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Battlemage profession?


TheChin.5970

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Always have been interested in a Battlemage type class. Essentially, good sustain/melee with some casting. The casting can can even be covered by animation/profession theme. Doesn't necessarily have to be ranged casting or anything. I have been trying out rev (recently got to 80 and have been trying renegade). Any other suggestions? Thanks!!

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Guardian is probably on the top of the list, followed be revenant.

Mesmer works pretty well as a battlemage as a well, albeit with the weight more towards the mage side than the fighter side - it's certainly a 'lighter' fighter than guardian and revenant, and its weaponset is weighted more towards ranged attacks than melee.

Calling a core necromancer, even with dagger, a 'battlemage' is, I think, pushing it, but reaper certainly applies. Similar comments apply with elementalist - dagger elementalists are more of a close-range mage than a battlemage, but sword weaver certainly applies. You might be able to get a battlemage feel using conjured weapons, but it's a bit clunky.

Coming from the opposite side, thief has few if any overtly magical offensive skills, but there's certainly a fair amount of magic being used to support some of those attacks - teleports are obviously magic, as are some of the utility skills, especially from the deadeye. Rangers also have a bit of magic, or at least stuff that can be interpreted as magic.

Core warrior is pretty non-magical, but berserker can have a bit of a warrior/elementalist feel, and spellbreaker has some magic as well, albeit tilted towards an anti-magic theme.

Engineer is pretty clearly technology and alchemy rather than magic, but some of the holosmith (and even scrapper) stuff approaches Clarke's Third Law.

Broadly speaking, though, the top professions for that theme are probably Guardian, Revenant, and Mesmer. Each of those professions is essentially designed from the ground up to be a battlemage, and all of their elite specialisations thus far have continued in that direction. Other professions have aspects and elite specialisations that approach the theme, but don't commit to it the way those three do.

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Except ele I would not call any class a mage. And since ele got a melee sword elite spec it's definitely the class that fits the theme the best.

Necro and mesmer have some mage elements and the other classes are either rogues, clerics or fighters with either a classic (warrior), a technological (engineer) or a fantasy (revenant) theme.

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@"KrHome.1920" said:Except ele I would not call any class a mage. And since ele got a melee sword elite spec it's definitely the class that fits the theme the best.

Necro and mesmer have some mage elements and the other classes are either rogues, clerics or fighters with either a classic (warrior), a technological (engineer) or a fantasy (revenant) theme.

Depends on how you define 'mage'. Strictly speaking, it just means someone who uses magic. Some settings make it someone who uses a broad spectrum of magic. Some split off necromancy and other "dark" magics into their own thing and have mages being those who stick to the "good", or at least morally neutral, forms of magic (note that in Guild Wars, all forms of magic available to player professions, including necromancy, are morally neutral). This usually incorporates elemental magic and suite of non-elemental effects, making the 'mage' essentially a combination of elementalist and mesmer, maybe even with a bit of guardian mixed in if they use a lot of force effects.

In this context, I think it's fair to say that guardians and mesmers at least are 'mages', albeit mages that don't focus on elemental magic. Unless you define a 'mage' as specifically involving elemental magic, which both makes the whole discussion a tautology, and seems to be a tighter definition than the OP is using since they started out with using the revenant as an example.

Mesmers focus on magic that influences perception, alters reality, and manipulates magic in the form of raw energy. It's a different focus to elementalist, but still within the mage domain. Compared to playing a sword tempest, it also has the advantage that by retaining a weaponswap, the player isn't locked into melee. If you were to compare to, say, a Warcraft mage, the mesmer is specialising in the "arcane" side while the elementalist focuses on the, well, elemental side.

Guardians also have some similarity with divine spellcasters, but if you look through its kit, there are strong themes of fire and force effects within its repertoire, and even a bit of lightning (Orb of Wrath, for instance, is described in Sea of Sorrows as a lightning orb, although it's possible that this is simply a description of what it looks like, kind of like people refer to a lot of mesmer effects as "pink lightning" when in the lore they're bolts of pure magical energy). It uses spellcaster weapons for range (apart from dragonhunters), and its skills probably have some of the best examples of combining martial and magical techniques - throwing blades of force from their weapons, encasing their weapons with magical force (sword autoattack - this used to be MUCH clearer in the graphics, but there's a reason why these attacks get longer range as the chain progresses) and otherwise combining magic with martial forms. Given that every profession in GW2 has healing, condition cleansing, and so on, you could easily view the guardian as a battlemage who primarily focuses on force effects, with some elemental effects (particularly fire) on the side. Heck, you could run a core guardian (or, better, firebrand) with scepter/X on one weapon swap, staff on the other, and mostly consecration and/or spirit weapon utilities, and that'd probably feel pretty much like a pure force mage who just happens to have heavy armour.

Revenants are a bit odd, in that they're clearly magical, but the power is coming from invoking an outside party rather than through their own training (apart from the training requires to call on that outside party). They have about as many skills that involve adding magic to weapon attacks as guardian, but unlike guardian, they don't have a 'pure magic' mode outside of some legend utilities. Still, if talking about feel rather than lore, they work well enough.

Thief magic generally feels like a specialised branch of mesmer magic - more mobility and teleports, but giving up on the rest of the kit: mesmer is therefore probably a better choice for a battlemage theme. Deadeye cantrips add more magic, however.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Any profession except engineer can be considered as a battle mage of some form. Parallels for every pther can be found in various works of fiction. Even warrior is some form of a martial magic user that can use different forms of empowering magic.

If you want the mage part to be solid then guardian, ele, mes and reaper are the most prominent ones.

I do not think that guild wars 2 has a wizard/ pure utility mage archetype. Every profession is considered as a battle profession. Like all are designed to fight in a big army.

Onlliy exception is engineer. Surprisingly he is the closest thing to a real wizard in this game (skill wise) if it wasnt for its theme. If anet ever decides to flavor the class and add racial skins (totems for norns, plants for sylvari etc) to engi, it might be a true wizard.

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I believe that the prototypical Battlemage is a caster that wears heavy armor and fights in melee range with melee weapons, but also uses magic.

In that case, the Guardian is the Battlemage (of Light) in GW2. Revenant would also fit the bill -- though not quite as well in my opinion. Almost all other processions can do the "magic plus melee" thing, but without heavy armor. And the Necromancer Reaper is essentially the Battlemage of Darkness. (They can't wear heavy armor, but have mechanics that let them act as if they do.)

Other classes, like Elementalists or Mesmers can be tankish Battlemages, but again I feel like a true Battlemage wears heavy armor. (That's the key distinction: traditional Mages suffer penalties when wearing more than light armor.)

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