Are mesmers meant for combat?

[Daniel Handler.4816]

@draxynnic.3719 said:Yeah, and that's my point. Human religion/philosophy emphasises those magic schools. But it doesn't give any reason for them to play favourites within those magic schools. Human religion and philosophy gives them no reason to favour mesmers over elementalists, necromancers, or guardians. It's well acknowledged that the patronage of the gods gave humans an advantage when it comes to magic, but when it comes to the takeup of one such profession over another, you need to look beyond that, since all of the (playable) magical professions apart from revenants were connected to the pantheon.

Taking a step back, in fact: warriors, rangers, and all of the scholar professions are explicitly linked to the pantheon, while guardians and thieves could probably be assumed to have inherited the same patrons as their monk/paragon and assassin predecessors. The only professions that don't have divine patronage that we know of (although I have theories as to which gods would be associated with them) are engineer and revenant.

Humanity is not the default perspective when comparing spellcasting proportions cross-species. It may be anthropologically sound to say they aren't playing favorites. But that doesn't change the numerical comparison.

Revenants are still new and rare enough that nobody has a lot of them. However, if we were to base human preferences on religion, you'd expect the linked professions to be more popular than engineers. In practice, however, no aversion to engineers is present: in fact, with the exception of the various undead (which are relics of a time before engineers as we know them now existed) engineers seem to be more common than rangers among human forces. With ranger being the preferred profession of Melandru, one of the more important gods to Krytans and Ascalonians at least in GW1's time, by your argument one would expect rangers to be clearly preferred over engineers, but they're not.

If I was discussing Melandru and rangers I would approach the argument as I did Asura and necromancers:

@"Daniel Handler.4816" said:Asura probably have more necromancers than the Charr because of high magic use, the golemmancy tie-in, and a seemingly complete lack of stigma. Per capita it might be higher or lower than humans and norn depending on how influential Grenth and Raven are, and other cultural perceptions. The Sylvari have nothing for or against, so they might be near the middle, or second to last, amongst the main races.

It doesn't mean Asura favour necromancy more than alchemy, golemmancy, etc.

becomes:"Humans probably have more rangers than the Asura because of Melandru, and the latter race's seemingly hostile relationship with nature. Per capita it might be higher or lower than Charr and Norn depending on how influential Olmakhan philosophy and the Spirits of the Wild are, and other cultural perceptions. The Sylvari have nothing against, and a considerable amount of things for, so they are probably first among the main races.

It doesn't mean humans favour rangers more than engineers."

For and against doesn't necessarily mean favourable and unfavourable. It is just for and against their presence in society. The magic schools are considered a "for" because Mesmers are contained within the concept. Something like the unpopularity of necromancy would be considered an "against." You take the net result and compare it against the net result of other races.

You could say that it gives them a bias for those established schools over something weird that the asura came up with, but we're not comparing mesmers agaisnt golemancers and such, but against elementalists, necromancers, and guardians (and guardians also seem to be comparatively common among humans, although it does seem to be an uncommon profession generally).

If the perspective is Asuran society we are. Because the magic as science crowd can now, or some day, take a role filled by those who practice magic as art. And whether science is independently innovating, building upon the arts, or having more happy accidents is seemingly irrelevant because the relationship is seemingly commensalistic. Science is progressing faster.

I think there is a bias that's developed towards mesmers among modern Tyrian humans... but I don't think this bias can be explained by theology, or at least not completely. Theology doesn't stop necromancers from being disliked, and it doesn't seem to have stopped rangers from falling out of favour either (they're not disliked per se, we just don't see many of them). There needs to be deeper explanations: it's always been noted that humans get wigged out by necromancers, and the apparent drop in the popularity of ranger as a profession could be explained by increased urbanisation of Tyrian humans in GW2 compared to GW1. Conversely, there are probably cultural factors for mesmer being a popular profession among humans - especially, it seems, among upper-class humans.

We might well be able to point to the Mesmer Collective for that. We don't know much about it, but it does show signs of being primarily a human organisation (possibly even being effectively controlled by the Shining Blade).

Meanwhile, other races certainly seem to have mesmers. There are a couple of events and hearts in Ascalon involving Ash Legion mesmers. I've seen generic asura using mesmer magic (although they do seem to prefer elementalism, especially the Inquest), I'm pretty sure there are generic mesmers among the Nightmare Court, and mesmers seem to be about as common as any other spellcasting profession among the norn.

