asura, and even sylvari all regarded both the humans and the charr as their friends on some level, but those friends just kept fighting each other anyway, mostly because of traits that both charr and humans have in common (militaristic tendencies and a determination to never give up) and would respect in one another if they were fighting a common enemy rather than one another. Meanwhile, neutral territory such as Lion's Arch allowed humans and charr to intermingle away from the battlefields and slowly come to realise that there really was nothing inherent that meant that humans and charr _had_ to fight. The peace treaty ultimately comes from that realisation: the allied legions essentially had to choose between making peace with the Flame Legion or making peace with humans, and two of the three Imperators came to the decision that humans were more palatable and trustworthy as neighbours and potentially even as future allies than the Flame Legion.

The actions of the Order of Whispers point towards this - they may have given the odd push, and "ends justify the means" is certainly part of their makeup, but they're mostly just helping along a trend that's been developing for centuries. While their overt objective might be 'we're stronger against the dragons this way', getting them fighting alongside each other against a common enemy is actually probably one of the most effective ways to get them to start appreciating each other enough as fighting companions and drinking buddies that a resumption of hostilities against one another becomes unthinkable, or at least where a revanchist leader on one side or the other is likely to be dealt with as an internal matter rather than managing to trigger a resumption of hostilities.

Go back far enough, and it appears that there was a time when the charr were so tribal that charr outside of their own tribe were regarded as 'the enemy'. Then there was the Khan-Ur and the aftermath, during which the charr learned that they could work with charr of other tribes/legions. Now, they've reached a point where they can recognise nations of other races in a similar manner to how they view other charr legions - as potential allies that they can work with, rather than enemies to be subjugated - and the human nations are probably actually the closest fit to that model. (I have a strong suspicion, in fact, that part of Smodur's motives can be summed up as "why would we need the Flame Legion for magical support if we can recruit the people that the Flame Legion were trying to catch up to in the first place, and humans are less likely to try to take over when we're not looking."

That said, there certainly is a fair degree of moral ambiguity in Tyria. There are a few renown hearts, especially with the asura and charr, where the heart is something that only really makes sense from the viewpoint of that race and some of the other races might well look at what they're being asked to do and respond with an "uhhh, is that really the right thing to do?". Scourgejaw's Vault and the heart about capturing skritt for experimentation come to mind. But if you want map completion, you have to complete those hearts anyway.

*In the respect that the norn as a group won't hold grudges against another society as a group: norn can be incredibly vengeful against the _specific individuals_ that are responsible for some wrong, but won't regard the societies they came from as being at fault.

> @"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> >And assorted other population centers elsewhere._

> Who knows what sort of human civilization exists on that other landmass that the Battle Isles apparently had trade routes to.

>

True, although I was referring to smaller population centers in Cantha (such as on Shing Jea, the Jade Sea, and the Echovald Forest), although those are probably dwarfed into insignificance by Kaineng anyway. Kaining is just... crazy.

Other landmasses are murky to cite since we don't know what other races might be there either. There could be just about anything on those other landmasses, and the ancient asura seemed to be widespread enough that there being other asura populations on other continents can't be ruled out.

That's a much bigger distinction than with Lingering Curse. Lingering Curse doesn't actually change the functionality, it just adds an AoE component.

Honestly, Cleansing Flame needs some buffs, but it does NOT need a functionality rework.

As Konig said. Even if Rata Novus was repopulated, that would be at the expense of Rata Sum's population: this isn't a strategy game where a new city suddenly reaches its maximum population overnight just because it's taken. If, hypothetically, Kryta was to recolonise Orr, that doesn't change the human population as of right now, since the people in Orr would have come from Kryta, where a guesstimate of their relative numbers has already been made.

