User:Shai Halud/Humans: The Royal Academy

For the security of her kingdom and in the interest of training an army whose sole loyalty was to the crown, Human chosen have begun training under the Order of Whispers at their monastery on the western edge of the Shiverpeaks, turning it into a military academy for the Royal Army of Kryta. Here, warrior monks teach new recruits everything humanity has come to know about warfare over the past few thousand years.

The curriculum incorporates Canthan martial arts as well as the squad based tactics of the Sunspears and what little remain of White Mantel and Orrian magic. Humans must use every resource at their disposal to defend their lands from dragons and invaders, and, ultimately, to eradicate the Charr from the face of Tyria..--Shai Halud 21:21, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I have just edited this article to be compatible with Mounts as Companions. You can view the original article in history.--Shai Halud 17:28, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

System Basics
To put it simply, this system allows you to design for yourself an advanced training program which will equip your character with skills and passives designed to aid your character in combat.

Each type of training will basically grant your character two passives and two skills. The strength of these passives and skills will be determined by the human race-specific attribute: Academics. You will only be able to remember three type of training at a time, but this should still be more than enough.

All passives and skills will focus on circumventing your enemy’s strengths rather than trying to overpower them. Hexes and conditions are human specialties, as well as attack speed, casting speed, and stealth. Only their guardian summons (to be discussed later in this article) will have the ability to completely overpower a group of enemies

Military Training
Your character will enter the academy as soon as they begin the game. The training grounds of the Royal Academy will be like a short pre-searing specially made for the human campaign. You will have the option of starting off with basic or advanced training (something similar to the basic training should probably appear in each campaign, actually).

If you skip basic training and enter the advanced option, you will be able to select what type of training you would like to start out with. There will be about nine forms of military training, and their benefits will be listed to you before you choose them. Once you select one form of training, you will enter a training course where you must follow the commands of an instructor to obtain the advantages of your training. It might be possible for you to skip this training sequence if too many players find it annoying, but there you have it.

Once you have completed your first round of advanced training, you will exit the hidden monastery (or wherever they decide to place the academy and start you off). You will commence normal play from here on you until you have gained enough training points (which will work much like a title track and be gained by using any skills: the more “advanced” the skill, the more points you get) and money to return to the academy and pay the tuition for another round of advanced training.

The above process will repeat itself once more until you have undergone three forms of military training. After that, you can come back at any time to replace one of your current sets of military knowledge with another for a sizable sum of money.

I suggest nine possible forms of advanced training and postulate a tenth which might be included. The descriptions below attempt to prescribe skills and passives for each form, but I am not a game designer, so none of this is definite. This is just what I think would work and it is put here just to help you better imagine how the system would work, so, please be merciful. Also, This list is pretty big, so, please, endure its size.

1)	Melee Combat Training – Canthan martial arts and White Mantel armed combat tactics have greatly influenced this area of the curriculum. It benefits all close-range weapons and is especially recommended for warriors, dervishes, and assassins. Skills might include an attack combo specific to humans and which changes depending on what weapon you are holding. Passives could offer increased melee attack speed and increased armor penetration

2)	Ranged Combat Training – This stems specially from Sunspear and White Mantel scout training. Canthan martial arts has only added to the fluidity of its movements and forms. It does not benefit magical ranged attacks, but is highly recommended for all rangers and paragons. Skills might include a sniping attack with particularly long range and high damage and/or a preparation which causes all of the party’s ranged weapons to interrupt spells with their next two attacks. Passives Could increase ranged attack speed and offer perfect accuracy, unaffected by evasive skills

3)	Fast-Casting Training – This is an Orrian specialty which has long drawn the attention of White Mantel and Canthan masters alike. Years of interrogation of Orrian prisoners have finally yielded this secret to the delight of the Royal Academy. It comes highly recommended for all magical professions. As for skills, the Glyph of Ventriloquism could allow you to begin casting your next two spells at the same time. There could also be an enchantment which lies dormant for 30 seconds then heals you depending on how much energy you managed to expend in that time. Passives would lower casting time for all spells (not hexes or enchantments)but slightly increase the energy cost for spells (lowers with greater academics).

4)	Evasive Maneuvers – Specially cooked up by the Canthan masters, this class opens the advantages of stealth and evasiveness to the whole human race. Though it is not a sure-fire substitute for high defense, it is recommended to all heroes who expect to have to deal with large amounts of physical damage. One skill could increase speed and decrease damage from ranged weapons. Another could offer temporary camouflage which affords near invisibility. Passives would increase evasiveness and offer a smaller aggro bubble.

