What professions align with which Bastions?

[Brycar.2651]

There are no right or wrong answers. We could role play every profession into every Bastion

the bastions are Obscure, Knowledge, Balance, Strength, Natural and Celestial 

for example

Revenants seem like a good lore match for Obscure with the focus on the mists

Rangers pair well with Natural but then I like Druid’s fit with Celestial 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Strength would be warrior.

Knowledge would be engineer.

Balance could be guardian or elementalist.

Obscure I can see necro, Mesmer, or thief.

[draxynnic.3719]

Might depend in part on elite specialisation. Firebrand would absolutely be Knowledge, for instance.

Might have to put some more thought and come back. The exact powers of most bastions haven't really been well defined - I could, for instance, see virtually all of the professions being Strength since that's the bastion associated with battle magic. The spellcrafting and yoga events there certainly indicate it's much broader than just physical strength.

[draxynnic.3719]

Been thinking on this for a while, and the more I think on it, the more I think the bastions might have more to do with what Isgarren saw as the things that should be done with magic rather than representing separate branches of magic. Partially because few of them actually seem to have specific effects associated with them.

Strength, as previously mentioned, appears to focus on magic used in combat. Most professions would fit here.

Knowledge is set up as a combination of museum and library - a location for the preservation and storage of, well, knowledge. You could argue that professions and elite specialisations that draw on history such as firebrand and revenant fit here.

Nature is about looking after natural things - plants and animals. It's also associated with alchemy, which ironically links to engineer and harbinger.

Obscure seems to have the character of a research institution - where Knowledge is about preserving the known, Obscure is about investigating the unknown. The name and the darkened region suggest it could be linked to illusion and shadow magic, but the weirdness in the Obscure could just be a function of the magical weirdness there, and any profession suitable for research and experimentation would fit.

Balance seems to be set up as a debate hall and meditation center. When not being influenced by Kryptis, this seems to be linked to keeping the peace, either within oneself are among others by resolving disputes without violence. It's plausible that healing magic that doesn't fit in Nature fits here instead.

For Celestial, it's probably not coincidence that the Spire is surrounded by the Celestial - the Celestial seems concerned with the world outside of Tyria. Dagda herself kind of feels like an elementalist with a greatsword and a unique (albeit fire-like) element or a superpowered guardian. There isn't a lot of 'celestial magic' available to PCs apart from druid, although arguably chronomancer and some elemental magic could count, and the broad theme of 'relating to things external to Tyria'.

I have thought about trying to line up the bastions with the Elder Dragons or their domains. There are some that fit nicely, but as with the gods, there's a point at which it starts feeling like a least-bad-fit. It could, however, possibly go something like:

Balance -> Jormag (connection between debate and persuasion)

Strength -> Primordus (destructive magic)

Nature -> Mordremoth (plants)

Celestial -> Kralkatorrik (connection with meteors are solar phenomena through Glint's connection to the sun aspect)

Knowledge -> Zhaitan (Zhaitan was about preserving things, albeit in a twisted way)

Obscure -> Soo-Won (Obscurity of being underwater, and she was open to being effectively experimented on, albeit for a good cause).

Similar arguments could be made to line up the gods with the bastions, although a major flaw there is that you end up 'pairing the spares' with Grenth and the Obscure and connecting death to the Obscure is a pretty tenuous connection.

I do have a theory that you can reconcile the gods and the dragons by breaking magic down to twelve domains and redistributing them (eg Jormag being Ice and Persuasion doesn't have a direct counterpart, instead Lyssa has Persuasion and Grenth has Ice), but while I can line up some of these domains with the bastions, I haven't figured out a way to associate all of them yet. Largely because so many of the domains are elemental in nature, and none of the bastions (with the possible exception of Celestial) have elemental themes. Although perhaps that's the key - Isgarren might have ignored the most overt domains and focused on those with more subtle interpretations.