While the preservation of Glint's legacy has been on humans, ex-humans, and Forgotten since the dwarves left the surface, until the Pact got involved in Season 2. Even now, there are way more Zephyrites and Exalted than there are Dragon's Watch. The Pact Commander is probably the most important person in the effort right now behind Aurene herself, but it's still been largely humans there for most of the gap between the two games, and until and unless the Pact gets fully behind it (right now the Pact seems to have accepted that the dragons shouldn't be killed, but doesn't seem to be actively part of the legacy project yet. That might change, but it's been Zephyrites (human-only until recently) and Exalted (drawn from the same pool as the Zephyrites, and therefore of human origin)

On top of that, I'd also note that I indicated myself that the charr were the main contender for 'most populous' - mostly because we know that there are two other primary legions plus the Flame (which seems to be more of a guerilla force nowadays) and an unknown number of minor legions.

Like I said, though, we can probably guesstimate at their numbers.

Let's see:

The Iron Legion has the following residential areas that can currently be located:

The Black Citadel (large city)

Butcher's Block (village)

Nageling (village)

Scalecatch (village)

Dewclaw (village)

Warhound (village)

Cowlfang's Star (town)

Ferrusatos (village)

Note that I'm not considering residential areas that are right up against the Black Citadel such as Smokestead and Nolan, since I view them as the outskirts of that city. I'm also not including locations that appear to be purely functional in nature (Ashford, for instance, appears to be a training post, not a residential settlement).

By comparison, Kryta has the following:

Divinity's Reach (large city)

Claypool (village)

Beetletun (town)

Triskell Quay (village - I'm counting Quarryside as being adjacent)

Garrenhoff (village - Krytan by law and human majority population, even if functionally independent)

Nebo Terrace (village)

Ascalon Settlement (town)

Similar observations as for the analysis of the Iron Legion - Shaemoor and Lake Doric settlements are viewed as outskirts of Divinity's Reach.

Taking into account that there may still be regions of both that we haven't seen (but that according to ArenaNet, what we've seen is the important parts), this seems to imply that, if you assume that charr require the same living space as humans (it's likely that they actually need more) the population of Kryta - not including Ebonhawke - is roughly the same as the Iron Legion.

The three allied legions seem to be at about _roughly_ the same strength, so between them that probably makes about three Krytas. Add the Flame and assorted minor legions, you're probably looking at about four Krytas in total.

For humans:

Ebonhawke has a 'small city' status. I'd guesstimate that counts for roughly a third of a Kryta. (Any outer settlements are recent migrations from Ebonhawke or Kryta and are therefore already accounted for).

Elona has the following known settlements:

Amnoon (small city - taking into account that the northern portion was recently buried by a sandstorm according to ambient chatter, but the people who used to live there appear to have mostly survived)

Zephyr's Trace (village)

Makali Outpost (village - while called an 'outpost', it's made clear in the story that most of the people there aren't fighters)

Gladefields (village)

Purity (village)

Vehjin Palace (probably roughly the equivalent of a village in terms of actual population)

Kodash/Vehtendi (hard to judge, since it's half Branded but the other half still seems to be occupied - I'm going to guesstimate 'town', although it was probably originally 'large city')

Arkjok (village)

Palawadan (town)

Champion's Dawn (village)

Given that there's still a lot of Elona that we haven't seen as well, I'd say that a conservative guesstimate is that the human population of Elona is _at least_ a Kryta. So that makes a total of... at least 2.3 Krytas.

And then we get Cantha. Which has a densely populated city about the size of Kryta. In land area, not population. _And assorted other population centers elsewhere._

So, under a fairly Charr-favouring set of estimates (odds are that Elona is actually more than a Kryta, and odds are that charr settlements of similar size to human settlements actually have a smaller population), Kryta, Ebonhawke, and Elona combined are at least _close_ to the charr. When you add Cantha there's really no contest unless you assume that Cantha has been devastated since, and we have no reason to believe that to be the case.

Asura and sylvari... aren't even close.

400 range is fine for a cone, and variety is good - not everything needs to be a ground-targeted AoE.