5)	Wilderness Survival Training – Royal vanguard units need to be able to endure the most severe conditions and be self-sufficient if they are to penetrate deep into enemy territory. This is recommended to all combatants to compensate for the general human lack of defense against magic. A “Mystery Meat” skill could allow you to heal your party by utilizing the corpse of a recently slain monster. “Endure Conditions” would temporarily dramatically increase your resistance to a single element determined by your current environment. Passives would offer increased elemental resistance and render you unaffected by environmentally inflicted conditions.

6)	Command Training – This is an art which was perfected by the Sunspears of Elona. The greatest strength of humans is in groups, but only when those groups are trained to work together. This is recommended for more experienced players who are often in leader positions. As for skills, I'm afraid I never played a paragon and seldom used warrior “tactics” but most of you can probably imagine what sort of skills would belong here. Suggestions in the discussion box would be helpful. Passives could increase the range of shouts and/or the duration of shouts, stances, and echoes.

7)	Poisons and Antidotes – The strength of your enemies will not protect them from the terrible strength of your venoms. Only the Charr can even compete with the human knowledge of poisons and antidotes. Combine this training with the poisons available only to members of the human race and armor will mean nothing to your blades. Unfortunately, since I’m not totally sure how poisons will be applied in GW2 I don't know what to suggest for skills. Passives could prolong poison effects and shortened the effective period of poisons on you.

8)	Guerilla Tactics – These are the tactics the Shining Blade used to obtain supremacy over the White Mantel. By inflicting conditions (not poison, hexes, or disease) of every kind and learning to exploit those conditions, Krytan soldiers can bypass their enemy’s defense and defeat foes much more powerful than themselves. Skills could dramatically increase evasiveness when your enemy is dazed, drunk, or hallucinating or dramatically increase power of next attack by exploiting bleeding, deep wound, and/or cracked armor. Passives would prolong condition effects and decrease the duration of conditions on you.

9)	Hexes and Contagions – Orrian secrets have been helpful here as well, but this originally became an art among the Shining Blade as they attempted to overpower the militarily superior White Mantel. It is a class recommended to all as it has proven so effective in dealing with enemies of every kind. One skill may allow you to throw a vial containing an especially deadly disease at the enemy group. Passives could prolonged the duration of hexes and diseases on your enrmies and offer you immunity to disease and shorten the duration of hexes on you.

10)	 Cavalry Tactics (?) – In facing wave after wave of enemy invaders, the Krytan army has found it advantageous to exploit the mobility of cavalry forces to outmaneuver and encircle enemy armies in a fight. Often, enemies are not used to combat on open plains, and so a class for training recruits in the ways of mounted combat is being considered for inclusion in the academic curriculum. Special weapon attacks might exploit mounted conditions. Passives could increase mount speed and evasiveness.

That all said and done with, it might be interesting if those who took melee or ranged combat classes had different combat animation afterwards. Anyway, many of the passive benefits would need be slight in order to maintain balance.

Also, because of the flexibility of this system and the variety of benefits, it is possible to create a build from this that really isn’t good at anything, at least, compared to a well built character of another race. This is because the human theme, stealth and finesse, is not one which is normally considered in games, and thus it is hard to express in game terms. However, it should not take much thinking to come up with combinations that might benefit any and all professions which are currently in existence.

Another interesting possibility is that there might be a few special training areas located throughout Tyria where special courses could be taken to increase your character’s power.

Human Cavalry
Number one, I want to state clearly that there can be no horses in GW2. I know cavalry comes from the French word for horse, but, as this system requires your mount to act also as your companion in battle, all mounts have to be able to attack on their own. Seeing Mr. Ed beating back Charr hoards with his hooves, while it would be hilarious, is something I just cannot take seriously. Maybe we can include a tonic that turns your mount into a horse as a joke, but that's the only way I can see of including them. And, as I don't recall seeing any horses in GW1, it would be perfectly reasonable of us to say that horses just don't exist in the GW universe. However, we may need to go back and edit out the "Iron Horse Mines" as well as all the undead horsemen, though their undead mounts don't much resemble horse skeletons (but if we can have horses which look like that, we could certainly include those in GW2).