Religious/political/artistic/magical tradition can contribute to a positive correlation. And that correlation can be weighed against the correlation of other races.

It only becomes bias towards mesmers when you have the cultural bias of non-humans.

[draxynnic.3719]

You're positioning yourself as arguing against me when you're essentially saying the same things with different words.

Namely:

1) The link between magic and human theology makes magic more popular and available among humans than it might be otherwise.

2) However, this applies equally to elementalists, necromancers, mesmers, and guardians. Additional factors are necessary to explain differences in popularity among this group.

Point 1 was made a long time ago, but when talking about the mesmer specifically, rather than magic users in general, we need to recognise point 2. The theological connection alone cannot explain why mesmers might be preferred over, say elementalists. (Noting that it's hard to say with any certainty that they are, but we do seem to see more prominent signs of mesmer magic being used in Kryta while among asura there are more signs of elemental magic being used.)

And if we go back to the very start of the thread... the largest proportion of pretty much every human military force are warriors, it's just a question of just how high that ratio is. So warriors seem to be the profession most expected to be in combat.

(Incidentally, on rangers: norn and sylvari definitely seem to be more focused on rangers. Charr I'm not sure about - none of the legions specialise in rangers, but we do see more use of war beasts among the legions than in Ebonhawke or Kryta, which by extension might translate into more rangers to handle them.)

[Cristalyan.5728]

@"Caro.2730" said:I mean, mesmerism is not exactly a brute force, right? Most of them stay among nobles being all manipulative with politics, well, human mesmers at least. Not many npc mesmers are seen in combat. Sometimes I feel weird being a commander mesmer story wise. It's like, why would anything be afraid of me? I'm a woman in a long dress running around with a rapier, creating illusions to confuse stuff.

I agree with you. Although any mesmer can fight in the field if necessary, they are much more useful by doing other ... non orthodox opperations.In the Personal Story episode "Delivering Justice" after defeating the Syska's impersonator - Labwan the Deceiver - we have the following dialogues:Character name: Zhaitan's forces must consider the Pact a serious threat. Why else would they be so determined to destroy its leadership and headquarters?.....Trahearne: Planting a disruptive mesmer among is us far subtler than I expected from Zhaitan. I shall not underestimate the dragon's wiles a second time.

It seems that the mesmers are more like the special forces also being competent in the intelligence field. A trained assasin can kill Tahearne, but most probably the Pact will find a replacement. And will continue to fight. But if you are able to shatter the confidence of the troops in the decisions of the Pact Headquarter .... you already won the war.

Again - the mesmers can fight as any other fighter in any situation. But the best use is to give them missions involving deception/infiltration/illusion. I mean espionage missions / special forces raids.

[Daniel Handler.4816]

@"draxynnic.3719" said:You're positioning yourself as arguing against me when you're essentially saying the same things with different words.

Namely:

1) The link between magic and human theology makes magic more popular and available among humans than it might be otherwise.

2) However, this applies equally to elementalists, necromancers, mesmers, and guardians. Additional factors are necessary to explain differences in popularity among this group.

Point 1 was made a long time ago, but when talking about the mesmer specifically, rather than magic users in general, we need to recognise point 2. The theological connection alone cannot explain why mesmers might be preferred over, say elementalists. (Noting that it's hard to say with any certainty that they are, but we do seem to see more prominent signs of mesmer magic being used in Kryta while among asura there are more signs of elemental magic being used.)

And if we go back to the very start of the thread... the largest proportion of pretty much every human military force are warriors, it's just a question of just how high that ratio is. So warriors seem to be the profession most expected to be in combat.

Well no. I don't believe point 2 belongs in the discussion.

My original point was innate propensity. X as being "shoved in their faces" from religious standpoint alone. It was intended to be a cross-cultural observation. And the political, artisan, magical traditions were just gravy to cement their probable introduction to most humans.

You wouldn't say rainbows don't have a natural tendency to include red because they equally include other spectral colors. I'm not trying to prove 25% or more of all human spellcasters are Mesmers because unlike your Grenth example, nothing indicates they may have a secret unpopularity. I can't prove there isn't one holding them back anymore than I could prove Lyssa isn't a goddess in our reality, but I can place the burden on anet to show it in game before I consider it.