Guild Wars 2

What is the differences if I use the spinal blades to get in the Diverse Ledges portal vs. the other ones? It tells me I might miss some story if I do this.

If you take the teleport, you don’t have to fight through the stuff in LA. If you don’t use this port, you have to fight the Knights to get attuned, then go into a separate section where you fight the hologram. Once that finishes, you can port into the area that the shortcut place takes you.

You don’t really miss a lot of story by skipping forward since all the cutscenes and stuff come afterwards.

I believe the content it skips is just the group event stuff, though I’m not sure as I’ve never managed to get all the way through the group events yet. It didn’t seem to leave anything horribly unexplained.

Basically the way things go are (SPOILERIFIC AHEAD)

1.- Defeat the three knights in regular map, gain their attunements and use the portals.
2.- Fight scarlet in a big battle (well, 3, you’re divided into 3 maps, only difference is the NPCs you get helping res, in one is braham and rox, other is kasmeer and marjorie, 3rs is kiel and heal-o-tron, and whether other maps win or lose doesn’t affect yours), which ends with scarlet badly wounded but escaping to the control room, you pursue to go to..
3.- Solo instance where you meet Braham, Rox, Kasmeer and Marjorie to go face Scarlet who is downed.

Using the spinal blades portals sends you straight to 3, but doesn’t mean you can’t go ahead and do it the regular way later. Also you don’t miss much story either (other than we defeated knights, teleported up, fought scarlet and wounded her), most of the story bit is in the solo instance in the first place.

locoman.1974:

3.- Solo instance where you meet Braham, Rox, Kasmeer and Marjorie to go face Scarlet who is downed.

Using the spinal blades portals sends you straight to 3, but doesn’t mean you can’t go ahead and do it the regular way later. Also you don’t miss much story either (other than we defeated knights, teleported up, fought scarlet and wounded her), most of the story bit is in the solo instance in the first place.

I was very glad ArenaNet had the foresight to put in this portal.

Not only is it an option for people who just want to see the story and not do the group fights, but after I did all the LA fights and group hologram encounter my client crashed in the middle of the dramatic ending cinematic. Rather than do all of the fights all over I just went to the portal. I would have been very annoyed if I had to go through all the fights to see the ending.

Well done ArenaNet.

The only problem is that you needed to tell people about this useful option. It is not obvious in the game and I haven’t found a wiki page about it yet.

One of the few good things in this instance so far. Also, you don’t really miss any “story”—it skips past the knights and the hologram fight where she gets injured.

DoctorOverlord.8620:

locoman.1974:

3.- Solo instance where you meet Braham, Rox, Kasmeer and Marjorie to go face Scarlet who is downed.

Using the spinal blades portals sends you straight to 3, but doesn’t mean you can’t go ahead and do it the regular way later. Also you don’t miss much story either (other than we defeated knights, teleported up, fought scarlet and wounded her), most of the story bit is in the solo instance in the first place.

I was very glad ArenaNet had the foresight to put in this portal.

Not only is it an option for people who just want to see the story and not do the group fights, but after I did all the LA fights and group hologram encounter my client crashed in the middle of the dramatic ending cinematic. Rather than do all of the fights all over I just went to the portal. I would have been very annoyed if I had to go through all the fights to see the ending.

Well done ArenaNet.

The only problem is that you needed to tell people about this useful option. It is not obvious in the game and I haven’t found a wiki page about it yet.

One of the achievements leads you there and requires you to talk to the NPC at that location. There’s even a big gold star on the map.

I also approve of the easy way in, but I’d like to suggest adding a different intro cutscene to explain why Scarlet is badly wounded and close to death when you enter

DoctorOverlord.8620:

The only problem is that you needed to tell people about this useful option. It is not obvious in the game and I haven’t found a wiki page about it yet.

It might not be obvious, but for sometime now Arena Net has been giving players an instruction manual for their content through the achievement system. The achievements are basically a limited guide to finding this. Go to the cliffs and talk to the NPC that explains portal. There is even an achievement for using the portal with the backpiece. A lot of players like to collect every achievement point, so this is effective for instructing them.

This is also why they have been introducing harder to achieve achievements. It keeps the activity populated longer. Shh, don’t tell them or they might leave their Skinner’s Box.