That handled, sink your teeth into the pictures above. These are the sort of creatures that will make up the human cavalry in GW2. Obviously, only certain monsters can be tamed and made into mounts, but, once you graduate from the Royal Academy and reach about level 10, you will be able to visit the Royal Sables in Divinity's Reach. There, if you speak to the stable manager you can purchase a saddle and riding equipment. Once you have these, he will offer you a group of missions. Each will allow you to tame a different kind of monster, and you will only be able to pick one. Once you accept a mission, he will send one of his men to accompany you and assist in the taming of your mount. The taming of the mount could be a very entertaining mini-game if the devs put a lot of work into it, but I'll let others decide exactly how that will work.

If there are stables for your mounts, then, by purchasing a second set of riding equipment and paying for your stables, you could tame more mounts and swap them out at the stables. However, if you wish to swap out your mount and not keep the other, you can sell your mount to the Krytan army and get a mission to go tame another. You may be able to find missions later on in the game for taming mounts in other areas, and perhaps some elite mounts will be available in distant lands. However, taming a monster is a two man job no matter how you look at it, so with out a special mission, you cannot tame anything.

While not mounted, each mount fights differently as they all have their own skill bars. They do tend to, however, attack your target or attack enemies targeting you. They are also the only companions which move at increased speeds while fighting. Most mounts have dervish-like attacks and hit more than enemy at a time. The strength of their attack, of course, depends on the mount. Their ramming skills and dervish-like attacks can wreck havoc, but, because they cripple your health and are, all of them, close-range fighters, they aren't nearly as useful as companions as they are as mounts

As for the properties pf cavalry while mounted, Humans specialize in stealth and finesse, so their mounts are quite flexible. Some accelerate faster than others but have weaker attack and vice versa. Cavalry mounts also have a fifth speed setting (see Mounts and Their Skills and D-Pad Functions). This allows them to run at 44% above trotting speed but only for about a minute, even with a full stamina bar. This allows for short bursts of speed which can be used to escape pursuit or to overtake fleeing enemies. Also, cavalry mounts all have their own skill bars which replace your racial skill bar while you are mounted. They usually include a ramming or trampling skill which knocks down opponents and can even knock them off their mounts but can only be used at speed.

The greatest advantage cavalry afford, though, is stirrups. No other race has these. They provide your player character with the stability needed to fight from horseback (figuratively speaking). This means you can use your own weapon and almost all of your skills while mounted. Melee weapons attack with glancing strikes and ranged weapons allow you to strafe. Furthermore, you can do all of this while on the move. Once you have locked onto an enemy, your camera will shift to keep them in view, allowing you to continue attacking as you circle around them. Moving targets are harder to hit, so you have a fair chance of dodging most attacks. AoE spells will be practically useless against you, but this is a very intensive form of combat so making interrupts can be difficult. Lastly, you'll do best while at running speed (at least 11% above average) and, though this will slowly exhaust your mount, getting hit also causes exhaustion for cavalry. The faster you move, the better chance you have of dodging attacks, but you will still become exhausted this way, limiting the usage of cavalry in battle.

There are a few other things to mention. Because mounted humans are such a threat, enemies will be programed to use attacks which can knock you off your mount when you aggro them. They will do this less if you are actively attacking them vs running away, but this still poses a threat. Also, cavalry tactics naturally work better in open areas rather than in close-quarters. Caves, thick jungle, urban areas, and mountain trails are all bad news for for human knights. Still, if you only move at trotting speed, your mount can be quite useful in these areas as well. Another disadvantage is that cavalry mounts don't increase your armor or health when you are riding them. Lastly, if grabs are introduced in GW2, grabbing an enemy while riding cavalry allows you to drag them through the dirt, racking up damage and interrupting their spells, until they break free of your grip. This does more damage the faster you run while holding them. However, you can only grab enemies between weight/size levels 5-3. Things above level 5 are too heavy, and enemies below level 3 are too short.

The 5/6 are maintained thusly. Three of the classes at the academy are for attack speed which is for finesse and offense. Three of them increase endurance and stealth through expertise. The rest are completely about finesse and undermining power with strategy. The balance is a little iffy, but it comes out to around 5/6 if you look at it from the right angle. The mounts are practically the embodiment of finesse, allowing you to dodge and move faster than any other race and attack while doing so.

This has been the hardest system so far. The Charr were pretty difficult and the Sylvari and Asura both came to me in a moment of profound thought. I tried to balance the Humans’ strengths against the sheer offensive power of the Charr as well as keep them fairly well defended against the other three races. I hope the Norn will be a little easier to develop as more info is available on them than on the others.